Avoiding the Mediocrity Pact

This chapter identifies a problem in higher education affecting all levels of participants from student to trustee. It is a condition where teachers pretend they are teaching, and students pretend they are learning. Brazilian anthropologist Darcy Ribeiro observed education in Brazil, identifying one of its maladies in coining the expression “O Pacto da Mediocridade” — the Mediocrity Pact. Cohen and March analyzed universities characterizing them as organized anarchies. The chapter conceptualizes the term and provides examples of the pact in action in the COVID-19 pandemic context. The authors identified problems challenging higher education management and suggested strategies to overcome the pact. Finally, they emphasize the higher education benefits of citizenship, better appreciation of culture and arts, and learning to live peacefully in a democratic and changing society.

Online learning in higher music education: Benefits, challenges and drawbacks of one-to-one videoconference instrumental lessons

Online music courses are becoming more common in higher education thanks to the always increasing technological advances. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic many universities around the world have been forced to turn to online learning. There are currently several options to deliver online musical tuition, but most of them offer limited results. Online learning provides many advantages related to time and money saving, as well as ecological-related matters, access from remote areas and interaction between students and teachers around the world. However, most often communication will take place using platforms tailored for speech, which will have a significant impact on the lesson quality. Although face-to-face lessons cannot be completely replaced to guarantee quality tuition, online lessons can be a helpful complement in certain situations. This article aims to identify the most common limitations of the platforms available at the moment, suggesting different approaches to lessen the weaknesses of online instrumental one-to-one teaching.

AN INVESTIGATION OF CZECH STUDENTS' PERCEPTIONS TOWARDS UK HIGHER EDUCATION – BENEFITS AND POST-BREXIT ISSUE

This paper covers an insight on how EU students specifically ‘Czech students’ would behave after Brexit, i.e. how Brexit would affect their selection of the UK higher education. Further, this study also examines why Czech students would choose UK over other EU and English speaking countries. In particular, this study examines three objectives: (i) to examine why Czech students would choose the UK over other European countries, (ii) to examine what are the value-added features that UK higher education would provide to students from the Czech Republic, and (iii) to examine how Brexit would affect Czech students’ selection of the UK’s higher education. A qualitative study was conducted with students based in universities in North-East. The findings suggest that Czech students choose UK because of its language, global recognition, job prospects, work-based learning, innovative teaching methods, quality of teaching, less distance between UK and Czech Republic, culture, and international environment are some of the reasons to choose UK as destination. Further, they have suggested that coming UK was their and their families’ dream. They have also explained that after Brexit, UK would not be as attractive as the current time. They mentioned that limitations in students’ loans, financial help, internships, NHS facilities, increase in prices, racial abuses, and fees would be few of the reasons to stop them to choose UK for higher educations. Implications and limitations are discussed in the study.<p> </p><p><strong> Article visualizations:</strong></p><p><img src="/-counters-/edu_01/0942/a.php" alt="Hit counter" /></p>

Prisoners’ Experiences of Foundation Skills – an Intensive Adult Literacy and Numeracy Programme Delivered in New Zealand Prisons

<p>This transcendental phenomenological study addresses a gap in the current literature by exploring prisoners’ experiences of Foundation Skills, an intensive Adult Literacy and Numeracy (ALN) programme delivered in New Zealand prisons. Research with prisoners may help to improve the effectiveness of existing programmes and policies and thus contribute towards rehabilitation aims. In this study, ten male prisoners were interviewed about their experiences of Foundation Skills. The data was analysed using Creswell’s (2007) simplified version of the Stevick-Colaizzi-Keen method outlined by Moustakas (1994) to arrive at a description of the essence of the participants’ experiences. The study found that the essence of the participants’ experiences was an increased interest and enjoyment in learning and education. The men all valued the programme as well as the opportunity to learn collaboratively. The participants’ aspirations for a better life and a better future for themselves and their whānau had a significant influence on their decision to learn and participate in education. Benefits of the programme, as well as factors that support or create barriers to learning were identified. The study outlines the implications of the findings for policy and practice and provides suggestions for future research.</p>

Prisoners’ Experiences of Foundation Skills – an Intensive Adult Literacy and Numeracy Programme Delivered in New Zealand Prisons

<p>This transcendental phenomenological study addresses a gap in the current literature by exploring prisoners’ experiences of Foundation Skills, an intensive Adult Literacy and Numeracy (ALN) programme delivered in New Zealand prisons. Research with prisoners may help to improve the effectiveness of existing programmes and policies and thus contribute towards rehabilitation aims. In this study, ten male prisoners were interviewed about their experiences of Foundation Skills. The data was analysed using Creswell’s (2007) simplified version of the Stevick-Colaizzi-Keen method outlined by Moustakas (1994) to arrive at a description of the essence of the participants’ experiences. The study found that the essence of the participants’ experiences was an increased interest and enjoyment in learning and education. The men all valued the programme as well as the opportunity to learn collaboratively. The participants’ aspirations for a better life and a better future for themselves and their whānau had a significant influence on their decision to learn and participate in education. Benefits of the programme, as well as factors that support or create barriers to learning were identified. The study outlines the implications of the findings for policy and practice and provides suggestions for future research.</p>

Distance Education amid the COVID-19 Pandemic from the Students' point of view

This study aims at exploring the forms, benefits and obstacles of distance education during COVID-19 pandemic. The study adopted the cross-sectional research approach. A sample of 377 university students were conveniently recruited during the second semester of the academic year 2020/2021. The researchers developed a valid and reliable questionnaire that consisted of three parts; they were investigating forms of distance education, benefits of distance education, and obstacles of distance education during COVID-19 pandemic. The results of the study indicated that synchronous e-learning and using social media channels were the mostly used means to deliver the educational material during the COVID-19 period. Reduction of the expenses and better academic performance were reported to be the most achieved benefits by the students from distance learning during COVID-19 pandemic. The study concluded that distance education during COVID-19 imposed different forms of education that in turn imposed various benefits and obstacles for the students Keywords: COVID-19, distance education, Jordan, Cross-sectional, forms, benefits.

Minecraft in Education Benefits Learning and Social Engagement

Empirical evidence suggests game-based learning (GBL) as a potentially engaging form of contemporary learning. With the increase in the use of Minecraft, a sandbox computer game in open-world format, there has been a concurrent rise in the level of interest in investigating the role of Minecraft in social and academic learning. Minecraft is socially interactive, and its cooperative, rather than competitive, open-world gameplay suggests that it could be used for educational purposes. This paper presents a systematic review of all published peer-reviewed research and synthesises the evidence for and against Minecraft's use in education to better understand the applicability of Minecraft in educational and psychological interventions. Forty-two papers were identified. These revealed Minecraft to be beneficial in terms of increased motivation, language development, and academic learning in subjects such as science and history. Minecraft play also supported the development of social skills, including communication, sharing, collaboration, and leadership. Concerns about age-appropriateness, safety, technology use, and learning generalisation were raised, but on balance, the evidence favours an informed and guided employment of Minecraft for improved opportunities for learning and engagement in education.

Two-Dimensional Cartesian Coordinate System Educational Toolkit: 2D-CACSET

Engineering education benefits from the application of modern technology, allowing students to learn essential Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) related concepts through hands-on experiences. Robotic kits have been used as an innovative tool in some educational fields, being readily accepted and adopted. However, most of the time, such kits’ knowledge level requires understanding basic concepts that are not always appropriate for the student. A critical concept in engineering is the Cartesian Coordinate System (CCS), an essential tool for every engineering, from graphing functions to data analysis in robotics and control applications and beyond. This paper presents the design and implementation of a novel Two-Dimensional Cartesian Coordinate System Educational Toolkit (2D-CACSET) to teach the two-dimensional representations as the first step to construct spatial thinking. This innovative educational toolkit is based on real-time location systems using Ultra-Wide Band technology. It comprises a workbench, four Anchors pinpointing X+, X−, Y+, Y− axes, seven Tags representing points in the plane, one listener connected to a PC collecting the position of the Tags, and a Graphical User Interface displaying these positions. The Educational Mechatronics Conceptual Framework (EMCF) enables constructing knowledge in concrete, graphic, and abstract levels. Hence, the students acquire this knowledge to apply it further down their career path. For this paper, three instructional designs were designed using the 2D-CACSET and the EMCF to learn about coordinate axes, quadrants, and a point in the CCS.