Search Results for
"Teaching"

Education invariably aims at developing competencies, technical as well as non-technical ones. As a consequence, there is also a need for methods that can be used to assess the quality of education faithfully. One possible approach is an assessment of whether intended learning outcomes are achieved, i.e. an investigation if the target audience possesses the desired competencies. Assessment of competencies, however, is tricky since competencies are often only vaguely defined. This paper presents SECAT, an approach to assess competencies, and particularly those needed for proper software engineering. To that end, SECAT builds on Rauner's approach for competency assessment in vocational education. Rauner's approach uses nine competency criteria, which are further refined by suitable issues that indicate to which extent a competency is, or should be, present. The main contribution of this paper lies in the adaptation and enhancement of this framework in order to make it useable in software engineering education. Adaptation and enhancements encompass issues such as team and individual assessments, integration of multiple perspectives from various groups of stakeholders, and product- and process-orientation. The paper also presents first insights from using SECAT in a pilot university course in software engineering. © 2014 IEEE.

Purpose – Potential teacher shortage and low esteem of vocational education and training (VET) educator profession, together with the importance of attracting individuals best suited for the profession, lead to concerns about the reasons why people become VET educators as a second career. Accordingly, the purpose of this paper is to investigate the determinants of career choice in Swiss VET educators using an adaption of the Factors Influencing teaching Choice framework (Watt and Richardson, 2007). Design/methodology/approach – With a sample of 605 VET educators undergoing initial teacher training, the authors first provide a description of the determinants of career choice at the sample level, based on a motivational model and analyze differences in these determinants between three types of VET educators. Then, the authors contrast it to the conclusions of other studies on teachers’ career choice. Findings – There are somewhat different determinants driving this career choice depending on the type of educators. In terms of motivation, intrinsic value is the most important determinant of a career as VET teacher. VET educators value the activity of teaching more than the potential advantages it may offer. Originality/value – The findings of the research provide an insight into VET teachers’ career choice and how to promote the attractiveness of the profession. © Emerald Group Publishing Limited.

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to explore the synergies, similarities and differences between entrepreneurship and innovation education and training programs, with the aim of challenging the context of such programs. Design/methodology/approach – This study utilises an extensive review of extant literature in the fields of innovation, entrepreneurship and education. The literature, propositions and discussion are intended to provide a bridge between entrepreneurship and innovation education and training programs and seek to address the scientific legitimacy of these education and training disciplines as separate, yet integrated disciplines. Findings – Identifies a need to reconsider the diversity and relationship between innovation and entrepreneurship education and training, primarily from contextual, theoretical, measurement, distinctiveness, content, pedagogical and typology points of view. The range of multiple teaching models and learning processes to embrace in various contexts. Research limitations/implications – The propositions allow for the combination of teaching initiatives in a theory-driven framework and their applicability to specific entrepreneurship and innovation education and training situations. Practical implications – The authors’ contribution identifies the synergies and differences between entrepreneurship education and training programs. The propositions highlight areas of contextualisation and practice-based view application, to adopt specific learning initiatives between constructs. Originality/value – The authors address a gap in the literature regarding the delineation of entrepreneurship and innovation education and training, which has thus far remained sparsely addressed in the education and training literature. The authors provide a practice-based view of propositions, developed for future testing. © Emerald Group Publishing Limited.

Purpose - During a period of significant crisis within HE on a global scale, there is a clear need for colleges to clearly articulate the distinct nature of their higher vocational education provision. This need is particularly acute given the current financial and political pressures impacting on a diverse HE landscape. The purpose of this paper is to argue that colleges are well placed to develop and implement an approach to scholarly activity which revitalises links with local communities. Design/methodology/approach - This paper provides a synthesis of recent research on scholarly activity within college-based higher education (CBHE) and the concept of a "civic university". It also provides a brief case study of how scholarship within the college context can be utilised to promote meaningful community engagement. Findings - Working productively with community organisations, groups and individuals, colleges will be provoked to recast the complex relationship between teaching, research and community engagement in a manner appropriate to their immediate context rather than a national agenda. Moreover, a strengthened relationship between colleges and their local communities will recapture the rich heritage of vocational education in widening participation and raising aspirations towards education in general. Originality/value - This paper attempts to relocate current discussions of CBHE scholarly activity within the context of civic engagement. It will be of interest to colleagues across the higher vocational education sector, both nationally and internationally, in situating their institutional and departmental scholarly activity strategies within the context of the communities which they serve. © Emerald Group Publishing Limited.

Purpose - As neoliberal reforms take hold in the vocational education and training (VET) sector in Australia, there is renewed interest in the quality of teaching practice. However, despite the value of practitioner inquiry to the quality of teaching in schools, scholarly practice in higher education, and established links between the quality of teaching and outcomes for learners and between practice-based inquiry and pedagogic innovation in VET, the practices has received little attention. The purpose of this paper is to explore the value of a college-wide culture of scholarly activity to learners, enterprises, VET institutions, educators and the national productivity agenda. Design/methodology/approach - Drawing on the education literature, empirical examples of scholarly activity drawn from the authors' experiences of working with VET practitioners, this paper asks what constitutes research and inquiry in VET,why should these practices be integral to educative practice and what value do they bring to the sector? In addressing the questions, the authors explore how research and inquiry is defined in the literature and draw on three empirical examples of scholarly activities to provide a national, institutional and individual view. A discussion about the value of scholarly activities to VET stakeholders and how the practices might be fostered and sustained concludes the paper. Findings - The paper concludes that practice-based scholarly activities in VET cultivate rich potential for renewed and innovative pedagogies that improve outcomes for learners, respond to industry demands for innovative skills, build "pedagogic capital" for VET institutions, enrich the knowledge base of policy makers and build resilience and professionalism. The authors conclude by positioning VET educators as scholars in their own right along a continuum of scholarly activity and posing the proposition that when valued, scholarly activities are practices for new times that will build a strong and vibrant profession for the future. Research limitations/implications - This paper brings together the authors' experiences of working with VET practitioners as the authors engage in scholarly activities. While each vignette was drawn from a formal research project in each case, the paper itself was not structured around a formal research activity, although a small survey was undertaken for vignette 1. This poses limitations to the findings of the study. However, the purpose of the paper is not to be conclusive but to forward an argument for more scholarly activity in VET in order to promote further research and debate. Originality/value - This paper contributes to the current debate in Australia about the quality of teaching in VET and the sectors' capability to produce "work-ready" graduates. It brings to the fore the value of scholarly activity for educators, learners, industry and communities, VET institutions and the broader national innovation agenda. As such, it has relevance to all VET stakeholders, most particularly policy makers, leaders and practitioners in VET. ©Emerald Group Publishing Limited.

With the development of mobile devices and wireless technology, mobile technology has gradually infiltrated nursing practice courses to facilitate instruction. Mobile devices save manpower and reduce errors while enhancing nursing students' professional knowledge and skills. To achieve teaching objectives and address the drawbacks of traditional education, this study presents a mobile assistant learning system to help nursing students prepare health education materials. The proposed system is based on a project-based learning strategy to assist nursing students with internalizing professional knowledge and developing critical thinking skills. Experimental results show that the proposedmobile systemand project-based learning strategy can promote learning effectiveness and efficiency. Most nursing students and nursing educators showed positive attitudes toward this mobile learning system and looked forward to using it again in related courses in the future. © © 2014 Wolters Kluwer Health | Lippincott Williams & Wilkins.

This article uses an activity–theoretical perspective on context to explore final-year student nurses’ and student teachers’ perceptions of learning in their professional programmes. We analyse focus group interviews about critical aspects of teaching and nursing preparation and articulate processes of learning within and across coursework and fieldwork training. The comparative analysis reveals particular differences between students’ perceptions whereas student nurses, especially in the final year of their programme, experience that both college teachers and practice supervisors help them to contextualise theoretical and practical forms of knowledge so as to enhance their learning, student teachers portray their four-year programme as largely disconnected from the school setting with significant negative learning effects. We discuss possible explanations for these differences and argue that situated approaches should be expanded to better explain and facilitate the process of meaningful learning and thinking. © 2013, © 2013 Taylor & Francis.

This paper reports on how teachers within health sciences education translate outcome-based education (OBE) into practice when they design courses. The study is an empirical contribution to the debate about outcome- and competency-based approaches in health sciences education. A qualitative method was used to study how teachers from 14 different study programmes designed courses before and after OBE was implemented. Using an interpretative approach, analysis of documents and interviews was carried out. The findings show that teachers enacted OBE either to design for more competency-oriented teaching–learning, or to further detail knowledge and thus move towards reductionism. Teachers mainly understood the outcome-based framework as useful to support students’ learning, although the demand for accountability created tension and became a bureaucratic hindrance to design for development of professional competence. The paper shows variations of how teachers enacted the same outcome-based framework for instructional design. These differences can add a richer understanding of how outcome- or competency-based approaches relate to teaching–learning at a course level. © 2014, Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht.

This teaching case explores the business and ethics of prison sourcing, the practice of training and hiring prisoners to perform work for the private or public sectors. Although most prison employment programs train and hire workers for manual labor, such as furniture building or textiles, some prison employment programs now train and hire inmates to perform low-level Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) services like call center work, data entry, and document preparation. Prison sourcing is highly controversial. Besides the usual concerns about security and quality of work performed by prisoners, the ethical aspects of prison sourcing are hotly debated. Proponents argue prison sourcing is ethical because it defrays the costs of corrections, helps individuals successfully complete their confinement and prepares them to reintegrate into society, benefitting the individuals, their families, communities, and ultimately tax payers. Opponents argue that prison sourcing is a form of slavery, hurts small businesses, and steals jobs from law-abiding citizens. The authors developed this teaching case to allow students to explore these issues. The case is a dramatized version of an actual case study of prisoners performing BPO work for a private sector company. © 2014 JITTC Palgrave Macmillan.

This study explores the experiences of mentors and student teachers while engaging in co-teaching as a mentoring activity. Mentoring was aimed at sharing practical knowledge by modelling and scaffolding during student teachers' teaching. Co-teaching provides opportunities for learning to teach in close cooperation with pupils and subject matter. Four teams (student teacher and mentor) each enacted two co-taught lessons. We analysed whether and how co-teaching was realised and whether and how mentors modelled teaching (teacher role) and scaffolded their student teachers' teaching (mentor role). Three teams actually enacted co-teaching. All mentors modelled their practical knowledge implicitly and in two teams modelling was more explicit. Only one mentor used scaffolding as a mentoring tool. The transition between the roles of teacher and teacher educator proved difficult for mentors. Nevertheless, most participants saw co-teaching and the use of modelling and scaffolding as a promising mentoring activity.