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A group of faculty at Penn State's Department of Landscape Architecture observed that the traditional master/apprentice model of studio instruction fosters greater student dependence on faculty for decision-making guidance than the faculty considers desirable. They contend that this traditional model promotes a studio dynamic that encourages students to look to the professor for design ideas and wait for faculty approval before making design decisions. The faculty considered this decision-making dependency to be in conflict with the need for students to develop the critical-thinking skills required to address the complex and ill-structured problems that are common in architecture and landscape architecture. In response to their concern this faculty team developed a studio teaching method they termed “independent design decision-making.” They speculated that by transferring the responsibility for design decisions from professor to the student, students could improve their critical thinking and gain confidence in design decision-making. The faculty conceived a set of strategies to implement in a 3rd year team-taught site planning and design studio that presents a range of complex design issues and scales. In collaboration with Penn State's Schreyer Institute for Teaching Excellence, the faculty researchers developed a 2-year comparative study to test this new teaching method in the same design studio with two consecutive student groups-evaluating the strategies implemented in the first year, refining methods, then applying and re-evaluating the results in the next year's class. These new strategies included ways students receive information to inspire their designs (“input strategies”) and ways to receive critique on their design ideas (“feedback strategies”). Two evaluation instruments were chosen to assess this method of studio teaching: 1) the Group Embedded Figures Test (GEFT), and 2) Student Assessment of Learning Gains (SALG). This paper presents this teaching/learning method and reports on the results of the comparative study.

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the complex, intricate relationships between the central (intended) curriculum, teachers’ perceived curriculums, and the enacted/assessed curriculum in classroom contexts. To do this, the authors have used Hong Kong’s new core senior-secondary liberal studies (LS) curriculum as a case study, with a special focus on its key pedagogical component – inquiry teaching/learning.

This study’s objects are two teachers (from two local schools), each with a LS teacher’s education. Documentary analysis, lesson observation, and focus interviews were used to triangulate data for interpretation and analysis.

The findings illuminate: how LS teachers’ perceptions of inquiry teaching/learning relate to and align with the advocacy embodied in the intended curriculum, the relationships between teachers’ perceptions and practices of inquiry learning and teaching, and how this aspect of the intended curriculum reform can be made more relevant to the classroom context.

This paper contributes to the under-researched area of curriculum gaps and (mis)alignments in Hong Kong’s LS curriculum reform.

Changes in society, the economy and health require a response from higher education regarding the training of professionals, specifically, future teachers. In this sense, active methodologies constitute, in line with the 2030 Agenda for sustainable development, a key strategic element in teacher training, given the need to educate for sustainability and social responsibility (SR). This study aims to examine innovative teaching-learning experiences based on the use of active methodologies and the interaction with sustainability and SR on the part of university students in Education.

The methodology constitutes a systematic review of the qualitative, inductive and exploratory literature, on the basis of the PRISMA declaration principles. The sample is composed of research published between 2011 and 2021 in the world’s most important scientific databases in the educational context (WoS, Scopus and Eric-ProQuest).

This study reveals the methodologies that are most commonly used in ecological literacy, their implications for the acquisition of competencies in terms of curriculum sustainability and their relationship with the UN Sustainable Development Goals and SR. Higher education must reflect and demonstrate awareness of its social mission and pedagogical effectiveness, to transform education, taking as a reference the sustainability and SR in the university student’s curriculum.

One of the main limitations of this study is the scarcity of research studies that include, jointly, the key descriptors analysed in this contribution such as teacher training, active methodologies, sustainability and SR. Another limitation to observe in this work is related to having considered as inclusion criteria solely research published in open access journals, since other research published in closed access journals is omitted.

This work demonstrates the usefulness of active methodologies in the training and professional development of future Education students in “sustainability”.

This chapter explores issues of quality teaching, learning, and assessment in higher education courses from the perspective of teaching fully online (polysynchronous) courses in undergraduate and graduate programs in education at a technology university in Ontario, Canada. Online courses offer unique opportunities to capitalize on students’ and professors’ digital capabilities gained in out-of-school learning and apply them to an in-school, technology-enabled learning environment. The critical and reflective arguments in this paper are informed by theories of online learning and research on active learning pedagogies.

Digital technologies have opened new spaces for higher education which should be dedicated to creating high-quality learning environments and high-quality assessment. Moving a course online does not guarantee that students will be able to meet the course outcomes more readily, however, or that they will necessarily understand key concepts more easily than previously in the physically copresent course environments. All students in higher education need opportunities to seek, critique, and construct knowledge together and then transfer newly-acquired skills from their coursework to the worlds of work, service, and life. The emergence of new online learning spaces helps us to reexamine present higher education pedagogies in very deliberate ways to continue to maintain or to improve the quality of student learning in higher education.

In this chapter, active learning in fully online learning spaces is the broad theme through which teaching, learning, and assessment strategies are reconsidered. The key elements of our theoretical framework for active learning include (1) deliberate pedagogies to establish the online classroom environment; (2) student ownership of learning activities; and (3) high-quality assessment strategies.

The article examines the implications of programme specification for the distinctive multidisciplinary curricular environment of the Open University. It concludes that, for multidisciplinary programmes, specification is likely to focus on generic outcomes that relate to institutional level descriptors aligned to descriptors in the national qualification framework. These will be connected to more detailed course specifications that describe the curriculum building‐blocks. Generic outcome statements will need to reflect concepts of level, progression, diversity, balance, flexibility, integrity and coherence through an individualised programme that is constructed by the student. It concludes that the adoption of a framework of key skills outcomes benchmarked against the national standards can provide the basis for institutional descriptors against which multidisciplinary programmes can be benchmarked.

The purpose of this paper is to discuss the reasons and drivers for academic libraries affecting university strategy with regards to shaping and developing learning spaces in response to changing pedagogic behaviours.

A review of available literature within the context of academic libraries and their position to influence and lead institutional strategic change. This theory and practice is addressed and evidenced by four case studies of university libraries in the UK.

Many UK academic libraries find themselves able to lead on and influence their institution's strategic direction with regards to teaching, learning and research. This is particularly the case in the design and development of learning spaces within the university. Academic libraries are in a unique position within a university with a view to observing student behaviours, being responsive to ever changing demands from academics and students, spotting trends and benchmarking against comparative institutions. These practices make it possible for academic libraries to advise, guide and lead on teaching and learning strategy and lead on learning spaces developments within their institutions.

Academic libraries can use existing quality assurance, responsiveness and benchmarking frameworks to influence university strategy and decision making.

This paper focuses on the concept of academic libraries influencing change, rather than responding to change, within their university. The case studies provide examples of where this has been the case, and suggest ways and frameworks which can be adopted by other academic libraries.

Problem solving skills (PSS), an important component of learning outcomes, is one of the desirable skills in engineering graduates as stated by many employers, researchers and government bodies in India for a strong foothold in professional world. There is a need to develop comprehensive understanding and integration of theory (concept) and practice (process) of PSS in the context of experiential learning (EL).

The present study is qualitative in nature using a conceptual research design focussing on synthesis and model building framework. The key elements of the study are PSS, EL and their integration. The study seeks to develop conceptual integration of PSS across multiple theories and perspectives. It offers an enhanced view of a concept of PSS by summarising and integrating extant knowledge. It presents the complete and comprehensive meaning/definition of PSS. Subsequently, it also explores EL and synthesises the different variants of EL that can be used to develop PSS. Finally, the study builds a theoretical framework that proposes integration and interplay between PSS and EL.

Problem-solving operates at three levels: problem concept (nature and context), process (stages with strategies) and solution (open-ended). EL can be used as a tool to develop PSS in an integrated manner. It is found that EL and problem-solving interplay with each other as both are cyclic in nature and have commonalities strengthening each other.

The proposed framework can be adopted in engineering education for making the engineering graduates job ready.

The study proposes a framework based on integration of EL and problem-solving focusing on specific aims and goals of the course, learning approaches, learning strategies and authentic learning (learning environment). This integration would bridge the gap between engineering education and industry requirements. EL integrated problem-solving focus on pedagogical knowledge (knowing how to facilitate discussion among learners and curricular knowledge) and instructional knowledge (knowing how to introduce, organise different methods and assess).

The purpose of this paper is to answer the question, what progress student teachers make during one academic year, while being trained in a professional learning community, using objective classroom observation, using lesson preparation templates that match their developmental stage and stage-focused mentor feedback.

The teaching skills of the student teachers (n=101) were measured at the start and at the end of the academic year. For the measurements, the standardized and psychometrically tested International Comparative Analysis of Learning and Teaching observation instrument is used.

The student teachers achieved a small growth on the basic teaching skills and a medium growth on two of the three advanced skills for teachers.

Because of the lack of a control group, causal conclusions cannot be made. This research provides knowledge on the actual observed level of teaching skills of student teachers trained in a close collaborating professional learning community.

Little is known about the actual growth of observable teaching skills of student teachers in elementary education. Teacher training colleges and internship schools in the Netherlands are in search of better ways to collaborate more closely in order to improve the quality of teaching of their student teachers. These findings can inspire teacher training communities to improve their own teaching quality and the teaching quality of their student teachers.

This study aims to investigate the role of professors as gatekeepers for sustainable development competencies (SDC) in disciplinary study programs. It aims to understand which factors are crucial for professors to integrate SDC into their teaching, their basic understanding of SDC, the actual degree of SDC integration and how suitable they perceive student-centered teaching strategies for teaching SDC.

The results are based on the qualitative content analysis of interviews with 16 professors after they participated in a didactic training program focused on combining student-centered teaching strategies with SDC.

Psychological factors, like the attribution of responsibility, value orientations and cost-benefit considerations, are not the only reasons for integrating SDC into a course, as disciplinary requirements play their role. When teaching SDC, professors focus on systems-thinking, strategic and normative competencies. They consider student-centered teaching strategies especially suitable to teach systems-thinking and interpersonal competencies.

Promoting changes toward teaching SDC may best be done by supporting professors’ intrinsic motivations: by fulfilling the need for growth in teaching skills, activating values and creating an environment in which everybody feels responsible for teaching SDC.

Teaching SDC with student-centered teaching strategies is relevant even in study programs that show little relation to sustainability issues. professors are experts in their field, but not necessarily in the field of sustainability. Understanding how such professors might include sustainable development competency development in their syllabi can widen the influence of SDC on higher education.

The purpose of this paper is to share practice on how two approaches to work‐based learning (WBL) are used to develop the knowledge and skills of health care staff with different levels of experience and educational attainment within the Department of Nursing and the Department of Allied Health Professions at a post‐1992 university (UCLAN) and to enable two models of WBL to be differentiated, for the purposes of curriculum development.

The two models are mapped and compared using a curriculum framework, in order to illustrate differences in ethos, teaching, learning and assessment strategies between the two approaches.

Implementing two different approaches to WBL can meet health and social care employers' workforce development needs and can support the learning of diverse groups of staff, both those entering the health and social care services and those who are experienced and professionally qualified.

WBL can be implemented in many different ways to serve a variety of needs, but curriculum developers need to explore, with employers and potential students, their rationale behind engaging in WBL and ensure that ethos, teaching and learning methods and assessment are aligned as discussed by Biggs.

This paper provides information on two approaches to WBL adopted by one university and offers insights to others beginning curriculum development in this field.