67 research outputs found
Cultural Preparedness of Adult Educators: A Changing Dynamic in Higher Education
No full textNumbers of international undergraduate students enrolled in Canadian universities and colleges have grown from 22,000 in the year 2000 to 2.2 million in 2022. While international students embark on their post-secondary journey of discovery, we as educators also embark on a journey of discovery to explore how prepared we are to meet the international learning community's needs. This research focused on generating understanding around cultural preparedness in learning communities and the tools needed to support the educating community. For this inquiry, I drew from the transformative learning theoretical framework, guided by a qualitative research methodological approach and methods to utilize a three-phased research design of topic-based focus groups and interviews. In this study, I drew from seminal work and insights on culture. I defined a nuanced definition of cultural preparedness in adult learning settings, specifically at a public university in Western Canada. The findings suggest that cultural preparedness is a community-wide endeavour in collaboration with students, administration, educators and begins with understanding one’s positionality. Outcomes from this study may further help educators promote best practices related to internationalization at home in the 21st century. Key words: internationalization at home, educators, students, transformative learning, qualitative, cultural preparedness, global pandemic, COVID-1
Leadership Models for Internationalising Higher Education Institutions in Japan
No full textAmidst the growing demand for internationalisation of the higher education (HE) market globally, and demographic and social challenges domestically, the Japanese government has instituted a series of initiatives intended to create a robust, globally competitive HE sector. This objective attests to both the demands for Japan to foster globally competitive human resources among its own population and a desire to attract competent researchers to secure the nation’s standing in the global knowledge economy. However, despite a substantial investment of resources in overseeing this transformation, research on the topic suggests modest results at best. At the root of many of these challenges is a failure to foster an internationalised professorate, despite international faculty being identified as key to internationalisation. Conspicuous in its absence is a lack of literature on the role of leadership in strengthening this capacity, which the present study addressed. Leveraging Bass’s (1985) full range leadership model, the study employed an explanatory sequential mixed methods design (ESMMD) to examine the leadership preferences of Japanese and non-Japanese English as a Foreign Language (EFL) instructors working within the Japanese higher education system. The Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire was first administered to assess and compare leadership preferences between Japanese (n = 26) and non-Japanese (n = 136) EFL faculty members and leaders embedded within Japanese higher education institutions (HEIs). The results informed a second phase of semi-structured interviews with five Japanese (n = 5) and five non-Japanese (n = 5) EFL faculty and leaders and elicited their opinions on effective leadership and the role of leadership in overseeing internationalisation processes. The results of the study suggested a statistically significant difference between Japanese and non-Japanese respondents’ leadership preferences, with non-Japanese scoring the transformational leadership construct higher. Five central themes were identified in the qualitative data which provided further insight into this phenomenon and suggested some practical ways HE leaders in Japan might embolden international faculty within and beyond the scope of the FRLM. The paper concludes by proposing a three-facet model, focused on leadership training, diversity building, and research, which suggests way to strengthen Japanese HEI leadership’s ability to create more internationalised professorates and institutions
Teaching as Coevolving: An Approach to Online Course Design
No full textThe growth of online learning in higher education, over the last decade and its exponential development due to COVID-19, has opened up exciting possibilities for instructors by providing access to new modes of course design not possible within the constraints of a traditional classroom. One approach to enhancing the student online learning experience is Universal Design for Learning (UDL), in which students are able to engage with the material in a manner appropriate to their current situation. By using this approach, courses can be designed in ways that allow students to take personalized paths to achieve the course outcomes. The purpose of this presentation is to outline the lessons learned for designing online courses using UDL. The courses used courses provided multiple entry points for learning, so that students, with all their diversities, can adapt activities to fit their needs, emergent abilities, and interests. UDL can be expressed in four sub-principles: 1) providing multiple means of representation, with spaces for unanticipated possibilities to emerge; 2) providing multiple means for students to express what they know and what they have learned; 3) offering ways into, and explorations beyond, planned experiences; 4) permitting and nurturing specialized interests of individuals, while enhancing possibilities for the collective
The Affordances of Variation Theory (New Phenomenography) in Enhancing EAL Students' Learning
No full textVariation theory is relatively new perspective on learning and has not been comprehensively explored in the English as an additional language (EAL) context. Research in other educational fields has shown that lesson structures informed by variation theory have been able to enhance student learning. This paper is an attempt to demonstrate how lesson structures guided by variation theory can be applied to teaching vocabulary. An analysis of the lesson presented suggests that using variation theory in an EAL context provides affordances that increases the probably of student learning, and merits further investigation.N
Enhancing Student Assessment Through Veedback
No full textProviding audio-visual feedback through screencast technology has been shown to reinforce learning after submission. However, these video feedbacks are often limited by the annotation tools afforded by the word processing software, making them difficult to follow. The combination of a tablet and stylus along with screencast technology offers more freedom and can enhance student experience. This presentation reports the results of an investigation into whether these new enriched feedbacks for assignments, called veedbacks, boost student experience. The qualitative and quantitative findings reveal that students are very positive about veedbacks.University of Calgary Werklund School of Education, Galileo Educational Network, Navigator, Centaur Products Inc., Marathon OilYe
How Noticing is Affected by Replay of Writing Process During Stimulated Recall
No full textAbstractThis study investigated how stimulated recall induced peer-peer and expert-novice interactions during the replay of the participants’ writing process using InputLog affected the number of enhancements made to a composition. Enhancement was operationalized as the surface and non-surface changes made either during (noticing) or after (revision) the stimulated recall session. Twenty-four high intermediate EFL students wrote different narrative essays and recorded the writing process with InputLog. Next, they participated in stimulated recall sessions while watching the replay of their writing process, three times with a peer and once with an expert. During and after these sessions, the participants revised their essays. The greatest number of enhancement was made in the expert-novice stimulated recall sessions. However, while there was a significant difference in the number of non-surface changes, no significant difference was found in the number of surface changes in these sessions
A Pedagogical Mathematics Register Framed by Systemic Functional Linguistics: The Case of the Equals Sign
No full textThe purpose of this quasi-experimental study was to investigate whether using a pedagogical mathematical register, framed by systemic functional linguistics, to expose a 5th and 6th grade elementary students to the operational and the relational interpretations associated with the equals sign positively affects students’ understanding of these various interpretations.
The pedagogical register used to detach the operational and the relational meanings of the equals sign was in a form of two semiotic bundles, which is a linguistic label (the process “equals” for the operational definition and the verbal group “is equal to” for the relational definition) selected based on Systemic Functional Linguistics and a gesture (a packing gesture for the operational definition and a balancing gesture for the relational definition) used simultaneously with its corresponding linguistic label. These two interpretations along with their semiotic bundles where introduced to the experimental groups in a presentation informed by variation theory. The study investigated the short-term and long-term effects of presenting the equals sign via semiotics bundles on students’ understanding of the different definitions of the equals sign as well as their ability to implement these different definitions. The assessment included a pretest and three post-tests. The first post-test was administered immediately after the presentation, the second, about two weeks after the presentation, and the final post-test was given to the experimental groups about six weeks after the second post-test.
Using descriptive statistics, the results indicate that using a semiotic bundle can stimulate students to use different interpretations of the equals sign in the short term, but not in the long-term. The results also show that operational thinking was common in the control group while many students in the experimental groups employed relational interpretation of the equals sign to provide answers. In the long-term, operational thinking remained frequent in the control group. In the experimental groups, students continued to use the relational interpretation of the equals sign to find answers. However, the data obtained could not conclusively attribute the experimental groups’ use of the relational interpretation to the pedagogical register that was incorporated in the presentation on the equals sign two months prior
Crafting AI Terms of Use for Higher Education
No full textThe use of AI for educational purposes has triggered a revolution in education (Chaudhry & Kazim, 2022; Yueh & Chiang, 2020). The increasing adoption of generative artificial intelligence (AI) in higher education underscores the necessity of formulating ethical guidelines that promote responsible and advantageous usage of these groundbreaking instruments by learners (Lim et al., 2022). Regrettably, the ethical dimensions of AI applications in education have been mostly disregarded in educational research (Yu & Yu, 2023) due to the rapid advancement in AI technology. Despite the challenges, educational researchers and higher education institutions have a responsibility to provide ongoing guidance so that AI technologies can be implemented in an ethical manner.
In pursuit of the stated objective, this paper begins by first encapsulating the salient principles outlined in IEEE's Ethically Aligned Design (EAD2v2) Standards (2018), which serves as a crucial reference for the ethical development and deployment of AI and autonomous systems. Then, the highly influential Fjeld et al.’s (2020) paper – a Berkman Klein Center’s (a Harvard University research centre) publication is explained. Drawing from the insights offered by these two prominent frameworks, a comprehensive and interdisciplinary foundation for the ethical utilization of AI by learners is synthesized. The objective is to provide a balanced and holistic approach to the employment of AI by students in higher education. By adhering to the synthesized guidelines, it is hoped that AI technologies will be employed in ways that advance the noble objectives of education while safeguarding the ethical, social, and human values at its core
Those Who Can: The Significance of Math Policymakers for Math Policy and Practice
No full textThis study addresses the effects that policymakers’ mindsets have upon equity in the policy and practice of math education. It looks beyond math education culture to the general culture, examining the way mindset is constructed and sustained through its discursive expressions in written and spoken language and identifying the positioning it entails and its consequences for learners, educators and policymakers. I explore the notion that due to their similar experience as learners, Israeli math education policymakers hold similar beliefs about math ability. Mapping the mindset behind these shared perceptions, I trace its existence within policy (where it gains authority), as well as its positioning of learners in ways that strengthen and support cultural perceptions while hindering equity. My research addresses complex issues at the personal, social, and political levels. Discourse provides the underlying methodological cornerstone for this study. Discourse analysis serves both for excavation and interpretation of dispositions and mindsets embedded in policy, as well as for the negotiation and re-conceptualization of identities, positions, and policy. Looking at policymakers’ commitment and passion for math education and its promotion, alongside the difficulty in addressing learners whose experience of math is very different from their own, there may be a need for special support in the process of policy and curriculum creation. There may be need for a greater variety of voices in the math education committees, voices that are as passionate about math education and the possibility of promoting it among learners of different dispositions, voices that should echo the position and outlook of different learners
Chinese International Graduate Students’ Experience of Engagement in Online Learning in Canadian Higher Education: An Ecological Perspective
No full textWhile the last decade has seen a dramatic increase in both the acceptance and use of online learning in post-secondary education (Seaman & Seaman, 2016), studies have documented both higher and lower student engagement in online learning (Muthuprasad et al., 2021). Most previous studies on online learning focused on a solitary dimension of student engagement in their analytical models (Pianta et al., 2012), rather than embracing a more comprehensive sociocultural framework. Using a narrative inquiry methodology, I examined the online learning experience of six mainland Chinese international graduate students who had at least one-semester experience of online learning in Canadian universities. Specifically, this study explored: (a) the students’ online engagement experiences; (b) factors that influenced their online learning; and (c) the role of cultural factors that influenced their online engagement. The data for the study were drawn from semi-structured one-on-one interviews and the analysis of written narratives provided by the participants. Bronfenbrenner’s ecological model served as the theoretical framework for this study, facilitating the examination of various dimensions of students’ engagement in online learning. The findings indicated that participants generally held positive perceptions of their online learning experiences, while also recognizing the inherent advantages and challenges associated with this mode of education. The study revealed that student engagement was molded by a complex interplay of factors, such as personal interests, motivation, course attributes, instructor effectiveness, technological tools, visual aids, language considerations, peer interactions, familial and social connections, and the broader learning environment. The opinions of the participants varied on commonly held beliefs about Chinese culture influencing them, with some acknowledging these preconceived notions and corresponding behaviours aligned with them, while others challenged these stereotypes and emphasized individual differences and cultural contexts. The students’ accounts also highlighted aspects of Canadian culture with regard to equality, freedom of expression, independence in education, and diverse teaching styles among professors. Applying Bronfenbrenner’s ecological system theory revealed the interconnectedness of factors at different levels. With an understanding of these dynamics, I discussed implications of the findings in conceptualizing culturally responsive teaching practices, enhanced engagement and success among Chinese international students in online learning
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