Lecturers’ perception on the implementation of approaches to teaching literature in EFL classrooms

The selection of appropriate approach(es) to teaching literature in EFL classrooms becomes a necessity that they can result in good performance of the students, both in their critical thinking aspect and their language proficiency. The problem appears when the lecturer does not implement a suitable approach to literary analysis when teaching literature to the EFL students. These problems led to the student’s inability to perform as expected. The present study examines how lecturers perceive the implementation of approaches to teaching literature in EFL classrooms and their relations to improving the students’ reflective writing skills as the manifestation of the student’ responses to the literary works. Among the approaches studied were the Language-based approach, the Reader-Response approach, and the Philosophical approach. The study was carried out on six lecturers teaching the Literary Criticism course in the EFL classrooms at the university level. A questionnaire was distributed to the lecturers teaching this course at a university in Semarang, Indonesia, containing eight-question items regarding how they perceive the literary approaches and how effective they used them in improving the students’ reflective writing skills, in encouraging the students to think critically about the events in literary works and in relating the readings to some aspects of their own lives. The study revealed that each literary analysis approach in teaching literature has its benefits and characteristics. The study results also showed that each approach has its strengths and weaknesses that differ from one another.

‘The Game of the Sea’: An Interdisciplinary Educational Board Game on the Marine Environment and Ocean Awareness for Primary and Secondary Students

Games are a proven tool for learning at all ages and in many contexts. They increase the attractiveness of learning processes through arousing interest and enhancing motivation, and aid with the development of social skills. Educational games provide teachers with different approaches to teaching. ‘The Game of the Sea’ is an interdisciplinary board game, specifically designed to teach its players about the marine environment, regardless of their age. Through its 68 sections, coloured according to particular topics and organised as a fish shape, players encounter a wide range of questions and activities. Through playing this game, players acquire a broad knowledge of science, the marine environment and its importance, and literature. The game uses an interdisciplinary approach with question cards on a variety of topics (including maths, physics, biology, chemistry, art, etc.). A total of 222 players (111 children, aged 11–15, and 111 adults, aged 18–72) tested the game. These players were enrolled in different formal and non-formal educational contexts and had different educational backgrounds. For a qualitative analysis of game sessions (participant observation), researchers acted as game moderators and, while doing so, made subtle observations of players playing the game. On top of this, the value of the game, as a didactic tool, was evaluated with a test that players took before and after the game. After playing the game, knowledge of the marine environment, increased in both children and adults, with a slightly higher increase in children. Therefore, ‘The Game of the Sea’ is suitable for teaching all ages about the marine environment. Further, this game can impart to its players the importance of the marine environment and the importance of protecting this environment.

Dismantling white supremacy in environmental studies and sciences: an argument for anti-racist and decolonizing pedagogies

Many academic disciplines are presently striving to reveal and dismantle structures of domination by working to reform and reimagine their curricula, and the ethics and values that underpin classroom settings. This trend is impelled by momentum from the Black Lives Matter movement in tandem with a worldwide call from Indigenous scholars and their allies for more equality in research and epistemological plurality. We contribute to such efforts through applying perspective and analysis concerning anti-racist and decolonized approaches to teaching environmental studies and sciences (ESS). This article discusses the opportunities and challenges of embracing a decolonized and anti-racist approach with an emphasis on courses in higher education in North America. We conclude with guidance for educators about strategies for incorporating such approaches.

Delivering Cybersecurity Education Effectively

This chapter draws on current research and best practice into teaching in cybersecurity in higher education. The chapter provides a theoretical and pedagogical foundation for helping tutors make decisions about what topics to include and approaches to teaching and assessing the cybersecurity curriculum. There are of course a range of potential stakeholders in cybersecurity education ranging from government, policy, and law makers to all members of society. However, for the purposes of brevity, this chapter will focus on learners and those creating and delivering cybersecurity education in the higher education (HE) sector.

Practicing Resistance and the Struggle over Power as Democratic Citizenship

Teaching democratic citizenship has never been more vital, particularly given the dismissive attitude and direct attempts to undermine democratic institutions exemplified by the Trump administration. In addition, traditional approaches to teaching citizenship foreground the underlying values of self-governance, knowledge of the different branches of government, and the skills for behaving within this system (i.e., voting) but lack a broader intellectual framework to guide those actions (Parker, Teaching democracy: Unity and diversity in public life, 2003). Parker, a critical multicultural educator, argued that this approach has rendered participatory citizenship superfluous and ignores more central concerns, namely, how people can live together justly while honoring their multiple individual and group identities (i.e., gender, race, class, religion, etc.). This essay focuses on the task of living together justly and offers one example of how this might be promoted through the communication studies curriculum.

Behavior of Czech Teachers in the Techambition System during the COVID-19 Epidemic

In 2020, the global pandemic of COVID-19 significantly affected most human activities, including education. Many countries took anti-epidemic measures to reduce or eliminate the pandemic, which often included reduction or cancellation of full-time face-to-face school education. This, of course, went hand in hand with a number of technical, organizational, and pedagogical-didactic issues that had to be solved instantly. The presented study analyzes the behavior of more than 1000 secondary school teachers in the e-learning system named Techambition for mathematics education developed by the company with the same name. In the study, data from the spring and autumn 2020 waves of the pandemic are analyzed and presented (the period from 1 March 2020 until 18 March 2021). The main outcome of the study is a description of the basic types of approaches to teaching, based on cluster analysis of the collected data. The collected data show three basic types of teachers’ behavior during spring 2020 that were identified based on their characteristics: organized, hardworking, and seekers and three basic types of teachers’ behavior during autumn 2020: organized, seekers, and experimenters. As part of the findings, we present an interpretation of the data through the description of individual groups and monitor the changes in teachers’ behavior between the spring and the autumn 2020 period of the pandemic.

Learning to program: An overview of the main difficulties of the initial stage

The article discusses approaches to teaching programming to primary school students. The emphasis is placed on typical difficulties that students experience while learning programming, on the reasons for these difficulties and possible methods for overcoming them. A retrospective of the development of teaching programming in Russian schools is presented, including in comparison with international experience. The place of the initial programming course in the system of educational results of primary education has been determined. Based on the analysis of the works of A. P. Ershov, A. V. Goryachev, E. K. Henner, M. Gujberova, I. Kalaš, S. Grozdev, J. Wing and other specialists, a connection has been established between teaching programming and a broad interpretation of the term "literacy", as well as computational thinking. The results of the authors' research are presented, in particular, the differences identified in the approaches to teaching programming for primary schoolchildren, implemented by primary school teachers and informatics teachers, are discussed. Based on the analysis of scientific and methodological literature, a number of problems that arise during early learning in programming are identified, in particular, such as: "Computer for the sake of the computer ", "Lack of links between the algorithm and the program", "Playing instead of learning". In the course of practical research, the causes and possible ways of overcoming these problems have been established. In addition, in the course of the study, the authors identified and described in this article several types of problems that still require further study: "Click for a click", "Not a reader", "Stupid robot", "Decomposition", "Geometry", "Many the same question

Advantages and Challenges of Cooperative Learning in Two Different Cultures

Cooperative learning (CL) is a teaching and learning pedagogy that has been used widely in school but there is limited information on instructors’ perceptions of CL nor observations of how CL is implemented in higher education settings. In this study, we used an interpretative-qualitative approach to investigate the advantages and challenges of embedding CL in instructors’ teaching in Iran and Australia. Data were collected through interviews and observations and thematic analysis method was used to analyse the data. Results showed that despite challenges such as the lack of familiarity with CL and how it can be implemented in university curricula, issues associated with assessment, and time constraints, CL created an interactive, pleasant, and safe environment for deep learning in both countries. The findings showed that there were challenges in Iran such as a tendency to use traditional approaches to teaching, insufficient understanding of how to establish teamwork, and a lack of up-to-date teaching resources. In Australia, changing courses, working with external students, catering for individual differences, and building positive relationships were some of the challenges of implementing CL. We believe that these challenges can be overcome if university instructors are prepared to address them.