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The use of an e-portfolio as an assessment modality in e-distance learning is a response to recent developments in higher education where assessment is an integral part of teaching and learning. The present study aims to determine the level of student satisfaction with the use of the e-portfolio in the study of pedagogical disciplines and to reveal changes according to the identified variables. As a sample of this study, 123 students from UTCN enrolled in the psycho-pedagogical module in the initial teacher training were selected. From the closed items, it was confirmed that the students' satisfaction in using the e-portfolio was at a high level, that a complex portfolio is a relevant method for evaluating students' knowledge and skills, it promotes active and collaborative learning, the platform offers sufficient resources, and it is easy to use for carrying out the activities. There were no significant differences regarding gender, faculty profile, year of study and previous experience of students in using the e-portfolio. Various suggestions were made for future studies to create more effective online and hybrid learning environments in the training of future engineering teachers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The COVID-19 pandemic has created a crisis that has critically affected higher education institutions. With the sudden shift to emergency remote education during the pandemic, students' online experiences have become a growing concern among teachers. This study aims to gain insights into students' experiences of online activities in a hybrid learning approach. A total of 80 students enrolled in undergraduate programs at the Technical University of Cluj-Napoca, Romania, responded to an open-ended online questionnaire. This study used the content analysis to find out the positive and negative experiences in online learning, the preference for continuing instruction in a certain format and the reason for choice. The results showed that students' resources and skills played an important role in terms of positive or negative study experiences: cost and time effectiveness, easy access to many study materials and good distance learning skills helped to cope with this pandemic, while little or no interaction with colleagues and teachers and too many hours on screen caused difficulties and dissatisfaction among other students. Despite these issues, most students are interested in continuing their online instruction, but also face-to-face or hybrid activities. This study can provide recommendations derived from the interpretation of participant feedback for improvements in future online learning experiences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The implementation of emergency remote education due to the COVID-19 pandemic may affect students' online learning attitudes. Exploring these attitudes, as higher education adapts to uncertainty, has become more critical than ever. This study aims to obtain information about students' attitudes towards remote education by studying in a hybrid format in the first semester of the 2021-2022 academic year due to the COVID-19 pandemic. A nonexperimental research design with quantitative research methods was used. A total of 135 students enrolled in undergraduate programs at the Technical University of Cluj-Napoca, Romania, responded to the survey. The study found that students had a neutral attitude towards remote education. There was no statistically significant difference by gender and residence area. However, the results indicated that the 4th year students had higher attitude scores towards remote education than those in previous years. The findings of this study may also provide suggestions for further developments and improvements in students' online learning attitudes and in the pedagogy of engineering disciplines in the postpandemic perspective. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Academic dishonesty is an important issue in education that continues to be a worldwide problem in the academic field. This paper embodies the findings from a small part of a larger study on academic dishonesty. Its purpose was to investigate the frequency of cheating and plagiarism behaviours, reasons, attitudes towards cheating and plagiarism and to find out ways to prevent and reduce cheating and plagiarism. This study was conducted through a 5-point Likert scale questionnaire completed by 466 engineering students at the bachelor and master level at a university from Romania. The study indicates that cheating and plagiarism are sometimes common among students, while the need to increase attitudes so as to modify students' behaviours toward honest classroom practices has been identified. Students felt that passing exams was a strong reason for cheating and plagiarism. The study also proposes several recommendations to mitigate levels of academic misconduct. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The new culture of higher education emphasizes the importance of integrating assessment into the training process. E-assessment, a term used to describe technologyfacilitated assessment, can be useful and efficient in terms of cost and time, but also of providing an immediate feedback to improve the teaching and learning process. This study investigates students' perception of the effectiveness of using formative eassessment in teaching activities and the usefulness of implementing a Classroom Response System (CRS) in improving students' learning as future engineer teachers. The study employed quantitative and qualitative research methods by two questionnaires to collect data from 75 second-year students in initial teacher training program, Technical University of Cluj-Napoca, Romania. The results were very encouraging and practically all students engaged in this process felt the e-assessment added value to their learning and they would like to see it implemented in other courses. By encouraging students to correct errors and to receive award marks, it has improved students' learning experience. The results are discussed considering relevant research to suggest recommendations for improving e-learning implementations in initial teacher training. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this study is to display prospective teachers' perceptions towards the concepts "education", "teacher" and "teaching" through metaphors. This study is a qualitative research and data were collected via metaphors. The sample of this study consisted of 101 first year students studying in different faculties of Technical University of Cluj-Napoca, Romania and participating in initial teachers training in the spring semester of 2016-2017 academic year. Participants completed the sentences: "Education is like ... because ...", "Teacher is like ... because ..." and "Teaching is like...because..." The collected data was analysed through content analysis technique and interpreted accordingly. As a result, 6 categories with 71 metaphors about education, 6 categories with 52 metaphors about teacher and 6 categories with 64 metaphors about teaching were produced. It was concluded that prospective teachers had positive perceptions towards education, teacher and teaching. As another result, it could also be observed that their metaphors differed according to the faculty profile at which prospective teachers are being taught. Based on these data, the study offers a set of curriculum development solutions, oriented towards a more efficient academic teacher training program. The results are discussed in relation to their potential relevance for creating more reflexive prospective teachers and for the optimization of the teaching practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The ultimate criterion of effective teaching is effective and successful learning. The paper focuses on an ascertaining research that investigates the students' opinion about the effective teaching characteristics through a survey based on a questionnaire that was sent to 233 first year students from Technical University of Cluj- Napoca, Romania, attending classes to prepare for a teaching career. The revised set of characteristics of effective teaching according to the Griffith University's PRO-Teaching project (Klopper, C., Drew, S., 2015) presented originally as 'eight dimensions of good teaching' (Nulty, 2001) provided a structured framework that has been the basis for our study in students' evaluation of effective teaching. The data collection procedure was based on a survey with a 5-point Likert scale and an open-ended question with comment box. The students in the contemporary educational system prefer interactive teaching strategies, suitable personal characteristics of teachers and a good teacher-student relationship. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The starting point for an attempt to define, in the personal approach, the learning to learn competency is the context of theoretical and conceptual framework of defining the competency as a holistic concept. The variety of theoretical contributions within the scientific literature has led us to try to structure a development model of learning to learn competency in an integrative and original manner. It articulates systemically the combination of knowledge, skills and attitudes necessary for the development of this competency according to the levels of learning taxonomy; it values entirely the processes of critical reflection, of metacognitive reflection and strategic decision making within a socio-constructivist context. We bring some arguments underlying the construction of the theoretical model and on which we based the future application of our educational intervention program. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Along with concern of educators to address the issue of learning in terms of active participation of students, the key feature became reflexivity. The main aim of this research is to stimulate the development of learning to learn key-competency by implementing an intervention program to 11th grade students with learning difficulties in the study of Romanian Language and Literature, so that the learner reaches the authentic, reflexive and strategic learning. The sample of subjects includes 106 students from technical high schools and colleges whose limits are situated mainly in the direction of efficiently managing the cognitive, metacognitive, emotional and motivational resources. The reflection on learning in which students were engaged in each stage of the formative experiment, by means of open reflection journals, allowed us to discover the beliefs and opinions of learners upon their own learning process. In the context of metacognitive reflection exercising, there was a significant optimization on awareness of the personal metacognition and significant increase on incidence of planning, monitoring and evaluation of learning behaviors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]