Transitional issues of induction into design education for international undergraduate students : a case study analysis of architecture

The overarching aim of this paper is to present and discuss a collaborative undertaking between the School of Architecture and Building and the Academic Skills Unit at Deakin University, Australia in a programme called The Integrated Support Programme for Architecture. It does this in the following ways. It provides a justification for the setting up of an integrated programme for international architecture students. It describes the programme that was set up and outlines the reasons for collaboration between an academic School and an Academic Skills support services unit to prepare students both nationally and internationally as graduates of architecture. It then reports on a study undertaken to evaluate the programme in terms of student response and perception. Following this, it highlights directions for effective and strategic transition of past and present learning for international students. Using a case study analysis, the thrust of this paper is to advance knowledge and understanding of the pertinent issues related to international students either commencing or articulating into the professional course of architecture. It is envisaged that in this discussion matters may be raised for a strategic and effective transition of generic and internationalised learning for international students.

Patient education and self-management programs in arthritis

♦ Arthritis self-management programs (ASMPs) are integrated into many clinical practice guidelines and policies, and are the core business of Arthritis Foundations.

♦ Australian Arthritis Foundations are embarking on a National Quality Assurance Program which should raise awareness and improve confidence in such programs.

♦ ASMPs aim to empower people, improve quality of life while living with chronic disease, increase healthy activities and improve self-monitoring — each of which can assist with clinical management, but can be difficult to evaluate.

♦ Although there is modest high-quality evidence of traditional “clinical outcomes” from ASMPs, these programs are strongly endorsed by consumers, are being used as a vehicle for healthcare reform, and have the potential to substantially improve public health.

♦ Coordinated national delivery of patient education programs has the potential to improve healthcare and outcomes for people with arthritis.

Comparison of the levels of students' career maturity resulting from two models for the delivery of career education programs in selected Victorian government secondary schools

At both national and state levels, the delivery of career education has been recommended to follow an integrated model with a high level of staff participation across the school. However it has been found that in many schools the career education program is primarily delivered by a careers teacher. This study compared whether the recommended integrated model or the specialist careers teacher model delivered better outcomes for students in terms of their levels of career maturity. The main finding of the research is that the integrated model of delivery of career education programs did make a significant difference to the cognitive career maturity of the students in the selected Victorian governement secondary schools.

Contextualising learning through the participatory construction of an environmental education programme

Strengthening links between school and community is critical for improving people's participation in environmental issues. However, Mexican education programmes are generally unrelated to rural students' life experience and are planned without considering either teachers' or students' opinions. This article describes the participatory construction of a preparatory school environmental education (EE) programme in Ixtlan de Juarez, a Mexican indigenous community internationally recognised for sustainable forest management. The qualitative research methods used are based on the action research methodology. Results from interviews conducted with the preparatory school's headmaster, the coordinator, and nine teachers provided the needed documentation of the school site for contextualising learning activities. Feedback during focus groups with six students, three teachers, five local communal authorities, and two researchers highlighted that all participants perceived the need for creating an educational programme focused on local forest management. The contents and activities of the programme were designed by the focus group's participants. The programme has been continuously taught by teachers and forest workers since 2005 and was officially integrated with the preparatory school science curriculum in 2006. This participative educational experience has thus transformed the mandatory school curriculum in Ixtlan.

Using virtual meeting spaces for work integrated learning

Work integrated learning activities provide students with the opportunity to apply the knowledge and skills they have developed through their tertiary education to authentic work place problems. This paper reports on the outcome of a virtual work integrated learning activity undertaken by third year IT students. Students used a synchronous communication tool to participate in meetings with their virtual teammates. They were required to produce minutes and a report of their meeting. The majority of students completed the exercise successfully with some student groups using the meeting facility for subsequent collaboration during the remainder of the unit.

Entrepreneurship education at university : the plus-zone challenge

The paper discusses the contrast between what is being done and what ought to be done about entrepreneurship education at university level. Research from the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor program demonstrates that entrepreneurship education is an issue of worldwide economic and social significance. It has major policy implications for every nation. The paper briefly discusses the network of entrepreneurship education and experiential learning of which the university is only one component – and not necessarily the most important. The strategic and organizational context of the movement towards more entrepreneurial universities is distinguished from the purely content issue of curriculum designed for aspiring entrepreneurial practitioners. An overview of actual curricula, worldwide, is contrasted with the normative entrepreneurship education framework posited by McMullan and Long (1987). Following consideration of the problems involved in measuring the success of entrepreneurship education programs, a broad, generic template for integrated program development is presented and compared with the approach usually employed in most MBA programs at university business schools. The hierarchical, functionalist approach, symbolized by a pyramid, is contrasted with a more fluid, organic and boundary-crossing approach, symbolized by a wheel. Its central hub is a ‘plus zone’ where lies the deepest challenge for development of entrepreneurship education in a university context.

Facilitating and integrating learning within sport studies cooperative education : exploring the pedagogies employed by students, academics and workplace supervisors

Using an interpretative case study methodology, the pedagogical approaches used to facilitate and integrate student learning in cooperative education programmes in sport studies were investigated. This research drew from two New Zealand university cohorts and involved six focus group interviews. Findings suggested there were limited direct explicit attempts to integrate on- and off-campus learning. Integration was implicitly or indirectly fostered, principally by reflection through assessments (e.g., journals, reports), and primarily consisted of reflection-on-action (Schön, 1991) after the learning activities. Significantly, the integration of learning also consisted of reflection on personal growth, rather than critical reflection on theory or organisational practice.

Quality in flexible, online and distance education at Deakin University, Australia

This chapter presents an overview of the management of quality for flexible, online and distance education (off-campus education) at Deakin University in Australia. In 1974, Deakin University was established as a dual-mode institution educating large numbers of both on- and off-campus students. From its foundation it has increasingly sought to provide the same learning resources, equivalent learning experiences and parity of outcomes to students studying in all modes (Hay, Lowe, Gibb & Anderson, 2002). While this was the ideal on which Deakin was founded, in practice approaches differed across various schools and courses where in some areas integration was achieved through an open-campus model, while in others the tendency was towards separation of the modes of delivery by course. Deakin’s history can be characterised as moving from dual-mode approaches to educating its student cohorts, to a now well articulated, integrated and institution-wide approach to assuring and improving the quality of all modes of educational delivery for an extremely diverse and complex set of student cohorts. In this regard, it makes no particular distinction between these student groups in its policies, procedures and processes relating to educational matters.

Developing eco-agency through education : capacitating agency through learning

The paper is prompted by startling results from large scale international studies that show the dissonance between young people’s sustainability knowledge and the resistance of young people to put into practice. The studies suggest that while students are aware of what they should be doing, as a result of their education about sustainability, they are reluctant to change their behavior and action in their everyday life. These results raise important issues about current models of education and how sustainability is captured within education. The results suggest that no matter how powerful the ideas and how well intentioned the methods of education for sustainable development, translating those ideas into action, beyond classroom and beyond curriculum strategies remain elusive. In order to re-think some aspects of educational practice, the paper examines the notion of agency as a critical component in the understanding of how behavior and actions are organized and integrated by students. By developing a more refined understanding of agency, and incorporating this into educational practice around sustainability, it may be possible to better develop resonant sustainable actions, or eco-agency, supporting the maintenance our environment.

Evaluation methodology for work integrated learning - placements : a discussion paper

Background: This paper will address the evaluation of WIL (placements) in order to provide a strategy to improve performance in universities' WIL as benchmarked in the AUSSE, GDS and placement unit feedback.
Overview of issue: Although WIL placements are important and valuable for student engagement, learning, graduate employability and industry partnerships, there are few empirical studies or reviews that inform evaluation methodology for them. The assessment of placement outcomes and the student experience is typically more complex than evaluation of a standard university unit because of the wide variation that occurs with placements. Students are likely to be working in different organisations, and working on different projects within their various disciplines. Adding to this complexity, the organisation supervisor is an additional stakeholder critical to the placement experience, and who ultimately makes the judgment of student performance. Although an organisation supervisor may complete an individual feedback form for their students, generally this information is not strategically aligned within a broader university evaluation process. Initial examination of available literature revealed that the multi-dimensional perspective (organisational supervisor, placement co-ordinator and student) is not usually incorporated into evaluation of placements to inform continuous improvement for example. There are gaps in the evaluation process which could be addressed through more  comprehensive evaluation that could be utilised across Faculties and Institutions. In 2010, we will conduct an inter-faculty project to develop and trial an evaluation methodology for WIL placements. It will incorporate a triangulated approach including student, organisation and university supervisor feedback. Preliminary results gained from this project will be discussed.
Argument: An evaluation methodology that is inclusive of a triangulated approach, would provide university stakeholders with comprehensive feedback that could be used to strategically inform continuous improvement efforts in Institutions in the areas of WIL placements.
Implications: The importance of triangulated data gathering leading to a comprehensive evaluation and subsequent improvement strategies will be concluded. Suggested evaluation process and potential tools will be presented.

A model of organizational ethics education

Purpose – This paper aims to propose a model of ethics education for corporate organizations framed as an holistic approach to the problem of how to teach ethics.

Design/methodology/approach – As a conceptual/viewpoint piece, this paper recognizes that for ethics education to be successful, individuals and corporations must have an appreciation of their role in the society at large. In addition, there needs to be preparedness on the part of the corporation to engage in an ethical manner with the marketplace with which it interacts.

Findings – Ethics education should not exist in a vacuum, that is just within the organization, but it should reflect the values of the organization as they impact upon and are impacted upon by society in general.

Research/limitations/implications – This model is predicated on a belief that organizations must craft their ethics education program with as much care and enthusiasm as they craft their strategic plan. The employees are the organization's representatives and they need to be made as clear as one can make them as to the ethical philosophy of the company and what is expected of them. Adults have a capacity for greater reasoning and reflection on their life experiences than children and thus the concept of “andragogy” provides a more satisfactory method to fashion education programs for adults than some more traditional methods that focus on training and not education.

Practical implications – When considering the ethics education of its employees, corporations need to place that education in context as it relates to the organization and the wider society as a whole. It is suggested that an ethics education program needs to provide a framework for understanding the concepts of ethics and moral development. Using this framework as the basis for the education offered, the education program is then expanded into an examination of a range of ethical issues presented in a variety of ways.

Originality/value – This paper proposes an integrated way to approach ethics education that ensures that the antecedents of the program are considered in the context of the ethics of individuals, the society and in turn the organization, hence the holistic approach.

Employers' perspectives on work-integrated learning in project-based workplaces

The property and construction industry is uniquely impacted by project-based work environments; this creates special challenges for collaborative education. This research is based on investigating the attitudes of employer’s towards the use of formally assessed internships. The study comprised two stages; firstly a series of pilot interviews were undertaken with employers to test a number known issues. Secondly, the results from the interviews were used to refine a set of questions that were put to a large focus group of employers who were invited from across the property and construction sector. The results showed that many organisations expressed considerable goodwill towards collaborative education with universities. However, the challenges caused by project-based work environments restricted their ability to provide comprehensive learning opportunities. This research focuses on the distinctive issues associated with work-integrated learning in the property and construction industry

Exploring the development and assessment of work-readiness using reflective practice in construction education.

It is well known that the construction industry is characterized by the need for practical knowledge and skill. However, this creates special challenges for universities in the development of work readiness in graduates. This research investigates the attitudes of students towards a course which was designed to develop work-readiness skills in construction management. The paper focuses on the distinctive issues associated with Work-Integrated Learning (WIL) using a formally assessed industry-mentored course of study. Past research shows that university degrees should promote reflective thinking since, in construction, it is necessary to make reflective judgements which deal with ill-defined problems. This is a generic capability that is needed by all graduates in knowledge-based occupations. The study utilized reflective practice to examine the perceptions of construction management students towards the development of attributes which were known to improve work skills. The students were asked to capture their reflections on their experiences in the form of reflective diaries, which were prepared weekly throughout the course. The results showed that the students expressed very positive views about their learning experiences. This occurred in spite of the challenges caused by the formal assessment processes that were undertaken as part of the course. This paper compares the student perceptions with the teachers’ reflections on the ability of traditional assessment methods to measure graduate attributes and work-readiness. The research explores the issues associated with assessing work-readiness skills in higher education. The findings suggest that student reflection is a necessary precondition to the development of effective work-readiness. In addition, the research concludes that more nontraditional assessment approaches are needed in construction programmes in order to develop the type of graduate required by the industry.

Student peer and self assessment in the context of work integrated learning : making it work

Students are now experiencing opportunities in practice education where their learning is facilitated by professionals of varied backgrounds thus leading to issues of how to assess student performance while on placement. Educators have had to re-think the way in which students’ performance is assessed and to integrate the key graduate attributes of critical reflection, self and peer assessments and feedback. Using recommendations by Mason (1999) in relation to a collaborative group model for workplace learning and ‘The Self-Directed Learning Model’ by Gaiptman and Anthony (1989) the Occupational Wellness and Life Satisfaction (OWLS) program encourages students to reflect on their experiences in an environment of self and peer evaluation, focussing on the process of learning rather than purely on outcomes. Students are required to complete a self and peer assessment of their learning using a nationally recognised fieldwork evaluation instrument and develop a practice portfolio consisting of learning contract and supporting evidence for their self-assessment. Qualitative and quantitative data was collected via a questionnaire to alumni. The most frequently identified skills that were valued by respondents were autonomy and independence. Other benefits identified were facilitation of self directed learning, and ability to problem solve with colleagues and to share learning. In a higher education environment where lifelong learning and the ability to work collaboratively are valued graduate attributes, a focus on peer and self assessment within the context of work integrated learning contributes to graduates who are well placed to work in both traditional and newer and emerging areas of practice.