scholarly journals A Foucauldian Discourse Analysis of an Engineering Programme

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Craig Watterson
Keyword(s):  
Discourse Analysis ◽  
New Zealand ◽  
Learning Environment ◽  
Engineering Education ◽  
Teaching And Learning ◽  
Course Design ◽  
Teaching Staff ◽  
Extensive Literature ◽  
Complex Situation ◽  
Teaching And Learning Environment

<p>The extensive literature relating to student barriers within the Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) fields and, in particular, engineering education illustrates that STEM education has a widespread problem in retaining students. A plethora of studies have concentrated on placing the student at the centre of the problem – for example by focusing on student academic ability, work habits and social background. By analysing staff interviews, and investigating pertinent factors from the surrounding institutional, cultural and social environment, I shift the focus away from the phenomenological experience of individuals to examine the way power relations affect the teaching and learning environment. Foucauldian Discourse Analysis (FDA) offers a theoretical and methodological basis for critically exploring networks of power, through the investigation of discourse and can provide insights into the complex situation in the School of Engineering and Computer Science (ECS).  I use FDA to ask: how is power experienced and manifested by lecturers in the Bachelor of Engineering with Honours (BE) first-year teaching and learning environment at Victoria University of Wellington (VUW), New Zealand. I do this by analysing transcripts of interviews with teaching staff, as well as ECS, University, and Government documentation. By adopting an FDA approach to lecturers’ experiences of power, situated in the New Zealand neoliberal educational context, I aim to identify issues that impact the teaching and learning environment. These include academic practices relating to Government and University pressure to increase engineering student recruitment and retention numbers, an academically diverse incoming student cohort, course design, teaching and research. From a Foucauldian perspective, the New Zealand Government, the University, its lecturers, and students are all part of an educational setting comprising a complex network of power relationships active in the operation of the teaching and learning environment.  By placing lecturers at the epicentre of the situation and by understanding how lecturers both experience and exercise power in the teaching-learning environment, the issue of student retention may be re-framed. This study offers a unique perspective from which we can assess these problematic experiences at the source, whether that be at government, institution, department, teacher or learner level. As such, by exploring the operation of power, this thesis explores an important aspect of the retention problem which has never been fully investigated in NZ engineering education.</p>

Summarizing Teaching Approaches in the Traditional Classroom and in the Virtual Environment

2012 ◽  
pp. 219-235
Author(s):  
Victor X. Wang
Keyword(s):  
Learning Environment ◽  
Virtual Environment ◽  
Online Teaching ◽  
Teaching And Learning ◽  
Instructional Methods ◽  
Traditional Classroom ◽  
Learning Needs ◽  
Teaching Approaches ◽  
Online Teaching And Learning ◽  
Teaching And Learning Environment

Teachers in today’s information society are required to rethink their teaching approaches to accommodate the learning needs of children and adults, either in the traditional classroom settings or the virtual environment. Logically speaking, children require instructors to teach them by using the pedagogical methods. Likewise, adults require teachers to help them learn by using andragogical approaches such as facilitation methods. When it comes to teaching children or helping adults learn in the online teaching and learning environment, it is the epistemological positions of the teachers that predetermine their instructional methods. In this chapter, the author compared and contrasted those pedagogical teaching methods with those andragogical approaches.

Cohort Programming

2009 ◽  
pp. 276-285
Author(s):  
James E. Witte ◽  
Iris M. Saltiel ◽  
Maria Martinez Witte
Keyword(s):  
Learning Environment ◽  
Teaching And Learning ◽  
Lifelong Learners ◽  
Transfer Of Skills ◽  
Teaching And Learning Environment ◽  
Technological Advances ◽  
Technological Tools ◽  
E Learning ◽  
Electronic Teaching ◽  
Effective Use

This chapter examines the use of cohort programming within the Career Technical Education field. Cohorts are ideal formats for CTE curricula since students participate in the majority of coursework together. They provide mutual academic and intellectual encouragement and reinforce the transfer of skills to the workplace. Developing cohorts within an online electronic teaching and learning environment is addressed at formal and informal levels. Instructing and facilitating in an e-learning environment requires the effective use of technological tools, which are overviewed in this chapter. Also addressed are instructor challenges and methods that will continually evolve as technological advances occur. Cohort programming is an innovative and practical way of enhancing student economic opportunities and creating lifelong learners.

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