Search Results for
"Teaching"

Engineering is a profession that suffers from rapid obsolescence because of constantly new market needs. Therefore, the engineering education curriculum must be adapted to accommodate change and to prepare as well as possible new engineers. To achieve this, Project-Based Learning (PBL) as an active learning methodology, assumes greater importance. PBL has been implemented for a decade (since 2004/05) in the first semester of the first and fourth year of the Master Degree in Industrial Engineering and Management (IEM) at University of Minho, Portugal, by a team of IEM teachers. This paper describes this last decade of teaching, learning and researching in a PBL environment in this degree. PBL engages students in their own learning. In IEM program, PBL also engaged teachers in improving their teaching methods by questioning continuously these. Throughout ten years, the coordination team of IEM program faced many challenges and brought significant contributions to discussion, researching on how PBL process in IEM could be improved and studying different PBL models for different students' needs. By following this path, this paper disseminates the practices researched in PBL process of IEM program and the benefits founded by applying this learning methodology through an analysis of the results of this research published in international conferences, journals and books (more than 70 publications). In light of the results achieved, as well as feedback from researchers and students, the authors believe that PBL is one of the best practices for student learning and teacher engagement. © © 2015 by ASME.

This paper explores engineering students' perceptions of developing practical competencies as experienced in their industrial placements. In addition, it discusses the criticisms in the literature on Problem Based Learning, Project Based Learning and Conceive-Design-Implement-Operate in relation to the evaluation of effective learning and teaching during placements. The paper goes on to discuss a study which examines how undergraduate engineering students develop practical competencies during their industrial placements. A phenomenological research approach is adopted using in-depth interviews and document analysis. The research findings from this PhD study will contribute to the knowledge, theory and practice for the students, the industries and the institutions of higher education as students' practical competencies are developed and graduate employability rises. In conclusion, this study explores students' experiences of developing practical competencies during industrial placements. Hence, the study should be able to contribute to a set of evidence-based guidelines for higher education institutions and industry.

The aim of this paper is to explore the engineering lecturers' experiences of generic skills assessment within an active learning context in Malaysia. Using a case-study methodology, lecturers' assessment approaches were investigated regarding three generic skills; verbal communication, problem solving and team work. Because of the importance to learning of the assessment of such skills it is this assessment that is discussed. The findings show the lecturers' initial feedback to have been generally lacking in substance, since they have limited knowledge and experience of assessing generic skills. Typical barriers identified during the study included; generic skills not being well defined, inadequate alignment across the engineering curricula and teaching approaches, assessment practices that were too flexible, particular those to do with implementation; and a failure to keep up to date with industrial requirements. The emerging findings of the interviews reinforce the arguments that there is clearly much room for improvement in the present state of generic skills assessment.

The use of online methodologies to deliver coursework has become institutionalized in higher education. There is an urgent need to move beyond the question of which delivery model is most effective: face-toface, fully online, or blended, and switch the focus to teaching pedagogy and strategies that effectively engage students in the learning process. This chapter posits that student-learning outcomes are less dependent on delivery mode and instead dependent on a teacher™s pedagogical practices; it is the skill of the teacher as facilitator that drives the effective development of the learning community and influences student-learning outcomes. Further, it is suggested that constructivism, as a pedagogy of teaching, be considered, regardless of delivery mode; students construct their own knowledge as the teacher facilitates the process through providing opportunities for active engagement and critical inquiry within a community of learners. teaching opportunities are adapted in response to the needs of students with technology as a tool to deliver learning outcomes. © 2015 by IGI Global. All rights reserved.

This paper studies on how to reform the action-oriented teaching course under the curriculum system to make Chinese vocational education students understand the action-oriented curriculum system, and achieve the training goal of core competence, while promoting the basic professional ability. We choose the course “Process-oriented Curriculum Development” as empirical research. Firstly we refine professional abilities and core competence as the teaching goal; secondly we set team tasks related to curriculum development process; finally we carry out the team tasks in the way of action-oriented teaching style in class. It has reached the desirable aim of cultivating the core competence, and further proved the effectiveness of teaching research and reform. © 2015 Taylor & Francis Group, London.

This chapter explores how a learning organisation differs from a teaching organisation, such as that each person holds responsibility for their own learning, yet are supported and guided by those who wish to help them further their personal development. This chapter aims to develop a software project management methodology, based on existing approaches, which can accommodate all people, regardless of ability. The model developed, called the C2-Tech-S2 approach, is specifically designed for projects that use crowd-funding and agile development, particularly in environments based around the Cloud. A pilot study is carried out to demonstrate the 'technology' stage of this model for assessment using the 'support' stage. This finds that all stages of the model need to be applied in a project, because on their own the stages may not produce the most effective outcomes in terms of increased participation. © 2015, IGI Global. All rights reserved.

In Germany, students in lower track secondary schools (LTSS) typically receive intensive career guidance. Nevertheless, the majority of LTSS student graduates does not start an apprenticeship immediately after graduation. This paper analyzes career planning, school grades, and the first transition after graduation for LTSS students in Freiburg during the late 2000s. Only about 10% of LTSS students start an apprenticeship immediately after graduation. About half, typically those with better grades, participate in additional general teaching (AGT) and rather continue schooling after graduation, expecting that this will improve their future career options. The majority of students with poor school grades, especially male students with a migration background, continue with pre-vocational training, even though career guidance was effective in terms of the career planning activities reported by students. Our results suggest that a focus of career guidance on the immediate start of an apprenticeship after graduation may be misplaced for those students continuing in further schooling. Furthermore, such a focus potentially raises hopes for an immediate start of an apprenticeship among the other students, which may later on be frustrated when a student continues with pre-vocational training. © 2015, Walter de Gruyter GmbH. All rights reserved.

The focus of this article is on education for vocational excellence (the combination of virtue and good judgment or phronesis/practical wisdom) through an examination of episodes from the auto/biographical study of master craftsman Wolfgang B. Vocational excellence is an issue sometimes discussed with regard to teacher training for schools and universities, often from an Aristotelian perspective, but less often when it comes to teaching and teacher training in the various models of craft apprenticeship education that exist. Even though there is no lack of arguments made for the excellence one is able to develop in learning a craft there are fewer takes on how such educational aims have been enacted. This is problematic because teaching vocational knowledge, including excellence, thereby becomes a practice that is less articulated than it could to be and more systematic reflection is inhibited. I will be considering these problems through the educational biography of a master bookbinder, gilder and engraver, Mr. Wolfgang B., and two stories he tells, one of his education in Paris and one of his own deliberations in teaching bookbinding. In doing this I am arguing for a systematic narrative approach to research on how to teach vocational excellence and by extension more generally with regard to teaching. This not only does justice to the particularity of practical wisdom but also calls attention to the imaginative character of being able to deliberate wisely. © 2015, Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht.

Background: There is a general consensus regarding the stressful nature of the teaching profession and an extensive body of literature has shown a multitude of risks and protective factors that influence teachers' professional well-being. In this framework, a growing interest has been observed in the research dealing with the effects of combining teaching with another job (multiple job-holding) on teachers' professional well-being. However, the literature investigating the relationship between multiple job-holding and professional well-being is quite heterogeneous and related findings are still inconsistent. Thus, the need for further investigation to clarify the psychological and behavioural consequences of multiple job-holding for teachers emerges. The present study will contribute to meeting this need by exploring the possible protective role of combining teaching with another job in a large sample of Swiss vocational education and training (VET) teachers in Canton of Ticino. Methods: Data on perceived threatening factors and professional well-being were collected from 602 VET teachers using an online questionnaire. A one-way ANOVA test was employed to investigate the effect of multiple job-holding on perceived threatening factors and professional well-being. A multiple group path analysis was performed to examine the moderating effect of multiple job-holding on the relationship between threatening factors and professional well-being. Results: The findings showed that combining teaching with another job has an indirect impact on teachers' professional well-being by reducing their perceived exposure to threatening factors and related stress. Moreover, multiple job-holding helps moderate the negative effects of school-related challenges as well as the difficulties in balancing work and other activities on professional well-being. Conclusions: The study reinforced the positive interpretation of multiple job-holding as a possible resource for teachers at both the instructional and personal levels. The added value of this condition should be taken into greater consideration at the policy and school levels through the creation of favourable conditions for teachers who are interested in and available to experience additional jobs outside school walls. However, further investigation is needed to better understand the positive impact of combining teaching with another job, particularly in relation to specific jobs' structural characteristics and individuals' biographical situations. © 2015 Sappa et al.

This edition's paper on 'How doctors spend their time on an AMU' defines 'training' as time spent on senior ward rounds. But the idea that senior ward rounds are training and the rest of work is not is a huge assumption that must be challenged. This article explores some false ideas about postgraduate medical education; why teaching and learning activities needs to be made more explicit, and why we need to stop talking about 'training' and start talking about learning. The goal of professional education is expertise, not competence. That can only happen through work-based learning, something to which we need to pay much more attention. © 2015 Rila Publications Ltd.