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Recognising the changing landscape and financial costs, changes in the higher education sector continue to challenge the purpose and operations of universities, notably the shift towards student consumerism. Given this, what it means to be a student in contemporary higher education can evolve and would arguably have implications about the expectations of university students and staff for learning and teaching practice. To promote greater transparency of expectations, this paper develops the concept of the ideal student further with closer look into the spheres of influence that shape university students' construction of the ideal student. We draw on 23 focus groups with 105 university students to explore the key factors that contribute to how the ideal student is developed and recognised. Our findings indicate that students' construction of the ideal student is closely shaped by and rooted in their prior educational experiences, interaction with their peers and the curriculum, and perceptions of lecturers, institution and employer expectations. All these influences lead to a fluid and complex negotiation process as students navigate the meanings of being a university student. We conclude with practical implications for learning, teaching and curriculum development in higher education. The paper therefore provides a platform for key stakeholders to discuss different influencing factors as we support student transition and progression and manage their expectations of higher education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The need for inclusive and equitable teaching and learning approaches is widely accepted in higher education literature. Surprisingly, the notion of inclusion appears to be neglected within the context of eWIL. This paper uses insights from multi-disciplinary theories to propose a framework for the development of an eWIL framework. Its key features include an inclusive, intentional approach that integrates content (the 'what') and process (the 'how') aspects of delivery using technology. The primary considerations of the framework are anticipating and responding to the diverse backgrounds, abilities, aspirations, and needs of students, and primary partners (academics and employers). The desired outcomes of the curriculum include 'hard' outcomes (like student employability) and 'soft' outcomes (like involvement and inclusion). The framework highlights particular student-related obstacles for electronically mediated experiences and learning, and issues with employers are also likely as they evolve new ways to work in a digitalized environment. Anticipating some tensions in translating the intended eWIL curriculum into practice, a 'transition prism' is suggested. Overall, the eWIL framework offers a multifaceted approach for active discussion, implementation and evaluation of eWIL programs. This is a timely consideration given dramatic shifts to remote work and online instruction observed during COVID-19. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Society is in strong need to change the way in which energy is produced and consumed. To cope with this complex challenge, integration of knowledge from different disciplines is needed. This paper shows how an interdisciplinary educational approach called networked learning combined with sustainability transition theories can help groups of engineering students to address pressing societal challenges such as the energy transition. A series of 8 workshops was held with an interdisciplinary engineering student team of a University of Technology. Networked learning within the student team showed an ad-hoc character, mainly caused by shifting student constellations during workshops. Workshops focusing on short-term goals resulted in more concrete output. The team showed a high level of equality amongst members and actively reflected on organisational aspects of their learning process. Sustainability transitions concepts and theories that integrate multiple disciplinary perspectives further supported the learning process and helped to guide strategic decision making. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reports on an undergraduate project, Making:Archives — Narrative Artefact, as an exemplar of collaborative good practice, expanding on its case study in the National Archives and History UK's Guide to Collaboration for Archive and Higher Education. The paper examines the expected and unexpected impacts of the Making:Archives collaborative project for the stakeholders involved: the Institution, the Archive Service, its depositors, and in particular the students. Students have both struggled and excelled in the project, with the most engaged developing a range of creative and transferrable skills that have been repurposed in the creation of work beyond Making:Archives. The paper also reflects on the challenges faced, and numerous opportunities presented, during the co-creation, delivery and evaluation of the project, drawing extensive data gathered from student participants. The project is presented in the context of relevant literature from both the textile education, industry, and archive sectors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper considers the problem of music student's preparedness for university study. Since 2002 New Zealand senior secondary school students have experienced a national outcomes-based curriculum and assessment system which provides the flexibility for schools and teachers to create curricula suited to varied student interests and learning trajectories. Music teachers are faced with the challenge of fostering engaging musical experiences for students as well as providing the sorts of knowledge for those students who may wish to progress towards specialisation. This paper reports on a small survey of university music students (n = 44) who were asked how well school music prepared them for their university studies. The findings suggest that while democratising the music curriculum in response to the hegemony of past curricula, teachers may have run into another problem where access to the theoretical knowledge required for a successful transition to further study is not always made available to students. It appears that in generally widening access through curricular reforms epistemic access may be unintentionally restricted. I conclude by suggesting that both schools and universities have a responsibility for an approach to education where procedural and principled knowledge are linked as the means towards developing expertise. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Improved clarity concerning the relationship between curriculum and pedagogy in higher education is needed to address issues concerning learning and teaching quality. This paper explores the relationship between curriculum and pedagogy and argues for a stronger and more explicit link between the two. On that basis, the paper proposes a conceptual learning design framework that has the potential to act as a clarifying tool for academic developers and academics as they conceptualise and develop contemporary learning environments for effective learning. Reflections on the implication of the framework for practice are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

System models are commonly used in tertiary education as a mechanism for describing the interacting components of educational phenomena, but have hitherto been uncritically accepted. This paper provides a critical review of existing systems models, including the 3P model defined Biggs, and outlines their conceptual challenges. A revised model developed for curriculum research is presented. The paper would be of interest to those undertaking education-focused research, scholarly teaching practitioners as well as those with an interest in the use of systems models as a framework for educational alignment. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper reports on a study exploring master students’ ability to apply their knowledge when solving an internal pricing problem in a supply chain. Analyses of 33 negotiation progress reports and 8 recordings of discussions demonstrate that most of the students were not able to apply relevant concepts and models to guide their handling of the task. The main reason for the variability in performance was the significant differences in the students’ general problem-solving abilities. Most students did not perform a thorough task analysis or develop a solution strategy before they met for negotiations, and they did not keep track of their task performance. The implications for teaching are highlighted, and directions for further research are proposed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines how the marketised funding system of vocational further education is affecting lecturers’ working practices and professional integrity. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with a number of lecturing staff and managers within two vocational areas at an English FE college to examine the implications of working under the current funding regime. The conclusions drawn reflect the complexity of working within FE showing how lecturers are frequently placed in a professional dilemma between securing future funding (by ensuring high levels of retention and achievement) and compromising their professional integrity and working practices in order to do so. A key finding here was the inherent tension between professional integrity and funding requirements apparently directly opposing ‘good’ practice. This means FE professionals experience what Whitehead called ‘a living contradiction’ in their working lives, increasing stress levels and diminishing their sense of professionalism. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper takes up Bakhtin’s dialogic perspective to explore the becoming of one Chinese international doctoral student’s voices. We investigate how a single participant (from a wider study) assimilates the most transformative butalienvoice of critical thinking in her supervision space by participating in dialogues with key speaking persons. When she assimilates this alien voice, the student also renovates her culturally enrooted and contradictory voice of respectful dependence. In this way, the student’s voices develop and transform through a process of conflicts, struggles and reconciliations. This rich case study illustrates how a doctoral journey may be transformative cognitively and socio-culturally for the student as a speaking person – for her subjectivity. It also shows how this transformation is enabled not only by the supervisors’ personal qualities but also through role modelling from peers: both kinds of relationships facilitate the student’s assimilation of the most transformative voice in intercultural supervision. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Employer complaints of engineering graduate inability to 'apply knowledge' suggests a need to interrogate the complex theory-practice relationship in twenty-first century real world contexts. Focussing specifically on the application of mathematics, physics and logic-based disciplinary knowledge, the research examines engineering problem-solving processes as enacted by recent graduates in a range of industrial settings. Theoretically situated in the sociology of education, the Bernsteinian concept of knowledge structures and Legitimation Code Theory epistemic relations are utilised to surface the disciplinary basis of problem solving in different sociotechnical contexts. It is argued that the relationship between the 'what' and the 'how' of the problem gives rise to significantly different practice 'codes' between which successful engineering problem-solvers are required to shift. This paper presents two contrasting case studies which demonstrate the impact of the environment on code-shifting practices. Findings suggest that engineering curricula need to facilitate a more conceptual grasp of contextual complexities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

At the University of the West Indies, large courses often require the involvement of multiple persons in their delivery. Within the English Language Foundation Unit, several of the courses offered cater to over 500 students in any given semester. The large number of students necessitates multiple practitioners providing instructions as part of the same course offering. While stylistics may vary, there is the need for course instruction and content to depict uniformity. Practitioners’ conceptualization of a specific topic will inform the instruction received by students. In instances where practitioners do not conceptualize content in a like manner, students within the same course may receive varied instruction, thus affecting student output and overall evaluation. The paper looks specifically at a service course offered at the University of the West Indies and the practices of the multiple persons involved in the teaching of the course. It provides an overview of practitioners’ discussion of their conceptualization of content areas within the courses and assesses the extent to which there are variations and/or similarities. It also discusses how these impact teaching and learning. The research seeks to derive an actionable direction for collaboration and further discussions within large service courses with the aim of improving teaching and learning. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The twenty-first century higher education sector has come a long way after undergoing continuous metamorphosis from pedagogy to andragogy. Most of the educational approaches adopted in medical schools are directed towards developing more of competencies and less of capability, which is the ability to use competencies in novel contexts. Competencies alone are not sufficient to thrive in the present day work place as medical profession subsumes complex contexts; it is in this scenario that, medical educators are entrusted with the challenging task of developing “capable learners”. In the heutagogical approach, learners are required to decide upon what to learn and how to learn and therefore the control of the learning process is on the learner and the role of the teacher becomes that of a navigator. This paper highlights the current higher educational practices based on heutagogy, considers its application in the context of Problem-based learning and also discusses a few challenges in incorporating this approach in the existing undergraduate medical curriculum. The article proposes the use of social media in order to support learner autonomy, which in turn improves learners’ cognitive engagement with content and tasks, thereby assisting the development of attributes associated with capability. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Background: Growing demand for Global Health (GH) training and the internationalisation of education requires innovative approaches to training. Blended learning (BL, a form of e-learning combining face-to-face or real-time interaction with computer-assisted learning) is a promising approach for increasing GH research capacity in low- to middle-income countries. Implementing BL, however, requires additional skills and efforts from lecturers. This paper explores lecturers' views and experiences of delivering BL courses within the context of two north-south collaborative research capacity building projects, ARCADE HSSR and ARCADE RSDH. Design: We used a qualitative approach to explore the experiences and perceptions of 11 lecturers involved in designing and delivering BL courses collaboratively across university campuses in four countries (South Africa, Uganda, India and Sweden). Data were collected using interviews in person or via Skype. Inductive qualitative content analysis was used. Results: Participants reported that they felt BL increased access to learning opportunities and made training more flexible and convenient for adult learners, which were major motivations to engage in BL. However, despite eagerness to implement and experiment with BL courses, they lacked capacity and support, and found the task time consuming. They needed to make compromises between course objectives and available technological tools, in the context of poor Internet infrastructure. Conclusions: BL courses have the potential to build bridges between low- and middle-income contexts and between lecturers and students to meet the demand for GH training. Lecturers were very motivated to try these approaches but encountered obstacles in implementing BL courses. Considerable investments are needed to implement BL and support lecturers in delivering courses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

University students who do not declare geography as their major are at risk of poor motivation to learn in an introductory geography class. However, research exploring the role of non-majors' motivation is lacking. This study examines motivational factors impacting non-geography students' engagement and performance. The findings suggest that non-geography majors demonstrate deep engagement when they focus on mastering the content and value geography. Also, when students feel confident of learning geography, they are more likely to demonstrate a high level of achievement. The paper concludes with practical suggestions for enhancing non-geography students' motivation and engagement in an introductory geography class. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

It is almost universally accepted within social work education that placements are a defining feature of training and ‘… have a more profound and lasting impact than classroom teaching’. Consequently the placement is regarded as the signature pedagogy in social work education. However, it is also asserted that universities pay little attention to this aspect of teaching and concerns about a ‘significant level of disjunction between academic and practice learning’ are expressed. The development of a new distance learning MA social work programme in which units are studied alongside part-time placements afforded opportunities for innovation in curriculum delivery, alongside increasing connections with learning on placement. Practice educators were invited to respond to an online mixed methods survey exploring their perceptions of the programme and views as to how greater integration of academic and practice learning can be achieved in social work education generally. Analysis of the results identified the important role which supervision with the practice educator can play in integrating learning on placement with the academic curriculum. The paper concludes that a greater focus on learning from practice may offer opportunities to maximise the learning potential of the placement as social work's signature pedagogy. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]