Search Results for
"learning"

The establishment of the European Higher Education Area has involved specifying lists of professional competencies that programs are expected to develop, and with this the need for procedures to measure how every course within a higher education program is aligned with the program's competencies. We propose an instrument for characterizing this alignment, a process that we call assessing the relevance of a course. Using information from the course syllabus (objectives, contents and assessment scheme), our instrument produces indicators for characterizing the syllabus in terms of a competence list and for assessing its coherence. Because assessment involves quality, the results obtained can also be used to revise and improve the course syllabus. We illustrate this process with an example of a methods course from a mathematics teacher education program at a Spanish university. © 2007.

Purpose: The purpose of this article is to explore how higher education (HE) institutions are responding to the workforce remodelling agenda of public services and the emergence of "para-professions" within traditionally low paid/low status employment. Design/methodology/approach: With reference to recent research, the article reviews the authors' experience of foundation degrees (FDs) in education and explores tensions in managing the competing needs of the varying stakeholders. Findings: A model of work-based learning (WBL) results from the study, which includes consideration of the following key areas: employer engagement; CPD and professional bodies - external validation and professional recognition; progression into HE through the workforce; and pedagogy of WBL Research limitations/implications: This article identifies a need for the systematic examination of the issues raised by the implementation of FDs as CPD for employed staff. The assumption that FD provision for employees results in more effective WBL is challenged. The importance of FDs in accreditation for a range of occupations in the Children's Workforce also suggests a need for research into the" professionalisation" of these occupations. Practical implications: The issue of employer engagement is fundamental and that paper argues that HE has a crucial role to play but that ensuring employer engagement requires responsiveness on the part of university structures, as well as the capacity to stimulate employer engagement and/or sanction lack of employer engagement at the level of individual programmes. Originality/value: This article provides information about the new phenomenon of implementation of FDs to support workforce development. © Emerald Group Publishing Limited.

One of the aims of Educational Guidance is social development and learning in Sec-ondary Education students who are in multicultural contexts. An increase in socioemotional competencies is promoted through Guidance program interventions. The Guidance Program for Socioemotional Competencies (in Spanish, POCOSE) not only improves students' learn-ing process and academic performance, it also favors their integration socially and at school, thus exercising a preventive function against future school failure and other risk factors, such as absenteeism, school dropout, or violence (bullying). The broad cultural diversity which characterizes our Educational System requires identification of socioemotional competencies that are positively related to optimal learning and better socio-educational adjustment of secondary students who are in multicultural con-texts, as well as identifying existing cultural differences in the process of teaching and learning these competencies. There is also a need for scientifically-validated programs for guidance and training in socio-emotional competencies, since these are an appropriate way to improve learning and socio-educational adjustment of Secondary Education students. © 2007 Universidad de Almeria.

This paper posits that authenticity is an aspect of both the context and the process of learning. These two aspects cannot be seen in isolation and must be analyzed as one unity. We refer to this coupling relationship as the context-process authenticity. Existing learning and instructional approaches associated with authenticity, such as simulations, participation, and co-evolution privilege the authenticity of professional practices and do not adequately tackle the issue of the transitions across contexts. To avoid demeaning the authenticity of schools, we recommend other approaches, which emphasize the identity enculturation aspect in diverse communities. Furthermore, we argue for a context-process authenticity continuum. This continuum encompasses both school and professional communities and the context-process authenticity coupling. Implications are discussed with respect to the proposed context-process authenticity continuum. © Association for Educational Communications and Technology 2007.

As many, perhaps most, high-school students engage in paid part-time employment, there is available in any Australian senior school classroom a range of work experiences that can be used to assist students to consider and reflect on working life and post-school pathways. Furthermore, these experiences are more readily available and authentic than those provided through school-organised work experience programmes. In order to understand the effectiveness of such experiences, students and teachers in six schools across two Australian states participated in processes of guided reflection on these experiences. Consistently, across cohorts of students in all of these schools, the authentic workplace experiences of paid part-time work were identified as assisting in securing a range of educational purposes associated with students' learning about work, the world of work and post-school options and pathways. Key variables in the likely success of this initiative were the facilitative capacity of teachers, their knowledge and valuing of working life outside schools and students' capacities and readiness to engage in reflection on their paid work.

Soon after the collapse of Apartheid, the new government in South Africa set about restructuring the educational system, which was previously segregated by race, class and language. This paper argues that the deracialisation and integration of schools in South Africa has been difficult to achieve and as a process, uneven in different parts of the country and in types of schools. The paper reports on a study conducted in the Limpopo province of South Africa (formerly, Northern Transvaal), which explores the extent to which schools that formally catered exclusively for the white Afrikaans-speaking community are deracialising and laying the foundations for a new democratic citizenship. It shows that some schools have merely complied with provisions under the constitution that access may not be denied on the grounds of race, status or religion and have created parallel learning streams so that there are virtually two schools within one institution-one 'school' that teaches the curriculum in English to predominantly black students and the other, that teaches virtually the same curriculum to almost exclusively white Afrikaans-speaking students. In other cases, where linguistic and cultural integration appear to have been achieved, the study shows that such 'integration' amounts to little more than assimilation and accommodation and that the true challenge of turning diversity into a productive resource remains. © 2006.

Objective To carry out an in depth evaluation of the vocational training year.Design Qualitative structured focus groups and interviews.Setting Three regional vocational training schemes in the south of England.Methods Each scheme provided a group of six vocational dental practitioners (VDPs) who met with researchers at three points in the training year. Additionally one of the researchers interviewed advisers and trainers.Results and recommendations Possible improvements were identified in the appointment process, induction, tutorials, assessment of clinical knowledge, technical skill, social and communication skills and development of the skills of reflective practice.Conclusions The vocational training year is a very good learning experience, which could be further enhanced to make it excellent. © British Dental Journal 2006.

In education as well as in human resource management, the concept of competency is becoming more and more important. However, competency is a fuzzy concept that lacks coherent terminology and is used in many different meanings. In the first part of this chapter, competency is defined as a multi-dimensional construct with five dimensions: specificity, coherency, durability, activity, and trainability. Then two approaches are presented to establish the competencies organisations or educational institutes should address: the function-based approach, which focuses requirements for good performance on a specific function, and the employee-based approach, which focuses on individual competencies for excellent performers. Finally, it is argued that a competency-based curriculum should move toward self-directed competency-based learning (SDCBL), using personal learning plans and adopting the flexible learning opportunities of e-learning. However, SDCBL can only be successful when learners can be taught to be responsible managers and owners of their own learning process. © 2007 by Idea Group Inc.

This study aims to develop and evaluate competency-based web learning material (CBWLM). The study investigates students' learning effect and measures SDLA before, during and after implementing CBWL for eight weeks to probe the effects of CBWL on SDLA, and discuss variation and changes of SDLAs in the three different stages for CBWL among the students. The sample of this study consists of 38 students from "Microprosessor Laboratory", a sophomore course at a college. The study results reveal that CBWL does not have significant influence on the students' overall SDLA, but enhances their "Fondness for learning" factor in SDLA. Moveover, SDLAs of the mid-CBWL and post-CBWL do not influence learning effects. Recommendations proposed by the study: Developing more units of CBWLM and extending the duration of CBWL; Post-test of SDLA.is implemented on the current day or several days before CBWL is finished. © 2006 Nova Science Publishers, Inc. All rights reserved.

This book provides a fresh account of the changing nature of work and how workers are changing as result of the requirements of contemporary working life. It explores the implications for preparing individuals for work and maintaining their skills throughout working life. This is done by examining the relations between the changing requirements for working life and how individuals engage in work. An analysis that engages the psychological, sociological, philosophical and anthropological literatures as they relate to work as well as recent empirical research that examines and elaborates perspectives of work and work practice as social institutions and as a vocation that individuals exercise with intentionality and agency. So a key basis for considering changing work and changing workers is the relationships between the social institutions and cultural needs and practices that necessitates and constitutes paid work and how individuals engage and elect to participate and learn in that work. Implications for vocational education, professional development and on-going learning throughout working life are addressed. These include developing skills in educational institutions, workplaces, and combinations thereof and in times when both government and employers are looking for others to sponsor that development and maintaining the competence and engagement of older workers. © 2006 Springer. All rights reserved.