scholarly journals Developing ESD Competences in Higher Education Institutions—Staff Training at the University of Vechta

2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (24) ◽  
pp. 10336
Author(s):  
Lukas Scherak ◽  
Marco Rieckmann

Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) competences have been widely discussed over the past decade. A number of frameworks have been developed, and the Erasmus+ Project “A Rounder Sense of Purpose” (RSP) set out to establish a profound and practical framework of competences to be used in any European context to enable in-service and pre-service educators to demonstrate their competence in ESD. Over the course of two years at the University of Vechta, staff training was provided using the RSP competences model as a guiding framework. Data were collected through a focus group and a self-assessment survey in order to answer the research question, “Which competences do university teachers need in order to work with the concept of ESD in higher education and how can these be developed in a series of staff training workshops?” The results show that all 12 RSP competences are indeed relevant for higher education teaching, but the potential for developing them into a staff training programme is limited. There are multiple trigger points and settings that are beneficial to and necessary for the development of ESD competences. If those conditions are not met there is limited opportunity for applying ESD methods within higher education.

1995 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
pp. 133-137 ◽  
Author(s):  
Juan Fernández ◽  
Miguel A. Mateo ◽  
José Muñiz

The conditions are investigated in which Spanish university teachers carry out their teaching and research functions. 655 teachers from the University of Oviedo took part in this study by completing the Academic Setting Evaluation Questionnaire (ASEQ). Of the three dimensions assessed in the ASEQ, Satisfaction received the lowest ratings, Social Climate was rated higher, and Relations with students was rated the highest. These results are similar to those found in two studies carried out in the academic years 1986/87 and 1989/90. Their relevance for higher education is twofold because these data can be used as a complement of those obtained by means of students' opinions, and the crossing of both types of data can facilitate decision making in order to improve the quality of the work (teaching and research) of the university institutions.


2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (11) ◽  
pp. 6363
Author(s):  
Johanna Andrea Espinosa-Navarro ◽  
Manuel Vaquero-Abellán ◽  
Alberto-Jesús Perea-Moreno ◽  
Gerardo Pedrós-Pérez ◽  
Pilar Aparicio-Martínez ◽  
...  

Information and communication technologies (ICTs) are key to create sustainable higher education institutions (HEIs). Most researchers focused on the students’ perspective, especially during the online teaching caused by COVID-19; however, university teachers are often forgotten, having their opinion missing. This study’s objective was to determine the factors that contribute to the inclusion of ICTs. The research based on a comparative study through an online qualitative survey focused on the inclusion and use of ICTs in two HEIs and two different moments (pre-and post-lockdowns). There were differences regarding country and working experience (p < 0.001), being linked to the ICTs use, evaluation of obstacles, and the role given to ICTs (p < 0.05). The COVID-19 caused modifications of the teachers’ perspectives, including an improvement of the opinion of older teachers regarding the essentialness of ICTs in the teaching process (p < 0.001) and worsening their perception about their ICTs skill (p < 0.05). Additionally, an initial model focused only on the university teachers and their use of ICTs has been proposed. In conclusion, the less experienced university teachers used more ICTs, identified more greatly the problematic factors, and considered more important the ICTs, with the perception of all teachers modified by COVID-19.


2021 ◽  
Vol 99 ◽  
pp. 01004
Author(s):  
Tatiana Tregubova

In the context of socio-pedagogical transformations of higher education organizations, the modernization of the system of teachers’ professional development becomes an integral component of the reforms. Today university teachers have to be ready for continuous development and advanced training throughout their lives. Thus, the study of the problem of university teachers’ professional development in Russia and abroad is very relevant and timely as a response to the modern requirements of civil society for the personality of the teacher. The need for professional development among university teachers is closely related to his (her) desire for more successful indicators in teaching activities. To do this, it is necessary to fulfill several pedagogical conditions, including the teacher's own awareness of the need for professional development; the interest of the university administration and the availability of resources to organize an effective professional development system, etc. The purpose of the article is to show some successful practices of the teachers’ professional development in Russian, Chinese and European universities which the author observed while visiting those universities within the realization the project “Enhancing teaching practice in the universities of Russia and China”. The article presents the possibilities of benchmarking in higher education, in particular, the use of the benchmarking technology as a method of studying the effective practices of organizing the teachers’ professional development in a modern university.


Author(s):  
Felipe Furtado-Guimarães ◽  
Kyria Rebeca Finardi

This chapter discusses intercultural education (in general) addressing some of its challenges and opportunities within a local context of a public university in Brazil. A review of literature on intercultural education and internationalization of higher education was conducted, followed by a meta-analysis of a corpus composed of 22 studies/documents in the university analyzed, comparing them with the reviewed literature. The study sought to answer the research question of what are the possibilities and limitations of intercultural education in the university analyzed (UFES). The discussion contrasts the analysis of the corpus with the literature reviewed suggesting that UFES adopts English as a Medium of Instruction (EMI) approaches and internationalization models from the Global North which in turn, pose more difficulties than possibilities for intercultural education there. The chapter concludes that the use of other languages besides English in approaches such as CLIL, COIL, and Intercomprehension represent relevant alternatives to foster multilingualism and intercultural education in that context.


2021 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 204-211
Author(s):  
Mirela Mabić ◽  
Dražena Gašpar ◽  
Vanja Šimićević

The global pandemic of the virus COVID-19 dramatically has impacted Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) in Bosnia and Herzegovina and worldwide. HEIs were forced to switch overnight to online lectures and exams without almost any teachers' and students' preparation and education. After one year of online classes at the University of Mostar (SUM), whether that kind of teaching impacts creativity. In order to find the answer to the research question, the authors used a questionnaire they developed and applied in 2015 to investigate students' perceptions about creativity at the University of Mostar. The research presented in this paper is limited to SUM students who have had online classes since March 2020. The primary research goal is to investigate whether there are any significant changes in students' perceptions of creativity compared to research from 2015. Namely, the authors investigate whether the enhanced use of IT and online platforms (Google Meet, SUMARUM – the University of Mostar’s variant of Moodle) affected students' creativity. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.


2020 ◽  
Vol 87 ◽  
pp. 00063
Author(s):  
N.B. Samoylenko ◽  
L.N. Zharko ◽  
A.A. Georgiadi

In this research, the authors aim to determine the teachers’ professional image in the present-day context. The issues of teachers’ new role, new image and professional conditions are analyzed with regard to the reforms and commercialization of higher education as the most common trends. The paper examines the data of the survey which was conducted on the basis of written questionnaire designed to investigate the university teachers’ readiness to work in the new conditions, their readiness to innovation, the factors constraining innovation in the sphere of higher education in the context of its commercialization. The research carries value to education policymakers and university authorities. They can use these findings to reflect on regulations that would ensure favorable academic environment and increase the brand image of their staff.


2020 ◽  
Vol 79 ◽  
pp. 03015 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sergey Georgievich Vorovshchikov ◽  
Olga Andreyevna Lyubchenko ◽  
Aishat Shahmadovna Shakhmanova ◽  
Andrey Alexandrovich Marinyuk ◽  
Lhaamtseren Bold

The article deals with organizational details and results of the infrastructural project that has been implemented over 15 years in several Moscow schools with consulting support of a pedagogical university. The goal of the project: through the interaction of schools and the university, develop and test a comprehensive system of didactic and methodological support for the development of research culture in schoolchildren as a metasubject result. Such support has been designed as a complex intraschool didactic and methodological system that includes the priority values and goals of meta-subject education, the determination of the activity-based component of meta-subject education content, the projects of meta-subject courses, methodological recommendations on designing meta-subject lessons and organizing students’ research. This system of didactic and methodological support requires managerial assistance that ensures coordination and consistency in the work of additional education pedagogues, teachers, university teachers who consult student research.


2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 209-229
Author(s):  
Barbora Nekardová

In this paper, I deal with the question of how university teachers perceive and evaluate their pedagogical development. I originate from a qualitative analysis of 9 in-depth semi-structured interviews with teachers from different faculties of Masaryk University who participated in a two-semester educational program aimed at increasing pedagogical competencies organized by the university. The respondents draw attention to the lack of educational opportunities to support pedagogical competencies, identifying several areas in which they would like to develop. That is why they had applied for a program organized by the University. As a part of this program, it wasn‘t the intensive full-time course led by experienced lecturers that teachers evaluated as the best, but a collaboration with a mentor they chose from their colleagues on their own. These findings are discussed in the context of current efforts of higher education institutions to achieve excellence in teaching.


Neofilolog ◽  
2019 ◽  
pp. 29-57
Author(s):  
Krystyna Mihułka

The aim of this article is to discuss two types of evaluation of students’ language skills: external evaluation (objective) and self-assessment (subjective). The article presents the results of the study conducted among students of German Philology at the University of Rzeszów. The language proficiency level of respondents was assessed three times by means of certified language tests and a self-assessment questionnaire developed in accordance with the CEFR guidelines (2001). The data provided the answer to the main research question: whether and to what extent the students’ self-assessment corresponds to their results achieved in the standardized tests.


2014 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 205-222
Author(s):  
Ariana Gabriela Acón-Matamoros ◽  
Javier Cox-Alvarado

Se detalla una propuesta para la creación de un centro de atención integral al estudiante de la Universidad Estatal a Distancia (UNED), que reúna los componentes administrativos y tecnológicos, enfocados en atención al cliente, para brindar una respuesta de calidad a los estudiantes.La importancia de la creación del centro de atención integral al estudiante se describe en el desarrollo de esta investigación, y los beneficios inmediatos para los estudiantes y la universidad.A su vez una mejora en el servicio que se presta al estudiantado, representa el mejoramiento continuo, repercute en la calidad de la educación superior que brinda la universidad a sus estudiantes, apoyado por los sistemas de información con los que se cuenta y los procesos de autoevaluación y acreditación de la UNED.Palabras clave: atención integral, servicio al estudiante, calidad en los servicios, calidad en la educación superior.AbstractA proposal for the creation of the student integral attention for the Universidad Estatal a Distancia (UNED), satisfying the administrative and technological components, focused on customer service to provide quality feedback to students is detailed.The importance of the creation of the student integral attention is described on this research and the immediate benefits for students and the university.At the same time an improvement in the service provided to students, represents the continuous improvement and makes an impact in the quality of higher education that the university provides to its students, supported by the information systems that already exists and the self-assessment and accreditation process of the UNEDKeywords: integral attention, student services, services quality, higher education quality.


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