[EN] Group tutorials are becoming an ever-increasing learning methodology in University education due to the continuous knowledge feedback among students. Despite the positive impact of such kind of sessions on students, their previous organization phase remains most of the times misleading. The traditional way of arranging a group tutorial through e-mail normally results in a long and ineffective method mainly caused by the different schedule availability between the professor and the different students. Is in this context where Doodle arises as a virtual application to enhance this first group tutorial phase. Generally, Doodle allows users to schedule meetings in a quick, effective and free way: the organizer creates a new meeting, proposes different schedule options and invites the other participants through an e-mail invitation or a link created by Doodle. Then, participants vote for the schedule options that best fit their availability, so that the final meeting schedule is selected democratically. In the University context, professors would play the role of organizers and students of participants, respectively. In this paper, we analyze the application of Doodle in the organization of a group tutorial of students of Electrical Circuits from the Bachelor Degree in Electrical Engineering (Polytechnic University of Valencia). Particularly, the tutorial was formed by six students and the professor, and took place in the Department of Electrical Engineering. After the meeting, the students answered a survey. Their answers reveled the positive acceptance of Doodle among them in terms of efficiency and ease of use. 100% of them agree on its suitability for arranging future group tutorials. Moreover, a comparative study demonstrated that using Doodle instead of e-mail while arranging a group tutorial leads to an average of up to 64% reduction in process time. ; This work was supported in part by the regional public administration of Valencia under the grant ACIF/2018/106. ; Bastida Molina, P.; Vargas Salgado, CA.; ...
In: Sørensen , K A 2021 , ' Reflecting pedagogically on means and ends in post-pandemic university education ' , Dansk Universitetspædagogisk Netværk Konference 2021 , 07/10/2021 - 08/10/2021 .
Educators have reacted differently to moving university teaching online; some have struggled with digital literacy and getting technology to work, while others have enjoyed the possibilities digital technologies offer for teaching (Piotrowski and King 2020). While the pandemic has been hard for most, the disruption of teaching-as-usual can serve as an occasion to re-think what education is all about. After the dust has settled, such a situation can make us (re)ask fundamental questions of education; what is it we are trying to do? What are we doing it for? Put differently: what are the aims and purposes of our teaching? Tanggaard et al. (2014) argues that such questions should precede questions of methods and means though this split is not clear-cut in praxis. Asking fundamental questions on ends/means in education is pertinent in times of 'learnification' (Biesta 2010) and an abundance of available teaching methods – both analogue and digital – where many of these promise to 'enhance student learning', 'maximise interaction and engagement' or 'provide efficient learning' (see e.g. Avery et al. 2020). Drawing on Biesta, a dominant focus on methods and learning, risks omitting questions of purpose; what we are educating for. Also, Dewey's inquiry-based philosophy (1916) can offer some help here, as he was arguing for aims and methods to be intelligent meaning they were based on observation and judgment in concrete teaching situations and developed in collaboration between teacher and students. In this paper, I offer conceptual explorations – through Biesta and Dewey - on the aims and purposes of education that might help and provoke us as educators to reflect pedagogically on means/ends in education. The disruption of teaching is an occasion to stop and think, but the question is what it makes us think – about technology? About methods? Pedagogy? How has the unsettling of teaching-as-usual made you think? Literature: Dewey, J. (1916). Democracy and Education (2012th ed.). Createspace. Biesta, G. (2010). Good education in an age of measurement: Ethics, politics, democracy (2016th ed.). Routledge. Tanggaard, L., Rømer, T. A., & Brinkmann, S. (2014). Indledning: uren pædagogik til debat. In L. Tanggaard, T. A. Rømer, & S. Brinkmann (Eds.), Uren pædagogik 2. Klim. Avery, T., Makos, A., Sarguroh, W., Raman, P., & Brett, C. (2020). This is why we do it: Using a Design Based Approach to Optimize Student Learning in anOnline Discussion Based Course. International Journal of E-Learning & Distance Education, 35(1), 1–35. Piotrowski, C., & King, C. (2020). COVID-19 Pandemic : Challenges and Implications for Higher Education. Education, 141(2), 61–66. ; Educators have reacted differently to moving university teaching online; some have struggled with digital literacy and getting technology to work, while others have enjoyed the possibilities digital technologies offer for teaching (Piotrowski and King 2020). While the pandemic has been hard for most, the disruption of teaching-as-usual can serve as an occasion to re-think what education is all about. After the dust has settled, such a situation can make us (re)ask fundamental questions of education; what is it we are trying to do? What are we doing it for? Put differently: what are the aims and purposes of our teaching? Tanggaard et al. (2014) argues that such questions should precede questions of methods and means though this split is not clear-cut in praxis. Asking fundamental questions on ends/means in education is pertinent in times of 'learnification' (Biesta 2010) and an abundance of available teaching methods – both analogue and digital – where many of these promise to 'enhance student learning', 'maximise interaction and engagement' or 'provide efficient learning' (see e.g. Avery et al. 2020). Drawing on Biesta, a dominant focus on methods and learning, risks omitting questions of purpose; what we are educating for. Also, Dewey's inquiry-based philosophy (1916) can offer some help here, as he was arguing for aims and methods to be intelligent meaning they were based on observation and judgment in concrete teaching situations and developed in collaboration between teacher and students. In this paper, I offer conceptual explorations – through Biesta and Dewey - on the aims and purposes of education that might help and provoke us as educators to reflect pedagogically on means/ends in education. The disruption of teaching is an occasion to stop and think, but the question is what it makes us think – about technology? About methods? Pedagogy? How has the unsettling of teaching-as-usual made you think?
Virtual Exchange (VE) ist ein Sammelbegriff für eine Vielzahl von Ansätzen und Methoden der Online-Lehre, bei denen Studierende im Rahmen ihrer regulären Ausbildung über längere Zeit mit Partnerinnen und Partnern verschiedener kultureller Hintergründe virtuell kooperieren und interagieren. Dieser Beitrag diskutiert die Unterschiede zwischen VE und den verwandten Konzepten Virtual Mobility (VM) und Blended Mobility (BM). Im Anschluss daran werden die wesentlichen VE-Lernergebnisse für Lehrende und Studierende skizziert. Den Abschluss bildet ein Vorschlag, wie Hochschulen VE in ihren Internationalisierungsprogrammen berücksichtigen und dessen Akzeptanz unter Lehrenden fördern können. Die These lautet dabei, dass VE weder mit physischen Mobilitätsprogrammen konkurriert noch einen "Notbehelf" darstellt, der nur in Zeiten von Pandemie und internationalen Reisebeschränkungen relevant ist. Vielmehr ist VE als Vorbereitung auf eine physische Mobilität oder als Ergänzung dazu zu betrachten, die das hoch schuleigene Angebot an internationalen Lernerfahrungen für Studierende erweitert.
Today, education is experiencing radical changes, and its mission is changing dramatically too. The pandemic has significantly spurred this process, forced to take distance education for granted and transfer many individuals to the virtual space. For a very long time the institute of education has acted as the most conservative field of human activity in the modern society. But the current situation is changing rapidly. It is obvious that the next twenty years will be the era of the most radical changes. And the main source of these changes are the scientific, technological, information and communication revolutions, the epidemiological situation, which, like a tsunami, generate changes and determine the nature and content of a new civilization. In this situation, education acts as a center that fills the ongoing changes with content, becomes a value matrix of a different reality. The issues of stability and development of civilization directly depend on education, and education becomes the foundation of a new civilization. There is an understanding in the world that the old cannot be returned, everything will be different. Modern university education for a networked, post-information society can be created only on the basis of the development of new basic values that form a new perception of the world. However, there is a danger that modern education, adopting new values, will turn into a sphere that only imitates its high quality, prestige and success.
This article looks at how student learning from community engagement is related to traditional university education. In order to do so it has to deal with the range of variation in both student-community engagement and traditional university education and it has to explore the knowledge, skills and attitudes that characterise the learning outcomes of each. The main conclusion reached is that student-community engagement does not fit within traditional university education but it does fit with it. They are complementary forms of higher education that together better prepare students for their next steps after university than either do on its own.
Keywords: Traditional university education, community engagement, student learning, knowledge, skills, attitudes.
Studies in higher education show that a quality delivery of university education is paramount for the development of countries. However, achieving a quality delivery of university education is a serious endeavour in most African countries such as in Malawi. In this article, I explain the challenges faced by the university sector in Malawi and propose four complementary tenets necessary for achieving a quality delivery of university education. The four proposed tenets hinge on a need for: a coordinated higher education policy framework, an elaborate university education financing mechanism, a robust quality assurance system and a deliberative democratic governance university system. This paper contributes to debates and discourses surrounding efforts to achieve quality and relevance of university education in Africa and beyond. DOI:10.5901/mjss.2014.v5n20p1176