There has been increasing recognition for the need to reform doctoral training practices to foster students’ personal epistemology. This study describes the design and evaluation of a learning experience designed to help students understand the scholarly publication process. Firstly, this study discusses the design of the learning experience, describing the collaborative process of writing an interdisciplinary publication using both online and face-to-face learning. Secondly, this study evaluates the effectiveness of the learning experience by examining students’ reflections. We show that participation in the learning experience helped students to develop their academic writing proficiency, collaboration and teamwork, intercultural competence, and ability to engage in reflective practice. Importantly, we show that each student also created more individualised knowledge, gaining insight into how they and others think. This study, therefore, demonstrates that personal epistemology can be fostered through collaboration in a doctoral writing group context. 相似文献
While there is less doubt that adult learners are motivated by different reasons to re‐attend school, it is important to note that, other than psychological factors, social factors are also important in shaping the participation decision. Although researchers have attempted to include social factors in participation models, there is not a conclusive relationship between socioeconomic background and motivation for participation. This study attempts to clarify the linkage between different social factors and adult motivations in re‐entering school to acquire a university degree. By regressing motivations onto three sets of social variables, we found that family role and social position have significant impact in affecting some of the motivations for re‐entering school. These results confirm that adult motivations to learn are embedded within the social lives of adults. 相似文献
Formative assessment (FA) has been a popular discourse in education, but its potential benefit is fundamentally dependent on teachers’ willingness to make changes to their classroom practices. These changes bring about much assessment tension (AT). This paper argues that how well teachers experience and manage AT determines the efficacy of their FA practices. Past studies have warned that AT experienced by teachers is complex and problematic. Therefore, it would be useful to investigate the variation of AT experienced by teachers, and how well they are dealing with these tensions. This phenomenographic research examines the use of FA in the context of different ways that AT is experienced. Findings on teachers’ conceptions of AT are presented, and each is then discussed for insights into teachers’ meanings and practices of assessment. In particular, instances of how AT hindered or helped FA are identified to highlight more productive ways of understanding and using assessment to support students’ learning. Implications of the research findings for the Singapore Teaching Practice (STP) will be discussed.
An innovative training programme providing second year students with a real taste of civil engineering practice through the construction of full‐size structures was introduced at the Nanyang Technological Institute, Singapore. Students are divided into companies, each responsible for executing the construction project for a profit, and in accordance with contract requirements in the forms of specifications and design drawings. Each company is sub‐divided into management, office and field groups. Thus the students, through a mandatory rotation of the role play, gain valuable experience in the field, office and management functions through personal involvement in such a real‐life project. To reflect the objectives of the programme, a system of assessment was developed based on the student performance at the team, group and individual levels. Due to the short history of the programme and since a true test of the effectiveness of this type of training is through the performance of the graduates, a summative evaluation is difficult to make at the present time. However, some interim feedback from the students, staff members and industrialists on students’ performance subsequent to their second year course work suggest that the programme has served well in achieving its intended objectives. 相似文献
This study samples first year undergraduates from two programmes at a Hong Kong University (N = 66). One programme uses an entirely problem-based approach to learning and teaching, whilst the other uses more traditional
methods. Using the Learning and Study Strategies Inventory (LASSI) as a measure of student perceptions of their thinking,
or metacognition it explores differences in metacognitive development between each group of students between the beginning
and end of their first year in each programme. The paper argues that, in addition to the formal learning context, everyday
challenges emerging from the additional new social contexts provided by problem-based curricula provide fertile environments
for the development of metacognition because whilst the highest ‘meta-level’ of cognition is usually not implicated when we
receive an outside task and when the task solution is known, the meta-level does tend to be consulted when things go wrong
or when the situation is new. In other words, when we are faced with finding solutions to a problem whether posed by the teacher
as part of a problem-based curriculum or a new social environment, we are more likely to develop generic, as well as subject
specific skills. 相似文献
This paper investigates whether instructors’ adoption of constructive alignment has any impact on university students’ learning approaches, which are highly correlated with students’ achievement of learning outcomes. A multi-method model with a combination of qualitative and quantitative design was adopted, using document analysis, interviews and survey. The analysis of covariance results suggested that regardless of individual differences, students would adjust their learning approaches and study behaviours in response to the classroom teaching and learning environment. Students in more ‘constructively aligned courses’ were more likely to adopt deep learning approaches and less likely to use surface learning approaches in their study of a particular course. 相似文献