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"Students"

This paper reports on a collaborative project aimed at addressing the learning challenges faced by non-traditional students at the interface of TAFE and Higher Education. Our pedagogy is informed by engagement with a critique of competency-based education that espouses 'bringing knowledge back into' the curriculum (Wheelahan, 2010a) and a critique of progressivist language pedagogy that calls for explicit instruction about the distinctive language features of disciplinary knowledge (Martin and Rose, 2008). We describe how we have used the concepts of 'discourse community' and 'discoursal identity' to construct a pedagogy that enables students: 1) to learn the 'knowledge' and 'language' of their course, both for work and further study; and 2) to begin to develop a critical perspective on the discourse community into which they are being inducted. We also illustrate why close collaboration between discipline teachers and teachers with language and learning expertise is intrinsic to the successful design and enactment of this pedagogy. © eContent Management Pty Ltd.

Due to safety considerations, students' practice and learning of welding is conducted within individual welding booths. The booth setting presents some challenges to student learning as collaborative learning within a workshop learning environment is compromised. The project reported in this paper, established peer-learning (i.e., students learning from each other) as an opportunity to enhance student learning. Techniques for effective feedback were presented to students as a means of compensating for reported disadvantages of novices' peer learning. Therefore, this article provides results from introducing peer-learning with relevant feedback techniques, to improve learning outcomes for welding students. This is a practical evidence-based study, reporting findings that are generalisable to the learning of other trade-based disciplines. The feedback strategies proposed are not difficult to introduce to learners and teachers but lead to improved student engagement, improved student meta-cognition and enhanced skill practice and learning. © eContent Management Pty Ltd.

This research project evaluated the presence of collaboration, inquiry, and persistence in a STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) high school interdisciplinary unit. The school personnel strive to infuse the school's five "habits of mind," collaboration, inquiry, persistence, creativity, and communication, in their everyday pedagogical practice. Although faculty members were comfortable evaluating student creativity and communication, they struggled to evaluate student collaboration, inquiry, and persistence. The research goal was to collect data on the frequency at which students were engaging in these behaviors and the ways by which the project facilitated these behaviors. A mixed-methods approach was utilized to address these questions. Results indicated that collaboration, inquiry, and persistence were observed over the three days. Collaboration was dominant early, giving way to inquiry, while persistence behaviors increased over the three days. Faculty will utilize these results to influence instructional and assessment practices related to similar future projects. © Common Ground, Authors, All Rights Reserved.

Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to look at the employability skills development efforts of Greek higher education institutions (HEIs) and recommend ways to help them create the employable graduate. Design/methodology/approach - The paper draws on extensive secondary data analysis. Findings - It is revealed that HEIs in Greece have failed, so far, to integrate key skills into their curriculum and as a result graduates are not equipped with a range of skills designed to be of practical value in the world of work. The paper argues that there is an immediate need for policy makers to develop a national policy on key skills in HE, in order to help students secure employment, as well as help domestic firms meet their skill needs. Practical implications - The paper indicates that the role of HEIs in the country remains undermined. In this context it is suggested that a graduate apprenticeship scheme needs to be developed to prepare graduates for the world of employment and that stand-alone modules around key skills should be incorporated into each program of study. Additionally, deans, departmental leaders and teaching staff should commit themselves towards skills initiatives and should work towards developing a skills-based curriculum that would equip students with marketable skills. Originality/value - The paper informs the existing literature about the employability development efforts of HEIs in the context of an advancing country, where the current understanding is very limited. © Emerald Group Publishing Limited.

With the impending change in the higher education landscape within the UK there is a greater need for flexibility and innovation in the delivery of degree programmes. One flexible and innovative form of programme delivery is the work-based learning platform. Additional academic guidance is imperative for students undertaking a work-based learning programme due to the flexible nature of the programme. However in providing this academic guidance and support it places additional demands upon both tutor and student. Hence creative approaches which alleviate these demands are required to facilitate conversations between tutor and student as well as that from student to tutor. This paper will describe the current approaches used and how these demands are particularly important within the context of the personalised nature of work-based learning. The contrasting characteristics with classroom based teaching will be highlighted. In particular this will include the authenticity and those factors which relate to the strong ownership of the context by the student within this mode of learning. Copyright © 2012 September.

The Australian Government and industry groups have been discussing the projected skills shortage for a number of years. This concern for the future is mirrored in many countries including the USA and the UK where the risk is not having sufficient skilled people to realise the projects being proposed. Growing tertiary qualified practicing engineers takes time and commitment but without the excitement of the possibility of such a career being seeded in the youth of the world, school leavers won't be attracted to engineering in sufficient numbers. In response, one successful model for exciting school children about engineering and science careers is the international F1inSchools Technology Challenge which was created in the UK in 2002 and implemented in Australia in 2003. It is now run in over 300 Australian Schools and 33 countries. In the Australian context, the program is managed and promoted by the Reengineering Australia Foundation. It is supported and fostered through a range of regional hubs, individual schools and some exceptional teachers. Presented in this paper are some perspectives drawn particularly from the Australian experience with the program over 10 years - which by any measure has been outstanding. The F1inSchools model has been designed specifically through its association with Formula One racing to attract the intrinsic interests of students. It is based on the fundamentals of action learning. Role models and industry involvement are utilised as motivation modifiers in students from Years 5 to 12. While immersing children in project based learning, the program explicitly encourages them to engage with practicing mentors taking them on a journey outside their normal classroom experience. In this program, students have the opportunity to use the design and analysis tools that are implemented in high technology industries. Their experience is one of reaching into industry and creative exploration rather than industry reaching down to them to play in a constrained and artificial school based environment. Anecdotally F1inSchools has been very successful in positively influencing career choices. With the aim of objectively assessing the impact of the program, doctoral research has been completed. Some key findings from this work are summarized and reported in this paper. The children involved truly become excited as they utilise a vehicle for integration of learning outcomes across a range of educational disciplines with a creative design focus. This enthusiasm flows to reflective thought and informed action in their career choice. As a result of F1inSchools, students are electing to follow engineering pathways and they will shape tomorrow's world. Copyright © 2012 by ASME.

The orientation of vocational education towards competence-based education has led to fundamental changes in the work of vocational education teachers. This article pictures teaching in innovative, competence-based vocational education in the Netherlands. In a multiple case study, the teaching practices of 10 teachers from five vocational schools were thoroughly studied. By examining not only the actual behaviour of teachers but also their related personal ideas and professional attitudes, we learn about the ways teachers implement new educational concepts and their experienced uncertainties, dilemmas and practical tensions. These insights lead to a better understanding and specification of the concept of competence-based vocational education at the micro level of educational processes, that is, the interaction between teachers and students. Implications are described in terms of new repertoires of teaching behaviour and teaching methods-all in the context of vocational education. © 2012 Copyright Taylor and Francis Group, LLC.

This chapter describes how internal high school reforms can be aimed at six different dimensions of student motivation and engagement. students will respond to more accessible immediate rewards such as good grades and teacher praise when high schools improve with focused extra help for needy students and other interventions to narrow skill gaps or recognize individual progress. students will benefit from embedded intrinsic interest in their school program when innovations are introduced to challenge their minds and creativity. students will find more functional relevance in their studies when high schools integrate academic and career education. students will enjoy a more positive interpersonal climate for learning when high schools use smaller learning communities with teacher teams and advisors. students will find opportunities to exercise their own personal nonacademic talents when schools provide more diverse electives and extracurricular activities. students will feel more connected to shared communal norms when high schools practice fair disciplinary procedures and provide for some shared decision-making. Different combinations and sequences of high school reforms are discussed in terms of implementation strategies and the interactions of the six dimensions of student motivation and engagement. High school reform can be aimed at either the external constraints and incentives for school improvement or the internal conditions for student engagement and learning. This chapter puts reforms of the internal conditions in the context of alternative strategies for improving American high schools and examines six different aspects of student engagement in high school and how specific internal reform efforts can activate and maximize each component. © Springer Science+Business Media, LLC 2012. All rights reserved.

Context General practice supervisors are said to serve as the cornerstones of general practice postgraduate education and therefore it is important to clearly define their roles and what makes them effective. The commonly used definition of a supervisor is not primarily based on general practice and does not cover aspects predicted to be important according to work-based learning theory. Methods We searched for papers published between 1991 and 2011 inclusive, categorised them according to whether they provided empirical evidence, descriptions or recommendations, open-coded the empirical evidence, and used the resulting coding scheme as an analytic framework within which to present a narrative summary of findings. Results Recommendations and descriptions far outweighed empirical evidence, which showed how supervisors intertwined clinical and educational activities and formed educational alliances with resident doctors that provided a foundation for learning. Residents needed a balance of challenge, usually provided by patients, and support, provided by supervisors. Supervisors established learning environments, assessed residents' learning needs, facilitated learning, monitored the content and process of learning and the well-being of residents, and summarised learning in ways that turned 'know that' into 'know how'. Conclusions General practice must be expert in ensuring patients are well cared for 'by proxy' and in giving residents just the right amount of support they need to face the challenges posed by those patients. As general practice responds to contemporary clinical demands and rising numbers of undergraduate medical students, it is essential that the ability of general practice supervisors to develop and sustain supportive supervisory relationships with residents is preserved. © Blackwell Publishing Ltd 2012.

In order to maximize the effectiveness of our pedagogies, we must understand how our pedagogies align with prevailing theories of cognition and motivation and design our pedagogies according to this understanding. When implementing Contributing Student Pedagogies (CSPs), students are expected to make meaningful contributions to the learning of their peers, and consequently, instructors inherently give students power and control over elements of the class. With this loss of power, instructors will become more aware that the quality of the learning environment will depend on the level of students' motivation and engagement rather than the instructor's mastery of content or techniques. Given this greater reliance on student motivation, we will discuss how motivation theories such as Self-Determination Theory (SDT) match and support the use of CSP and how CSP can be used to promote students' intrinsic motivation (IM) to learn. We conclude with examples of how we use principles of SDT to guide our design and use of CSP. We will particularly focus on how we changed the discussion sections of a large, required, sophomore-level class on digital logic and computer organization at a large, research university at relatively low-cost to the presiding class instructor. © 2012 Copyright Taylor and Francis Group, LLC.