Toward an Understanding of Faculty Perceptions about Factors that Influence Student Success in Online Education

This paper explores factors that faculty perceive as significant in influencing student success in online education. Technological support, degree of comfort with technology and a student’s personal characteristics were deemed by faculty as critical to success. Understanding these key factors could help to improve student success in online education.

The flexible citizen: education and citizenship

This paper considers the recent focus on citizenship within education by taking curricular reform within Scottish secondary schooling and its linkage with higher education as a case study. In Scotland the Curriculum for Excellence reform places citizenship as one of the four main capacities that pupils must work towards as part of their education. This is echoed to some extent within higher education through the Enhancement Theme reforms and the focus on graduate attributes. A unifying theme in these reforms is the need for students to work across different disciplines, to develop a cross-disciplinary perspective on the world by, for example, considering issues of sustainability in relation to scientific or technological developments. In this model of curriculum development teaching staff are considered as agents of change, enabling learners to develop their sense of citizenship in response to a fast-paced world of innovation and change. This kind of change is objectified as a need that must be responded to and met if tomorrow’s citizens are to be able to not only cope, but thrive in the world in which they inhabit. As such, the citizen is positioned as an ongoing project, as something to be worked at and worked on. However, this kind of notion of agency cloaks an neoliberal ideological construction of the citizen as a flexible resource for society, and usually in relation to economic output. The paper seeks to subject this construction of the citizen to critical scrutiny in relation to the idea that, in education, learners are developing their ability to be creative and enquiring in order to be adaptive to change.

Value creation through trust in technological-mediated social participation

In this article, we advocate for the use of a social-technical model of trust to support interaction designers in further reflecting on trust-enabling interaction design values that foster participation. Our rationale is built upon the believe that technological-mediated social participation needs trust, and it is with trust-enabling interactions that we foster the will for collaborate and share—the two key elements of participation. This article starts by briefly presenting a social-technical model of trust and then moves on with establishing authors rational that interconnects trust with technological-mediated social participation. It continues by linking the trust value to the context of design critique and critical design, and ends by illustrating how to incorporate the trust value into design. This is achieved by proposing an analytical tool that can serve to inform interaction designers to better understand the potential design options and reasons for choosing them.

Globalization and the Public Provision of Higher Education: Empirical Evidence from Selected Countries

This research study was designed to examine the relationship between globalization as measured by the KOF index, its related forces (economic, political, cultural and technological) and the public provision of higher education. This study is important since globalization is increasingly being associated with changes in critical aspects of higher education. The public provision of education was measured by government expenditure and educational outcomes; that is participation, gender equity and attainment. The study utilized a non-experimental quantitative research design. Data collected from secondary sources for 139 selected countries was analyzed. The countries were geographically distributed and included both developed and developing countries. The choice of countries for inclusion in the study was based on data availability. The data, which was sourced from international organizations such as the United Nations and the World Bank, were examined for different time periods using five year averages. The period covered was 1970 to 2009. The relationship between globalization and the higher education variables was examined using cross sectional regression analysis while controlling for economic, political and demographic factors. The major findings of the study are as follows. For the two spending models, only one revealed a significant relationship between globalization and education with the R2 s ranging from .222 to .448 over the period. This relationship was however negative indicating that as globalization increased, spending on higher education declined. However, for the education outcomes models, this relationship was not significant. For the sub-indices of globalization, only the political dimension showed significance as shown in the spending model. Political globalization was significant for six periods with R2 s ranging from .31 to .52. The study concluded that the results are mixed for both the spending and outcome models. It also found no robust effects of globalization on government education provision. This finding is not surprising given the existing literature which sees mixed results on the social impact of globalization.

Transhuman education: Sloterdijk's reading of Heidegger's Letter on Humanism

Peter Sloterdijk presented a reading of Heidegger's Letter on Humanism at a conference held at Elmau in 1999. Reinterpreting the meaning of humanism in the light of Heidegger's Letter, Sloterdijk focused his presentation on the need to redefine education as a form of genetic ‘taming’ and proposed what seemed to be support for positive eugenics. Although Sloterdijk claimed that he only wanted to open a debate on the issue, he could not have been surprised at the level of opposition this suggestion aroused. In the weeks following, he blamed Habermas for raising this opposition and for refusing to engage with him openly. Although Luis Arenas has chronicled the aftermath of Sloterdijk's paper, it may be of interest to educators to examine how Heidegger's text is presented. What is this new humanism? If Heidegger's new humanism was based on a mystical attitude towards Being, so Sloterdijk's new humanism was to be based on the materialist principles of a biotechnological age. Unlike Heidegger who rejected technology as yet one further example of the forgetfulness of Being, Sloterdijk seems to embrace technology and the enhancement of the human body and mind as the next great step forward in educational theory. Could he possibly be right? Is education in these times a partner or an opponent of the technological enhancement of the human being? This article tries to identify Sloterdijk's disagreements with Heidegger on the question of the human.

Disabling and Enabling Technologies for Learning in Higher Education for All : Issues and Challenges for Whom?

Integration, inclusion, and equity constitute fundamental dimensions of democracy in post-World War II societies and their institutions. The study presented here reports upon the ways in which individuals and institutions both use and account for the roles that technologies, including ICT, play in disabling and enabling access for learning in higher education for all. Technological innovations during the 20th and 21st centuries, including ICT, have been heralded as holding significant promise for revolutionizing issues of access in societal institutions like schools, healthcare services, etc. (at least in the global North). Taking a socially oriented perspective, the study presented in this paper focuses on an ethnographically framed analysis of two datasets that critically explores the role that technologies, including ICT, play in higher education for individuals who are “differently abled” and who constitute a variation on a continuum of capabilities. Functionality as a dimension of everyday life in higher education in the 21st century is explored through the analysis of (i) case studies of two “differently abled” students in Sweden and (ii) current support services at universities in Sweden. The findings make visible the work that institutions and their members do through analyses of the organization of time and space and the use of technologies in institutional settings against the backdrop of individuals’ accountings and life trajectories. This study also highlights the relevance of multi-scale data analyses for revisiting the ways in which identity positions become framed or understood within higher education.

Building the Commercial Education Professional Competency Profile

This paper provides a complete description of the Commercial Education Professional Competency Profile that resulted from the curricular diagnosis of the Licenciatura en Educación Comercial , at the Universidad Nacional, Costa Rica.  The methodological strategy used relies on the principles of research on education. Upon expert validation, written questionnaires were applied to first-year students, students of the licenciatura, practicing professionals and employers. The objective was to describe a particular education situation. Data was analyzed according to two categories: intentions/principles and scope/development. The findings resulted in the characteristics of the Commercial Education professionals, i.e. characteristics related to the discipline, characteristics related to the administrative management of teaching, specific and general characteristics of education and pedagogy, and characteristics associated to human development. Based on those criteria, on the curricular requirements of the information sources and on the curricular perspectives of the Academic Unit, ideas were put into practice to build the competency profile. The ideas proposed comprise the curricular fundamentals of the educational project on which the profile is set out, which include the subject of the study program, the global competency or training goal, the generic competencies as cross-cutting approaches, as well as the –pedagogical and disciplinary− specific competencies. The specific competencies of the discipline are focused on four competency areas: document production, organizational support, technological resources and information management.(1) Translator’s Note: One-year post-Bachelor study program in Commercial Education.

Open Education and OER - A guide and call to action for policy makers

Executive Summary ALT has produced this call to action to highlight to education policy makers and professionals how Open Education and OER can expand inclusive and equitable access to education and lifelong learning, widen participation, and create new opportunities for the next generation of teachers and learners, preparing them to become fully engaged digital citizens. Open Education can also promote knowledge transfer while enhancing quality and sustainability, supporting social inclusion and creating a culture of inter-institutional collaboration and sharing. One of ALT’s three strategic aims is to increase the impact of Learning Technology for the wider community and we are issuing this call to action for policy makers to mandate that publicly funded educational resources are released under open licence to ensure that they reside in the public domain and are freely and openly available to all. This will be of wide benefit, but in particular will enable education providers and learning technology professionals to: Keep up to date with the rapid pace of technological innovation Develop critical, informed approaches to the implementation of Learning Technology and the impact on learners Scale up knowledge sharing and its benefits across sectors.

Intercâmbios acadêmicos internacionais: bolsas Capes, CNPq e Fapesp

This article is part of a study considering the growing importance of the international transit of people, knowledge, and practices in the schooling and professional education processes of some social segments. Considering the public funds made available by the Coordination for the Improvement of Higher Education Personnel - Capes -, the National Council for Scientific and Technological Development - CNPq - and the State of São Paulo Research Foundation - Fapesp - to support researchers' fellowships abroad, aming to improve research and investments on Science and Technology on the context of international exchanges, we have dedicated this article to the preliminary description and analysis of the database of fellows funded abroad by these research agencies from 1970 to 2000. The movement of flows based on the quantitative methodology of the correlation of variables draws the trends of international academic exchange programs in the three research institutions and in the different areas of knowledge, and we intend to analyse them taking into account the scientific and technological development policies adopted by Brazilian State on the period.

Educação a distância e efeitos em cadeia

This article is divided into two parts. The first presents two abstract arguments that constitute the starting point for the development of the second part, which is directed towards discussing some aspects of the distance learning policies, i.e., the role of public authorities in encouraging and shaping this type of education. First of all, it is intended to establish some assumptions to understand the emergence of this phenomenon and some of its conditioning factors and consequences; then to suggest some analytical tools to allow us to reflect on public policy in this area.

Patient education in glaucoma: what do patients know about glaucoma?

PURPOSE: To evaluate the knowledge glaucoma patients have about their disease and its treatment. METHODS: One hundred and eighty-three patients were interviewed at the Glaucoma Service of Wills Eye Hospital (Philadelphia, USA, Group 1) and 100 at the Glaucoma Service of University of Campinas (Campinas, Brazil, Group 2). An informal, relaxed atmosphere was created by the interviewer before asking a list of 18 open-ended questions. RESULTS: In Group 1, 44% of the 183 patients did not have an acceptable idea about what glaucoma is, 30% did not know the purpose of the medications they were taking, 47% were not aware of what was an average intraocular pressure, and 45% did not understand why visual fields were examined. In Group 2, 54% gave unsatisfactory answers to the question What is glaucoma?, 54% did not know the purpose of the medications they were taking, 80% were not aware of what was an average intraocular pressure, and 94% did not understand why visual fields were examined (p<0.001). Linear regression analysis demonstrated that level of education was positively correlated to knowledge about glaucoma in both groups (r=0.65, p=0.001). CONCLUSION: This study showed that patients' knowledge about glaucoma varies greatly, and that in an urban, American setting, around one third of the patients have minimal understanding, whereas in an urban setting in Brazil around two thirds of patients were lacking basic information about glaucoma. Innovative and effective methods are needed to correct this situation.

Educação física e inclusão educacional : entender para atender = Physical education and educational inclusion : understanding to attend

Universidade Estadual de Campinas . Faculdade de Educação Física

Pedagogia do esporte : organização, sistematização, aplicação e avaliação de conteúdos esportivos na educação não formal = Sport pedagogy : organization, systematization and application of sports content in non-formal education

Universidade Estadual de Campinas . Faculdade de Educação Física

Cidadania e educação física : matrizes históricas e políticas, contradições e perspectivas = Citizenship and physical education : historical and political matrices, perspectives and contradictions

Universidade Estadual de Campinas . Faculdade de Educação Física