AISHE-J - The All Ireland Journal of Teaching and Learning in Higher Education
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Tired of teaching observations? A case study of one approach with a focus on communication and collaboration.
No full textPeer observation of teaching within Higher Education is well-established across the sector with a range of models used and many studies confirm its value in supporting the professional development of staff. This article outlines the experiences of a group of staff from a northern university who had reached the stage of feeling that peer observation was not contributing to their teaching development. Working with an external consultant and a designated ‘buddy’ an agreed schedule of observations took place that focused on the communication aspects (teacher immediacy) of their teaching. Through a qualitative approach the views of the staff involved were explored over a 12 month period. The findings showed that a focus on teacher immediacy factors and collaborating with a buddy supported individuals in developing teaching approaches plus re-energised their view on peer observation. This work has resulted in the production of a university resource to support staff in exploring and developing their own teaching and that of others through peer observation.  
The Irish Mathematics Support Network; its Origins and Progression
No full textIn this paper we will present an overview of the establishment and subsequent development of the Irish Mathematics Support Network. We will briefly mention the reasons behind the foundation of the network and we will expand upon the aims and outcomes of our activities and projects in detail. We will discuss our activities in terms of our main goals; meeting the challenge of providing support for the wide range of students studying mathematics at third level and providing suitable and shared resources to help the consolidation and expansion of mathematics support services on a wide basis nationally
If it Ain't Broken, Do Not Fix it: The Complex Dynamic of Introducing New Teaching Methods in Ancient Third Level Education Institutions
No full textAncient scholarly institutions can boast of a successful history of academic excellence going back centuries. It is not surprising, therefore, that the lecturing staff that have best assimilated such spirit show a certain reluctance to change their ways, particularly when teaching features as second fiddle to research and is very much the exclusive domain of the lecturer. The purpose of this letter is twofold: First, to offer our academic and administrative colleagues an instrument for reflection on the suitability or otherwise of e-Learning as applied to third-level education, since e-Learning features in the strategic plans of many third-level institutions today, in spite of the fact that many among the teaching staff might not have grasped the concept of e-Learning. Second, the letter also aims at pointing out some genuine objective difficulties posed by trying to implement instances of rapidly changing technology in what could well be considered a bastion of conservatism, that is to say, the teaching methods of academics that have succeeded in their research field and have long experience in teaching largely as they themselves were taught three or more decades ago, as suggested by the wise adage; if it ain’t broken, don’t fix it
Using Google Docs to Support Project-based Learning
No full textProject-Based Learning is a wide-ranging approach that uses authentic problems to engage students. One of its main benefits is that it enables ideas in the classroom to be linked with real-life. Among its limitations: it is difficult for students to collaborate on artefacts outside of class time and it is problematic for the teacher both to monitor the progress of the project and to assess the individual contribution of each student. These limitations are partly overcome by Google Docs, a suite of free online applications that facilitate collaboration. Firstly, Google Docs enables students in different locations to work simultaneously but independently on the same artefact. Secondly, we, as teachers, can be included as observers on each project group and thus track the development of the work. This year, various groups of students across the Science and Business departments used the Google Docs word-processor to work both collaboratively and individually on a diverse range of projects. We present a case study of one of these class groups, the results of which were largely positive. However, some problems arose that will inform our approach with future student groups
Using Wikis to Facilitate Team Work: German and Irish Students’ Perspectives
No full textEnhanced collaboration among multicultural European countries is necessary for effective enterprise development and innovation. The current climate of an increasingly competitive global economy provides opportunities to explore alternative methods of enterprise sustainability including the creation of collaborative clusters of individuals working together towards a common goal. A key challenge for higher education institutions is how best to provide authentic collaborative environments and learning activities that simulate real life scenarios, where the participants may come from pan-European and/or non-European locations. This paper presents a comparative analysis of the usage and of the outcomes of wiki technology in a learning environment in Industrial Engineering. The results show the benefits and highlight also the crucial aspects when introducing this innovative approach as a supporting tool for collaborative work
Learning at the Edge of Chaos
No full textIn June 2011, in the UK, the government’s ‘White Paper’ on the future of higher education in England was published (BIS, 2011). At its heart is a paradigm shift from a largely publicly funded system to a privately funded system via significant increases in student fees. So, what might we do, in higher education, in our attempts to negotiate our way through what many find to be an unfamiliar, discomforting, increasingly complex landscape? This paper argues that one of the things we might usefully do is to strive to understand the complex and often chaotic nature of what confronts us. In their most recent annual survey of 1500 CEOs in 60 countries, IBM (2010) found a significant change in what those CEOs considered to be the greatest challenges and the qualities they valued most highly. For the first time, those CEOs now saw dealing with and managing complexity as their greatest challenge, and they identified three factors that might provide them with the best opportunity to capitalise on that complexity: creativity, operational dexterity and reinventing customer relationships or ‘developing customer intimacy’. However, one is unlikely to see ‘developing student intimacy’ in any of our institutional mission statements
Editor’s Introduction
No full textThe AISHE-J Editor, Sylvia Huntley-Moore provides an overview and summary of this issue
Clinical Learning Environment in a Specialist Forensic Mental Health Setting: Perception of Irish Student Nurses
No full textThe introduction of the BSc programme in Nursing in 2002 has dramatically changed how Irish nurses are educated. Mental health nursing students are now exposed to various specialist practices including child, adolescent and family mental health, substance misuse, intellectual disability, psychiatry for older people and more recently nursing in forensic and secure environments. Much research has been conducted on students’ experiences of the clinical environment. A considerable amount of research has also been conducted among preceptors exploring their experiences and their role and the assessment of the clinical setting itself. However no research has been carried out on student nurses perceptions of clinical learning within a specialist setting. This study aimed to explore student nurses’ perceptions of the clinical learning environment in a specialist forensic setting. A descriptive, quantitative design was used. All second, third and fourth year undergraduate student nurses on clinical placement in the specialist forensic setting were invited to participate in this study. A total of fifty six student nurses participated. The Clinical Learning Environment Scale (CLES) by Dunn and Burnett (1995) was used to collect the data. CLES is a 23-item instrument with five subscales: ‘Staff-student relationships’, ‘Preceptor’s commitment’, ‘Patient relationships’, ‘Student satisfaction’ and ‘Hierarchy and ritual’. The findings from this study revealed positive staff student relationships, a high commitment by the preceptors and good relationship with patients. Further, there was evidence of high satisfaction among students
Evaluating the National Digital Learning Repository (NDLR): new models of Communities of Practice
No full textNational Digital Learning Resources (NDLR), now a mainstreamed service in Ireland, provides a national resource bank of digital materials for learning and teaching and was the first such initiative to involve all HEA-funded institutions. The authors undertook two parts of a three-phase internal evaluation of the NDLR pilot project in 2008. The evaluation focused particularly on describing and analysing the experiences of Communities of Practice established as part of the NDLR, and made recommendations for these communities in terms of their further development.In this paper, we describe the evaluation methods and we present findings from the evaluative studies. We discuss the interaction between the communities and the repository itself, and how the evaluation pointed the way for longer term use of the repository by individuals and groups. O'Keeffe et al. (2008) have previously examined the ‘formal’ and ‘informal’ nature of NDLR Communities of Practice, and we seek to extend this research by presenting four models to describe the communities as they currently function. NDLR Communities of Practice drew on existing networks, or in some cases established new ones, to foster and stimulate the use of the national digital repository. Although these networks call on the terms of Lave and Wenger’s theoretical model (Lave & Wenger 2002), they might not conform to a traditional view of Communities of Practice. The paper will briefly review Communities of Practice theory to analyse the evaluation data, and will then describe the four models of community identified. Specifically, we examine the structure of the communities, and the ways in which individuals and special interests have been accommodated in ways that might not previously have been considered part of a Communities of Practice framework. The paper concludes with presentation of an ‘evolutionary pathway’ for NDLR communities, and we discuss how this will take shape as the project moves from pilot to mainstream. We offer proposals for how ‘smart’ communities can expand in the context of a full NDLR service