Improving learning &amp; teaching quality in higher education

Scott, Geoff

doi:10.20853/27-2-247

Cited by 19 publications

(34 citation statements)

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“…Teachers are applying creative thinking to devise activities and challenges in which employability skills are given value equivalent to that of hard skills (Gerstein & Friedman, 2016;Simona, 2014). They are talking to their students about innovation, entrepreneurship and resilience, and the need to prepare for not only the workplace of today, but also that of tomorrow, or as Scott (2013) terms it: 'work-ready plus'.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The second phase involved an interview with the teacher by the researcher-observer, using a semi-structured questionnaire to investigate the teacher's understanding and ideas about how they embed employability skills into their teaching. An initial pilot of the observation/interview process with two colleagues identified the need for an extended descriptor for each of the ten skills being monitored, which was developed through collaborative team discussions, and shaped by definitions in the wider literature reviewed, and in particular, the work of Fourie and Clokie (2013;, Gerstein and Friedman (2016), Kemmis et al (2014), Scott (2013; and Scott, Coates and Anderson (2008). These descriptors (Table 2) were subsequently tabled as part of the interviews and referred to when necessary to ensure the researcherobserver and the teacher-participant shared a similar understanding of the skill under discussion.…”

Section: Data Collection and Methodologymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Key project objectives were to:  provide qualitative information from good teachers about the overt and covert strategies they used in the classroom to develop learners' work-readiness skills, alongside curriculum content;  report this in a framework which aligns to national strategies, such as the 'Employability Skills Framework' (Careers NZ, 2017), and large studies of desirable graduate attributes reported in the literature, such as Scott (2008;2013;; and  produce a compilation of guidelines and strategies for colleagues' immediate use, to be available online through an open source, higher education database.…”

Section: The Project Was Guided By the Overarching Research Question:mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Gerstein & Friedman, 2016;Markes, 2006;Sarkar, Overton, Thompson, & Rayner, 2016;Shivoro, Shalyefu, & Kadhila, 2017). These 10 selected employability skills were seen as aligning well with a bigger picture of employability skills aimed at preparing learners for employment opportunities 'at the cutting edge', for advanced programmes of study, and for employment in roles which as yet do not exist (Scott, 2015).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 95%

“…Fourie & Clokie, 2013;. Scott (2015) for example notes the distinction between qualification-assured 'competence' (delivering specific job-specific tasks in relatively predictable circumstances), and 'capability' (responsiveness, creativity and the ability to deal with particular circumstances or unexpected events). The latter, Scott contends, is much more important in almost every work role across the nine professions he studied.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Overt and covert: Successful strategies for building employability skills of vocational education graduates

Fraser

Duignan

Stewart

et al. 2019

JTLGE

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Knowing how well higher education providers prepare learners for the working world is becoming increasingly important at all programme levels, and this is nowhere more apparent than with vocational education training. Ensuring our learners can hit the ground running and become immediately productive is essential for the relevance, and probably the survival, of New Zealand’s Institutes of Technology and Polytechnics (ITPs). Yet while there is much commentary about the challenges of transitions from tertiary study into employment and the ‘employability skills gap’, there is all too little given to how this is being addressed in teaching. This paper describes the work of an inter-institutional research collaboration into current approaches being used to embed skills that enhance employability. Drawing on a number of frameworks and models, the research team selected ten core attributes: positive attitude, communication, teamwork, self-management, willingness to learn, thinking skills, resilience, innovation, entrepreneurship and cultural competence. The team then identified a range of strategies being used by highly commended teachers to enhance the ten employability skills: firstly, by observing classroom and online practices of 23 selected teachers from participating organisations; and secondly through follow-up interviews with the same teachers. The key takeaway of this research is raised awareness and intentionality of the overt and covert approaches vocational educators are using to enhance the employability of their students.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Data Collection and Methodologymentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: The Project Was Guided By the Overarching Research Question:mentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 95%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 3 more Smart Citations

Overt and covert: Successful strategies for building employability skills of vocational education graduates

Fraser

Duignan

Stewart

et al. 2019

JTLGE

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Predicting patterns of persistence at a South African university: a decision tree approach

Paideya

Bengesai

2021

IJEM

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PurposeThe emerging field of educational data mining provides an opportunity to process large-scale data emerging from higher education institutions (HEIs) into reliable knowledge. The purpose of this paper is to examine factors influencing persistence amongst students enrolled in a Chemistry major at a South African university using enrolment data.Design/methodology/approachThe sample consisted of 511 students registered for a Chemistry major beginning in 2012, 2013 and 2014. Descriptive statistics in counts and percentages and classification (decision) tree methods were used in the analysis.FindingsGraduation from the Chemistry major is likely to occur after 4 years, which is regulation time plus 1 year, whilst departure mainly occurs in the first year of study. Classification tree modelling demonstrated that first year accumulated credits (FYAC), gender, financial aid status and school quintile were the factors associated with persistence. FYAC was the most critical factor.Research limitations/implicationsAlthough this study has many strengths, significantly the use of data mining methods to classify students, some limitations might affect how the results are interpreted. First, the analysis focused on a one-degree major in one institution, which leads to the suspicion that the observed results are discipline or institution-specific. Thus, the findings cannot be generalised to other contexts or disciplines. Second, with so many potential factors influencing student persistence, the analysis presented in this paper, which was limited to the covariates obtained in the institutional dataset the authors used, is by no means exhaustive. There is the possibility that some factors, which are not included in the present analysis, might have more predictive power.Originality/valueGlobally, university administrators are interested in predicting student outcomes and understanding the intricate balance between enrolment and throughput. Thus, whilst the findings from this study have an institutional focus, they resonate with other HEIs and present an alternative and highly visual way of identifying specific combinations of factors associated with persistence. The results from a classification tree model can also classify students at risk and inform the development of interventions that will support them.

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Key sustainability competencies for education for sustainability

Pacis¹,

VanWynsberghe

2020

IJSHE

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Purpose The purpose of this paper is to posit that a key sustainability tool can help provide a needed guide for the many forms of new curricula for academic, public and professional learning communities. The authors demonstrate that key sustainability competency (KSC) research can highlight and provide an array of learning outcomes that can be back cast to co-design flexible, detailed curriculum, pedagogy, practice and assessment structures. They also briefly outline the connection of KSC to education for sustainability (EfS) to provide the educational basis for designing and facilitating classrooms that contribute directly to the sustainability movement. Design/methodology/approach This paper is a review of literature with a specific focus on Glasser's (2018b) promising use of the tree as an analogy and metaphor for KSCs. Findings Some, for example, Glasser and Hirsh (2016) claim significant progress in identifying a KSC framework (Wiek et al., 2011) However, the authors raise concerns about the impasse that the literature has demonstrated because these stand in the way of the co-creation of sustainable societies by adjusting how we learn and interact with the world. The authors argue that we must realize and disrupt the destructive actions that form their usual approach and replace them with sustainable habits (Glasser, 2018a), and this requires the emergence of a new class of sustainability practitioners with the skills, attitudes and dispositions that are consistent with being wise, future-oriented, interdisciplinary and global decision-makers (Biasutti, 2015; Biasutti and Frate, 2016; Corney and Reid, 2007; McNaughton, 2012; Scoullos, 2013). Research limitations/implications Using Glasser’s metaphor, the authors assert a process through which the future sustainability practitioner might shift their values and understanding such that their habits and norms shift to create a new, sustainable way of being. The practitioner might demonstrate the competencies of implementing transformative change, modelling sustainable behaviour and wise decision-making. The competency of “empathy, mindfulness and social learning” implies critical reflection on one’s actions in comparison to their social context. Thus, reflection at this stage (tree branches and fruits) could create transformation that shifts one’s values and commitments (tree roots); the cyclical process could potentially begin again. Practical implications An adaptive and flexible framework of KSC could provide learning benefits by building the capacity for learners to think critically and tackle complex sustainability problems in novel ways (Brown, 2017; Glasser and Hirsh, 2016; Sterling et al., 2017; United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) 2017; Vare and Scott, 2007). Innovation and knowledge generation are possible since the KSC could teach “students how to think, rather than what to think, while letting [them] apply this thinking to real-world sustainability problems” (Wiek and Kay, 2015, p. 29). Through the KSC, people could also learn how to transform knowledge into action in their communities (Sterling et al., 2017, p. 160) and create real-world change. This is important, since unsustainable habits that comprise the “business-as-usual” case must be replaced with life-affirming actions and facilitate a new way of being in the world. After all, “[g]ood ideas with no ideas on how to implement them are wasted ideas” (Scott, 2013, p. 275). Social implications The authors have asserted that the implementation of the KSC could have social benefits because its associated pedagogies aim to actively involve learners in transforming society. The sequence sees the individuals’ reflecting upon and evaluating one’s growth vis-à-vis KSC and promotes the development of learning and other habits that betters ones’ competencies (Rieckmann, 2012). Such reflection and empathy are more likely to be inherent to people who contribute to their own learning about the need to be truly compassionate for each other and the planet (Glasser and Hirsh, 2016). In achieving this level of empathy, it is a relatively simple matter then to understand that technology and policy alone are not adequately able to facilitate large-scale and positive change; unsustainability is a problem created by human action and therefore must be counteracted with theories of and solutions to unsustainable behaviours. Integrating a responsive KSC tool into higher education could help build the capacities, capabilities, competencies and eventually mastery and habits of mind and body that give rise to sustainable well-being societies. Originality/value The authors summarize and critique the KSC literature with an eye to creating a flexible and adaptive tool for individuals to chart their own path towards being a sustainability practitioner. The conceptual work herein is the first of its kind, and it will assist program who wish to accentuate contextual factors and individual learning objectives into their design.

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Improving learning & teaching quality in higher education

Cited by 19 publications

References 0 publications

Overt and covert: Successful strategies for building employability skills of vocational education graduates

Overt and covert: Successful strategies for building employability skills of vocational education graduates

Predicting patterns of persistence at a South African university: a decision tree approach

Key sustainability competencies for education for sustainability

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