A study of factors contributing to late submission of course work

This case study uses log-linear modelling to investigate the interrelationships between factors that may contribute to the late submission of coursework by undergraduate students. A class of 86 computing students are considered. These students were exposed to traditional teaching methods supported by e-learning via a Managed Learning Environment (MLE). The MLE warehouses detailed data about student usage of the various areas of the environment, which can be used to interpret the approach taken to learning. The study investigates the interrelationship between these factors with the information as to whether the student handed in their course work on time or whether they were late. The results from the log-linear modelling technique show that there is an interaction between participating in Discussions within the MLE and the timely submission of course work, indicating that participants are more likely to hand in on time, than those students who do not participate.

Using the work system method with freshman information systems students

Recent surveys of information technology management professionals show that understanding business domains in terms of business productivity and cost reduction potential, knowledge of different vertical industry segments and their information requirements, understanding of business processes and client-facing skills are more critical for Information Systems personnel than ever before. In an attempt to restrucuture the information systems curriculum accordingly, our view it that information systems students need to develop an appreciation for organizational work systems in order to understand the operation and significance of information systems within such work systems.

Work-integrated learning courses : an essential component for preparing students to work in statutory child protection?

Undergraduate programs can play an important role in the development of individuals wanting professional employment within statutory child protection agencies: both the coursework and the work-integrated learning (WIL) components of degrees have a role in this process. This paper uses a collective case study methodology to examine the perceptions and experiences of first year practitioners within a specific statutory child protection agency in order to identify if they felt prepared for their current role. The sample of 20 participants came from a range of discipline backgrounds with just over half of the sample (55 per cent) completing a WIL placement as part of their undergraduate studies. The results indicate that while some participants were able to identify and articulate specific benefits from their undergraduate coursework studies all participants who had undertaken a WIL placement as part of their degree believed the WIL placement was beneficial for their current work.

Growing Up in Taiwan: Counterfactual Models of Part-Time Work, Romantic Relationships, and Crime among Taiwanese Youth

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Washington, 2015

Short nomenclator or vocabular in English and Hebrew: composed alphabetically for the use and benefit of my pupils in particular and for the advantage of those who are desirous to obtain the knowledge of the Hebrew tongue in general, which may be that great help to understand not only ye sacred oracles in their original, but even any Jewish author (so far as concern owns) as also it may give great insight in ye tongue to those, as to compose it, a work altogether new, [ca. 1735]

Headed on the first page with the words "Nomenclatura hebraica," this handwritten volume is a vocabulary with the Hebrew word in the left column, and the English translation on the right. While the book is arranged in sections by letter, individual entries do not appear in strict alphabetical order. The small vocabulary varies greatly and includes entries like enigma, excommunication, and martyr, as well as cucumber and maggot. There are translations of the astrological signs at the end of the volume. Poem written at the bottom of the last page in different hand: "Women when good the best of saints/ that bright seraphick lovely/ she, who nothing of an angel/ wants but truth & immortality./ Verse 2: Who silken limbs & charming/ face. Keeps nature warm."

Becoming professionals : partnerships reshaping preservice teachers’ transition to full-time teaching

While strengthened partnerships between University and Schools have been proposed in recent reviews of teacher education (House of Representative Standing Committee on Education and Vocational Training, 2007; Caldwell & Sutton, 2010; Donaldson, 2010), there is a need to understand the benefits and challenges for participants of these partnerships. The Teacher Education Centre of Excellence (TECE) in this study is a preservice teacher preparation partnership between a Queensland University, Queensland Department of Education, Training and Employment (DETE) and an Education Queensland school. It was established in response to a mandated reform within the Improving Teacher Quality National Partnership Agreement (Department of Education Employment and Workplace Relations, 2011). High-achieving Bachelor of Education preservice teachers apply to be part of the 18-month program in the third year of their four-year Education degree. These preservice teachers experience mentoring in partner schools in addition to course work designed and delivered by a DETE appointed Head of Mentoring and a university academic. On completion of the program, graduates will be appointed to South West Queensland rural and remote Education Queensland schools. This paper analyses participant perspectives from the first phase of this partnership in particular identifying the benefits and challenges experienced by the preservice teachers and the leaders of the program from the participating institutions. A sociocultural theoretical perspective (Wenger, 1998) informed the analysis examining how preservice teachers experience a sense of becoming a professional teacher within a specific employment context. Data from interviews with 6 pre-service teachers and 8 program leaders were analysed inductively through coding of interview records. Findings indicate the importance of strong relationships and opportunity for reciprocal learning through ongoing professional conversations as contexts for preservice teachers to develop an identity as an emerging professional. This research has significance for the ongoing development of this partnership as well as informing the principles for the design of future similar partnerships.

Shut up and write! Facilitating informal learning in doctoral candidature

Doctoral candidates spend at least 2/3 of their degree outside of structured classroom instruction; most of their learning and writing takes place in their own time. Providing research degree candidates with writing help during their degree study is difficult. Candidates come into their degree with widely varying needs and levels of experience. Course work might seem to offer a way to create parity, but, according to the Australian Qualification Framework, mandated coursework can only occupy 1⁄3 of the degree

Motivation and behavioural patterns of students accessing a peer-facilitated support for learning program

This paper describes the development and use of personas, a Human Computer Interaction (HCI) research methodology, within the STIMulate peer learning program, in order to better understand student behaviour patterns and motivations. STIMulate is a support for learning program at the Queensland University of Technology (QUT) in Brisbane, Australia. The program provides assistance in mathematics, science and information technology (IT) for course work students. A STIMulate space is provided for students to study and obtain one-on-one assistance from Peer Learning Facilitators (PLFs), who are experienced students that have excelled in relevant subject areas. This paper describes personas – archetypal users - that represent the motivations and behavioural patterns of students that utilise STIMulate (particularly the IT stream). The personas were developed based on interviews with PLFs, and subsequently validated by a PLF focus group. Seven different personas were developed. The personas enable us to better understand the characteristics of the students utilising the STIMulate program. The research provides a clearer picture of visiting student motivations and behavioural patterns. This has helped us identify gaps in the services provided, and be more aware of our assumptions about students. The personas have been deployed in PLF training programs, to help PLFs provide a better service to the students. The research findings suggest further study on the resonances between some students and PLFs, which we would like to better elicit.

Turning the Kaleidoscope - (E)FL Educational Experience and Inquiry as Auto/biography

This book is a study on learning, teaching/counselling, and research on the two. My quest has been to find a pedagogically-motivated way of researching learning and teaching interaction, and in particular counselling, in an autonomous language-learning environment. I have tried to develop a method that would make room for lived experience, meaning-making and narrating, because in my view these all characterise learning encounters between language learners and counsellors, and learners and their peers. Lived experience as a source of meaning, telling and co-telling becomes especially significant when we try to listen to the diverse personal and academic voices of the past as expressed in autobiographical narratives. I have aimed at researching various ALMS dialogues (Autonomous Learning Modules, University of Helsinki Language Centre English course and programme), and autobiographical narratives within them, in a way that shows respect for the participants, and that is relevant, reflective and, most importantly, self-reflexive. My interest has been in autobiographical telling in (E)FL [(English as a) foreign language], both in students first-person written texts on their language- learning histories and in the sharing of stories between learners and a counsellor. I have turned to narrative inquiry in my quest and have written the thesis as an experiential narrative. In particular, I have studied learners and counsellors in one and the same story, as characters in one narrative, in an attempt to avoid the impression that I am telling yet another separate, anecdotal story, retrospectively. Through narrative, I have shed light on the subjective dimensions of language learning and experience, and have come closer to understanding the emotional aspects of learning encounters. I have questioned and rejected a distanced and objective approach to describing learning and teaching/counselling. I have argued for a holistic and experiential approach to (E)FL encounters in which there is a need to see emotion and cognition as intertwined, and thus to appreciate learners and counsellors emotionally-charged experiences as integral to their identities. I have also argued for a way of describing such encounters as they are situated in history, time, autobiography, and the learning context. I have turned my gaze on various constellations of lived experience: the data was collected on various occasions and in various settings during one course and consists of videotaped group sessions, individual counselling sessions between students and their group counsellor, biographic narrative interviews with myself, open-ended personally-inspired reflection texts written by the students about their language-learning histories, and student logs and diaries. I do not consider data collection an unproblematic occasion, or innocent practice, and I defend the integrity of the research process. Research writing cannot be separated from narrative field work and analysing and interpreting the data. The foci in my work have turned to be the following: 1) describing ALMS encounters and specifying their narrative aspects; 2) reconceptualising learner and teacher autonomy in ALMS and in (E)FL; 2) developing (E)FL methodologically through a teacher-researcher s identity work; 4) research writing as a dialogical narrative process, and the thesis as an experiential narrative. Identity and writing as inquiry, and the deeply narrative and autobiographical nature of the (E)FL teaching/counselling/researching have come to the fore in this research. Research writing as a relational activity and its implications for situated ways of knowing and knowledge turned out to be important foci. I have also focussed on the context-bound and local teacher knowledge and ways of knowing about being a teacher, and I have argued for personal ways of knowing about, and learning and studying foreign languages. I discuss research as auto/biography: as a practising counsellor I use my own life and (E)FL experience to understand and interpret the stories of the research participants even though I was not involved in their course work. The supposedly static binaries of learner/teacher, and also learner autonomy/teacher autonomy, are thus brought into the discussion. I have highlighted the infinite variability and ever-changing nature of learning and teaching English, but the book is also of relevance to foreign language education in general.

Widening Perspectives of Teacher Education : Studies on theory-practice relationship, reflection, research and professional development

This dissertation examined the research-based teacher education at the University of Helsinki from different theoretical and practical perspectives. Five studies focused on these perspectives separately as well as overlappingly. Study I focused on the reflection process of graduating teacher students. The data consisted of essays the students wrote as their last assignment before graduating, where their assignment was to examine their development as researchers during their MA thesis research process. The results indicated that the teacher students had analysed their own development thoroughly during the process and that they had reflected on theoretical as well as practical educational matters. The results also pointed out that, in the students’ opinion, personally conducted research is a significant learning process. -- Study II investigated teacher students’ workplace learning and the integration of theory and practice in teacher education. The students’ interviews focused on their learning of teacher’s work prior to education. The interviewees’ responses concerning their ‘surviving’ in teaching prior to teacher education were categorized into three categories: learning through experiences, school as a teacher learning environment, and case-specific learning. The survey part of the study focused on integration of theory and practice within the education process. The results showed that the students who worked while they studied took advantage of the studies and applied them to work. They set more demanding teaching goals and reflected on their work more theoretically. -- Study III examined practical aspects of the teacher students’ MA thesis research as well as the integration of theory and practice in teacher education. The participants were surveyed using a web-based survey which dealt with the participants’ teacher education experiences. According to the results, most of the students had chosen a practical topic for their MA thesis, one arising from their work environment, and most had chosen a research topic that would develop their own teaching. The results showed that the integration of theory and practice had taken place in much of the course work, but most obviously in the practicum periods, and also in the courses concerning the school subjects. The majority felt that the education had in some way been successful with regards to integration. -- Study IV explored the idea of considering teacher students’ MA thesis research as professional development. Twenty-three teachers were interviewed on the subject of their experiences of conducting research about their own work as teachers. The results of the interviews showed that the reasons for choosing the MA thesis research topic were multiple: practical, theoretical, personal, professional reasons, as well as outside effect. The objectives of the MA thesis research, besides graduating, were actual projects, developing the ability to work as teachers, conducting significant research, and sharing knowledge of the topic. The results indicated that an MA thesis can function as a tool for professional development, for example in finding ways for adjusting teaching, increasing interaction skills, gaining knowledge or improving reflection on theory and/or practice, strengthening self-confidence as a teacher, increasing researching skills or academic writing skills, as well as becoming critical and being able to read scientific and academic literature. -- Study V analysed teachers’ views of the impact of practitioner research. According to the results, the interviewees considered the benefits of practitioner research to be many, affecting teachers, pupils, parents, the working community, and the wider society. Most of the teachers indicated that they intended to continue to conduct research in the future. The results also showed that teachers often reflected personally and collectively, and viewed this as important. -- These five studies point out that MA thesis research is and can be a useful tool for increasing reflection doing with personal and professional development, as well as integrating theory and practice. The studies suggest that more advantage could be taken of the MA thesis research project. More integration of working and studying could and should be made possible for teacher students. This could be done in various ways within teacher education, but the MA thesis should be seen as a pedagogical possibility.

The information needs and information-seeking behaviours of home-care workers and clients receiving home care

Cooper, J. & Urquhart, C. (2005). The information needs and information-seeking behaviours of home-care workers and clients receiving home care. Health Information and Libraries Journal, 22(2), 107-116. Sponsorship: AHRC

Reflection is alive and well, but not what you think

More and more, Business and Management students (and those in other disciplines) are being asked to undertake written reflection upon their learning as part of assessed course-work. This paper examines this trend and explores the thinking behind it: why lecturers see reflection as valuable to students, whether they undertake reflection themselves, what theoretical underpinning they perceive as justifying and explaining their views. The results of a survey undertaken among Business and Management lecturers are reported, which appear to show that the most influential writer on the subject of reflection in learning – the one most frequently cited by the respondents – is David A. Kolb, author of the well-known Experiential Learning Theory (1984), and one of the moving forces behind experiential learning in general. His ideas have attracted a good deal of criticism, but are still current, having been suitably updated and defended, (2005). The paper critically re-examines Kolb’s Experiential Learning Theory, challenging its relevance to most of Higher Education, as characterised by Peter Jarvis in his useful table of learning situations as “formal and intended” (2004; 108). Other criticisms of Kolb’s Experiential Learning Theory are advanced that are entirely new. Returning to the survey, the papers discusses the reasons lecturers believe reflection is valuable to students and concludes that Kolb’s model, and others such as Schön’s (1987), fail to adequately explain or even identify them.

Using WebCT to Support a Community of Practice

Reflecting a view of “teaching as both an intellectual and practical activity” the Queen’s University Bachelor of Education program has multi-week in-school practicum sessions separated by periods of on-campus course work. The expectation is that teacher candidates will bring together theory and practice as they reflect upon their daily classroom experiences. The reality often is that, while isolated from the university environment and caught up in the pressures of teaching, little deep reflection takes place. For reflection and critical examination of experience to occur, teacher candidates need to share and discuss on a daily basis their practice teaching experience. For the past few years, students in my secondary school mathematics curriculum course, through a WebCT based conference, have been provided, while away from campus, with a place for on-going sharing of teaching stories and dilemmas. In the Fall of 2004 eight-five percent of the class took part in the discussions, posting a total of 667 messages over a 9 week period. In an effort to increase the value of this practicum conference we have analysed the topic threads arising in the conversation, surveyed the participants concerning their impressions of the sharing experience, and conducted in-depth interviews with a sampling of the class. This session will present the results of this study and provide an opportunity to discuss ways in which an online discussion can support the building of community and the exchange of experience while students in professional programs are disbursed in practice/clinical settings.