1,720,956 research outputs found
Reconceptualising blended learning and pedagogies for innovative classroom practices
Full text linkContemporary education has undergone tremendous pedagogical shifts, culminating in an altered higher education landscape. The transition from the dominant traditional in-person mode to emergency remote online facilitation, and subsequently to adopted blended learning environments, necessitates a reconceptualisation of pedagogy for strategic and process realignment. Furthermore, the rapid transformation in education, accompanied by reforms, has raised expectations for lecturers and graduates to possess abilities that combine subject understanding with suitable instructional practices to meet the demands of the digital workforce. This study employs a conceptual analysis methodology to understand and reconceptualise blended learning and its pedagogies. By navigating the literature through the lenses of the Community of Inquiry, the study highlights the relevance of university teachers and students comprehending the concept and pedagogies in order to implement blended learning effectively. Additionally, a supportive environment must be established with frameworks that promote innovative classroom practices and inclusive learning. The study indicates that inadequate comprehension of blended learning concepts, modes, models, and pedagogies hinders the promotion of optimal learning and teaching practices in modern educational settings. It suggests that providing contemporary technological tools and resources is crucial for fostering innovative classrooms. Moreover, continual professional development is essential to respond to the rapidly emerging digital technologies for effective blended learning implementation. The study underscores the importance of understanding both the concept and pedagogies, and it provides insights into the implications for higher education institutions\u27 rapid adoption of blended learning
Probing learners' conceptual understanding of oxidation and reduction (redox) reactions : a case study
Full text linkThe new political dispensation in South Africa has seen a lot of changes taking place. The democratic wind, which has been blowing in all spheres of the political arena, could not leave out Education. This has led to the transformation in education and the revision of the curriculum guided by the Outcomes-Based Education philosophy (OBE). Thus, require education authorities as well as educators to look at education more comprehensively. The challenge posed to educators now is to develop tools and strategies that will make learning accessible to as many learners as possible and to teach for understanding and construction of knowledge. The principal objective of this study was to investigate the important role the learner's prior
knowledge plays and the use of different tools and strategies in stimulating conceptual understanding and construction of knowledge of redox reactions. This was done using learners' own investigations, practical activities, teaching settings and a workshop. The findings show that the learners lacked organized and structured prior knowledge. Learners could not integrate prior experience with new experience. The main issue seems to be the failure of learners to relate classroom experience to everyday redox phenomena. Possible reasons are discussed with some implications for teaching redox. The study further postulates that to assist learners to develop conceptual understanding of
redox reactions, different tools and strategies should be employed and teaching made relevant to real-life situations. In so doing, redox concepts would not be abstract to learners
Integrating Information and Communications Technology (ICT) into teaching and learning: The case of Mathematics, Science and Technology Education in one Higher Education Institution.
Full text linkThis study explores the integration of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) into teaching and learning within one Higher Education institution. The main question driving the study was: How is ICT integrated in the teaching and learning of mathematics, science and technology education (MSTE) in a Bachelor of Education programme? This is a case study of lecturers and students in Mathematics, Science and Technology Education. It makes use of questionnaires, interviews, field notes and document analyses to collect data. MSTE lecturers and students were assumed to be well versed in ICT usage and, therefore, well placed to assess its integration into teaching and learning. There were five main findings: First, that Mathematics, Science and Technology Education lecturers showed some ambivalence in their ontological and epistemological orientation to using ICT. Some leaned towards the instruction paradigm and used ICT as a tool for the transmission of knowledge; others leaned towards the learning paradigm, showing an awareness of the need to elicit discovery through ICT. Secondly, that lecturers’ understanding of ICT integration was oriented towards teaching and learning from technologies rather than with technologies. Thirdly, that processes of ‘pedagogical evolution’ were taking place, in terms of which there was a gradual but perceptible shift in the teaching and learning practice of both students and lecturers. Fourthly, there was no evidence to show that lecturers used ICT to promote innovative and creative teaching; in fact, students appeared to be more creative in using ICT resources, than lecturers. Fifthly, and finally, lecturers did not assign ICT-based tasks that promote conceptual understanding. They assigned tasks that asked students to extract and reproduce information from computers, without demonstrating understanding. When used in this way, ICT can, in fact, be de-skilling.
From these findings, it can be concluded that ICT integration cannot be understood without exploring the ontological and epistemological orientations, as well as the theoretical orientations, at play in the teaching and learning situation. It is on the basis of these that people, that is, lecturers and students, make use of, ICTs to achieve desired goals. It is therefore recommended that, for the improvement of integration, there should be a greater emphasis on developing and sharing pedagogical expertise concerning ICT use in teaching and learning. It is recommended that a country-wide research survey should be undertaken, based on probability sampling and focussing on pedagogical issues in ICT integration in teaching and learning
Analysis of Transformational Teaching as a Philosophical Foundation for Effective Classrooms
Full text linkNowadays, many classrooms are content-based and, therefore, disadvantage students from gaining lifelong skills that could support them in their future endeavours. This study proposed transformational teaching as a veritable strategy for effective classrooms where teaching and learning are taken beyond content delivery. This theory enables teachers/instructors/lecturers to promote expressive change that could lead to life-changing experiences among students. The study answers the following question: How can transformational teaching be presented as a stimulative teaching strategy for effective classrooms. The study is located within the transformative paradigm and designed with concept analysis, where the principles of transformational teaching are conceptualised and analysed using thematic analysis. The study was implemented by exploring the theory, its assumptions, and the connections between the theory and classroom activities. The study found that when effectively implemented in the classrooms, transformational teaching will enhance students’ lifelong learning experiences and contribute to a productive society. The study further recommends that teachers and students adopt transformational principles/strategies in curriculum facilitation (in the teaching and learning activities).  
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Full text linkThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
Variations on the Author
Full text link“Variations on the Author” discusses two of Eduardo Coutinho’s recent films (Um Dia na Vida, from 2010, and Últimas Conversas, posthumously released in 2015) and their contribution to the general question of documentary authorship. The director’s filmography is characterized by a consistent yet self-effacing form of authorial self-inscription: Coutinho often features as an interviewer that rather than express opinions propels discourses; an interviewer that is good at listening. This mode of self-inscription characterizes him as an author who is not expressive but who is nonetheless markedly present on the screen. In Um Dia na Vida, however, Coutinho is completely absent form the image, while Últimas Conversas, on the contrary, includes a confessional prologue that moves the director from the margins to the center of his films. This article examines the ways in which these works stand out in the filmography of a director who offers new insights into the notion of cinematic authorship
Appropriate Similarity Measures for Author Cocitation Analysis
Full text linkWe provide a number of new insights into the methodological discussion about author cocitation analysis. We first argue that the use of the Pearson correlation for measuring the similarity between authors’ cocitation profiles is not very satisfactory. We then discuss what kind of similarity measures may be used as an alternative to the Pearson correlation. We consider three similarity measures in particular. One is the well-known cosine. The other two similarity measures have not been used before in the bibliometric literature. Finally, we show by means of an example that our findings have a high practical relevance.information science;Pearson correlation;cosine;similarity measure;author cocitation analysis
Dispelling the Myths Behind First-author Citation Counts
Full text linkWe conducted a full-scale evaluative citation analysis study of scholars in the XML research field to explore just how different from each other author rankings resulting from different citation counting methods actually are, and to demonstrate the capability of emerging data and tools on the Web in supporting more realistic citation counting methods. Our results contest some common arguments for the continued
use of first-author citation counts in the evaluation of scholars, such as high correlations between author rankings by first-author citation counts and other citation
counting methods, and high costs of using more realistic citation counting methods that are not well-supported by the ISI databases. It is argued that increasingly available digital full text research papers make it possible for citation analysis studies to go beyond what the ISI databases have directly supported and to employ more
sophisticated methods
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