Education Commons^™

Perceived Impact Of Peer Observation Of Teaching In Higher Education, Roisin Donnelly

Articles

This paper explores participant perceptions of the impact of a Peer Observation of Teaching scheme offered as part of an accredited Postgraduate Certificate in Teaching for academic staff/faculty in higher education. The Postgraduate Certificate Program has been designed to support the continuing professional development of academic staff/faculty through integration of peer learning. Inherent in the design and delivery of the Peer Observation of Teaching scheme is the belief by all involved that learning about teaching in higher education, and heightening a sense of professionalism, stems from a continuous process of transforming and constructing personal meaning in a variety of related …

Camera! Action! Collaborate With Digital Moviemaking, Kathleen Owings Swan, Mark J. Hofer, Linda S. Levstik

Articles

Broadly defined, digital moviemaking integrates a variety of media (images, sound, text, video, narration) to communicate with an audience. There is near-ubiquitous access to the necessary software (MovieMaker and iMovie are bundled free with their respective operating systems) and hardware (computers with Internet access, digital cameras, etc.). This easy access, along with the open-ended nature of digital movies, presents powerful opportunities to design student-centered, inquiry-based history projects. Engaging students as digital directors can not only help them develop historical questions and select and evaluate sources relevant to those questions, but can frame (literally and figuratively) and present historical interpretations. In …

A Critical Exploration Of The Rhetoric Of Equity Belied By Practice In Postgraduate Teacher Education, Roisin Donnelly

Articles

This paper presents the initial results of an investigation into the current awareness and perceptions of equity issues amongst academic staff working on a postgraduate learning and teaching course for teachers in tertiary education in the Republic of Ireland. The study is set in the contemporary landscape of discourses around equality, egalitarianism and equity in education generally. The Irish White Paper on Adult Education Learning for Life (2000) recommends that adult education should be underpinned by three core principles, one of which is to promote equality of access, participation and outcome for participants in adult education, with pro-active strategies to …

Digital Campaigning: Using The Bill Of Rights To Advance A Political Position, Kathy Swan, Mark J. Hofer

Articles

Educating students to understand overt, subtle, and erroneous claims made by partisan advertisers is no small feat. Often students are passive consumers who need to learn how to become critical listeners, viewers, readers, and producers of all types of media. Because of this, media literacy--the ability to access, analyze, evaluate, and produce communication in a variety of forms--is growing in importance in schools across the country. This article documents one exercise in which preservice teachers at two universities assigned a project of creating digital advertisements as a mechanism for understanding the Bill of Rights and partisan politics. Specifically, using Windows …

Standards, Firewalls, And General Classroom Mayhem: Implementing Student-Centered Technology Projects In The Elementary Classroom, Mark J. Hofer, Kathleen Owings Swan

Articles

Educators are simultaneously bombarded with both calls to integrate technology in meaningful ways into their teaching and to promote more student-centered activities which combine both content learning and higher-order thinking. This is no small task given the range of student abilities and interests, the increasing emphasis on state standards and testing, and the persistent challenges regarding reliability and ubiquitous access to the necessary technologies in the classroom. In this study, the authors attempt to work towards a research-based model to connect student-centered technology pedagogy that teachers can effectively replicate in the classroom. They came to this project as educational technologists …

Technology And Teacher Preparation In Exemplary Institutions: 1994 To 2003, Mark J. Hofer

Articles

In a 1994 study commissioned by the Congressional Office of Technology Assessment, Mergendoller, Johnston, Rockman, & Willis (1994) examined four exemplary institutions to identify their approaches to integrating technology into teacher education. A decade later, the field would benefit from a comparison of current approaches of infusing technology into teacher education to the 1994 findings. This study examines the approaches of the first seven teacher education programs to receive the ISTE NETS Distinguished Achievement Award. Current approaches to the process are outlined, including the identification of the key factors impacting their implementation. A comparison of the 1994 and the present …

Instructional Uses Of Instant Messaging (Im) During Classroom Lectures, Mabel B. Kinzie, Stephen D. Whitaker, Mark J. Hofer

Articles

Can “Information Age” learners effectively multi-task in the classroom? Can synchronous classroom activities be designed around conceptually related tasks, to encourage deeper processing and greater learning of classroom content? This research was undertaken to begin to address these questions. In this study, we explored the use of instructionally-related instant messaging (IM) discussions during undergraduate university lectures. Over the course of three weeks, students practiced with and then employed hand-held computers for brief, synchronous class discussions in response to assigned questions related to the lectures. Students were observed during these sessions, and students and the instructors were interviewed separately afterwards. The …

Where Does Ap(E)L Fit In Higher Education?, Anne Murphy

Articles

On an EU policy level the paper acknowledges the impact on thinking about AP(E)L as a result of the agreement of common European principles for validation of non-formal and in-formal learning in 2004 at the Dublin Conference during Ireland’s presidency of the EU (note 1).This conference also addressed the possible areas of agreement across vocational education and training (VET) and higher education (HE) on contiguous issues such as a common European Qualification Framework, common arrangements for credit transfer and common arrangements for quality assurance. Additionally, the paper is written contemporaneously with the introduction of such mechanisms as the Europass, European …

Meeting The Iste Challenge In The Field: An Overview Of The First Six Distinguished Achievement Award Winning Programs, Terri Teal Bucci, Anthony Petrosino, Randy Bell, Susan Cherup, Ann Cunningham, Sandi Cohen, Gail Dickinson, Jeremy Ervin, Mark J. Hofer, Keith Wetzel

Articles

The 2002 National Educational Technology Standards (NETS) Distinguished Achievement Awards, sponsored by the International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE), were awarded to six teacher education programs across the United States. The awards recognize institutions that exemplify successful integration of the National Educational Technology Standards for Teachers (NETS[solid dot]T) into teacher education programs. Institutions across the country completed an extensive application process to be selected one of the first six recipients of the ISTE Distinguished Achievement award. This process included online documentation that demonstrated the program's implementation of the NETS[solid dot]T models and practices. This article provides a means of …

Information Literacy Programmes And Course Curricula: The Case For Integration, Anne Ambrose, Brian Gillespie

Articles

The advent of the Internet and the profusion, complexity and haphazard nature of the information available through electronic and digital resources has highlighted the issue of information literacy in third level institutions worldwide. How do we deal with the information explosion to which we are subjected on a daily basis? In particular how do our students learn to exploit the range of resources available to advance their studies and research? Can these students become fully independent learners as proposed by the new teaching and learning methodologies without the necessary foundation skills? The authors argue, based on international standards and benchmarking …

Using Problem-Based Learning To Explore Qualitative Research, Roisin Donnelly

Articles

The aim of this article is to discuss an approach to deliver a component on qualitative research on a research methods module in a postgraduate diploma in third level learning and teaching using problem-based learning (PBL). The Diploma in Third Level Learning and Teaching is on offer to a variety of academic staff (lecturers) in higher education at a higher education institute in Ireland, hereafter referred to as participants. The 10-week Research Methods module is one of eight offered on the Postgraduate Diploma, all designed and delivered using the pedagogic strategy of PBL. The entire Postgraduate Diploma is voluntary, and …

Researching And Acting: Exploring And Improving The Provision Of Academic Support For Newly Appointed Staff In A Higher Education Institution In Ireland, Roisin Donnelly

Articles

As an academic working for the past three years in a learning and teaching centre in a higher education institution inIreland, I have only recently asked myself if I have been living in the direction of my educational values (Whitehead, 1989). These are my ideas about what constitutes an educationally worthwhile process of teaching and learning by defining the relationship between knowledge, teachers and learners.

My professional role involves the provision of academic support for newly appointed staff at the Institute. I felt there was a discrepancy between what I felt should be happening for these new staff members and …