scholarly journals Meaningful Learner Information for MOOC Instructors Examined Through a Contextualized Evaluation Framework

2019 ◽  
Vol 20 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Kerrie A Douglas ◽  
Mitchell W. Zielinski ◽  
Hillary Merzdorf ◽  
Heidi A Diefes-Dux ◽  
Peter Bermel
Keyword(s):  
Evaluation Criteria ◽  
Faculty Members ◽  
Traditional Classroom ◽  
Evaluation Framework ◽  
Learning Goals ◽  
Structured Interviews ◽  
Personal Learning ◽  
Course Materials ◽  
Current State ◽  
Qualitative Feedback

Improving STEM MOOC evaluation requires an understanding of the current state of STEM MOOC evaluation, as perceived by all stakeholders.  To this end, we investigated what kinds of information STEM MOOC instructors currently use to evaluate their courses and what kinds of information they feel would be valuable for that purpose.  We conducted semi-structured interviews with 14 faculty members from a variety of fields and research institutions who had taught STEM MOOCs on edX, Coursera, or Udacity.  Four major themes emerged related to instructors' desires: (1) to informally assess learners as an instructor might in a traditional classroom, (2) to assess learners’ attainment of personal learning goals, (3) to obtain in-depth qualitative feedback from learners, and (4) to access more detailed learner analytics regarding the use of course materials.  These four themes contribute to a broader sentiment expressed by the instructors that they have access to a wide variety of quantitative data for use in evaluation, but are largely missing the qualitative information that plays a significant role in traditional evaluation.  Finally, we provide our recommendations for MOOC evaluation criteria, based on these findings.

A Re-Evaluation of Backward Design in Goal Setting, Assessment and Instruction Planning in International Baccalaureate

2021 ◽  
pp. 18-36
Author(s):  
Hyeon-Suk Kang ◽  
Kang-Ye Na
Keyword(s):  
Goal Setting ◽  
International Baccalaureate ◽  
Evaluation Criteria ◽  
Learning Goals ◽  
Backward Design ◽  
Course Materials ◽  
Innovative System

Much research in the field of International Baccalaureate (IB) education has focused on the strengths and weaknesses of this innovative system of education. In contrast, this chapter aims to return the discussion to the more fundamental aspects of IB by considering more deeply the issue of “backward design” and its relevance to the IB in the Korean and Asian contexts. The backward design consists of a) setting goals for learning, b) designing evaluation criteria to assess mastery of the course materials, and c) planning of the instruction in order to attain the learning goals.

scholarly journals Exploring mentorship programs and components in nursing academia: A qualitative study

2017 ◽  
Vol 7 (9) ◽  
pp. 42 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lorelli Nowell ◽  
Deborah E. White ◽  
Karen Benzies ◽  
Patricia Rosenau
Keyword(s):  
Nursing Education ◽  
Peer Group ◽  
Faculty Members ◽  
Structured Interviews ◽  
Mentorship Program ◽  
Current State ◽  
Canadian Association ◽  
Schools Of Nursing ◽  
English Speaking ◽  
Mentorship Programs

Objective: Nursing education institutions globally have issued calls for mentorship to address the nursing faculty shortage; however, little is known about the current state of mentorship for faculty members in Canadian schools of nursing. The purpose of this study is to describe the current state of mentorship in Canadian schools of nursing and explore definitions and goals of mentorship programs, mentorship models and components, and mentorship evaluation.Methods: A qualitative descriptive study was conducted. Within the Canadian Association of Schools of Nursing there are 81 English-speaking schools of nursing and 2,284 permanent faculty members spread over four regions. Participants were recruited from the 81 schools of nursing through the CASN newsletter list serve and publically accessible email addresses. Inclusion was limited to English speaking faculty. Purposive sampling aimed to capture variation across rank and tenure, school, size and areas within Canada.  Semi-structured interviews were utilized to explore the participant’s (n = 48) perspectives and involvement with mentorship.  Interviews were audio-recorded and transcribed verbatim. NVivo was used to code and analyze the data for significant statements and phrases, which were organized into themes and sub-themes.Results: Mentorship remains largely informal in nursing academia without common definitions or goals. Current mentorship in nursing academia employed dyad, peer, group, constellation, and distance mentorship models. Common mentorship program components included guidelines, training, professional development workshops, purposeful linking of mentors and mentees, and mentorship coordinators. Evaluation of mentorship in nursing academia, where it exists, remains mostly descriptive, anecdotal, and lacks common evaluative metrics.Conclusions: Our results confirm mentorship in Canadian schools of nursing remains largely informal. In developing mentorship programs, academic leaders need to consider the mentorship models and components to meet their specific needs. Further rigorous evaluation of mentorship programs and components is needed to identify if mentorship programs are achieving specified goals.

Responding to Wobbly Classrooms through Scaffolded, Peer-Led, Small-Group Presentations of Personal Learning Goals: The Beyond the Book Tool

2021 ◽  
pp. 0092055X2199162
Author(s):  
Greggor Mattson
Keyword(s):  
Social Movements ◽  
Small Group ◽  
Learning Objectives ◽  
Learning Goals ◽  
Collaborative Teams ◽  
Curricular Innovation ◽  
Personal Learning ◽  
Course Materials ◽  
Learning Goal ◽  
Group Presentations

Teaching topics that implicate student identities, traumas, and/or activism is challenging because students often come with very personal attachments to curricular and extracurricular topics, such as in courses on sexualities, race, gender, and/or social movements. These classes may be described as “wobbly,” responding to outside events and occasionally tipping over. Wobbly classes present an opportunity, however, to meet students where they are while achieving broader course and learning objectives. This teaching note presents a curricular innovation, Beyond the Book (BtB). BtB directs students to articulate a personal learning goal and groups students into collaborative teams to peer teach peer-reviewed scholarship on common themes in scaffolded sessions. This framework allows students to develop their personal learning goals in the context of shared course materials, fosters collaboration and trust, develops their research and presentation skills, and exposes learners to a broad range of research relevant to them.

scholarly journals Faculty and Librarian Perceptions of Librarians as Researchers: Results from Semi-Structured Interviews

2021 ◽  
Vol 7 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maureen Babb
Keyword(s):  
Faculty Members ◽  
Regular Part ◽  
Academic Librarians ◽  
Structured Interviews ◽  
Canadian Universities ◽  
Current State ◽  
Academic Climate ◽  
Academic Librarian ◽  
Conducting Research

Following on the results of an earlier survey, this study explores the perceptions of librarians as researchers according to academic librarians and faculty using semi-structured interviews.  Conducting research is a regular part of the academic librarian role, but one that often faces challenges to its undertaking, and one that is not always recognized.  Exploring perceptions of librarian research helps to understand the current state of librarian research, the barriers faced by librarian researchers, and the value of librarian research.  Fifteen librarians and seven faculty members were interviewed from eight Canadian universities.  The interviews were coded and analysed to identify major themes.  Librarian research was found to be sometimes unsupported and therefore difficult to conduct, but valuable to librarians and the discipline of librarianship.  Additionally, librarian research was found to improve relations between librarians and faculty, and more broadly, was found to create a more collegial academic climate.

scholarly journals Albanian National Action Plan for Roma Inclusion 2016–2020: A Study on the Program Achievements at the Halfway Mark

SAGE Open ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (3) ◽  
pp. 215824402110361
Author(s):  
Gentian Qejvanaj
Keyword(s):  
Action Plan ◽  
Communist Regime ◽  
Background Information ◽  
Structured Interviews ◽  
National Action Plan ◽  
Current State ◽  
The Us ◽  
Implementation Period ◽  
Education And Employment

Roma segregation in Albania has been causing growing concern since the fall of the communist regime. In this study, we analyze the effectiveness of the Albanian national action plan for Roma inclusion 2016–2020, in 2018, halfway in its implementation period. We gathered data on education and employment from the pre-implementation period (2015) and compared it with the latest available data in 2018. Interviews with local experts and surveys by the Balkan Barometer will provide background information to assess the current state of Roma integration in Albania. Moreover, descriptive statistics from national and international institutions and structured interviews will draw an independent narrative of Roma affairs. In our conclusion, we suggest moving beyond the “us and them” approach with programs run on inertia; our findings highlight that although encouraging achievements have been reached under the 2016–2020 action plan, real inclusion is still far, as statistical achievements do not say much about the quality of the education or job training provided under the 2016–2020 action plan.

scholarly journals Technological Platforms for Inclusive Practice at University: A Qualitative Analysis from the Perspective of Spanish Faculty Members

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (9) ◽  
pp. 4755
Author(s):  
Víctor H. Perera ◽  
Anabel Moriña ◽  
Nieves Sánchez-Díaz ◽  
Yolanda Spinola-Elias
Keyword(s):  
Students With Disabilities ◽  
Virtual Environments ◽  
Faculty Members ◽  
University Teaching ◽  
Structured Interviews ◽  
Face To Face ◽  
Good Account ◽  
Inclusive Learning ◽  
Spanish Public Universities ◽  
Technological Platforms

Currently, the development of new virtual environments as a complementary tool to face-to-face teaching and the increased presence of students with disabilities at university classrooms are changing the landscape of university teaching. This article analyses the actions of faculty members who carry out inclusive practices in the context of technological platforms. The research was based on the assumptions of the qualitative paradigm, using individual semi-structured interviews with 119 faculty members from 10 Spanish public universities. The results show the reasons for inclusive learning with technological platforms, the use that faculty members make of these platforms in their inclusive educational practices, and the influence of these on the learning of students, especially students with disabilities. The conclusions give a good account of the conditions that determine the pedagogical use that faculty members make of virtual environments to facilitate the inclusion of students.

scholarly journals Helping Students Achieve

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nerelie Teese
Keyword(s):  
Goal Setting ◽  
Learning Goals ◽  
Life Skill ◽  
Middle Years ◽  
Personal Learning ◽  
Middle Years Of Schooling ◽  
Teacher Librarians ◽  
Experience Difficulty ◽  
Years Of Schooling

Setting personal learning goals is an important life skill that students are encouraged to develop from the middle years of schooling onwards. However, some students experience difficulty with the processes involved in setting and achieving their goals. This professional paper looks at the role teacher librarians have in collaboratively planning, resourcing, and extending and enriching goal setting activities. Providing resources with authentic examples of goal setting by people from the wider community is one way of developing and extending the motivation and commitment students need to become successful in goal setting tasks and activities. One such resource is recommended and details of it are outlined with suggestions for extending and enriching it with a visit or virtual presentation from its author.

scholarly journals Opportunities presented by the forced occupation of liminal space

2019 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 22-33 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ketevan Kupatadze
Keyword(s):  
Qualitative Analysis ◽  
Cultural Practices ◽  
Third Space ◽  
Faculty Members ◽  
Professional Lives ◽  
Structured Interviews ◽  
Liminal Space ◽  
The Third ◽  
Cultural Hierarchies ◽  
Point Of Departure

In this article I employ the notion of the Third Space as a point of departure in order to expand and complicate our thinking about student-faculty partnerships, with the goal of enquiring into the acceptability of and comfort with such space for faculty who self-identify as underrepresented. I consider the practical and real repercussions for these faculty members of engaging in partnership in the context of a reality that is very much shaped by dominant cultural practices, and racial, social, and cultural hierarchies and divisions, and look at how the concept of the liminal space plays out in their professional lives. The findings presented in the article come out of a qualitative analysis of oral semi-structured interviews with underrepresented faculty.

scholarly journals The Current State of Communication Education in Ghana: A Critical Analysis of Stories from the Field

2021 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 58-69
Author(s):  
Wincharles Coker
Keyword(s):  
Community Of Practice ◽  
Public Universities ◽  
Community Practice ◽  
Communication Education ◽  
Structured Interviews ◽  
Academic Communities ◽  
Current State ◽  
Language Research ◽  
Field Notes ◽  
Education In Ghana

Narratives offer academic communities a moment of reflexivity. However, stories told by members in academic communities are  under-studied. Drawing on Wenger’s idea of community of practice, the present study examined the narratives of 12 senior  communication educators in three public universities in Ghana, and how the narratives shape the knowledge economy. Using field notes, technical documents, and structured interviews, the study revealed that community practice in the field of communication education in Ghanaian public universities is constrained by a not so vibrant community that faces challenges in localising a Western curriculum, and is yet to coordinate its local language research agenda.

scholarly journals The Mechanisation and Automation of the IBS Construction Approach in Malaysia

2018 ◽  
Vol 3 (10) ◽  
pp. 167-177 ◽  
Author(s):  
Siti Syariazulfa Kamaruddin ◽  
Mohammad Fadhil Mohammad ◽  
Rohana Mahbub ◽  
Khairani Ahmad
Keyword(s):  
Open Access ◽  
Publishing House ◽  
Modern Method ◽  
Structured Interviews ◽  
Main Research ◽  
Current State ◽  
Critical Issues ◽  
International Publishing ◽  
Building System ◽  
Open Access Article

The objective of the main research is to investigate the current state of implementation of mechanisation and automation in the Industrialised Building System (IBS). The aim of this paper however, is to provide an overview on the implementation of mechanisation and automation in the IBS construction approach. Questionnaire survey and semi structured interviews were conducted to collect the viewpoints among contractors and manufacturers of IBS to ensure the richness of the data collected. The results illustrated that although most respondents have agreed on most critical issues in the implementation of mechanisation and automation, they were not ready to move forward. These responses were quite consistent across the professions. Keywords: Modern method of construction (MMC); industrialised building system (IBS); mechanisation and automation; environment. eISSN 2514-751X © 2018. The Authors. Published for AMER ABRA cE-Bs by e-International Publishing House, Ltd., UK. This is an open-access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/). Peer–review under responsibility of AMER (Association of Malaysian Environment-Behaviour Researchers), ABRA (Association of Behavioural Researchers on Asians) and cE-Bs (Centre for Environment-Behaviour Studies), Faculty of Architecture, Planning & Surveying, Universiti Teknologi MARA, Malaysia. DOI: https://doi.org/10.21834/aje-bs.v3i10.324

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