Addressing Curricular Challenges (Asynchronous Session)
A Liberal Arts Approach to Web Design Pedagogy View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Jing Zhou
It’s a well-known phenomenon that today college students are shunning liberal arts, which was traditionally the main purpose of college—to teach deeper understanding, critical thinking, and writing. The decreasing number of undergraduates pursuing bachelor’s degrees in liberal arts has led to the downsizing of liberal arts programs/departments and the weakening of liberal arts in Undergraduate General Education curriculum, which is also the result of academic prioritization promoting more job-oriented disciplines. Therefore, this experiment of integrating liberal arts component into web design courses was initiated to help fill the gap, and this practice has been successful. Branching out from a problem-solving and technological-focused pedagogy, this method serves a higher learning purpose—to prepare students for life, in addition to teaching marketable skills. In our two undergraduate web design courses, students have the opportunity to practice the five major steps of web design workflow—research and goals, site architecture and content creation, wireframing and design mockups, production and web development, launch and assessment. The liberal arts approach occurs in the first two steps, which establish the conceptual framework of the website. It offers two directions: the intellectual track and social awareness track; one focuses on the past, another the present. The intellectual track requires students to explore the historical background and life experiences of many remarkable people, who have made significant contributions in history. The social awareness track encourages students to become social observers and contemplate ethical issues in our society. Both directions are well implemented in the courses’ syllabi, one for each course.
Systematic Mapping of Flipped Learning in Teacher Education View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Micheal M Van Wyk
Flipped learning is increasingly recognised as an important pedagogical approach to accelerate student performance. The researcher is motivated by extensive reading of scholarly texts on the positive impacts of the flipped pedagogical strategy in student learning. To execute the systematic mapping, only approved and credible journal articles published in the SCOPUS and Web of Sciences indices were used. Specific criteria were identified in the selection process of articles for the systematic mapping of flipped learning. After comparing the different scoping studies based on flipped learning models across subjects, disciplines, and contexts extracted to foreground this systematic mapping. Recent developments in flipped learning have heightened the need for a rigorously and empirically designed study to document flipped learning. To date, there has been little agreement on what is an appropriate measurement to document flipped learning in a more systematic and empirically manner. After studied scoping studies on specific research trends the researcher became interested in a “systematic mapping” study as advocated by Lundin, et al. (2018). Although extensive research has been carried out on the phenomenon, no single study exists that empirically documented a systematic mapping of flipped learning for teacher education in an open distance e-learning (ODeL) context.
Fostering Student Engagement Through a Real-World Collaborative Project: A Model for Collaboration Across Disciplines and Institutions
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Leszek Gawarecki
Extensive research has identified main features of a learning experience likely to enhance student learning, including collaboration, open-ended exploration, and problem-based learning in real-life scenarios. We propose a model of how instructors might combine these elements into a single project that can be adopted across disciplines and institutions. This paper reports its implementation and focuses on its effectiveness in fostering student engagement. It describes a project that instructors at four colleges and universities in Flint, Michigan (USA) piloted during the height of the Flint water crisis. Students applied class content to the real-world problem unfolding around them. The project offered students an opportunity to collaborate with peers across disciplines and institutions. We collected qualitative and quantitative data on students’ reactions to the project. Our analysis concluded that project succeeded in engaging students. We offer practical recommendations for how instructors can create and implement similar projects in their own classrooms.
Untangling Colonial Traces and Emerging Decolonial Signs in EFL Textbooks View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Astrid Núñez-Pardo
This qualitative documentary research reveals findings from a critical analysis of six EFL textbooks written by Colombian authors and published by both local and foreign publishing houses. To complement the analysis four local authors, six teachers, and two experts were interviewed. Content analysis as a research method, framed within the socio-critical paradigm, the qualitative approach, and the documentary research, was used to articulate the analysis of the information. Findings evinced that EFL textbooks, due to the influence of globalisation and neoliberalism, continues presenting colonial traces in the representation of gender, races, sexual orientations, capacities, and social classes; besides, references to congratulatory, superficial, and monolithic culture prevail in EFL textbooks. The analysis also revealed emerging traces of decoloniality in the regulation pattern in one of the textbooks analysed that responds to the country’s bilingual policy of teaching English for citizens’ academic quality and professional development, although oriented towards competitiveness, productivity, profitability, and globalisation; and in the pattern of having the English textbook developed by local authors, but with the advisory or consulting services from a foreign publishing house.
The Contestations of Knowledge in Curriculum View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Desiree Scholtz
Curriculum development at universities of technology (UoTs) in South Africa required large-scale development of new qualifications such as the Postgraduate Diploma (PGDip). This study foregrounds the kinds of challenges encountered in developing postgraduate diplomas that would respond appropriately to the knowledge, digital, and technological demands of the future. The need for relevant, responsive curricula that align with rapidly changing business environments had to be navigated within academic and professional conventions. In addition, the importance of what and whose knowledge counts as privileged knowledge remains fertile ground for contestation, especially in a society where many students often feel marginalised from current knowledge domains. Five postgraduate diplomas were purposively selected for this study. Data generation using interviews with lecturers tasked with curriculum development provided insights into their perceptions of knowledge production, reconstruction, and recontextualization. Applying content analysis to data presented main themes, while Bernstein’s pedagogic device provided a lens for a second level of data analysis. The literature that formed the backdrop to this study was drawn from curriculum theories and approaches that informed curriculum development at this institution. The findings show that the brief of developing responsive curricula is more than to prepare students for employability and workspaces. It is equally important for students to draw on a decolonised curriculum to craft their identity within new spaces and new knowledge structures. The plurality of knowledges in the intended curriculum is key to providing students with a holistic learning experience and to entrench critical thinking for the good of society.
Socio-emotional Competences Related to Arts and Sports Activities: Systematic Review in the Educational Context View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Myriam Alvariñas-Villaverde, Iago Portela, Margarita Pino-Juste
Currently, great attention is being paid to the world of emotions and, in particular, to socioemotional skills or soft skills because of their link with learning, professional training and socio-personal well-being. This work focuses on the educational field, especially on teaching professionals and students. The main objective was to carry out an analysis of the scientific literature to find out the relationship between socioemotional skills and artistic or sporting activities in this context. A systematic review was carried out using the PRISMA process in the Scopus database. All types of documents published in the last 10 years and written in any language were used. The analysis of the sources made it possible to establish categories according to various axes of knowledge. Based on these results, the following issues are discussed, among others: the existence of proposals in both formal and non-formal settings; the variety of participants in different educational stages; the success generated by programmes of different types, both in assessing socioemotional competence globally and in measuring some of its dimensions in particular; the relevance of the gender approach; and the need to deepen the characteristics of the programmes and activities proposed in order to provide maximum effectiveness in the learning of these skills.
