How do university teachers combine different approaches to teaching in a specific course? A qualitative multi-case study

2016 ◽  
Vol 21 (7) ◽  
pp. 854-869 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kaire Uiboleht ◽  
Mari Karm ◽  
Liisa Postareff
Author(s):  
Birgit Pepin ◽  
Zeger-jan Kock

AbstractIn this study we use a case study approach to investigate what kinds of resources were self-reported to have been selected by students working on their Challenge-Based bachelor end projects, and how they used and orchestrated these resources. In a previous study, we had explored students’ use of resources and their Actual Student Study Paths in Calculus and Linear Algebra courses (Pepin and Kock 2019); in this study we turned to students working on their Challenge-Based bachelor end projects. Results show that the students working on Challenge-Based projects used resources outside the realm of curriculum resources offered to them in traditional courses, and the Actual Student Study Paths were iterative. We contend that ‘linear’ study paths (found e.g. in traditionally taught Linear Algebra courses) appeared to have been beneficial for students for studying particular mathematical content, which they needed for solving open challenges. In the Challenge-Based projects, the crucial resource emerged to be the tutor. We claim that this has implications for the introduction of a more Challenge-Based curriculum, where such projects would be the norm, both in terms of the professionalization of university teachers (who coach students through such projects), and for the education of students who opt for such projects: teachers have to be supported to develop as appropriate coaches in such complex environments; students have to become self-directed learners, and need to be supported with challenged-based trained coaches and teachers, in addition to be provided with suitable curricular, technological, and social resources.


2017 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 91
Author(s):  
Huong Hoang Le

The study uses a qualitative case study framed within a socio-cultural framework to investigate Vietnamese English language university teachers’ difficulties in their research engagement. The study was conducted among 21 English language university teachers in Hong Duc University in Vietnam. Skype semi-structured interview was employed to collect necessary data to explore teacher participants’ perceived obstacles to research. The findings of the study show that there was a gap between Vietnamese authorities’ expectations of research outputs and the realities of English language university teachers’ research capabilities. Such gap has caused serious challenges to those teachers and prevented them from effectively engaging in research. On the one hand, Vietnamese authorities hope to increase universities’ research output to keep up with the international academic ranking. On the other hand, the working realities of university teachers hinder their engagement in research. However, no official investigation has been done to reduce such gap and the enforcement of research activity in universities has been taken for granted. In this sense, the significance of this study is an opportunity for English language university teachers to voice their opinions about the enforced nature of research activity in universities in Vietnam.


2019 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-18 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anna Zelenková ◽  
Dana Hanesová

Abstract The aim of the authors is to respond to the growing demands on the intercultural competence of university teachers due to intensified internationalization pressures on higher education, especially due to the growing number of students and teachers’ international exchanges. They report on an intercultural course design responding to this need, presenting a case study from Slovakia. First, they define the need of intercultural competence of university teachers, especially those teaching in English-medium study programmes. Then they share a) findings from a needs analysis preceding the design of a new curriculum for an intercultural competence course (ICC) at Matej Bel University (MBU) with three aims (development of linguistic, cultural and pedagogic competences); and b) results from action research during piloting the ICC course. A comparison of 2011 and 2018 surveys pointed to the growing dominance of the English language, including an increasing command of English by MBU teachers. The ICC curriculum, tailored to the pre-identified teachers’ needs, proved to be a feasible way of facilitating their intercultural competence. Its implementation revealed persistent prejudices and difficulties associated with overcoming them. It also confirmed a significant deficit in preparing university teachers for their role as intercultural mediators in English-medium courses.


2007 ◽  
Vol 17 (2) ◽  
pp. 140-155 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul Ramsden ◽  
Michael Prosser ◽  
Keith Trigwell ◽  
Elaine Martin

2020 ◽  
Vol 34 (4) ◽  
pp. 276-287
Author(s):  
Laura Martin ◽  
Martin Camiré

Coaches have been shown to play key roles in the life-skills development and transfer process. The purpose of the study was to examine coaches’ approaches to teaching life skills and their transfer in youth sport. A multiple case study design was employed. Each case was composed of one coach and at least two of their athletes involved in youth baseball, rugby, soccer, and sailing. The data collection involved pre- and postseason interviews and in-season journaling with coaches, as well as postseason interviews with athletes. The results indicated that the coaches predominantly used implicit approaches, with just over half identified as using some explicit approaches to teach life skills. The coaches discussed several factors that influenced their decisions to use or not use explicit life-skills teaching approaches. The results have implications for future research and applied efforts aimed at maximizing the developmental gains athletes can derive from their participation in sport.


2017 ◽  
Vol 37 (6) ◽  
pp. 432
Author(s):  
Prakash Bhairu Bilawar ◽  
Shamprasad M Pujar ◽  
Somanath Dasharath Pawar

The purpose of this paper is to propose an e-information literacy index that provides realistic values to distinguish whether university teachers are literate in regard to awareness and use of e-information resources by explaining the characteristics of e-information literate teacher. The present survey attempts to formulate e-information literacy index of university teachers by taking into consideration three components viz. awareness of e-resources, availability of ICT facilities and use of internet services and search techniques to retrieve e-information. The findings shows that 60.52 per cent teachers are e-information literate. Amongst the teachers, the index for Assistant Professors is highest followed by Professors and Associate Professors. It indicates that Assistant Professors are more e-information literate than their superiors. Amongst the universities, the index of Shivaji University, Kolhapur is highest. As far as author’s consciousness, there are several indices meant for different purposes but in the higher education sector to define the characteristics of e-information literate university teacher in terms of an index is unique and special.


2019 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 125-148
Author(s):  
Linoel De Jesús Leal Ordóñez ◽  
Antonio Carlos Do Nascimento Osorio

This research is framed in the teachers’ thinking paradigm, oriented to understand the thinking styles of the university teacher from two out of the five cognitive and behavioral expressions in Sternberg’s thinking styles theory: the function inside the classroom and the level of classroom performance. The epistemological approach was the empirical-inductive, framed in the logic positivism tradition, with the case study as methodology. A 24-reactives likert-based scale was applied to 40 teachers of the Education career from Francisco de Miranda University (UNEFM). The results evidenced a mediational thinking style, based on cognitive and constructivism-based teaching procedures, democratic patterns for classroom organization, as well as a permanent process of reflection that informs teachers about what and how to improve while teaching. These results can help to optimize teaching performance, as well as to design pedagogical training processes more focused and based on mediational pedagogies that lead to better learning. KEY WORDS: Thinking styles, university teachers, pedagogy, mediational pedagogies, university education.


2021 ◽  
Vol 15 (2) ◽  
pp. 1
Author(s):  
Derar Eleyan ◽  
Muath Sabha ◽  
Amna Eleyan ◽  
Jaafar Abu Saa

This paper introduces a conceptual platform for bringing students and teachers together in a social media consortium. The results extracted from the questionnaire used in this paper exhibits that the majority of the students support and are eager to see this idea live and willing to play an active role and show full commitment. This consortium encompasses students and teachers from both school and university. This platform prepares the students, fosters and enables them to a smooth transition from school to university, as well as improving the students’ communication skills and academic performance by using mentoring, tutoring and coaching techniques. As a case study of social media, Facebook was used as a communication and interactive tool amongst group members. The theme behind this platform is to construct academic group from final year school students with first year university students to exchange experience and transfer knowledge. This group has school teachers as well as university teachers. Each group has a mentor, coach and tutor. Each of them will play a specific role throughout the group, which will be highlighted in this paper. The outcomes were useful and interesting for students, their parents and teachers involved. It was a great experiment and recommended to widen it to involve more students and teachers.


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