Search Results for
"Teaching"

In Norway around fifty percent of the students who begin a vocational training have not completed the education within five years. This gives us reason to look into how the training is designed. Students in vocational education often experience common core subjects (language, mathematics, science, and social science) as particularly challenging, so the design and relevance of these subjects in vocational programs needs to be discussed. The empirical material presented in this article is findings from a qualitative study of five teachers teaching common core subjects within vocational education programs. The study examines the teachers' reflections about students in these programs. Analysis of the teachers' descriptions of their pupils, their experiences of organizational frameworks and their depictions of various educational measures they adopt to meet student challenges, illustrates that learning for students exceeds the idea of learning as acquisition of professional content. The findings show that there are challenges associated with the cognitive and the psychodynamic dimensions of learning. It is also suggested that the current common core curriculum affects the conditions for communication and interaction in learning situations. © 2016 Akademika Forlag. All rights reserved.

The paper deals with the issue of work-based learning, in order to justify this teaching methodology with appropriate epistemological foundations. After a dual introduction about anthropological and ontological-epistemological aspects, the article deals with the relationship between experience and reason, then repeated in the relationship between practice and theory, life and culture, work and school, inorder to show that only the simultaneous presence of the two terms of the relationship can set up and be properly identified as «work-based learning». The essay ends with a review of the main methodologies for work-based learning, starting from the wide contribution made by John Dewey in this field. © 2016 Franco Angeli Edizioni. All rights reserved.

Teachers often complain about the quality of students' written essays in higher education. This study explores the relations between scripted online peer feedback processes and quality of written argumentative essay as they occur in an authentic learning situation with direct practical relevance. Furthermore, the effects of the online argumentative peer feedback script on students' written argumentative essay are studied. A pre-test, post-test design was used with 189 undergraduate students who were assigned to groups of three. They were asked to explore various perspectives, and the 'pros and cons' on the topic of 'Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs)' in order to write an argumentative essay in the field of biotechnology. The findings reveal that successful students and groups differ in terms of their feedback quality than less-successful students and groups. This implies that when students engage in high-quality, elaborated and justified peer feedback processes, they write high-quality argumentative essays. Furthermore, the results show that the online argumentative peer feedback script enhances the quality of students' written argumentative essay. Explanations for these results, limitations, and recommendations for further research are provided. © 2016 Elsevier Inc.

In this chapter, a multidisciplinary conceptual framework relevant to workplace English training program development and implementation that serves as the foundation for this book is constructed. The issues of workplace English training program evaluation would be informed by theories from the relevant fields of English for Specific Purposes (ESP) program development and implementation, teaching job-related English as a second language (ESL) in the workplace, second language learning, second language teaching, learner autonomy, business management training, communicative competence development, technical and vocational education and training, workplace training and learning, workplace language and literacy development, skills development for employment and employability, adult education, lifelong learning, human capital development, and sustainable livelihoods. This is the first book of its kind to construct a conceptual framework on a comprehensive theoretical basis, which is multidisciplinary. This conceptual framework can inform the development of evaluation framework in Chap. 3 and serve as foundation for further case interpretation in the chapters onward. © Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2016.

The ways in which vocational education and training (VET) systems are structured vary significantly from country to country, both because different countries have different objectives for their VET systems and because VET is differently embedded within the education and labour market systems of any individual country. International research in this area makes use of a range of existing typologies to characterise and compare VET systems. However, many of these typologies have weaknesses, for example in relation to the consistency of their descriptive criteria or the extent to which the typology is able to tackle more complex VET systems. This paper therefore takes a multi-perspective approach to developing a new typology that builds on existing approaches from a range of disciplines, justifies a specific combination of these approaches, and substantially expands on them. Specifically, it combines a skill formation approach with both a stratification approach and a standardisation approach. It also explicitly acknowledges the practice of learning as a criterion. This new typology enables VET systems in a range of countries to be categorised systematically across the different levels involved, including in relation to aspects as varied as government regulation, curriculum design, and teaching practices. This will be illustrated using six countries – China, France, Germany, India, Japan and the USA – as case studies. These case studies demonstrate substantial differences but also partial convergences between these countries. The typology offers both a framework for further explanatory approaches in individual country contexts and an opportunity for international comparison of key aspects of VET systems, such as the value attached to vocational qualifications and the possible transfer of VET models from one country to another. © 2016, Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht.

This chapter reveals the prospect of teacher education; teacher education and technology utilization; the issues with professional development (PD); and the perspectives on teacher professional development (TPD) in the digital age. Teacher education offers teachers ways to keep their classrooms and curriculum highly educational. By providing teachers with teacher education programs, they are able to continue their own education, gain vital skills that they may not have been able to learn while taking college courses, and stay current with new technologies. TPD is an essential method of improving teaching and learning for teachers. TPD provides time, resources, and educational personnel to support teachers to improve their skills about teaching and learning. The effective teacher education and TPD programs should include technology pedagogy, the 21st century skills, and ethical perspectives toward improving preservice teacher's technological skills and enhancing both learner's educational opportunities and learning outcomes. © 2017, IGI Global. All rights reserved.

This paper describes the impact of the project-based learning (PBL) approach on learning and teaching physics from the perspective of pre-service elementary school teacher education students and an instructor. This approach promoted meaningful learning (mainly in the scope of projects), higher motivation, and active involvement of students in learning during the entire course. It improved students’ attitudes towards learning physics, reducing fear, and increasing their self-efficacy and enjoyment of learning. This approach developed essential learning and collaborative skills, and strengthened interpersonal and intercultural interactions among all. Implementing PBL raised several challenges: the tension between the quality of learning and the scope of the course content and the necessity to combine a variety of teaching methods to meet students’ learning needs. The paper describes advantages and difficulties from the perspectives of both students and the instructor. © 2016 The Author(s).

This book provides a rationale and conceptual framework for teaching and learning about community. It focuses on what community means in multiple contexts, outlines the needs and assets of communities, and discusses different approaches to community change. The book provides real life examples of integrated approaches to community transformation as well as sample exercises to promote a better understanding of community challenges and approaches to solve them. Applicable in the classroom and in actual community work, the book’s conceptual and practical approach can be used to study community, or to integrate community issues into learning in virtually any field. © The Editor(s) and The Author(s) 2017.

Background: Residents' well-being is essential for both the individual physician and the quality of patient care they deliver. Therefore, it is important to maintain or possibly enhance residents' well-being. We investigated (i) the influence of mind fitness training (MFT) on quality of care-related well-being characteristics: work engagement, empathy, work satisfaction and stress perception and explored (ii) residents' perceptions of MFT. Methods: A multicenter study was conducted in eight Dutch teaching hospitals, from September 2012 to February 2014, using mixed methods - that is, quantitative and qualitative approaches to data collection and analysis. Eighty-nine surgical residents were invited to participate in pre- and post-intervention questionnaire surveys. Twenty-two residents participated in MFT and were additionally invited to evaluate the training by post-intervention interviews including open questions. Results: At baseline 22 (100 %) residents in intervention group and 47 (70.2 %) residents in control group, and post-intervention 20 (90.9 %) residents in intervention group and 41 (66.1 %) residents in control group completed the questionnaires. In intervention-group, residents' specialty satisfaction increased by 0.23 point on 5-point Likert scale (95 % CI 0.23-0.24, P < 0.001) while stress scores decreased by -0.94 point on 10-point scale (95 % CI -1.77 to -0.12, P = 0.026). No substantial changes were observed in control group. Participation in MFT was positively associated with residents' empathy (b = 7.22; 95 % CI 4.33-10.11; P < 0.001) and specialty satisfaction scores (b = 0.42; 95 % CI 0.18-0.65; P = 0.001). Residents positively evaluated MFT with median scores of 6.80 for training design and 7.21 for outcome (10-point scale). Residents perceived improvement in focusing skills and reported being more aware of their own state of mind and feeling calmer and more in control. Conclusion: Mind fitness training could improve residents' empathy, specialty satisfaction, stress perception, and focusing skills, and was positively received by surgical residents. © 2015 Société Internationale de Chirurgie.

Vocationalism in Further and Higher Education presents a collection of research-based papers on the ‘English model’ of vocationalism and higher education. It argues that negative societal and political perceptions have hindered the debate about the significance and relevance of vocational education and training provision to learning, work and the economy. In this book, the writers offer unique solutions to the difficult questions that have emerged from their investigations into vocationalism in England. This edited collection brings together a group of academic experts to report and discuss their findings from many years of evidence-based research on vocationalism at three levels: macro (national and policy-making), meso (programmes and organization), and micro (individual learning and teaching). Chapters explore the key issues relating to the topic, such as policies, curriculum, learning and teaching, and work contexts. The book reflects on the diversity of related programmes, and discusses the applicability and relevance of the term ‘vocationalism’ in the light of current developments relating to higher vocational education, including occupation, employability and professionalism. This book is a timely contribution to the debate on the ‘English model’ of vocational education and will be an essential resource for researchers, practitioners and postgraduate students in the fields of vocational education, technical and vocational education and training (TVET), work-based learning, politics and policy of education, teaching and learning, higher education, and curriculum and pedagogy. © 2017 selection and editorial matter, Sai Loo and Jill Jameson; individual chapters, the contributors.