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2. Entering the Conversation: Reaction Papers in Advanced Academic Literacy
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Stacey, Jennifer Davida and Granville, S.
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Amongst academics working with postgraduate students, there has recently been increasing interest in ways of supporting advanced academic literacy (AAL). This is a concern for us at the University of Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, South Africa, where we teach a diverse group of postgraduate students, most of whom are subject practitioners in higher education but newcomers to the study of education. We argue that the development of AAL cannot be taken for granted--it needs to be mediated and practised in situated tasks. Our concern is how most effectively, within our context, to encourage awareness of the underlying, often unarticulated norms for participation in this complex social interaction with a disciplinary community to which our students are newcomers. In this article we demonstrate that the use of reaction papers provides opportunities for legitimate peripheral participation in both the cognitive and social processes of AAL. (Contains 1 figure and 9 extracts.)
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- 2009
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3. Is the Feedback in Higher Education Assessment Worth the Paper It Is Written on? Teachers' Reflections on Their Practices
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Bailey, Richard and Garner, Mark
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Perceptions of the role and efficacy of written feedback in teaching and learning among teaching staff in British higher education institutions have not been extensively researched. In the present study 48 lecturers in one university and from a cross-section of disciplinary backgrounds were interviewed with respect to their lived experiences with writing assessment feedback. Like most universities, theirs has a stated commitment to academic excellence by, among other things, ensuring timely and useful feedback on assignments. The findings suggest, however, that institutional policies and departmental practices related to formative assessment in this respect are not having the intended effect. Teachers have varied perceptions and beliefs about the purposes of written feedback, and are uncertain about what it achieves and what use students make of it. Far from enhancing written feedback, innovative practices and procedures have created new problems for teachers. There is a clear need for continuing research in this area.
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- 2010
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4. Student Presentations as a Means of Teaching and Learning English for Specific Purposes: An Action Research Study
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Ai, Bin, Kostogriz, Alexander, Wen, Daorong, and Wang, Lifei
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With China's rising role in the global economic market, both local and international employers seek graduates with well-developed communication skills in at least one additional language to complement their specific knowledge and abilities. University graduates are taught English for Specific Purposes (ESP) within their particular disciplines. This article reflects on the first author's action research, using student presentations as a pedagogical practice with first year postgraduate students not majoring in English in a Chinese university. The authors propose that ESP pedagogy needs to progress beyond the monological Chinese Confucian model of education to a dialogic, inclusive, and hospitable model of the classroom as an imagined third space where creative, critical thinking is encouraged. This research aims to contribute to Chinese ESP pedagogy, to inform international educators of developments in the education of graduates for internationalized business practice, and to contribute to the global discourse on ESP pedagogy.
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- 2020
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5. Why Choice of Teaching Method Is Essential to Academic Freedom: A Dialogue with Finn
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Bruce Macfarlane
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The paper sets out a conceptual argument that the choice of teaching method is part of the freedom to teach in higher education. It enters into a dialogue with the views of Stephen Finn in a paper published in "Teaching in Higher Education" in which he argues that academic freedom should be limited in respect to teaching methods. The concept of pedagogic self-governance is linked to the importance of choice of teaching method and illustrated by reference to the history of the seminar and signature pedagogies. While Finn argues that not developing pedagogical skills is a breach of professional ethics it is contended that a failure to engage in research and enable students to critically evaluate the latest propositional and professional knowledge in a subject represents a much more serious issue.
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- 2024
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6. Working with Critical Reflective Pedagogies at a Moment of Post-Truth Populist Authoritarianism
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Charlotte Morris
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This paper considers critical reflection as a pedagogical strategy in UK higher education at a moment of an amplification of populist, reactionary discourses. It draws on written reflections of foundation-level students in a case study cohort and offers insights into their lived learning experiences and perceptions of the value of reflection. This is situated within the UK 'Brexit' context, alongside a proliferation of far-right populist voices, emboldened supremacies and rising fascism. Accompanying this has been a normalisation of reactionary 'anti-social justice' discourses. It is vital that HE practitioners recognise, pre-empt and interrupt such discourses, developing pedagogies and curricula in response. Yet there are inherent challenges in a climate of 'post-truth' anti-intellectualism. This paper argues that critical reflection contributes a useful approach to learning, fostering development of students' personal, intellectual and political capacities to navigate this complex socio-political terrain and engage with social justice.
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- 2024
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7. A Community of Practice Shares Perspectives on Utilizing Telepresence in Doctoral Education
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Sarah Capello, M. Gyimah-Concepcion, B. Buckley-Hughes, R. Lance, S. Ryan, and E. Sorte-Thomas
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In this paper, we (a) share perspectives from stakeholders who learn and teach in an EdD program located in the United States that utilizes telepresence for distance learning (TDL) in a synchronous, hybrid environment, (b) frame our learning as a community of practice, and (c) report affordances and challenges of this model. TDL students asserted that the telepresence option gave them choice in selecting their doctoral program and increased their social presence and ability to be perceived as real people, and all students recognized the importance of a cohesive community to offer support through technological challenges. Faculty were largely unfamiliar with utilizing telepresence in the classroom initially and acknowledged that revised pedagogies and instructional methods were essential to supporting all students in this model. TDL affords opportunities to increase equity and access in doctoral education; however, technological and logistical challenges must be remediated to ensure a successful learning environment.
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- 2024
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8. Embedding Interdisciplinary Learning into the First-Year Undergraduate Curriculum: Drivers and Barriers in a Cross-Institutional Enhancement Project
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Rebecca Turner, Debby Cotton, David Morrison, and Pauline Kneale
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Engaging with interdisciplinary learning during higher education (HE) study can provide students with skills and modes of thinking informed by multiple worldviews. Opportunities for interdisciplinary learning in the English HE system are limited; associated primarily with postgraduate study or later undergraduate stages. This paper reports on an enhancement project that sought to engage first-year students with interdisciplinary learning. Drawing on data gathered from staff interviews, student focus groups and module enrolments, we examine drivers and barriers impacting on the planned curriculum transformation. Whilst drivers emerged from many directions (e.g. professional bodies, staff advocates), these were overwhelmed by the barriers - both administrative and ideological. Student responses were mixed. Some would have liked a wider choice of truly interdisciplinary modules, but it was clear many students did not understand the rationale for the modules and felt that they needed more support to participate.
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- 2024
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9. 'A Moment in and out of Time': Precarity, Liminality, and Autonomy in Crisis Teaching
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Hayley Glover, Fran Myers, and Hilary Collins
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This paper explores tensions and ambiguities for UK HE teachers during COVID-19. It analyses changed behaviours and routines for existing hybrid workers experienced in online pedagogy through three core axes of "precarity and security;" "time and perceptions of time;" and "communication." Twelve participants supplied photographs and written narratives depicting their teaching during the pandemic. To understand working lives at this liminal time, we undertook three-level photographic and content analysis, examining the interplay between homeworking challenges and extremities with an accompanying range of emotional responses. Findings include changed routines, new independence, and tensions around resulting autonomy in a liminal lockdown phase when everyday life was anything but. Recommendations for HE management are to ensure that effective communication and collaboration are privileged between management and academic staff. Moving forward, the value of academic judgement and voice should be acknowledged as much as teaching capacity in strategic planning and tuition delivery.
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- 2024
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10. Precarious Academic Citizens: Early Career Teachers' Experiences and Implications for the Academy
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Jody Crutchley, Zaki Nahaboo, and Namrata Rao
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The fragmentation of academic work and its uneven distribution among academic staff have produced particular challenges for new entrants to teaching in Higher Education, Early Career Teachers [ECTs]. In this paper, documentary analysis of the narratives of fourteen ECTs, who worked across six different continents, was undertaken. The findings highlight the diverse forms of precarity that ECTs face, which cut across migratory, identitarian, economic, and ideological dimensions. It discusses ECTs' reflections on their expectations of teaching and their adaptation to the demands of neoliberal Higher Education. Drawing from their narratives and Sevil Sümer's theories of differentiated academic citizenship, ECTs are recognised as 'precarious academic citizens'. This has important implications for revealing the unique circumstances of this group, thereby opening further questions as regards their mentoring and support to enable them to be situated more equally as citizens of the academy.
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- 2024
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11. Teaching for Diversity: University Educators' Accounts of Care Work and Emotional Labour with CALD Students
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Sally Baker, Clemence Due, Prasheela Karan, and Megan Rose
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The massification of higher education has resulted in a highly diverse student body. Within this expansion, the increased number of Culturally and Linguistically Diverse (CALD) students has unquestionably enriched university campuses, but has also brought challenges for teaching and learning within higher education systems. There are limited accounts in the scholarly literature with regard to university educators' perspectives of their teaching and students. In particular, limited attention has been paid to the care-related and emotional dimensions of teaching diverse cohorts. Through a mixed-method study of university educators, this paper provides a thematic analysis of university educators' experiences of teaching CALD students, including their reflections on students' specific needs, the existing supports offered and suggestions as to what supports are needed. It considers the visibility of the care work and emotional labour educators undertake, and problematises how this work is created by institutional assumptions but rarely recognised as legitimate 'work'.
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- 2024
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12. An Investigation into the Self-Efficacy of Year One Undergraduate Students at a Widening Participation University
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Dawn Reilly, Liz Warren, Gerhard Kristandl, and Yong Lin
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Retention and progression issues are complex problems that need to be addressed by the Higher Education sector. This paper views the academic self-efficacy of students as an important matter which is linked to retention and progression. The study employs online student surveys to analyse the differences in self-efficacy among year one students on accounting and finance, and business undergraduate programmes at a United Kingdom university with a widening participation agenda. The study references student discussion forums to share the voices of year one students, exploring how confident they feel about their ability to progress. It finds no association between performance and ethnicity, but that student performance is associated with gender and type of entry qualification. The social aspect of learning, and its value in supporting sources of academic self-efficacy, is a theme which emerged strongly in the forums.
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- 2024
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13. Academics' Perspectives on a Student Engagement and Retention Program: Dilemmas and Deficit Discourses
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Bianca Coleman, Kim Beasy, Renee Morrison, and Casey Mainsbridge
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Within the contemporary higher education landscape, maintaining student engagement and retention has become of critical concern to universities. Universities have mostly responded to this concern by implementing institutional engagement and retention initiatives by professional university staff. Thus far, however, the role that teaching academics can play in student engagement and retention programs has been largely unexplored within institutional settings and within the higher education literature. In this paper, we reflect on our experiences as teaching academics involved in a student engagement and retention program at our university. Through a series of individual reflections and collaborative conversations, we problematise common approaches to student engagement and retention and question the role of teaching academics in these programs within neoliberal university settings. We bring to light troubling ethical dilemmas we faced during our participation in the program and our concerns about the deficit framing of students within institutionally driven engagement and retention initiatives.
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- 2024
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14. Transforming Pre-Service EFL Teacher Education through Critical Cosmopolitan Literacies: Voices from Mainland China
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Lina Sun
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This paper describes a qualitative participatory action research study applying critical cosmopolitan literacies principles with pre-service English as a foreign language (EFL) teachers to address global human rights issues through international English youth literature. Using literary works on sociopolitical issues alongside critical pedagogy engagements and teaching practicum in various educational settings, the author as a teacher-researcher attempts to raise the student teachers' critical awareness to issues of power, privilege, and social justice embedded in the multicultural and multimodal texts. Analysis of the qualitative data indicates important outcomes in terms of an enhanced understanding of critical human rights issues pertaining to the formation of student teachers' identities as global-conscious and socially responsible educators. Meanwhile, with explicit guidance from the teacher educator, the student teachers also develop communicative intercultural competence, high-order thinking skills, and learning agency by engaging in multiliteracies practices within a cosmopolitan literacies orientation.
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- 2024
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15. Academic Identities in the Contemporary University: Seeking New Ways of Being a University Teacher
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Jairo Jiménez
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This paper analyzes academic identities and academic agency in the context of knowledge management and production that permeate the contemporary university. A practical argumentation on the meaning of teaching activity seeks to propose, in contrast to traditional approaches, that identity and meaning are constitutive dimensions of present activity. Furthermore, as analyzed, the present action of the teacher, students, and things produces meaning and identity. I argue that, even while immersed in the functional environment of the university, teacher identities are not entirely bound to determination. Instead, it is contended that teaching events often provoke moments of 'professional desubjectivation' resulting from the teacher's response to present situations that demand a different attitude and disposition. The result of this argument presents, through teaching activities, the possibility of enacting educational gestures, such as those shown during study activities.
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- 2024
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16. 'Hope Despite All Odds': Academic Precarity in Embattled Ukraine
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Anatoly Oleksiyenko and Serhiy Terepyshchyi
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Precarity of the Ukrainian professoriate is a lacuna in the higher education literature. There was no research on this subject before the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine. Furthermore, no investigations have been conducted on how university professors handle the hardships of teaching in wartime. This study tries to understand the phenomenon of precarity, as it is experienced by Ukrainian educators affected by the brutal invasion and ensuing dehumanization. The study explores the following questions: What do post-Soviet educators learn from precarity and hostile environments that undermine their individual and professional dignity? How do they manage the security deficit in their academic and living environments? By presenting insights from thirty-nine interviews, this paper elaborates on the phenomenon of precarity among university educators who are urged to redefine themselves, reinstate their academic identity, and salvage their teaching careers in the context of war.
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- 2024
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17. Resisting Neoliberalism: Teacher Education Academics Navigating Precarious Times
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Bronwyn E. Wood, Rosalyn Black, Lucas Walsh, Kerri Anne Garrard, Margaret Bearman, Matthew Krehl Edward Thomas, Juliana Ryan, and Nadia Infantes
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While the impact of the global COVID-19 pandemic upon higher education institutions has been well documented, less is known about how academics themselves responded to these rapid changes. This paper analyses the experiences of teacher education academics from Australia and New Zealand (n = 13) who were interviewed during lengthy pandemic lockdowns. Whilst rarely using the language of resistance, participants revealed multiple ways they navigated these seemingly totalising forces of neoliberalism through working to maintain quality education, collegiality, criticality and care. Using theory to help inform our understandings of resistance, our study identified three forms of resistance that were underpinned by feminist, post-structural and critical pedagogy theories. In the face of likely ongoing uncertainty into the future, paying attention to how academics navigated the pandemic provides valuable insights into forms of emergent resistance in moments of extreme precarity in higher education, and the importance of these for continuity and hope.
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- 2024
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18. Flexible Assessment and Student Empowerment: Advantages and Disadvantages -- Research from an Australian University
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Thomas Wanner, Edward Palmer, and Daniel Palmer
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This paper discusses a two-year study at an Australian university in which 154 undergraduate and 51 postgraduate students reflected on their experiences with flexible and personalised assessment where they could choose assessment tasks, submission dates and weightings of their assignments. Through pre- and post-course surveys and a focus group, feelings of empowerment and attitudes towards flexibility were investigated. Students were positive about all aspects of the flexible approach and felt it was beneficial for their learning. Only the postgraduate group showed significant improvement in feelings of empowerment and grades suggesting that more experienced learners may adapt more easily to this model. We argue that empowering learners is not about better grades but about students gaining more input, voice and control in their learning and assessment. Despite the disadvantages of increased workload for teachers and a decision-making burden on students, the potential benefits for students justify consideration of more personalised and flexible assessment.
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- 2024
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19. English as an Important but Unfair Resource: University Students' Perception of English and English Language Education in South Korea
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Lee Jin Choi
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This paper, using the case of South Korea, empirically examines how university students in EFL countries understand the neoliberal emphasis of English and EMI, and interpret and respond to different language ideologies. The findings demonstrate that many South Korean English language learners are caught up in a nexus of conflicting language ideologies influenced by the neoliberal promotion of English and the increasing socioeconomic polarization within South Korea. On the one hand, their investment in English language learning is largely driven by the belief that English is essential for their socioeconomic advancement. On the other hand, many perceive that the role of English as an important resource and a major criterion to measure one's academic and professional abilities is not objective or fair. Finding calls for a more critical approach to understanding the adoption and implementation of EMI in higher education.
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- 2024
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20. Investigating Student and Alumni Perspectives on Language Learning and Career Prospects through English Medium Instruction
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Kari Sahan and Özgür Sahan
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This study examines the phenomenon of English-medium instruction (EMI) in higher education through the lens of neoliberalism and linguistic entrepreneurship. Although commonly reported benefits of EMI include improved English proficiency and better job opportunities, there is a lack of research critically examining the relationship between EMI and these presumed benefits. Through the lens of linguistic entrepreneurship, this study compares engineering students' perceptions of the linguistic and professional benefits of EMI before, during, and after study in Turkey. Employing a mixed-methods design, data were collected from prospective, current, and former students via questionnaires, interviews, and focus groups. The findings revealed significant differences between groups regarding perceptions of learning and professional outcomes. This paper demonstrates how students' perceptions of EMI are shaped by the ideals of linguistic entrepreneurship and suggests that the professional benefits of EMI may be more nuanced than assumed, with implications for EMI pedagogy and policy in higher education.
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- 2024
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21. Teaching the English Language in Chinese Higher Education: Preparing Critical Citizens for the Global Village
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Wen Xu and Jorge Knijnik
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This paper examines intersecting concerns in global citizenship education (GCE) and English Language Teaching (ELT) in the face of globalisation. While these two educational agendas cannot be assumed to automatically converge, our study signals that promising overlaps emerge from the enactment of dialogic practices in second language education. Drawing upon an ELT reading course in Chinese higher education, we elaborate on how a Freirean informed approach opens up pedagogical encounters and opportunities for undergraduates to become interculturally aware citizens. The pedagogic vignettes presented here challenge the dominance of pragmatic orientations of ELT in mainland China today while instigating a teaching paradigm shift. Though practical language skills have been touted within Chinese universities for decades, we argue for an integration of GCE into teaching and learning English in a dialogic manner, thus developing bilingual and interculturally aware learners who critically engage with the uncharted terrain of an increasingly globalised world.
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- 2024
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22. Understanding Professional Vulnerability in an Era of Performativity: Experiences of EFL Academics in Mainland China
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Zhanzhu Gao and Rui Yuan
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Drawing on data collected from multiple sources, this qualitative case study investigates how seven English-as-a-foreign-language (EFL) academics from a university in mainland China perceive and cope with their professional vulnerability within the system of performativity. Three themes were generated from the data: (1) professional vulnerability as a state of conformity and self-learning, (2) professional vulnerability as a state of constrained agency, and (3) professional vulnerability as a state of disengagement. The findings not only reflect the complex and dynamic nature of EFL academics' professional vulnerability, but also unpack numerous contextual and personal factors mediating EFL academics' experiences of professional vulnerability. The paper ends with some practical implications on how to mitigate the negative influences that vulnerability has on EFL academics' professional practice within the system of performativity.
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- 2024
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23. Tutors' Beliefs about Language and Roles: Practice as Language Policy in EMI Contexts
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Marion Heron, Doris Dippold, Necmi Aksit, Tijen Aksit, Jill Doubleday, and Kara McKeown
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It has been well established that for all students, but particularly second language (L2) English speaking students, academic English speaking skills are key to developing specialist terminology and disciplinary content in an English as a medium of instruction (EMI) context. However, what is less clear in many contexts is the institutional language policy necessary to guide and support both L2 English speaking students and disciplinary tutors. In this paper, we focus on disciplinary tutors' beliefs of language and their roles with respect to language support to surface implicit and covert language policies. We argue that in the absence of explicit policy, showcasing the range of tutor perspectives and practice around language support can provide a way forward in explicating good practice and highlighting an approach in which all stakeholders take responsibility for supporting students' academic speaking skills in an EMI context.
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- 2024
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24. Xenolexia's Positivity: The Alterity of Academic Writing and Its Pedagogical Implications
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Beighton, Christian
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This paper develops the pedagogical implications of xenolexia, a concept introduced as a phenomenon in the learning and teaching of academic writing (Beighton, C. 2020. "Beyond Alienation: Spatial Implications of Teaching and Learning Academic Writing." "Teaching in Higher Education" 25 (2): 205-222.). Complementing this theoretical base, this paper examines xenolexia's positivity and its ability to both analyse and propose specific academic writing pedagogies in today's challenging HE context(s). Drawing on data from students/teachers of academic writing (n = 33), this paper uses xenolexia aetiologically and practically. Aetiologically, I identify and categorise different sets of practices in terms of the way they respond to this positivity as two pedagogical tropes: the material and its affective counterpart. Practically, I discuss pedagogical practices associated with these tropes in the light of the data. My conclusions about the extent to which each contributes to the development of academic writing link the latter to the current context of teaching and learning in higher education, challenging approaches based on identity with more productive material, affective alternatives.
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- 2023
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25. How Involved Should Doctoral Supervisors Be in the Literature Search and Literature Review Writing?
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Everitt, Julia
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Doctoral supervision is a subtle but complex form of teaching in higher education, where supervisor-to-candidate expectations including support around the literature are important, but supervisory practices and candidate starting points can be disparate and expectations are not always discussed. This paper uses autoethnographic reflections and a practitioner inquiry to explore: How involved should supervisors be in the literature search and literature review writing? This issue arose following the transition from a postgraduate candidate to an academic involved in supervising and teaching postgraduate candidates, co-facilitating supervisor development programmes and researching doctoral supervision. This paper proposes that the involvement of supervisors in the literature search or review could be classed as operating on a conceptual model: the 'sliding scale'. Readers are asked to consider the different tensions in this practice and invited to address them using the 'sliding scale' to encourage conversations with candidates in higher education supervision or teaching.
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- 2023
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26. How Do Learning Technologies Impact on Undergraduates' Emotional and Cognitive Engagement with Their Learning?
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Venn, Edward, Park, Jaeuk, Andersen, Line Palle, and Hejmadi, Momna
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A common theme in the literature on learning technologies is the way in which they can facilitate engagement both within and outside of the classroom. However, a lack of a scholarly consensus on what constitutes engagement renders problematic the issue of how one makes meaningful sense of the data presented in studies. This paper presents an integrative review that explores student engagement with learning technologies and identifies major themes and trends within the field. When viewed against the evidence-based claims of individual studies, common ubiquitous narratives concerning learning technologies are problematised. The paper concludes with suggestions for future research in this area in the light of its findings.
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- 2023
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27. A Return to Teacherbot: Rethinking the Development of Educational Technology at the University of Edinburgh
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Breines, Markus Roos and Gallagher, Michael
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In the market discourses of technological disruption, higher education institutions have routinely been positioned in deficit models and of anachronistic approaches to teaching at odds with the types of educational futures being presented by commercial organisations. Predominantly, automation technologies in the form of artificial intelligence are being promoted as the future of teaching. In this paper, on the other hand, we explore the prospects for using non-artificial intelligence automated agents in teaching and its impact on the teacher function at the University of Edinburgh. Through engagement with teachers, staff and students at the university, this research has identified use cases for bots, in what spaces they would be situated, and how they would supplement the teacher function. This paper argues that a community-driven approach combined with a sociomaterial conceptualisation can generate a shift from market discourses and to collaborative development of educational technologies.
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- 2023
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28. Exploring Online Readiness in the Context of the COVID 19 Pandemic
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Badiozaman, Ida Fatimawati Adi
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This paper presents the qualitative results of a larger mixed-methods study that examined teachers' experience transitioning to online teaching and learning (OTL) in Malaysian higher education (HE) institutions to understand how academics perceived their OTL readiness and what competencies were perceived to be central during the COVID-19 pandemic. Data collected from twenty-two teachers (n = 22) (three public; three private HEs) through semi-structured in-depth interviews revealed that OTL readiness was perceived through course design, communication competence, time management, and technological competence. Additionally, agentic competence emerged as crucial in shaping resilience and adaptability during the transition to OTL. The paper makes two contributions. First, the study contributed to the literature on online teaching readiness in that reconceptualisation needs to be holistic and inclusive due to the unique HE context. Second, it provides valuable insights to those who devise training exercises and universities required to respond to them in enhancing teacher agency.
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- 2023
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29. Curriculum Change as Transformational Learning
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Camille Kandiko Howson and Martyn Kingsbury
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Through an evaluation of an institution-wide curriculum change process, this paper analyses how strategic policy is variously enacted in departmental communities. Linguistic ethnography of public, institutional and internal policy documents illuminates departments' engagement with the change process. With curriculum change positioned as a disorienting dilemma, transformational learning theory provides a lens to analyse the departments' alignment with the intention of the curriculum change policy. The paper explores the extent to which departments transformed from a disciplinary content-based and high-stakes examination approach to the curriculum to incorporating broader institutional aims and active learning theories into disciplinary language, pedagogy and practices. Three stages of engagement are identified through an evaluation rubric, offering a framework to assess curriculum change initiatives. Implications for educational leaders include the need to integrate institutional strategy with disciplinary experts and expertise and the importance of language adoption as a precursor to implementation.
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- 2023
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30. Accounting for the Troubled Status of English Language Teachers in Higher Education
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Douglas E. Bell
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Recent years have witnessed a heightening of interest in the role of teachers working in EAP (English for Academic Purposes), particularly with regard to defining and debating their professional identity. However, it must be said that most authors have painted a rather dismal picture, when comparing the status and professional standing of English language teachers in Higher Education with that of academics working in other disciplines. Drawing on concepts and models developed by the educational sociologists Basil Bernstein and Pierre Bourdieu, this reflective paper proposes a theoretical framework to account for why these differences in status might be so. The paper concludes that EAP as an academic discipline currently faces some significant threats. However, the paper also argues that if EAP practitioners are to gain the professional recognition they desire, then they themselves must strive to trade more explicitly on the forms of capital valued by the academy.
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- 2023
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31. Re-Contextualising Real-Life Learning to a University Setting
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Jansson, Dag
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The topic of this paper is the relocation of a proven learning mechanism in a real-life working situation to a university setting. The aim is to discuss to what degree the types of learning generated in the original setting can survive the re-contextualisation and what might be done to retain as much value as possible. The original learning situation was an aesthetic experience -- choral singing and conducting -- that allowed nine senior managers to sense various relational phenomena, such as control and empowerment, multi-voice teamwork, the impact of own body, empathy, and vulnerability. The target learning domain is a university setting. The paper draws on various theories of learning. The re-contextualisation is discussed in the form of five hurdles that must be overcome. For each hurdle, a design hypothesis is proposed. The presence of an aesthetic object -- the sounding music -- illuminates the crucial linkage between discipline knowledge structures and everyday practices.
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- 2023
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32. PhDs by Publications: An 'Easy Way Out'?
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Niven, Penelope and Grant, Carolyn
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PhDs by publications are a relatively new model for doctoral research, especially in the context of the Humanities or Education. This paper describes two writers' experiences of conducting doctoral studies in this genre and in these faculties. Each discover alternative ways of employing a body of published research papers in development of an overarching thesis. The writers argue that whilst it can be a pragmatic choice for some, PhDs by publications are more likely to be highly complex meta-narratives and that an overview of past research is fraught with theoretical, conceptual and epistemological challenges in the quest for coherence. They claim that the nomenclature "PhDs "by" publications" or ""through" publications" is misleading: in the epistemological space of Humanities or Education studies, this mode of doctoral research is more accurately represented as a "PhD "with" or "alongside" publications". They conclude that the particular affordance of the model is that it privileges accounts of the process of knowledge building and of descriptions of the gradual emergence of "doctoralness" in the person of the researcher. (Contains 3 notes.)
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- 2012
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33. New Academics Negotiating Communities of Practice: Learning to Swim with the Big Fish
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Jawitz, Jeff
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This paper explores the use of situated cognition theory to investigate how new academics learn to judge complex student performance in an academic department at a South African university. The analysis revealed the existence of two largely separate communities of practice within the department, one centred on the provision of undergraduate teaching and the other on the production of research. Newcomers follow a range of trajectories in the course of their identity construction as academics and their learning is strongly shaped by their histories and individual experiences of negotiating their way into and across these key communities of practice. Learning to assess student performance in an Honours research paper was found to be integrally linked to the process of gaining entry into the research community of practice with limited opportunity for legitimate peripheral participation given the high stakes context within which assessment decisions are made.
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- 2007
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34. Opening up Spaces for Researching Multilingually in Higher Education
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Arafat, Nah and Woodin, Jane
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This paper considers the experiences of a PhD student researcher grappling with a highly complex project. We examine a number of issues relating to teaching in the multilingual university and question the powerful role of English in the PhD journey. We focus on the implications of relying on English academic resources, the problem of the predominance of English in research and publications, and the supervisee-supervisor relationships (including the development of academic voice). We have chosen to present our paper in the form of a conversation (supervisee-supervisor) to help highlight the issues which came to light not only in the student's experience but also how these were seen or understood by both people in this academic relationship. Following the exploration of these issues, we shall challenge readers to consider the relevance of the issues for the higher education context, and consider opportunities for 'doing things differently'.
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- 2022
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35. Epistemic Outcomes of English Medium Instruction in a South Korean Higher Education Institution
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Williams, Dylan G. and Stelma, Juup
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This paper explores the epistemic outcomes of English Medium Instruction (EMI) in a South Korean Higher Education (HE) context. In order to understand the epistemic outcomes, the exploration draws on existing conceptualisations of linguistic and symbolic capital, and the literature on epistemic justice. The paper makes use of qualitative interview data generated with ten Business and Engineering undergraduate students. The analysis reveals that students' use and trust the Korean and English languages differently across EMI situations. This observation is used to identify two undesirable epistemic outcomes, including: (a) how students are prevented from "negotiating understanding" of HE subject content using their L1, and (b) the wider epistemic implications of English as the language that "provides access" to HE subject content. Finally, with reference to Fricker's theory of 'epistemic injustice', we reflect on the new theoretical understanding we have developed of epistemic outcomes in this South Korean multilingual HE context.
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- 2022
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36. 'The Shadows of 'Boundary' Remain': Curriculum Coherence and the Spectre of Practice
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Muller, Johan
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This paper will re-visit the origins and early use in South African curriculum writing of the concept of 'coherence'; it will go on to show how Suellen Shay and her colleagues fleshed out the concept and created an instrument for its empirical analysis; it will then step back and examine the contribution and some problems that were brought to light; examine briefly how Shay's later work continued to wrestle with the notion of 'practice', particularly in light of curricula that were judged to display conceptual coherence; and will suggest one possible solution in the seminal paper by Bernstein (2000). Finally, the paper will reflect on two implicit definitions of 'curriculum', a 'strict' one and an 'extended' one and suggest why they should be distinguished.
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- 2022
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37. Can We Fix Education? Living Emancipatory Pedagogy in Higher Education
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Clack, Jim
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This paper discusses a 12-week, 15-credit module taught to second year undergraduates during semester 2 of 2017-18 academic year. The module, entitled 'Deschooling', aimed to explore notions of emancipatory and critical pedagogy, control and coercion in the education system. Rather than 'teach' these concepts as abstract academic theory, I aimed to provide students with 'lived' experiences of them. That is, the aim was to provide a 'deschooled', 'unoppressed' experience for students by facilitating, so far as possible, democratic decision-making amongst the group. Subsequent reflection on the successes (or otherwise) of the module threw up numerous points. This paper reports on one particular aspect -- assessment. As part of the module, students were offered choice over not only how they might be assessed, but also whether or not they should be assessed. This paper then discusses the challenges surrounding critical pedagogy in the HE classroom and considers implications for future practice.
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- 2022
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38. Behind the Digital Curtain: A Study of Academic Identities, Liminalities and Labour Market Adaptations for the 'Uber-isation' of HE
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Collins, Hilary J., Glover, Hayley, and Myers, Fran
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This paper explores sensemaking narratives from teaching academics undertaking identity work in the context of a rapidly expanding digital education sphere. It considers the implications for emotional labour and status of digitised higher education teaching academics from the imposition of a rejuvenated New Public Management. We discuss possible tainting from fractured and short-term contractual arrangements alongside growth in managerialism, metrics and accountability. This study combines photographic ethnography and interviews to gain insight into uncertainties, anxieties, identity legitimations and participant responses to imposed changes within digitally evolving workspaces. The paper explores teaching cultures within two higher education institutions, on different points of a digital continuum, finding discourses of alienation, liminality and validation. Resultant 'sticky' or resistant behaviours in rapid adaptations to digital teaching life were heard as we aimed to understand what it means to teach in a digitised, neoliberal context.
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- 2022
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39. Unbundling and Higher Education Curriculum: A Cultural-Historical Activity Theory View of Process
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Cliff, Alan, Walji, Sukaina, Jancic Mogliacci, Rada, Morris, Neil, and Ivancheva, Mariya
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The focus of this paper is on the contestations and dilemmas emergent in the higher education curriculum in a context of increasing processes of unbundling, digitisation and marketisation. The paper explores the notion of contestation through the theoretical lens of Cultural-Historical Activity Theory. It points to illustrative examples of this contestation from empirical data drawn from stakeholder research in South African higher education. The paper grapples with understandings of the concept of curriculum and argues how these have been shaped by -- and are shaping -- emergent meanings of the curriculum in an unbundling context. The argument is that these emergent meanings are a function of different explicit and tacit understandings of curriculum and what higher education offers to students. These understandings are deepened or modified by processes of unbundling. Empirical data from the research study show these understandings to be forming against the backdrop of powerful cultural and agentic forces and players.
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- 2022
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40. High-Impact Educational Practices: Leveling the Playing Field or Perpetuating Inequity?
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Greenman, Sarah J., Chepp, Valerie, and Burton, Samantha
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While most of the discourse surrounding high-impact educational practices is laudatory, the current manifestation of these practices is not above scrutiny. The benefits of integrating high-impact educational practices into the United States college experience are well-documented, especially for students from groups that have been historically underserved by higher education; however, relative to their more traditionally advantaged counterparts, these populations face greater barriers in accessing these beneficial learning experiences. This paper synthesizes existing high-impact educational literature in the United States, highlights the importance of using an equity-minded framework when exploring the often-overlooked pitfalls in their implementation, and focuses on equal access and outcomes for historically underserved populations. In order to rectify inequities, this paper suggests an ambitious new direction that should systematically catalog existing, more accessible, modified high-impact practices and, subsequently, evaluate their effectiveness. Without this research agenda, high-impact educational practices may continue to perpetuate inequity.
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- 2022
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41. Embedding Student Feedback in Deep Pedagogic Reflection: The Potentials of Drawing and Deleuzian Analysis
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Sakr, Mona and Burghardt, Vicky
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Student evaluation practices often fall into repetitive patterns of 'rate the teacher' and 'blame the student'. In this paper, we think with the Deleuzian conceptualisations of becoming and affect in order to move beyond these limitations. We experiment with drawing as a way to gather student feedback that opens up dialogue, applying rhizomatic mapping to prompt deeper pedagogic reflection. We explored 31 drawings created by third-year undergraduate students of education. In this paper, we present three worked examples of visual and verbal rhizomatic mapping, along with written pedagogic reflections. We suggest that this process enabled us to enter into deeper pedagogic reflections via a generative questioning space in which the whole beings of the students were brought to the fore, including the embodied student experience.
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- 2022
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42. Research on Higher Education: A Perspective on the Relations between Higher Education Studies and Discipline-Based Education Research
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le Roux, Kate, Taylor, Dale L., Kloot, Bruce, and Allie, Saalih
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This paper offers a perspective on the relationship between communities that conduct research on teaching and learning in higher education, focusing on Higher Education Studies (HES) and science Discipline-Based Education Research (DBER). The paper responds to HES debates about the strength of its epistemological base and who belongs to that community, and to a perception that DBER is marginalized in the higher education research context. To explicate our perspective, we describe the origins and trajectories of Physics Education Research and Engineering Education Research, as exemplars of DBER. Using Turnbull, we conceptualize HES and these two exemplars as distinct "knowledge spaces," with different histories, orthopraxes and participants, and hence different unifying principles, research foci and trust mechanisms. We conclude that HES, DBER and other higher education research communities stand to benefit from multidisciplinary engagement with each other, because of their different perspectives on the problems of higher education.
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- 2021
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43. STEM Climate Survey Developed through Student-Faculty Collaboration
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De Grandi, Claudia, Smithline, Zachary B., Reeves, Philip M., Goetz, Teddy G., Barbour, Nathaniel, Hairston, Erika, Guo, Joyce, Muraina, Fadeke, Bervell, Joel A., Chambers, Lauren M., Caines, Helen, Miranker, Andrew D., and Mochrie, Simon G. J.
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This paper presents a survey tool for assessing undergraduate STEM environments at institutions of higher learning. Such surveys typically appear in methodology sections of focused, hypothesis-driven papers written by and for education studies specialists. We sought to compose a different kind of survey tool, one that enables STEM instructors, nonspecialists in educational research, to probe undergraduate STEM climate at their institutions in broad, exploratory terms. We accomplished this goal by assembling a diverse research team of students and faculty, those who directly shape and experience undergraduate STEM climate. We supplement our paper by including a preliminary analysis of the data from the first administration of the survey at our institution. Our goal here is chiefly pedagogical: to suggest an approach to data analysis for those implementing our survey. In sum, our project invites college STEM instructors to enter into a discussion that, though often marginalized, plays a central role in shaping their capacity to teach inclusively.
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- 2021
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44. Reflections on Decolonizing Peace Education in Korea: A Critique and Some Decolonial Pedagogic Strategies
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Kester, Kevin, Zembylas, Michalinos, Sweeney, Loughlin, Lee, Kris Hyesoo, Kwon, Soonjung, and Kwon, Jeongim
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Universities and scholars around the world teach and research extensively in the field of peace education; yet, despite a plethora of diverse scholarship, educational programs are often critiqued as dominated by the English-speaking world. This paper employs the intersecting lenses of decolonization and postcolonial theory to explore and challenge the perceived dominance of Western literature and practice. Using a criss-crossing comparison method, English and Korean literatures are compared to ascertain the extent of Western-centricity within Korean higher education peace studies, and to offer a critical discussion of liberal peacebuilding, and linear problem-solving models within the literatures. Counter-arguments and policy recommendations are considered. The paper concludes that for peace education to fulfill its mission, global educational decolonization movements need to be strengthened. It is argued that efforts toward decolonization of Korean peace education could support the global movement toward a more socially just peace education for the twenty-first century.
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- 2021
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45. Refusal as Affective and Pedagogical Practice in Higher Education Decolonization: A Modest Proposal
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Zembylas, Michalinos
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The questions driving this paper are: What sort of affective (dis)investment is needed in higher education to refuse the colonial university? How can educators and students in higher education invent 'pedagogies of refusal' that function affectively to challenge colonial futurity? What do pedagogies of refusal look like? This paper theorizes "refusal" as an affective practice that produces political effects and desires that challenge normative manifestations of power and control. It is argued that refusal may constitute a fruitful avenue toward decolonization of higher education, because it directs attention to the affective (dis)investments from/in desires that can be fulfilled by the university. To this end, the paper suggests that if the aim is to disrupt the seductive workings of colonial power in its most intimate dimensions, then it is crucial to invent pedagogies that engage with the affective (dis)investments of students and educators in colonial relations.
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- 2021
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46. Disrupting Curricula and Pedagogies in Latin American Universities: Six Criteria for Decolonising the University
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Guzmán Valenzuela, Carolina
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Since the colonial era, Latin American universities have been subjected to narratives about what it means to be a university. Drawing on the concept of coloniality, this paper examines curricular and teaching practices in higher education that aim to decolonise Latin American universities, a particular topic that has been under-investigated. By means of a systematic literature review and a thematic analysis, 40 papers authored by at least one scholar affiliated to a Latin American university were examined. The analysis identified three levels of educational practices (macro, meso and micro) that revolve around the principle of intercultural indigenous education. Further, six essential criteria (cultural, epistemological, relational, ecological, economic, political) in decolonising university education are proposed. The paper concludes by offering insights about decolonising curricula and teaching practices in universities and the ways in which decolonial educational initiatives based on critical border thinking and socialisation of power might transform Latin American universities.
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- 2021
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47. Re-Imagining Employability: An Ontology of Employability Best Practice in Higher Education Institutions
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Rees, Sian
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This paper uses a macro, meso- and micro-level analysis of employability best practice in higher education institutions (HEIs) to question how employability is being conceived within higher education settings alongside academic goals. Thematic analysis is applied to: a range of academic articles and papers containing HEI employability best practice case studies (macro-level); papers from the 2016 Swansea University College of Arts and Humanities' Employability Conference (meso-level); and Swansea University Department of Media and Communication employability activities from 2013 to 2018 (micro-level). The results are visualised as an ontology of higher education employability, which has the notion of 'entrepreneurial spirit' at the centre. The paper finds that embedding an entrepreneurial approach can help drive innovation in subject-level teaching in a way which can enhance, rather than inhibit, critical academic enquiry.
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- 2021
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48. Analysing Assessments in Introductory Physics Using Semantic Gravity: Refocussing on Core Concepts and Context-Dependence
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Steenkamp, Christine M., Rootman-le Grange, Ilse, and Müller-Nedebock, Kristian K.
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The development of learning practices that enable students to transfer knowledge across contexts, is a dominant topic in Physics Education Research. Assessment is a key activity in the learning process. The purpose of this paper is to illustrate the value of analysing introductory physics assessments using the Semantics dimension of Legitimation Code Theory. We discuss the tools used to analyse the test and exam question papers of two consecutive calculus-based introductory physics modules. An analysis of past question papers over 5 years revealed various weaknesses. The outcomes of an intervention based on critical self-evaluation of question papers, using the same tools, are presented. The results indicate that the intervention increased focus on core concepts and context and supported learning that enables transfer. We argue that the use of semantic gravity to analyse assessments is a useful starting point for change in educational practices in order to support transfer.
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- 2021
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49. Team Teaching in Doctoral Education: Guidance for Academic Identities on the Threshold
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Thielsch, Angelika
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Team teaching in higher education offers academics the opportunity to better understand their individual teaching approaches and to learn from their colleagues. Whereas the benefits of team teaching have been widely researched, so far few findings exist regarding its value for doctoral education. This paper introduces findings of a quantitative study, which collected data from mixed-experience teaching teams. Embedded in an educational development programme for the group of teaching newcomers, team teaching here is closely linked to doctoral training. The findings suggest that -- for PhD candidates -- team teaching does not only provide information on the role as academic teacher, it even supports their transition towards their new academic identity. Grounded in theoretical assumptions on identity construction and the concept of liminality, this paper provides arguments on how team teaching evokes situations of encountered otherness and why this can support doctoral candidates who are on the threshold of becoming independent scholars.
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- 2021
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50. Value for Money and the Commodification of Higher Education: Front-Line Narratives
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Wilkinson, L. C. and Wilkinson, M. D.
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This paper provides a critical interrogation of government-led reform of higher education (HE) in England. Its focus is marketisation, and in particular, the concepts of 'value for money' (VFM), teaching excellence, and students as educational consumers. Hitherto, research on VFM in HE has been largely quantitative in nature and primarily focussed on student perceptions. This qualitative research study contributes to existing knowledge, by comparing the perceptions of students and university lecturers in the social sciences. Undertaken at a Northern university between 2017 and 2019, it highlights key concerns around changing student expectations, managerialism and the potential instrumentalisation of learning and teaching. The issues explored here lend themselves to a broader based study across different types of Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) and different cognate areas.
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- 2023
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