scholarly journals The Application of Eportfolio in Higher Education: implications for Student Learning

Author(s):  
Andrea Ximena Castaño Sánchez

Nowadays universities are introducing educational changes in their teaching practices and their assessment strategies. These changes are involving many areas in the university. One of the places where most of the changes are initiated is from the classroom settings. To support them, eportfolios in general are being used as a form to align the principles stated from the Bolonia Process towards a teaching more centred on the student supporting other aspects like mobility and recognition. Therefore, developing effective use of technology applied to education for teaching and learning has become an important challenge. In this regard, the main goal of this thesis was to identify learning environment characteristics when applying eportfolios for teaching and learning and students’ characteristics that could influence a meaningful learning.

2021 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
pp. 7-14
Author(s):  
Zahid Hussain Sahito

We are living in an era of technology where everything demands knowledge, understanding, and handling of digital technology. Technology has renewed all spheres of social and professional lives and in this regard teaching and communication are not exceptional. Effective use of technology for real Communication is widely followed in teaching and teachers need to know the use of ICTs in classrooms for delivering lessons to inculcate sound knowledge and understanding of concepts. It is found that despite the significant impacts of ICTs on teaching and learning teachers are reluctant to use technical aids in the classroom. They report various issues that hamper them to use technology in their day-to-day teaching practices; moreover, a majority of teaching professionals are not convinced that they can make their teaching more and more effective by using technology. The paper aims to find out the CHALLENGES THE teachers face to use ICTs in classrooms and perceptions of teachers about the same. A qualitative research method was used to carry out the study.  A well-designed questionnaire comprising of open-ended questions was served to randomly selected serving teachers from government schools of District Khairpur. The responses of the participants were analyzed to identify the challenges faced by the teachers while using ICT during the teaching and learning process. The collected data was analyzed and it was found out that teachers find it difficult to use technology in classrooms because they are not provided appropriate computers, technical support, and professional training to learn to use technology. It was also identified that because of time constraints teachers are unable to use ICTs in their teaching practices. Further, it was explored that teachers believe that teachers have limited perceptions about technology as they hold the view that technology just wastage their time. Based on findings, it was concluded that the integration of ICT tools is highly effective as it makes students more creative, productive, and hard-working as compared to traditionally managed classrooms. Schools administrations should provide not only the technology but also technical assistance to the teachers. Schools administrations need to help teachers to know the importance of ICTs and to use it for a meaningful purpose to improve the standard of education.


2010 ◽  
Vol 1 (4) ◽  
pp. 27-40
Author(s):  
P. Thomas

Recent unprecedented advances in digital technologies and their concomitant affordances in education seem to be a great opportunity to adequately address burgeoning demand for high quality higher education (HE) and the changing educational preferences. It is increasingly being recognised that using new technology effectively in HE is essential to prepare students for its increasing demand. E-learning is an integral component of the University of Botswana’s teaching and learning culture, however, teachers who are from a traditional educational system are often ill-prepared to change their role from the all-knowing “sage on the stage” who operated under the “transmission” model, to the “guide on the side” which adopts new technologies effectively for student learning. Therefore, this paper argues that one of the ways to achieve substantial pedagogical innovations is to bring a significant change in the understanding of the processes of the scholarship of teaching and learning (SoTL). This paper explores new directions for conducting scholarly activities at the University of Botswana (UB) to address the needs of today’s students, concluding with a call for a collaborative approach to teaching, research, and publishing to enhance student learning experience in diversified and socially rich collaborative learning contexts.


Author(s):  
Hanlie Liebenberg ◽  
Dion Hendrik Van Zyl

A long-standing focus of research in higher education has been on monitoring the degree of student access to information and communications technology (ICT). Recent debates have moved towards a more nuanced understanding of students’ technological experiences and behaviour. As the world changes, so does higher education and expectations regarding the role of technology within this environment. Universities, which continuously strive to improve teaching and learning, need to accommodate students’ increased use of technology and enhance their proficiency and fluency in accessing and using ICT as these skills are required to succeed in education and in life after graduation. This paper proposes that access to ICT constitutes only one dimension of a more complex and elaborate construct, namely that of ICT sophistication, which concerns students’ level of ICT use, and their experience of and engagement and fluency in ICT. As a basis to evaluate the ICT sophistication of students at the University of South Africa, the researchers drew on the findings of the said university’s surveys conducted in 2011 and 2014. This evaluation also served as a method for segmenting the student body to inform interventions. The results obtained supported findings in the literature that “access” could not be fully understood by drawing a one-dimensional distinction between access and non-access.


Author(s):  
P. Thomas

Recent unprecedented advances in digital technologies and their concomitant affordances in education seem to be a great opportunity to adequately address burgeoning demand for high quality higher education (HE) and the changing educational preferences. It is increasingly being recognised that using new technology effectively in HE is essential to prepare students for its increasing demand. E-learning is an integral component of the University of Botswana’s teaching and learning culture, however, teachers who are from a traditional educational system are often ill-prepared to change their role from the all-knowing “sage on the stage” who operated under the “transmission” model, to the “guide on the side” which adopts new technologies effectively for student learning. Therefore, this paper argues that one of the ways to achieve substantial pedagogical innovations is to bring a significant change in the understanding of the processes of the scholarship of teaching and learning (SoTL). This paper explores new directions for conducting scholarly activities at the University of Botswana (UB) to address the needs of today’s students, concluding with a call for a collaborative approach to teaching, research, and publishing to enhance student learning experience in diversified and socially rich collaborative learning contexts.


Author(s):  
Sandra Abegglen ◽  
Tom Burns ◽  
Dave Middlebrook ◽  
Sandra Sinfield

This case study shows how we have used textscrolls to address academic reading in our Facilitating Student Learning postgraduate module. We outline how we explored with staff the potential of the textscroll to offer a more welcoming, accessible, collaborative and dialogic encounter with reading than the codex (bound book or article). Drawing briefly on a literature review commissioned when part of the LearnHigher Centre for Excellence in Teaching and Learning, we consider reading not just as a semantic or linguistic activity but as a socio-political one, especially for those, like our students, who are typically placed as educational outsiders. We harness the work of Dave Middlebrook (one of our co-authors) and his discussion of the power relations of the bound text and the liberatory potential of the unrolled textscroll. We conclude with an example of what happened when one of our staff participants took scrolls back to her third year Design students, and we argue that utilising emancipatory teaching practices can make higher education more inclusive.


Author(s):  
Jackie HeeYoung Kim ◽  
Lucas John Jensen

This chapter will showcase two practitioners' experiences in using technology tools to promote student engagement in learning in high school and college classroom contexts. A review of the characteristics of technology tools used and the suitable theoretical background of the use of their chosen technology tools will be presented respectively. This is followed by an overview of two failed instructional experimentations to integrate technology tools into existing teaching formats. The chapter will present a series of reflections on the suitability of educational incentives that technology can offer and provide some pedagogical insight for teachers who are thinking of using technology tools as a means to support student learning. This chapter will contribute to conducting successful research and development that can advance the effective use of technology to support teaching and learning.


This chapter expands the knowledge about virtual learning in smart higher education, and how these processes can be a tool for motivated and student-centered learning in a resource-enriched virtual learning environment with technology-embedded tools. Methodologically, selected articles are reviewed to expand the knowledge about virtual learning in smart higher education and with an example analysis of an open question (N=57) among teacher educators (N=105) about what kind of education they need for using a virtual learning environment with different tools. Theoretically, the analysis of the answers is based on the TPACK model and Gees five learning principles. The findings highlight that higher education and academic researchers have much to learn about teaching and learning in a virtual learning environment and in virtual reality that can enhance student-centered learning and reveal the pedagogical surplus value in their own teaching and learning context through the use of technology for an educational purpose.


Author(s):  
L. C. Chan

This chapter deals with the concept of mindfulness as a skill required both by teachers and by students. This concept is explored by providing a brief review of why the concept of mindfulness is gaining attention in medicine and higher education. As a mindful practitioner, the author describes examples of how mindful practices in his daily life have opened and enriched his teaching experiences and enhanced student learning. Mindful practice has also enabled the author to take a broader perspective of how medical schools can develop “better” doctors. In engaging with colleagues across the university, the author has applied this perspective to develop a medical humanities course for the undergraduate medical curriculum.


Author(s):  
Adrian Kirkwood ◽  
Linda Price

This chapter considers some of the theoretical foundations of teaching and learning in higher education and how these are reflected in practice. We consider how varying conceptions of teaching and learning with technology have an impact upon how teachers design teaching and learning. This chapter reviews why these variations are important and how they can affect the design of the curriculum and ultimately what and how students learn. We conclude that promoting increased use of technology does little, if anything, to improve student learning. It is only by attending to higher education teachers’ conceptions of teaching and learning with technology and supporting change in this area that significant progress will be achieved. In this chapter we advocate that informed design in the use of technology is underpinned by beliefs about (conceptions of) teaching and learning with technology. To this end the chapter explores some of the theoretical underpinnings of these conceptions and argues that they are fundamental to driving well-informed practice in the use of technology to support student learning.


2014 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 35-38 ◽  
Author(s):  
Florea Silvia ◽  
Hoareau Mcgrath Cecile

Abstract In the context of the ever growing use of technology through e-learning and open-courseware, our paper describes a project that is being carried out by a consortium of twelve university partners and is coordinated by the University of Maastricht and RAND Europe (Cambridge). This project sets out to examine the evolution and sustainability of the innovative modes of higher education provision in teaching and learning across Europe, the motivations for their emergence as well as the ways in which higher education management and governance have responded and adapted to such new modes of provision. In the highly competitive sector of higher education (HE), while attempting to enhance the quality of teaching and learning, the increasing range of teaching and learning providers (encouraging both new delivery models and the ‘unbundling of delivery’ through partnerships, spin-out organisations, franchising, etc.), has challenged the ‘traditional’ model of university and stimulated changes in the provision and management of higher education. Our paper describes the general framework of the project, foregrounding the first preliminary results of the first European-wide analysis of such innovative modes of provision in teaching and learning in Europe.


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