Search results

Colleges and universities play a significant role in preparing students to navigate the many issues and challenges that characterize contemporary societies, challenges that are simultaneously local, national, and global in nature. This has led to increased calls within higher education to re-envision educational practices to prioritize global competency. However, ambiguity persists regarding how faculty in transnational higher education contexts, specifically international branch campuses, understand global competency and conceive of their role in shaping students’ sense of self, perspective-taking, and social responsibility. Using a social constructivist lens, this chapter outlines initial case study research, informed by King and Magolda’s (2005) constructive-developmental model of intercultural maturity, Kegan’s (1994) scholarship on self-authorship, as well as Kolb’s (1984) experiential learning theory. This investigative research may be useful in terms of understanding how administrators and educators facilitate the environmental conditions and educational practices that lead to global competency and socially responsible global citizens. The broader implications of such study could potentially inform educational change policy and confirm the important role internationalized institutions, such as branch campus universities play in shaping and transforming societies.

Careful attention to experience is often the starting point for narrative inquiries into teaching and learning. This chapter uses autobiographical reflection on pedagogical experiences, young peoples’ drawings, and examples of narrative research to demonstrate the value of sharing and connecting personal stories. In the context of evidence-based reforms in education and a focus on accountability and teaching standards, Australian governments, like others, express concern about the “quality” of teacher education and are looking to models of school-based “training.” While apprenticeship models of teacher education are considered inadequate, stronger partnerships between schools and universities are desirable. I argue that rather than continuing to be at the periphery, narrative research and pedagogies can exist as a central thread in teacher education programs, which have stronger connections to schools, teachers, and young people because they reveal the complexity of teaching and learning processes, enable deeper levels of understanding, and foster a critical reflective stance. I use examples from practice to show how narrative pedagogies contextualize, problematize, and clarify personal values and experience, theory, policy, and issues of practice. Nowhere is this more powerful than in situations where dispersed narratives, told orally, in writing and through visual representations sit alongside of one another and collide. Dispersed narratives challenge the view that narratives are contained and individualized. Rather than being discrete, they exist as intertextual connections or networks of meaning that can be created by groups of people not necessarily confined by space and time. This chapter aims to open a space for the continued thinking about how dispersed narratives can be used in teacher education to deepen professional learning.

This chapter provides a range of data that we broadly characterize as listening to preservice teachers’ perceptions and representations of teacher education programs. Our first purpose is to illustrate the variety of ways in which it is possible to listen to those learning to teach and to illustrate the rich complexity of the replies we received. Our second purpose is to illustrate how these data have encouraged and sustained us in the development of our own teacher education practices, both in the university classroom and in practicum supervision in schools.

Social and technological changes of the 21st century influence how and what students learn while in college. New research about student learning suggests a critical need for higher education to reform teaching and learning methods. Experiential and inquiry-based learning (IBL) are essential to engaging students and achieving the type of learning demanded by today’s global workforce. These skills include critical analysis, systems thinking, problem-solving, and spanning cultural and disciplinary boundaries. For decades, international educators purported that education abroad provided these skills for participants, yet recent research suggests that the same factors inhibiting deep learning on campus can also affect global, experiential environments. No longer can faculty members assume that students will learn from experience alone; they must intentionally construct activities accounting for the specific characteristics and needs of learners. This chapter outlines trends influencing student learning, making the case that traditional, content-based, directed instruction is poorly suited for student learning in the 21st century. The authors suggest that applying experiential and inquiry-based practices is essential to constructing effective education abroad program. Case studies, strategies, tools, and resources are provided to assist faculty with developing competencies to teach through an experiential and inquiry-based pedagogical framework.

This chapter describes a cyclical mentoring model that is designed to scaffold the use of video in a graduate literacy practicum for in-service teachers.

This chapter is organized by (1) an overview of the Literacy Practicum course and the three learning phases and activities within each phase; (2) a description of the mentoring process/procedures during each of the phases, and examples of their impact on teachers’ learning and practice; and (3) a discussion of implications for practice.

Drawing upon recent work in teacher inquiry and reflection, this model provides opportunities for teachers to take increasing ownership of their own professional growth.

The examples in this chapter are anecdotal. But they help to illustrate the processes and procedures in this model, which is described with great detail in order to be useful for pre- and in-service teachers, as well as school-based professional development programs.

The model can be effectively incorporated into both pre-service clinical settings as well as professional development with in-service teachers.

As a potential high impact tool, video analysis of teaching must not be viewed as an incidental approach; rather it must be an integral part of a learning cycle which is committed to student ownership and voice, social engagement, critical inquiry, reflection and integrative learning.

In this chapter, we, the authors Bishop, Etmanski and Page, argue for the need to disrupt the traditional notion of faculty solely as expert. We redefine the online faculty role to be that of a facilitator who creates the space for students to engage with both content and other students in the class. We discuss the adult learning principles behind our practices and our attention to building community. To illustrate what our online teaching work looks like in practice, we begin by providing a creative script on what online learning could look like. We then speak to utilising the specific strategies of online forums, behind the scenes outreach, synchronous meetings and assignments to create rich engagement in the online environment for higher education and learning.

We place a strong emphasis on building community among our students from the start of course and throughout. Recognising that people respond differently to different scenarios and have different learning preferences, we seek to offer a diverse range of options for experiencing community, with the intention of offering the possibility of belonging for everyone. The intention to create space for engagement in online learning has challenged us to continually ask ourselves how we can adapt or create new activities and experiences for the online learning environment, so as to enhance engagement.

There is currently a growth of interest and activity in the area of comparative cross-national partnership research. This is stimulated by methodological, ideological, political and economic developments particularly within the European Union, where European Commission funding has supported numerous projects. Whereas the ‘old’ comparative education focused solely on large-scale quantitative projects to establish differences in educational effectiveness of different nations, the ‘new’ comparative research is developing innovative methodologies in order to undertake studies which take account of tradition, context and national and local education policy (Broadfoot, 2002a, b; Osborn, 2004). Both these forms of research, however, are subject to broadly the same set of methodological issues surrounding their effectiveness.

The rapid advancement of Education Technology (EdTech) offers promising opportunities for educational institutions to integrate sustainable business practices into their operations and curriculum. The integration of EdTech into sustainability education has emerged as a powerful tool to promote environmental awareness, foster sustainable behavior, and address the pressing challenges of climate change and resource depletion. This chapter explores the growing significance of EdTech in sustainability education, analyzing its potential to cultivate a generation of environmentally conscious and responsible global citizens. It also aims at identifying and examining the most prominent emerging EdTech tools specifically designed to promote sustainability in educational settings. Furthermore, it aims to comprehend the institutional elements that have successfully incorporated and expanded the utilization of EdTech tools to promote enduring business practices. Additionally, the chapter addresses the challenges and obstacles faced by educational institutions in adopting and implementing these technologies and propose strategies to overcome these barriers.