Challenges in the 21st Century
Foundation Students’ Participation in the Curriculum: A University Module
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Emmanuel Ekale Esambe
First-year students are considered to generally struggle with transitioning from school to university for several reasons, including issues of diversity, new curriculum content, differences in engagement with learning, and differences in assessment practices compared to their high schools. Across the world, first-year students are expected to confront new kinds of knowledge, and to enact competencies in these knowledge in ways that often confound them. It is perhaps these new ways of knowing, doing, and being that give rise to some serious contradictions between high school students’ school-leaving attributes and their readiness for university studies. While there is extensive literature on first-year students’ transitioning to universities, not enough attention has been placed in investigating how these students’ voices and experiences are reflected in first year curriculum in South Africa. More needs to be done to investigate how the design and enactment of first-year curriculum could be more representative of the students’ diversities. This paper explores the design and delivery of a University 101 transition module at a university of technology in South Africa. The paper uses Engeström’s (1987) concept of an activity system in cultural-historical activity theory (CHAT) to examine how the University 101 module’s collaborative platform can serve as a mediating tool allowing for greater student participation in the curriculum, and ultimately contributing towards improving learning and retention for the foundation students. Kift’s (2008) transition pedagogy’s six core curriculum design principles are used to further interrogate the efficacy of this module.
Bridging University, Government, and Practitioner Expectations for Leadership Development and Accreditation
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Barbara Brown, Lori Pamplin, Ronna Mosher
The introduction of new leadership competencies and certification requirements for aspiring and existing leaders in one Canadian province have prompted review, design, and redesign of graduate level programming in leadership specializations. This paper will describe one university’s work to blend research-based academic rigour with government expectations for certified leadership knowledge and abilities across seven competency areas. Key learnings to be discussed include productively working between histories and expectations for academic freedom, government interests in standardized competencies in leaders, and practitioner concerns about practical application, standardization and the need for responsive context-specific needs.
Bridging Collaboration between Graduate School Psychology and Reading Specialist Candidates: An Interdisciplinary Training Workshop Series
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Joan Fingon, Sharon H. Ulanoff, Elina Saeki
Graduate education aims to instill the knowledge and skills to prepare students for their future careers. In this study, faculty in graduate programs in school psychology and reading instruction collaborated on a semester-long workshop series to foster students’ knowledge and interest in school-based collaborative consultation (SBCC). This study used a sequential explanatory mixed methods design to explore students’ knowledge, confidence, and experience with SBCC during the four workshop series. The sample consisted of 24 graduate school psychology students and 14 graduate reading specialist students at one large, urban, public university in Southern California during the Fall 2017 semester. Pre- and post-surveys were administered at the beginning and end of the course and one focus group interview was conducted at the end of the semester. Students also evaluated each of the workshops, which were presented by two faculty members in each other’s classes. Paired t-tests on pre and post-survey scores looked at knowledge, confidence, interest in SBCC. There was a significant difference between pre and post-survey scores in terms of knowledge [t(24) = -9.83, p = .000] and confidence [t(25) = -4.21, p = .000], but no significant difference in interest in learning more about SBCC [t(24) = 1.79, p > .05]. Comments from workshop evaluations and the focus group interview were coded for themes to confirm the survey results. Students reported that the workshops helped them to ‘think more broadly’ and to consider different perspectives, but they also complained about the time involved in implementing SBCC.
Representation of Social Struggles in Korean and Philippine ELT Textbooks
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Mae Karr Ruth Ballena, Young Sook Shim
The present study investigates the representations of social struggles depicted in middle school English textbooks published in Korea and the Philippines. The data consists of 200 reading selections from 18 volumes of Korean textbooks and 108 reading selections from 3 volumes of Philippine textbooks. A total of 39 instances of social struggles were identified from the data analysis, and the following categories emerged from careful reviews of those instances: social struggles involving social groups, which are further divided into subcategories such as gender, generation, socioeconomic class, social rank, race, and the colonizer/colonized; and, social struggles involving resources, which are subdivided into education, basic necessity, and technology. Findings show that social struggles associated with gender, colonization, education, and technology are common among Philippine and Korean ELT textbooks. The data analysis also reveals that Philippine textbooks present a wider array and more in-depth contextualization of social struggles while representational issues on stereotyping, desensitization, and juxtaposition of elements are found in Korean textbooks. Related to the research findings, some educational implications are provided particularly from the perspective of critical pedagogy.
