Development of teaching resources for physical modelling community

Physical modelling of interesting geotechnical problems has helped clarify behaviours and failure mechanisms of many civil engineering systems. Interesting visual information from physical modelling can also be used in teaching to foster interest in geotechnical engineering and recruit young researchers to our field. With this intention, the Teaching Committee of TC2 developed a web-based teaching resources centre. In this paper, the development and organisation of the resource centre using Wordpress. Wordpress is an open-source content management system which allows user content to be edited and site administration to be controlled remotely via a built-in interface. Example data from a centrifuge test on shallow foundations which could be used for undergraduate or graduate level courses is presented and its use illustrated. A discussion on the development of wiki-style addition to the resource centre for commonly used physical model terms is also presented. © 2010 Taylor & Francis Group, London.

The Role of SoTL in Classroom Innovation.

The Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL) is being promoted as an activity for teaching-focused academics in the UK. However, support for SoTL is not a priority for most institutions, and formal provision for such support may not extend beyond the postgraduate certificate in higher education that is offered for new academic staff. This paper examines the experiences of SoTL of a group of twenty-one Life Sciences academics from a range of UK universities. It explores the role that SoTL has to play in developing classroom innovation in a structured and scholarly manner, and the consequences to both teaching staff and students, if SoTL is not supported as an academic activity throughout the careers of teaching-focused academics.

A survey of teaching and assessment methods employed in UK higher education programmes for HCI course

A survey of teaching and assessment methods employed in UK Higher Education programmes for Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) courses was conducted in April 2003. The findings from this survey are presented, and conclusions drawn.

A systematic review protocol on the use of teaching portfolios for educators in further and higher education.

portfolio and undergraduate students have suggested that a teachingportfolio may have a benefit for educators in higher education as a means to providerelevancy and focus to their teaching.Design. The objectives of the review are to evaluate how a teaching portfolio assistseducators in teaching and learning; to evaluate the effects of maintaining a teachingportfolio for educators in relation to personal development; to explore the type ofportfolio used; to determine whether a teaching portfolio is perceived more beneficialfor various grades and professional types; and to determine any motivatingfactors or workplace incentives behind its implementation and completion. A searchof the following databases will be made MEDLINE, CINAHL, BREI, ERIC andAUEI. The review will follow the Joanna Briggs Institute guidance for systematicreviews of quantitative and qualitative research.Conclusion. The review will offer clarity and direction on the use of teachingportfolios, for educators, policymakers, supervisory managers and researchers involvedin further and higher education.

What Are the Effects of Teaching Evidence-Based Health Care (EBHC)? Overview of Systematic Reviews

Background

An evidence-based approach to health care is recognized internationally as a key competency for healthcare practitioners. This overview systematically evaluated and organized evidence from systematic reviews on teaching evidence-based health care (EBHC).

Methods/Findings

We searched for systematic reviews evaluating interventions for teaching EBHC to health professionals compared to no intervention or different strategies. Outcomes covered EBHC knowledge, skills, attitudes, practices and health outcomes. Comprehensive searches were conducted in April 2013. Two reviewers independently selected eligible reviews, extracted data and evaluated methodological quality. We included 16 systematic reviews, published between 1993 and 2013. There was considerable overlap across reviews. We found that 171 source studies included in the reviews related to 81 separate studies, of which 37 are in more than one review. Studies used various methodologies to evaluate educational interventions of varying content, format and duration in undergraduates, interns, residents and practicing health professionals. The evidence in the reviews showed that multifaceted, clinically integrated interventions, with assessment, led to improvements in knowledge, skills and attitudes. Interventions improved critical appraisal skills and integration of results into decisions, and improved knowledge, skills, attitudes and behaviour amongst practicing health professionals. Considering single interventions, EBHC knowledge and attitude were similar for lecture-based versus online teaching. Journal clubs appeared to increase clinical epidemiology and biostatistics knowledge and reading behavior, but not appraisal skills. EBHC courses improved appraisal skills and knowledge. Amongst practicing health professionals, interactive online courses with guided critical appraisal showed significant increase in knowledge and appraisal skills. A short workshop using problem-based approaches, compared to no intervention, increased knowledge but not appraisal skills.

Conclusions

EBHC teaching and learning strategies should focus on implementing multifaceted, clinically integrated approaches with assessment. Future rigorous research should evaluate minimum components for multifaceted interventions, assessment of medium to long-term outcomes, and implementation of these interventions.

Conversations with remarkable teachers an exploration of teaching as healing

Through analysis and interpretation of transcribed taped conversations with two remarkable University teachers, Joel Shack and Harry Whittier, an articulation of perception and metaphor that exists in effective teaching, emerges as life giving or transformational. Creative insight and interpretation connect teaching to life. This work demonstrates how insightful conversations about teaching relate to poetic essence (Joel), energy (Harry), and healing (Ray), all aspects of a similar perceptual, creative and transformative process. Teachers shape education and excellent teaching inspires insofar as it is inspirited. Effective teaching is highly conscious and intentional. So much depends on how aware the teacher is, how the teacher sees what s/he is doing and how this doing/teaching is received. The effective teacher, attentive to how this energy works, can provoke positive change in consciousness both in the student, in education and in society. My study draws attention to the healing power of the teacher as he/she teaches and to the process of dialogue as teachers talk about what they do and don't do. For inherent in conversation and dialogue is the desire to affirm whole perceptions of existence. Dialogue and conversation is necessary to creating the kind of consciousness that will aid the reflective and conscientious teacher. The effective teacher attempts to effect change, to make things better. I call this transforming process, healing. And what creates this healing is the life, the attitude and approach of the teacher. The teacher's energy and consciousness, the teacher's perception of meaning, is the active but implicit ingredient in this transformative and healing process. These conversations are creative, theoretical, illuminating and even practical. It is my hope that the contents of these conversations will inspire potential teachers who can consider the vocation of teaching as a healing process that promises to generate positive growth in mind, body and spirit.

Identity, Well-being and Effectiveness: the Emotional Contexts of Teaching

This paper draws on findings from a four‐year longitudinal research project, commissioned by the Department for Education and Skills (DfES), which investigated Variations in Teachers’ Work, Lives and Effectiveness (VITAE). Drawing on data gathered from 300 teachers working in 100 primary and secondary schools in England, the research identified associations between commitment and effectiveness (perceived and in terms of pupil attainment) and found that there were more, and less, effective teachers in each of six professional life phases. It found that teachers in each of these phases experienced a number of different scenarios that challenged their abilities to sustain their commitment (i.e. remain resilient). This paper discusses how these impact, positively and negatively, on teachers’ capacities for sustaining their initial commitment and associations between identity, well‐being and effectiveness. It finds that teacher identities are neither intrinsically stable nor intrinsically fragmented, but that they can be more, or less, stable and more or less fragmented at different times and in different ways according to the influence of the interaction of a number of personal, professional and situated factors. The extent to which teachers are able to and are supported in managing the scenarios they experience will determine their sense of effectiveness.

LSP communication in a digital age: the outcomes of teaching and learning in tertiary education

This paper discusses the changes brought by the communication revolution in teaching and learning in the scope of LSP. Its aim is to provide an insight on how teaching which was bi-dimensional, turned into a multidimensional system, gathering other complementary resources that have transformed, in a incredibly short time, the ways we receive share and store information, for instance as professionals, and keep in touch with our peers. The increasing rise of electronic publications, the incredible boom of social and professional networks, search engines, blogs, list servs, forums, e-mail blasts, Facebook pages, YouTube contents, Tweets and Apps, have twisted the way information is conveyed. Classes ceased to be predictable and have been empowered by digital platforms, innumerous and different data repositories (TILDE, IATE, LINGUEE, and so many other terminological data banks) that have definitely transformed the academic world in general and tertiary education in particular. There is a bulk of information to be digested by students, who are no longer passive but instead responsible and active for their academic outcomes. The question is whether they possess the tools to select only what is accurate and important for a certain subject or assignment, due to that overflow? Due to the reduction of the number of course years in most degrees, after the implementation of Bologna and the shrinking of the curricula contents, have students the possibility of developing critical thinking? Both teaching and learning rely on digital resources to improve the speed of the spreading of knowledge. But have those changes been effective to promote really communication? Furthermore, with the increasing Apps that have already been developed and will continue to appear for learning foreign languages, for translation among others, will the students feel the need of learning them once they have those Apps. These are some the questions we would like to discuss in our paper.

Teacher survival : staying alive in the job of teaching /

This study presents information gathered during personal interviews with dynamic and capable teachers in the areas of preparedness for teaching, teaching concerns, survival skills and strategies, and how these teachers support themselves and others in the teaching profession. The data are related to Purkey and Novak's work on invitational education and connections are made to Combs' perceptual orientation. Potential participants were gathered through personal recommendations from their colleagues. All teachers recommended were approached and asked for voluntary participation. Of those who agreed to participate, 6 were selected based on gender and years of experience. There was a male and female participant at each of the following career levels: early, mid, and late. The 4 major survival skills that became apparent were the ability to believe in oneself and others, to act decisively upon that belief through personal and professional goal-setting as well as accessing resources, to actively seek opportunities for interaction with other professionals, and to celebrate personal and professional successes.

The effects of teaching a mathematics problem solving strategy on the problem solving ability of grade nine students

Forty grade 9 students were selected from a small rural board in southern Ontario. The students were in two classes and were treated as two groups. The treatment group received instruction in the Logical Numerical Problem Solving Strategy every day for 37 minutes over a 6 week period. The control group received instruction in problem solving without this strategy over the same time period. Then the control group received the treat~ent and the treatment group received the instruction without the strategy. Quite a large variance was found in the problem solving ability of students in grade 9. It was also found that the growth of the problem solving ability achievement of students could be measured using growth strands based upon the results of the pilot study. The analysis of the results of the study using t-tests and a MANOVA demonstrated that the teaching of the strategy did not significaritly (at p s 0.05) increase the problem solving achievement of the students. However, there was an encouraging trend seen in the data.

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