AISHE-J - The All Ireland Journal of Teaching and Learning in Higher Education
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Diverse and innovative assessment at Masters Level: alternatives to conventional written assignments
No full textAbstractEffective and authentic assessment at Masters level can be advantageous to students, employers, funding bodies and other stakeholders where it helps to demonstrate capabilities and competences as well as academic knowledge. This paper outlines some of the findings of a UK Higher Education Academy (HEA) -funded National Teaching Fellowship Scheme (NTFS) project which explored innovative approaches to traditional written assignments at this level, particularly those that demonstrated creativity and employability
A qualitative study of Irish first year undergraduate students reasons for non-engagement with the provision of emotional competency coaching.
No full textVery little is known as to why students choose not to participate in emotional intelligence coaching programmes. This qualitative study was undertaken with a sample of Irish undergraduate students (n=20), who chose not to engage with the provision of coaching at a technical college in Dublin. The reasons for non-engagement were explored by means of face to face interviews. The four principle reasons for non-engagement were: failing to appreciate the value of coaching; a perceived heavy academic workload; the fact that coaching was not a mandatory component of the academic curriculum; and fear that coaching may reveal weaknesses of character. Based on the findings from this study, it is recommended that institutes of higher education consider providing emotional competency coaching as a mandatory aspect of the First Year undergraduate curriculum.  
International students: a mindful approach
No full textIn the Academic year 2010-2011 the School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering (SCCE) at Queen’s University Belfast (QUB) saw the first large scale inclusion of students from East China University of Science and Technology, (ECUST), seconded into the Level 3 of our chemistry programme. The students had a specific interest in developing their laboratory and research skills. This paper discusses challenges as outlined in the HEA literature and includes a case study of the experiences of our international students. Reference is made throughout to the HEA International lifecycle as a framework to discuss the experience. Strategies and support put in place for our international students are discussed and an account of the mutual learning experience that this inaugural year offered is shared and supported by information obtained from a student survey, the Staff Student Consultative Committee (SSCC), focus groups and informally. These consultations took place both throughout and at the end of the year. This feedback provides an insight into the student experience, which can be used to inform a future approach and facilitate the continued provision of the necessary student support. The paper also includes some practical material prepared especially for the laboratory teaching environment, and a bilingual list of common laboratory equipment and materials which is included in the supplementary data. 
Developing First Year Student Information Literacy: Reflections on the Learning Process
No full textThis article evaluates first year student’s engagement with information literacy as they make the transition to third level education. For part of their assessment for a core module, students maintained reflective journals. These in turn, have provided the data for a qualitative, grounded theory study. Results demonstrate that students find transition problematic and spend their first semester in a state of uncertainty but the reflective journals aid them in thinking about their achievements in relation to their developing academic skills, including information literacy, during their first semester
Global citizenship: climbing out of the box
No full textCentral to many models of global citizenship as a graduate attribute is thenotion of competent cross-cultural exchange. These models often generatewhat might be termed a market view of culture in which cross-culturalexchange becomes a swop shop of apparently readable differences. Oftenthese differences will concern faith, nation, dress, cuisine, businessconventions and manners. There may be truth to the representations ofdifferences of this kind but the danger is in reifying them into a system ofclassification that cannot handle a more complex understanding of difference.This article offers a contribution to the debate about such complexity
CSI in a Lab: A Problem Solving Approach to Undergraduate Chemistry Practicals
No full textWith an ever demanding job market and industry complaints of grade inflation in the university sector, our graduates need more than just good grades to obtain successful employment. They need to be able todemonstrate a wide variety of skills such as problem solving, team work and the ability to work on their own initiative. This paper discusses a new type of chemistry practical that tries to incorporate all of these skillsinto an engaging undergraduate laboratory entitled “Mystery Death on a River”.Chemistry undergraduate labs at present often follow the cookbook recipe approach where students follow a distinct recipe with help from a demonstrator. While these types of laboratories provide the students withvaluable skills, they inhibit the student’s ability to understand or provide insight into what they are actually doing throughout the practical (Beussman 2007). This paper discusses the advantages of a ‘Mystery Death’laboratory where the students work in groups to solve the mystery with little help from demonstrators. The students are presented with a scenario of a death and are asked to work together to design and carryout theexperiments necessary for solving the mystery death. They are provided with glassware, chemicals and instruments to carry out the experiments and must finish the day's work with a presentation of their findings.This study provides an interesting insight into group work, student’s skills in the laboratory, problem solving and engaging students within a relaxed laboratory environment
