Search Results for
"Teaching"

Officially sanctioned workplace learning is on the increase. In the workplace, and particularly in emergency response contexts, success with workplace learning is an unquestioned goal. In order to achieve this goal, many workplaces follow the general model of partnering trainees with more experienced personnel. This is the most salient feature of an Australian state's police probationary 12-month operational training programme, known as the First Year Constable Programme. This paper analyses the perceptions, constructions and understandings of 13 police trainers in a regional headquarters of a state police service, considering some important aspects of first year constable training. The data illuminated a group of police trainers who enacted their own experiences of being trained as a basis for how to approach training. The participants' reports varied in terms of what was regarded as important to promote during training, and the participants seemed to derive little direction from training policy or established and mandatory workplace competencies. The paper argues that these officers operated with a skewed application of the cognitive apprentice model of teaching. It shows, for example, that scaffolding in a relatively chaotic environment is highly problematic. Several implications for workplace training in emergency response settings are highlighted, particularly in the area of how the training is being coordinated and how practice is being shared and improved. © 2014, © 2014 Taylor and Francis Group, LLC.

Project-based learning may enhance students' cognitive skills and knowledge construction. Online discussion stimulates the social interactions of project-based learning, and appropriate cognitive tools (such as concept maps) facilitate the coordination, planning, and implementation of projects. Currently, related studies on project-based learning environments that integrate concept-mapping and discussion tools are sporadic. This study explored the behavioral patterns of learners' concept-mapping processes and the cognitive processing patterns of online discussion content conducted in a project-based learning environment equipped with both concept-mapping and online discussion tools. This study also compared the differences in behavioral patterns in the two main project-based learning phases: planning and implementation. This study employed content and sequential analyses to conduct empirical analyses with 48 college students as participants over a two-month period of teaching activities. The results showed that the behavioral patterns of learners exhibited more diversified operations and discussion during the planning phase. In addition, the use of concept mapping allowed participants to focus on the discussion task. This study proposes teaching practices and research recommendations based on the results. © 2013 De La Salle University.

Given the current demands of Swedish vocational education and the withdrawal of the requirement for formal teacher competence in vocational subject teachers, the aim of this article is to develop knowledge of what it means to be a vocational subject teacher in an upper secondary school, i.e. how vocational subject teachers describe their vocational teacher identity. Drawing on a sociocultural perspective, this study analysed data from 22 interviews. The vocational subject teachers describe their relationship with students and the fostering work of teaching for studies, life and work as distinctive characteristics of vocational teacher identity. The fostering work is focused on students' behaviour, i.e. the relational and normative aspects of a social practice. The study results suggest that the identity of vocational teachers includes guiding students towards memberships in various social practices. The benefit of both high-quality teacher competence and vocational competence in vocational teachers is discussed. © 2014 © 2014 The Vocational Aspect of Education Ltd.

Project driving is one of the methods that implement investigation type teaching mode. Mechanical engineering control foundation is one of the required core specialty courses in the specialty of mechanical engineering and automation. This paper introduces how to use project driving teaching method in this course. Combined with the content and characteristic of mechanical engineering control foundation, a series of experiments or design are developed in the teaching and learning process. The evaluation pattern is discussed as well. Practice makes clear that project teaching method contributes to enhance the students' ability of analysis and solving problem independently, improve the learning enthusiasm and team awareness. © Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2014.

This article presents a university-context teaching innovation proposal that combines various ICTsupported active methodologies to undertake a project. The experience's feature is the design of a blended learning context based on a constructivist learning approach, in which the participating students - divided into three different groups - work on the same project and play an active role, and whose learning is fostered by the use Google+, Google Docs, Twitter and a blog. To present the experience, a description is given of how the project was designed and undertaken, followed by a presentation of the results obtained from the opinions of the students themselves, who were the protagonists of their own learning. The results show how the students rated competency acquisition in this and earlier experiences, and enabled the acquired competencies to be identified for each methodological proposal applied. The conclusions highlight the fact that project work has many benefits; it improves the students' active participation, motivation and engagement, and enhances competency development and meaningful learning. Especially noteworthy are the high ratings given to peer tutoring as a work modality for strengthening competency development, and the fact that the students perceived that taking part in this project allowed them to work and acquire the proposed competencies more effectively than in other educational experiences that they had undertaken in the course of their university studies.

Purpose - The purpose of this study is to look at the experiences of university academic staff setting up a small computer games studio to provide work placement opportunities for undergraduate students and the supporting role of industry. Design/methodology/approach - The case study uses sense making to explore the boundaries between "simulated" and "real" work in an educational setting. Findings - For students and teachers to work together in a commercial setting, relationships have to be reconstructed. teaching focusses on developing the individual and personal attainment, the work environment prioritises the team so that organisational and business needs are met. Differences in culture and working practices between industry and academia and the organisational constraints of a university, present challenges for academic staff engaged in enterprise. Research limitations/implications - The authors recognise the limitations of a single institution case study and intend further investigation into factors around employability, enterprise education and the availability of work experience for students studying in the creative technologies including experiences in other institutions. Practical implications - Practical experience and business knowledge gained through the studio development process by the student and staff, has informed the curriculum through the introduction of team-working modules. The studio provides a unique interface between the university and games industry partners. Originality/value - The study shows the value of a university-based games studio in providing work experience for students and enhancing employability and provides insights into university/industry partnering. Copyright © 2014 Emerald Group Publishing Limited. All rights reserved.

This paper discusses a pilot project held at Middlesex University to enhance students' writing skills through literature teaching. It argues that literature teaching can offer a profound contribution to work-based learning and lifelong education: first, by showing students how effective arguments are constructed; second, by inspiring students to use their reading to improve their writing; third, by offering an ethical guide in the workplace and, broadly speaking, in all areas of life. Moreover, literature teaching should help students become more energized by the challenges of argument, contradictions and complexity, as well as provide them with the means to formulate and then trust their aesthetic judgement. Using literature as a pedagogical tool, teachers can inspire 'educational connoisseurship' in their students by teaching them to become active and autonomous, evaluative and critical agents in their own education. This paper presents the results of the pilot, showing the substantive contribution the study of certain essayists and novelists made to the students' perceptions of what makes good writing, how they might replicate it and how literature can offer an ethical guide throughout their working lives. As a reiterative study which builds on similar research carried out at the University of Kent in 2010, this paper should further the arguments for a work-based learning programme that includes the study of literature. © 2013 © 2013 Taylor & Francis.

In education, there is a growing interest in the concept of competency especially in vocational training and professional development. The concept is strongly associated with the ability to apply knowledge and skills in effective ways in unanticipated situations. In Sri Lanka, a new competency-based mathematics curriculum was introduced in 2007 for grade 6 and the implementation was completed in 2010 for grade 11 as part of a reform process. The main aim of this implementation was to eliminate previous transmission methods of teaching and to assign a transformational role to the teacher. In this study, I analyzed the suitability of this new curriculum as a competency-based curriculum and examined whether it has achieved its objectives. The results showed that the new curriculum was better in elaborating the subject content and teaching methods. However, in a broader sense, it has not fulfilled its objectives as a competency-based curriculum. The analysis led one to conclude that competency-based teaching and learning approaches were superficially introduced in mathematics education in Sri Lanka. The curriculum documents did not properly reflect their intended objectives. © 2013 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht.

What is meant by pedagogy? How does our conception of pedagogy inform good teaching and learning? Pedagogy is a complex concept of which student and practising teachers need to have an understanding, yet there remain many ambiguities about what the term means, and how it informs learning in the classroom. Understanding Pedagogy examines pedagogy in a holistic way, supporting a more critical and reflective understanding of teaching and learning. It considers pedagogy as a concept that covers not just teaching approaches and pupil-teacher relationships but one which also embraces and informs educational theory, personal learning styles, assessment, and relationships inside and outside the classroom. A detailed consideration of what it means to be a professional in the contemporary climate, Understanding Pedagogy challenges student and practising teachers to reappraise their understanding and practice through effectively linking theory and practice. Key issues explored include the importance of understanding a learning styles profile, the application of cognitive neuroscience to teaching, personalised learning, assessment and feedback, and what we mean by critical reflection. Using the Personal Learning Styles Pedagogy, the authors make explicit the integration of theory and practice and the many decisions and selections that teachers make, their implications for what is being taught and learnt, how learners are positioned in the pedagogical process, and ultimately, how learning can be improved. Understanding Pedagogy will be essential reading for student and practising teachers, as well those on Education Studies courses and undertaking masters level courses, involved in the endeavour of understanding what constitutes effective teaching and learning. © 2015 M. Waring and C. Evans.

The standing of vocational education is salient for how it is perceived by those who sponsor, participate in and work within it and how its provisions are supported and administered. Yet, this standing continues to be intractably low, compared with other education sectors, more so in some countries than others. The consequences for this low standing can be profound. Serially, moreover, it has been the voices and sentiments of powerful others (e.g. aristocrats, theocrats, bureaucrats and academics) that have long been privileged in discourses about the standing of occupations and their preparation. In perhaps most instances, this privileging has and continues to come at a cost to the standing, processes of and goals for this important educational sector. Indeed, the legacies of earlier sentiments about and conceptions of different kinds of occupations and their preparation are now deeply embedded in societal discourses and variously sustain and constrain the standing of vocational education. At its strongest, concepts such the Berufs concept in the German speaking world does much to sustain and elevate vocational education. Elsewhere, this lowly standing generates constraints that comprise efforts to control and micro-manage those who teach and learn. Adopting a historical approach, this paper offers a brief and partial account of how, across time, sentiments of powerful others have shaped the standing of vocational education and its proposes and practices, often for purposes of power and control. Instead, it is proposed that for vocational education to realise it purposes necessarily requires it to be informed by and directed more by the interests of those learning about - teaching and practice - these occupations. In addition, the need for societally based (i.e. governmental) imperatives to ameliorate the long-standing consequences of these sentiments for vocational education is proposed. © 2013 © 2013 The Vocational Aspect of Education Ltd.