ethanporcaro/eric-fulltext-meta huggingface dataset:
Using Mobile Phone Technologies to Maintain Quality of Education in Ethiopia: A View beyond the Prevalence of Academic Dishonesty
Author: Bachore, Mebratu Mulatu
Date: 2015-00-00
Type: Journal Articles
Subjects: Telecommunications,Handheld Devices,Foreign Countries,Ethics,Cheating,Plagiarism,Technology Uses in Education,Educational Technology,Access to Education,Educational Quality,Barriers,Faculty Development,Gender Issues,Disabilities

The 21st century is characterized by the increasing access to sophisticated but affordable and portable technologies that are contributing much to the world. Specifically, in Ethiopia, mobile technologies are rapidly attracting new users, providing increasing capacity, and introducing more sophisticated uses to the citizens. However, it is becoming somehow common to ban using mobile phones in classrooms among teachers in Ethiopia due to fear of cheating and plagiarism. At the same time, various scholars around the world have been investigating the trends of using these technologies for learning in both formal and informal contexts. The integration of such technologies into teaching and learning has been more gradual, as educators need to understand how they can be effectively used to support various kinds of learning and develop effective methods and materials for mobile assisted learning. Therefore, this review article analyzes the trends, principles, merits and demerits, global experiences, and future considerations of using mobiles to maintain the quality of education in Ethiopia which is becoming the due concern of our nation.
Mapping Advocacy and Outreach for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning
Author: Huber, Mary Taylor
Date: 2016-00-00
Type: Journal Articles
Subjects: Advocacy,Outreach Programs,Scholarship,Instruction,Learning,Audiences,Matrices,Higher Education,Curriculum,Academic Achievement

From early days, SoTL scholars have documented the &quot;small significant networks&quot; (Roxå and Mårtensson's term) in which colleagues discuss teaching in local gatherings, as well as in broadly attended conferences and publications. Recent ISSOTL discussions recognize the significance of efforts at this scale and seek to situate them in a larger SoTL landscape, or SoTLscape, of advocacy and outreach activities in the field. In this essay, we present a matrix of possible audiences as an aid to seeing where scholars of teaching and learning are more--and less--active as advocates for SoTL and for positions on pedagogy, curricula, and student success supported by SoTL research. Beyond mapping current activity and looking for gaps, we suggest that the matrix could also help organize pithy accounts of practice into a resource that would stimulate imagination about how scholars of teaching and learning could be more effective as advocates both near to and far from their campus and disciplinary homes.
Exploring Classroom Community: A Social Network Study of Reacting to the Past
Author: Webb, Jeff
Date: 2016-00-00
Type: Journal Articles
Subjects: Social Networks,Undergraduate Students,Peer Relationship,Friendship,Role Playing,Honors Curriculum,Educational Games,Cooperative Learning,Classroom Environment,Group Dynamics,Inclusion,Social Isolation,Outcomes of Education,Hypothesis Testing,Social Capital

In this exploratory social network study, we examined how student relationships evolved during three month-long Reacting to the Past (RTTP) role-playing games in a lower division honors course at a large US public university. Our purpose was to explore how RTTP games--and collaborative learning approaches more generally--impact classroom community in college courses. We found that both acquaintance and friendship ties between students increased dramatically during the game, eliminating student isolation without tending to create new cliques. These added ties made acquaintance and friendship networks simultaneously denser and more inclusive than they were before the game. We conclude by advancing a hypothesis about the network effects of intensive peer interaction. Collaborative learning approaches like RTTP, we suggest, produce high-density networks with limited clustering because structured peer interactions cut across existing or naturally occurring clique boundaries.
Faculty Mentoring Undergraduates: The Nature, Development, and Benefits of Mentoring Relationships
Author: McKinsey, Elizabeth
Date: 2016-00-00
Type: Journal Articles
Subjects: College Faculty,Mentors,Teacher Student Relationship,Best Practices,Educational Benefits,Faculty Development,Student Development,Definitions,Informal Education,Risk,Undergraduate Students

Educational research shows that close student-faculty interaction is a key factor in college student learning and success. Most literature on undergraduate mentoring, however, focuses on planned programs of mentoring for targeted groups of students by non-faculty professionals or student peers. Based on the research literature and student and faculty testimony from a residential liberal arts college, this article shows that unplanned &quot;natural&quot; mentoring can be crucial to student learning and development and illustrates some best practices. It advances understanding of faculty mentoring by differentiating it from teaching, characterizing several functional types of mentoring, and identifying the phases through which a mentoring relationship develops. Arguing that benefits to students, faculty, and institutions outweigh the risks and costs of mentoring, it is written for faculty who want to be better mentors and provides evidence that administrators should value and reward mentoring.
Quality Assurance of University Education: Whose Responsibility?
Author: Ibijola, Elizabeth Yinka
Date: 2015-00-00
Type: Journal Articles
Subjects: Attitude Measures,College Faculty,College Students,Employers,Stakeholders,Higher Education,Quality Assurance,College Graduates,Responsibility,Foreign Countries,Surveys,Government Role,School Role,Hypothesis Testing

This study sought the opinion of stakeholders in university education, to know who should be responsible for quality assurance of university education in Nigeria. Descriptive research of survey design was employed in the study. The population consisted of all public university staff members, students and the employers of Nigerian university graduates in southwest Nigeria, while the sample comprised of 50 staff members and 200 students each from 3 federal and 3 state universities, and 50 employers of Nigerian university graduates each from the 6 states in southwest, Nigeria. The findings revealed that quality assurance of university education is a joint responsibility among all stakeholders, with greater responsibility falling on the government.
The Scholarship of Teaching and Learning as a Subversive Activity
Author: Boose, David L.
Date: 2016-00-00
Type: Journal Articles
Subjects: Scholarship,Instruction,Learning,Higher Education,Communities of Practice,Reflective Teaching,College Faculty,Educational Attitudes,Educational Practices,Educational Change,Resistance to Change,Teaching (Occupation),Educational Objectives

One of the most serious challenges facing higher education today is the erosion of academic culture--a declining sense that faculty form a community whose members reflect, deliberate, and make decisions together in the name of a shared educational vision. Our experience with Gonzaga University's Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL) Initiative suggests that SoTL can be a powerful counter force to this erosion. What became increasingly evident as the initiative unfolded was that its most important result was the creation of a kind of alternative academic community that stands in opposition to many of the dis-integrative, disempowering forces at work in higher education. The scholarly examination of practice, done in a collaborative context, changed participants' perceptions of learning, of themselves as teachers, and of the larger endeavor of which they are a part. Thus, we came to see the SoTL initiative as a subversive activity in the sense used by Neil Postman and Charles Weingartner in their 1969 book, &quot;Teaching as a Subversive Activity&quot;: one that invites critical questions about education's purposes, practices, and underlying assumptions, and in so doing reanimates core values.
Teaching and Learning SoTL: Preparing Future Faculty in a Pedagogy Course
Author: Auten, Janet G.
Date: 2015-00-00
Type: Journal Articles
Subjects: Scholarship,Instruction,Learning,Graduate Students,Seminars,Teacher Student Relationship,Partnerships in Education,Reflective Teaching,Teacher Education

The Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL) offers a way of equipping graduate students for monitoring, assessing, and reflecting on their teaching and their students' learning in higher education. After reviewing recent literature about the ways graduate students prepare for teaching, this essay presents an example of one way SoTL can inform teaching and teacher education as part of a graduate seminar. When a SoTL approach was integrated into a course about teaching in higher education, the course itself became a faculty-graduate student collaborative project. This essay demonstrates the potent circularity of the reflective teaching practice that drives the course and inspires similar practice in its students, which in turn informs subsequent iterations of the course.
Evolving Policy Initiatives for Effective Vocational Technical Education in North Central Zone, Nigeria
Author: Ombugus, Danjuma A.
Date: 2015-00-00
Type: Journal Articles
Subjects: Foreign Countries,Educational Policy,Vocational Education,Technical Education,Sustainable Development,Surveys,Teachers,Government Employees,Professional Personnel,Questionnaires,Secondary Education,Postsecondary Education,Hypothesis Testing,Educational Needs,Program Effectiveness

The study focused on evolving policy initiatives for effective Vocational Technical Education (VTE) on sustainable development. The study adopted a descriptive survey research design and was carried out in North Central Geopolitical Zone of Nigeria. The population for the study was 450 respondents (VTE teachers/lecturers, government officials, industrialists, and community members). Twenty-one Policy Initiative items questionnaire were developed, validated and utilized to collect data for the study. Cronbach Alpha method was used in determining the internal consistency of the questionnaire items. The reliability of the items revealed coefficient of 0.82. The study found out that 21 items were regarded as major purposes/objectives of vocational technical education and were rated as initiatives for policy formulation. It was found out that there were no significant differences in the mean rating of the respondents at 0.05 level of significant. It was recommended that the findings in the study be utilized by government for vocational technical education policy formulation in the North Central Zone of Nigeria.
A Comprehensive Internationalization Challenge: Learning from Failure or, When Your Best Just Isn't Good Enough
Author: Patton, Carl V.
Date: 2016-00-00
Type: Journal Articles
Subjects: Failure,Program Effectiveness,Success,Information Dissemination,Educational Theories,Transformative Learning,Learning Strategies

Why did our idea not work out? How did a program fail? Why did we get unintended consequences? Who is to blame? Could it be that our best just isn't good enough? There are many reasons policies, programs and projects fail. Failure can be informative if shared. This means that professionals should report on failures as well as successes. However, few professionals will admit their mistakes since failures are seldom rewarded. Moreover, many failures that could provide useful guidance are not shared because most journals have a success bias. Oftentimes, however, a policy failure where &quot;NO&quot; was the answer can provide useful information. In this article the author urges readers to accept that humans fail, but if professionals are to learn from failure, improve skills, and manage strategic change, it is necessary to understand why policies and programs fail. As difficult as it is, professionals need to have the courage to speak truth to power when things are not going right. Author Carl Patton argues that if there were easier access to internationalization ideas that failed, other educators could more rapidly improve their professional competence. Patton closes the article by saying that failure is inevitable, but the question is how will colleagues respond to one another, support one another, and move forward.
Academic Continuity: Staying True to Teaching Values and Objectives in the Face of Course Interruptions
Author: Day, Terence
Date: 2015-00-00
Type: Journal Articles
Subjects: Educational Planning,Natural Disasters,Violence,Communicable Diseases,Crisis Management,Delivery Systems,Teleconferencing,Computer Mediated Communication,Web Based Instruction,Scores,Outcomes of Education,Gender Differences,Student Attitudes,Preferences,Learner Engagement,Conventional Instruction,Lecture Method,Comparative Analysis,College Students,Foreign Countries,Instructional Effectiveness,Teacher Role,Educational Technology

Academic continuity planning is an emerging tool for dealing with class cancellation associated with natural disasters, acts of violence and the threat of pandemics. However, academic continuity can also be an issue with respect to less dramatic events, such as power outages, inclement weather, or the temporary unavailability of an instructor, especially if the problem is recurring. Many of the proposed alternative forms of delivery involve some form of web-based learning, but the extent to which these approaches work when students expect face-to-face delivery has not previously been examined. In one such interruption, web-based conferencing from home was undertaken. Based on average test scores, learning was unimpeded by web-based conferencing for one week, but there were some small gender effects that warrant further investigation. Many student comments reflected reduced engagement. The professor noted that students were more likely to respond to questions when the students could see the professor instead of the slides, but in general there were fewer student responses to questions than in face-to-face lectures. A number of comments made unsolicited comparisons with the traditional lecture format, suggesting that the context for teaching and learning, and students' previous experience of different teaching approaches may merit more discussion in online learning studies.
Two Teacher Educators' Approaches to Developing Preservice Elementary Teachers' Mathematics Assessment Literacy: Intentions, Outcomes, and New Learning
Author: Lee, Ji-Eun
Date: 2015-00-00
Type: Journal Articles
Subjects: Teacher Educators,Preservice Teachers,Elementary School Teachers,Mathematics Instruction,Student Evaluation,Evaluation Methods,Student Attitudes,Student Role,Teacher Attitudes,Attitude Measures,Methods Courses,Course Descriptions,Surveys,Criticism,Content Analysis,Test Construction

The purpose of this study was to examine and reflect on two teacher educators' approaches to developing preservice elementary teachers' mathematics assessment literacy. We explored the similarities and differences in preservice teachers' conceptions of good assessment practices and their critique of assessment items. We found that we, as course instructors, had different assumptions pertaining to the role of preservice teachers in the development of assessment and offered different assessment-related course activities. Despite these differences, there were more similarities than differences between the two groups of the preservice teachers with regard to their overall perceptions about good assessment practices and their critique of assessment items. However, we also observed differences in the criteria they used in critiquing assessment items. Discussions and implications are presented in accordance with these findings as a means to improve our own teaching and student learning.
Experiences of Bridging Program Students at a Regional Satellite Campus
Author: Elsom, Sandra
Date: 2017-07-00
Type: Journal Articles
Subjects: Foreign Countries,Nontraditional Students,Transitional Programs,Student Experience,Multicampus Colleges,Student Motivation,Social Networks,College Students,Semi Structured Interviews,Teacher Student Relationship,Barriers,Models

The benefits of higher education to individuals and to society are acknowledged both in Australia and internationally. Increased access to higher education means that greatly diverse students are beginning their tertiary learning journey. We investigate the experiences of a group of non-traditional students undertaking a tertiary preparation program at a regional university, based at a satellite campus in a low socio-economic area. Bourdieu's conceptual tools are used to frame the significance that symbolic capital has on the experience of students. Using phenomenography, the experiences of nine students were recorded and interpreted. Interviews were used to identify which aspects of the university experience they considered were the most important. Students' motivation, social networks, staff-student interactions and the various challenges were among the most important experiences mentioned. These combined to create three analogous categories, stairway, doorway and hallway (SDH). The students' experiences in the program may be likened to a stairway that must be climbed; a doorway that must be passed through; or a hallway that offers opportunities for exploration along the journey. The SDH model is a useful way to categorise students, to identify their experiences and develop strategies to support them.
Teaching Techniques: The Opinion of Teachers in Second Chance Schools and Evening Education Schools in the Greek District of Ioannina
Author: Brinia, V.
Date: 2015-00-00
Type: Journal Articles
Subjects: Evening Programs,Foreign Countries,Case Studies,Teaching Methods,Questionnaires,Adult Education,Junior High Schools,Adult Students,Evening Students,Statistical Analysis

The contemporary financial and social changes demand the constant update of the existent knowledge and the acquisition of new skills especially in the cases of people of low socioeconomic status who have not completed the basic education. The present case study examines the attitudes and perceptions of educators of Schools of Second Chance and in the Evening Junior High schools of the Greek district of Ioannina. In the study educators were asked to answer a questionnaire. The findings show that educators have a sufficient and good knowledge of the educational methods yet it seems that in the Evening High schools the educators are better educated concerning these educational techniques in comparison with those of Schools of Second Chance. The vast majority of the educators think that the application of the methods is very important, 25% of the sample has good knowledge of the available teaching means in the school units while the knowledge of the educators for the application of these techniques is positively correlated with its application in practice. Last but not least, the analysis has shown that the available time affects the use of the educational techniques and that the use of these specific techniques by some teachers increases the possibility of their use from their colleagues.
Bringing Together Learning from Two Worlds: Lessons from a Gender-Inclusive Community Education Approach with Smallholder Farmers in Papua New Guinea
Author: Pamphilon, Barbara
Date: 2017-07-00
Type: Journal Articles
Subjects: Foreign Countries,Agricultural Occupations,Access to Education,Family Income,Agricultural Education,Gender Bias,Males,Females,Culturally Relevant Education,Equal Education,Sex Fairness,Capacity Building,Community Development,Rural Areas,Action Research,Learning Modules,Teamwork,Training,Place Based Education

Smallholder farmers are the backbone of food production in Papua New Guinea (PNG). Due to an increasing need to pay for schooling and health costs, many farming families are seeking ways to move from semi-subsistence farming to activities that generate more income. The long tradition of agricultural training in PNG to support the development of farmers has focused on technology transfer and on the production of cash crops. This form of farmer education has primarily benefited men, who typically control cash crop production. It has often excluded women, whose significant engagement in it is precluded by their low literacy, low education, family responsibilities and daily work on subsistence crops. This article examines the lessons learned from a project that facilitated village-level community education workshops that sought to bring male and female heads of families together in a culturally appropriate way in order to encourage more gender-equitable planning and farming practices. Through the development and capacity building of local training teams, the project developed a critical and place-based pedagogy underpinned by gender-inclusive and asset-based community development principles.
The Praxis of Theatre for Development in Curbing Social Menace in Urban Slum in Lagos State
Author: Adeyemi, Olusola Smith
Date: 2015-00-00
Type: Journal Articles
Subjects: Poverty Areas,Praxis,Foreign Countries,Social Development,Social Problems,Theater Arts,Juvenile Gangs,Community Involvement,Participant Observation,Drama Workshops,Dramatic Play,Participatory Research

Theatre for Development (TfD) is a special kind of Theatre practice that creates a platform for members of a specific community to respond to, and actively participate in issues relating to their social development through an engaging process of play and acting. The sole essence of this form of theatre is to sensitize, radicalize and conscientize the people towards the improvement of their social conditions; it offers the people of the community the opportunity to actively reflect together by using the stage as a meeting point to &quot;explore new ways of living and to express new visions of the future&quot;. Through Homestead and Observation-Participatory research methodologies, this paper explores how TfD can be employed to curb social problem in Odiolowo, a Lagos suburb. The aim and objectives of the paper are to analyze the people's problems and through collective action with the people, find solutions to them. The paper argues that the youth of the community are disenchanted because of government neglect in terms of providing social amenities. In conclusion, it is clear that TfD helps the people to collectively engage in pragmatic steps towards solving their problems.
Comparison between the Understanding Levels of Boys and Girls on the Concepts of Environmental Degradation, Meteorology and Climate Change in Tanzanian Secondary Schools
Author: Kira, Ernest S.
Date: 2015-00-00
Type: Journal Articles
Subjects: Comparative Analysis,Females,Males,Meteorology,Climate,Foreign Countries,Secondary Schools,Environmental Education,Course Descriptions,Student Surveys,Focus Groups,Statistical Analysis,Environmental Influences,Secondary School Students

The study aimed to determine whether there was any significant difference in understanding levels between secondary school boys and girls on the concepts of environmental degradation, meteorology and climate change. Both structured survey and focus group discussions were used to collect information from 480 students, sampled randomly from 12 secondary schools in Morogoro region. The findings indicated that boys were significantly more knowledgeable than girls on the specified environmental concepts. This implies that girls lagged behind their counterparts in understanding important environmental concepts as specified in the school curriculum. Based on the findings of this study, it is recommended that girls should be inspired and encouraged to develop interest in natural science subjects which would enable them to broaden their understanding about environmental issues.