Special Education and General Education Teacher Perceptions of Collaborative Teaching Responsibilities and Attitudes Towards an Inclusive Environment in Jordan

The purpose of this study was to investigate how general and special education instructors perceive their collaborative teaching responsibilities and their attitudes toward inclusive environments. A self-administered questionnaire was distributed to 300 teachers in accordance with the social interdependence theory and cooperative learning conceptual framework. The survey was composed of two parts. The first section examined collaborative teaching duties for both instructors. It included 29 items and four categories (planning, instruction, evaluation, and behavior management). The second section included 15 items to assess attitudes toward inclusion. The study enrolled a total of 233 teachers (123 in special education and 110 in general education) with a response rate of 78%. The results showed that there was agreement between general and special education on only one of the four domains (instruction). Additionally, special education teachers expressed a more favorable attitude toward inclusion than did general education teachers. The current situation’s implications were explored with an emphasis on the necessity for additional shared practical activities among teachers.

Project-Based Learning on the Topic of Aromatic Wax Production

Project-based learning is one of the most effective and successful teaching methods for STEM topics. Project-based teaching is an open-ended teaching method that helps teachers stimulate students’ initiative and teamwork skills and promote creativity. Of the interdisciplinary STEM topics, teaching students how to produce aromatic wax proved an interesting topic, causing excitement to students. Through collaborative teaching, this research has shown that students are very interested in learning to produce aromatic wax. The research results also show that there are five factors that greatly affect project-based teaching: (1) Teachers must split the class into groups to implement projects effectively; (2) Topics must be attractive and motivate students to appreciate, explore and produce STEM products; (3) Students must have a positive attitude, unafraid of encountering difficulties and challenges in completing STEM tasks; (4) Students must be competent to implement STEM products; (5) Students must be facilitated by their school and their parents to complete the STEM tasks. The research findings have important implications for proposing a specific project-based learning curriculum on the STEM topic of aromatic wax production.

A Blended Collaborative Teaching Mode in Language Learning Based on Recommendation Algorithm

With the continuous expansion of economic globalization, English, as the official language in the world, has a high popularity. It can be related to a better development in the future. Meanwhile, with the continuous progress of technology in modern society, multimedia online teaching has become the main means in colleges and universities, which especially brings great changes to foreign language teaching. However, foreign language teaching is facing many difficulties such as large number of contents, less lessons and low participation of students in class. Therefore, the reform of college foreign language teaching is imperative. Based on blended collaborative teaching mode, the paper has designed a “Three Classes” composed of “Communication Class”, “Famous Teacher Class” and “Elite Online Class”. Teaching process has been designed according to the cognitive process of “Previewing before class, consolidating in class and expanding after class”. In addition, recommendation algorithm has been used to collect data on four dimensions, namely, involvement in foreign language learning, content completion of foreign language learning, interaction in foreign language learning and effectiveness of foreign language learning. A performance evaluation system for foreign language learning supported by big data has been established. The results of teaching practice have proved that the blended collaborative teaching mode implemented in the study can be integrated into the whole teaching process through intelligent data analysis, information sharing and technology application, improving teaching quality, enhancing the interaction between teachers and students, which is worthy of promotion and application.

What Does Our Discipline Mean? Uncertainties of Students in Perception of Ethnology and Cultural Anthropology/Case Study of Kosova

When in 2001 the Department of Ethnology and Cultural Anthropology at University of Prishtina was opened for the first time, there was a lack of knowledge about this field of study. Students that enrolled in the Department came up with different reasons and motivations. Since then, the Department made changes and transformations to both the curriculum and the pedagogical approaches used. These changes opened the department to collaborative teaching methods. Over time, narrowly defined, traditional concepts of ethnology and anthropology were expanded into diverse methods, theories and approaches. This article considers the ways in which the department developed and how anthropology was perceived by the students. What were the dilemmas and uncertainties that accompanied students in their choice? How much did parents, relatives and their friends support them? If they would have another opportunity, would they make the same choice again? These are the questions that will be discussed in this paper, besides my personal experience and reflection, firstly as a student in this department and later as teaching assistant.

Peer instruction versus conventional group work-based teaching in a laboratory exercise on respiratory physiology: a randomized study

Collaborative teaching strategies such as peer instruction and conventional group work have previously been shown to enhance meaningful learning, but they have not previously been compared. In this present study, we compared the impact of solving quizzes with peer instruction and conventional group work on immediate learning in a laboratory exercise. A total of 186 second-year medical students were randomized to solve two quizzes by either a peer instruction strategy ( n = 93) or conventional group work ( n = 93) during a mandatory laboratory exercise on respiratory physiology, after which all students completed an individual test. There was no difference in total test scores between groups, but students randomized to peer instruction obtained the highest test scores in solving simple integrated questions. Conversely, students randomized to conventional group work provided the best evaluations of the overall assessment of the laboratory exercise. In conclusion, different collaborative teaching strategies implemented during a laboratory exercise appear to affect immediate learning and student satisfaction differently.

Aboriginal knowledge, the history classroom and the Australian university

PurposeThis article considers the impact of competing knowledge structures in teaching Australian Indigenous history to undergraduate university students and the possibilities of collaborative teaching in this space.Design/methodology/approachThe authors, one Aboriginal and one non-Aboriginal, draw on a history of collaborative teaching that stretches over more than a decade, bringing together conceptual reflective work and empirical data from a 5-year project working with Australian university students in an introductory-level Aboriginal history subject.FindingsIt argues that teaching this subject area in ways which are culturally safe for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander staff and students, and which resist knowledge structures associated with colonial ways of conveying history, is not only about content but also about building learning spaces that encourage students to decolonise their relationships with Australian history.Originality/valueThis article considers collaborative approaches to knowledge transmission in the university history classroom as an act of decolonising knowledge spaces rather than as a model of reconciliation.

ATON: An Open-Source Framework for Creating Immersive, Collaborative and Liquid Web-Apps for Cultural Heritage

The web and its recent advancements represent a great opportunity to build universal, rich, multi-user and immersive Web3D/WebXR applications targeting Cultural Heritage field—including 3D presenters, inspection tools, applied VR games, collaborative teaching tools and much more. Such opportunity although, introduces additional challenges besides common issues and limitations typically encountered in this context. The “ideal” Web3D application should be able to reach every device, automatically adapting its interface, rendering and interaction models—resulting in a single, liquid product that can be consumed on mobile devices, PCs, Museum kiosks and immersive AR/VR devices, without any installation required for final users. The open-source ATON framework is the result of research and development activities carried out during the last 5 years through national and international projects: it is designed around modern and robust web standards, open specifications and large open-source ecosystems. This paper describes the framework architecture and its components, assessed and validated through different case studies. ATON offers institutions, researchers, professionals a scalable, flexible and modular solution to craft and deploy liquid web-applications, providing novel and advanced features targeting Cultural Heritage field in terms of 3D presentation, annotation, immersive interaction and real-time collaboration.

Information literacy : how do librarians and academics work in partnership to deliver effective learning programmes?

<p>The growing awareness in universities of the need to produce graduates who are information literate is resulting in the need for academics and librarians to provide learning programmes that develop students' information literacy. Unfortunately, little detail about the operation of information literacy programmes and the teaching partnerships between librarians and academics is reported in the literature. So a qualitative study was conducted at The University of Waikato to investigate how librarians and academics have worked together to develop students' information literacy. The study also sought to identify factors that influence the development and sustainability of successful collaborative partnerships. The results showed that the effectiveness of information literacy programmes depends on a shared understanding of information literacy theory by the teaching partners, as well as the allocation of appropriate resourcing to develop and deliver the programmes. Good communication systems and positive working relationships between the partners are some conditions that were found to be essential to the success of collaborative teaching partnerships, and useful strategies were identified for initiating, developing, and sustaining those partnerships.</p>