Asking is not enough. A research study on teaching qualitative interviews in Italy

In the area of social research, it is not uncommon to come across qualitative interviews (transcribed or recorded) that present conduction strategies which seem to be in contrast to that is recommended by the literature on this subject. In order to understand the reason why this occurs, I present the results of a research carried out among Italian sociologists who use qualitative interviews for their research; I try to establish a connection between the conduction strategies used by researchers and their training. I found three different conducting styles, and divided my interviewees into three categories. But, only one of these categories presents a real positive attitude towards qualitative interviews. The problem is that all these researchers also teach qualitative methods at University or train new interviewers for their research and they pass down their same attitude to their students, for better or worse.

Clinically relevant medicine label-based exercises: a friendly bridge between medicinal chemistry and pharmacotherapeutics

Aims. To make the students of Medicinal Chemistry (MC) course for doctor of pharmacy (PharmD) understand how strongly connected the chemical properties of drugs are to their clinical profiles and therapeutics, and determine students’ satisfaction degree. Design. Students in the spring 2013 section of the MC course were taught in a traditional teacher-centered manner. Students in the spring 2015 and 2016 ones had additional guided clinically relevant medicine label-based exercises. They worked in structured self-selected teams and chemically explained the clinical aspects of the selected drugs during oral communication sessions. They were given a 1 to 4 Likert-type scale satisfaction questionnaire, the data were collected and statistically treated. Results. The project was useful to show the connection between the chemical aspects of drugs and their clinical profiles (mean=3.33±0.65) and globally satisfactory (mean=3.07±0.47). The additional didactic material helped the students in the spring 2016 make the most of the MC course (mean=3.38±0.74, p=0.002). Conclusions. Medicine label-based exercises seem to be helpful to understand the connection between medicinal chemistry and pharmacotherapeutics. Feedback from students is generally quite favourable. The approach taken will continue to be modified and expanded.

Educational course "Basics of working with fans" as a factor in the objectification of perception of the 2018 FIFA World Cup and football fans in Russia

The FIFA 2018 World Cup is a significant event for Russian society. Ministries carry out various actions to promote football in the country. The Russian society of sociologists conducted a survey (4703 respondents) to understand the attitude to the Championship. Further, the teachers of the Ural Federal University conducted a survey of the attitude to football fans. Scientists have found that over the past 7 years, citizens have become more positive about fanaticism, but there is a problem of lack of objective information. To solve this problem, teachers at the Institute of physical culture of the Ural Federal University have developed a special course "Basics of working with the fans". The course is designed for students, postgraduates and teachers of physical education departments of universities, as well as stewards and volunteers. Since September 2017, 118 students have been trained in this course. The course consists of two parts: theoretical – describing the types of fans, information about the differences between fans from different countries; practical – reviewing the real situations of interaction with fans, communicating with Russian and foreign fans. Classes are conducted by a sports psychologist who studies football fans for 8 years.

Impacting Networked Technologies on Teaching Practices

Networked technologies are found permeating all work and life activities even in the education realm. Today’s networked technologies are changing the way we interact within the online environment and amongst themselves. Networked technologies have unleashed a plethora of possibilities for educators to take advantage of by employing them as part of their teaching practices. In this paper are presented findings related to how academics are experiencing networked technologies for teaching and their relation to learning. A phenomenographic approach and subsequently a quantitative stance was employed to shed light on the nature and the current dynamic of such practices. This paper recounts the phenomenographic outcome, but it particularly attends to subsequent quantitative findings obtained from consideration of learning experiences against the phenomenographic map of variation in teaching experiences whereby an unexpected clustering trend was exposed. The outcomes of this exploratory research provide crucial and essential insights for higher education administrators and policy makers on how to regulate themselves with regards to the adoption of networked technologies within their institution.

Layering Learning for Work-Readiness in a Science Programme

In order to prepare our students for a challenging workplace, the Department of Viticulture and Oenology at Stellenbosch University in South Africa have ‘layered’ Engaged Learning strategies throughout the four-year undergraduate degree in an approach that is innovative in a science-based programme. In this research project, we assessed the effects of service-learning (SL) and a six-month internship on student employability by analysing reflections that were collected over a number of years. We also asked industry members whether they felt students had improved in key areas after the final year internship. The student submissions for SL showed evidence of personal growth and transformation, and those for the internship reflected industry requirements for professional skills in a complex and technically demanding milieu. It was found that these engaged experiences provided sound preparation for working life, as well as giving students opportunities for self-questioning and personal growth, which is unusual in the natural sciences learning environment.

EFFECTIVENESS OF BITE-SIZED LECTURE ON STUDENT LEARNING OUTCOMES

Bite-Sized Teaching approach uses relatively small learning units with short term focused activities. The paper presents the effectiveness of Bite-Sized lecture pedagogy on learning outcomes for an analytics course offered by the School of Information Technology at Nanyang Polytechnic. The methodology involves breaking a typical 1 hour lecture into 3 to 4 short lectures followed by related tutorial/practical exercises relevant to each respective short lecture. The results from the exercises show statistically significant improvements in the assessed learning outcomes for the Bite-Sized lecture over the traditional 1 hour lecture. 75% of the surveyed respondents agreed that the speed of the course materials presented in the Bite-Sized lecture was just right. Majority of the repondents agreed or strongly agreed that Bite-Sized lecture helped them to learn better. Although this paper is primarily based on education experiences made within an analytics module, the findings presented are applicable to any other computing related courses or even mathematics related courses in general.

Using Wikipedia as a classroom tool — a translation experience

This paper presents a classroom experience regarding the use of Wikipedia in a teaching innovation project carried out between Jaume I University and Wikimedia Spain. Framed in the current post-postivist climate within the European Higher Education Area (EHEA), Wikipedia will be presented as an inter-disciplinary tool with a relevant number of classroom applications, reflecting how meaningful learning experiences based on collaborative work and authentic project-based tasks lead to better understanding and higher levels of motivation among the students. In the particular case of translation education, it will be argued that using Wikipedia in the course of the reverse translation modules allows the students to gain a deeper insight of its linguistic and discursive structures, as well as the critical/exegetic skills they need in order to assess the kind of texts with which they are commissioned, and the special discursive techniques associated to the translation task.

Internationalisation of a teaching experience: ToSCA UPC education for innovation workshop at UFPS, Colombia

ToSCA is an optional and intensive technical product innovation workshop that aims to include education for innovation of constructive solutions in the grade architecture programme, by applying a didactic structure based on problem solving skills, combined with cooperative learning structures and involving an industry of the sector every edition a client. The workshop has been held annually at the Vallès School of Architecture, Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya, since 2007 and the results of each edition can be found at: http://www.etsav.upc.edu/assignatures/tosca. After eleven editions of ToSCA_ETSAV and one edition in TUM Munich, with a very good outcomes and by the invitation of the School of Architecture of the Francisco de Paula Santander University in Cúcuta, Colombia, we assumed, between both institutions, the challenge of internationalizing the ToSCA experience, to carry out within the Deepening Course "the ceramics in the architectural project", a first educational workshop for the innovation of technical product, suggesting the adaptability of the ToSCA methodology, in a different socio-cultural environment.

OERlabs: Empathy first, solution later?

The project ‘OERlabs - jointly training student (teachers) for Open Eductional Resources (OER) use’ is funded by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research Germany (BMBF[SH1] ) and aims to sensitize and contextualize OER for all relevant university actors by strategically carrying out an open developmental process. This process includes organizing regular Multi-Stakeholder[SH2] Dialogues (MSD) over the course of the project. This paper briefly outlines the kick-off MSD event, its methodological approach in context of the entire process, i.e. building a base for working on solutions with implicit use of OER-principles and presents the participants feedback and provides results from the event. In contrast to committee work, our MSD-approach provides participants with more spacefor open discussions while still working towards a shared goal. In the context of OER, these events show the importance of focusing on the participants attitudes and mindset, rather than confronting them with general OER-related topics right away, such as licensing and creative commons. The project OERlabs will organize its final MSD in July of 2018, while also documenting additional experiences in an Open Book.

Factors that Influence Student Retention

With the increase in enrolment figures from second level education to third level education over the last number of decades, non-progression rates continue to give cause for concern in certain levels and disciplines. It has been widely argued that in addition to increasing enrolment numbers, higher education must also be concerned with the success of these students. In both the Irish and the international sector, the negative consequences of non-progression has been highlighted, not just on a societal level, but also for the students themselves. It is crucial for first-year student experience to have a positive experience and be fully supported in achieving the goals of higher education. From researching several reports in the area of retention and in particular the reports published by the Irish Higher Education Authority and the National Forum for the Enhancement of Teaching and Learning in Higher Education in this area, it is clear that there is a need to analyse the data available and present the findings in a clear way to the key decision makers to allow for early intervention. This paper uses the different phases of the CRISP-DM methodology and applies data mining techniques and models to a real student dataset with the aim to predict the students that will progress. Keywords: Learning analytics; Data Mining; Higher Education; Retention.