scholarly journals Digital University Teaching and Learning in Management—The Gini from the COVID-19 Bottle and Its Empirical Representations in Germany

2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (11) ◽  
pp. 728
Author(s):  
Tobias Witt ◽  
Matthias Klumpp ◽  
Beatriz Beyer
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
Student Performance ◽  
Course Evaluation ◽  
Course Evaluations ◽  
University Teaching ◽  
Current Crisis ◽  
Digital Education ◽  
Digital Evaluation ◽  
Teaching Learning

Digitalization of teaching, learning, and assessment in higher education has gained increasing attention in research in the recent years. While previous research investigated issues of effectiveness, course attendance, and course evaluation from a long-term perspective, the current COVID-19 pandemic forced higher education institutions to digitalize teaching, learning, and assessment in a very short time. In this context, we investigate the effects of the digitalization of three courses from operations research and management science in the summer term 2020, namely two large lectures and tutorials for undergraduate, and a seminar for graduate students. To that end, student performance, course and exam attendance rates, and course evaluations are compared to the setting of the same courses in the previous year 2019 with a traditional, non-digitalized setting. Next to the quantitative data, qualitative statements from the course evaluations and students’ expectations expressed during the term are investigated. Findings indicate that the lecturers’ understanding of learning behavior has to develop further as interaction is required in any format, on-site or digital. Absenteeism and procrastination are important risk areas especially in digital management education. Instruments would have to be adapted to digital settings, but with care and relating to course specifics (including digital evaluation). Digital education does not make learning per se easier or harder, but we observed that the students’ understanding and performance gap increased in digital teaching times. As an outlook, we propose the longitudinal investigation of the ongoing digitalization during the COVID-19 pandemic, and going beyond, investigate opportunities of the current crisis situation for implementing the long-term transition to digital education in higher institution institutions.

scholarly journals Developing reflection on competence-based learning: the Russian experience with the Tuning approach

2014 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
pp. 463
Author(s):  
Anna Serbati ◽  
Alessio Surian
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
Formative Evaluation ◽  
Subject Area ◽  
University Teaching ◽  
Higher Education Curriculum ◽  
Open Questions ◽  
Academic Teachers ◽  
Teaching Learning ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Russian Universities

The paper focuses on the Tuning Russia project. It aims at providing an overview of the impact of the Tuning methodology and outcomes concerning University teaching, learning, and assessment activities. It identifies: the most relevant results and “lesson learnt” during the project; tools/concepts/experiences that involved teachers found most interesting; strengths and weaknesses; the usefulness of working with colleagues from different Russian universities; and the level of sharing of the Tuning methodology with other colleagues within participating Universities. The empirical data for the study were drawn from a qualitative questionnaire with open questions filled-in by the members of the subject area group “Social Work” involved in the Tuning Russia project. The respondents were six academic teachers from different Russian universities and two European Tuning experts. This reflection by academic teachers upon the initial implementation of the Tuning approach in Russia highlights the opportunities to explore methods of establishing and improving communities of practice in the field of competence-based higher education curriculum development. Results highlight the need to develop further work concerning both summative and formative evaluation in relation to competence-based curricula review in higher education

scholarly journals Digital higher education: a divider or bridge builder? Leadership perspectives on edtech in a COVID-19 reality

2021 ◽  
Vol 18 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Melissa Laufer ◽  
Anne Leiser ◽  
Bronwen Deacon ◽  
Paola Perrin de Brichambaut ◽  
Benedikt Fecher ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
System Level ◽  
Teaching Online ◽  
Digital Education ◽  
Digital Divides ◽  
Education Leaders ◽  
Higher Education Leaders ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Learning And Collaboration

AbstractThe edtech community has promoted claims that digital education enhances access, learning, and collaboration. The COVID-19 pandemic tested these claims like never before, as higher education systems seemingly overnight had to move teaching online. Through a sequential mixed-method approach, we investigated how 85 higher education leaders in 24 countries experienced this rapid digital transformation. Through their experiences, we identified the multiple and overlapping factors that contribute to an institution’s ability to realize the potential of digital education, in terms of access, learning and collaboration, whilst highlighting deeply rooted inequalities at the individual, institutional and system level. Drawing on these empirics, we put forth recommendations for closing the digital divides and pathways forward. Higher education leaders are uniquely positioned to move beyond the emergency adoption of online learning towards inclusive, long-term visions for digital education, which emphasize collaboration over individual gain.

scholarly journals Kaizen in university teaching: continuous course improvement

2019 ◽  
Vol 10 (4) ◽  
pp. 975-991 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ingo Kregel
Keyword(s):  
Participation Rate ◽  
Teaching Quality ◽  
Course Evaluation ◽  
Course Evaluations ◽  
University Teaching ◽  
Course Quality ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Quality Feedback ◽  
Course Material

PurposeThe current evaluation standards in German higher education institutions (HEIs) do not often lead to measurable quality improvement. The purpose of this paper is to critically evaluate whether Kaizen can improve the quality of teaching. The presented concept illustrates the evaluation of each course unit to continuously encourage quality feedback from the learners and intensify the exchange with lecturers.Design/methodology/approachAction research is used to combine the continuous improvement philosophy of Kaizen with student course evaluations. A pilot study of the concept provides data from four course cycles to analyze learnings and setbacks.FindingsLearners in the pilot courses welcomed the intense participation and allowed improvements to elements such as course concept, course material, presentation style and content or detail selection. The participation rate declined during each term and was highly influenced by triggers like exam and grade relevance. Kaizen could successfully improve course quality, especially in the first two years of newly developed courses.Research limitations/implicationsThe presented results have been collected from one course over four years in one institution. The next stage of research would be the application of the approach in other institutions to validate results and make potential adjustments to the concept, for example, toward continuous learning.Originality/valueAlthough course evaluation has become standard in German HEIs, most institutions only implement it once per term or year. This paper discusses a new approach to expedite the evaluation of teaching quality at the point of action (Gemba) to facilitate the short-term reactions of lecturers.

Playful approaches to learning as a realm for the humanities in the culture of higher education: A hermeneutical literature review

2021 ◽  
pp. 147402222110508
Author(s):  
Julie Borup Jensen ◽  
Oline Pedersen ◽  
Ole Lund ◽  
Helle Marie Skovbjerg
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
Literature Review ◽  
Student Performance ◽  
Approaches To Learning ◽  
Human Flourishing ◽  
Arts And Humanities ◽  
Educational Culture ◽  
The Arts ◽  
Teaching Learning ◽  
Future Education

This article presents playfulness as an emerging approach to learning in higher education that emphasises the arts and humanities across disciplines. The article is based on a qualitative, hermeneutical literature review in light of educational culture in higher education. The literature review indicates that playful approaches to learning stand in opposition to educational cultures that focus on rapidness and student performance. However, an educational culture of play is about to establish itself, and this culture of play emphasises creativity in learning and human flourishing in education, perspectives that are connected to arts and humanities. The main findings cultures of time, performance and play lead to several questions about societal, institutional, and organisational educational culture, and regarding approaches to teaching, learning, humanity and society. The main contribution of this article is that a focus on playfulness offer the field of arts and humanities new possibilities in future education.

scholarly journals Greek Higher Education: Old Challenges and the Current Crisis

2015 ◽  
pp. 8-10
Author(s):  
Dimitrios Dentsoras
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
Economic Crisis ◽  
Party Politics ◽  
Current Crisis ◽  
The Past ◽  
Current Economic Crisis ◽  
University Life ◽  
Prior State

Greek higher education has been facing challenges since well before the current economic crisis. Most importantly, it has been suffering from over-centralization and the infiltration of party politics into most aspects of university life. The current economic crisis provided an opportunity for much needed reforms, but the Greek governments of the past five years failed to provide a convincing long-term plan for modernizing higher education. As a result, reforms were opposed to and eventually abandoned, leaving the Greek universities in their problematic prior state.

Demands and design principles of a “heterodox” didactics for promoting critical thinking in higher education

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Annette Ostendorf ◽  
Michael Thoma
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
Critical Thinking ◽  
University Teaching ◽  
Educational Mission ◽  
Critical Thinking Ability ◽  
Thinking Ability ◽  
Education Interventions ◽  
Teaching Learning ◽  
Alternative Designs ◽  
Further Development

AbstractFollowing on from the already wide-ranging academic discussion about fostering critical thinking in students as an important component of a university’s educational mission, this paper takes a particular look at didactic principles for fostering this critical thinking. We begin with a reception of Abrami et al.’s (2015) comprehensive meta-study of higher education interventions that are successful in promoting critical thinking. It becomes apparent that an understanding of criticism, which we refer to as “conventional” has been used throughout. However, there are alternative designs of an understanding of critique and critical thinking. We therefore subsequently explain an understanding of critique that is oriented toward poststructuralist thought and is referred to as “deconstructive”. Didactic principles that can be called “heterodox” are presented, which are suitable to promote a critical thinking ability in the light of the poststructuralist-inspired concept of critique. These principles are not only theoretically negotiated, but also vividly explained by means of a concrete intervention in university teaching. The article concludes with reflections on the connection of “conventional” and “heterodox” didactic principles for the promotion of critical thinking and gives impulses for the further development of university teaching-learning arrangements.

Drawing out: Encounter, resistance and collaboration

2019 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 285-297
Author(s):  
Majella Clancy ◽  
Stephen Felmingham
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
Young People ◽  
Secondary Schools ◽  
Learning Strategy ◽  
University Teaching ◽  
Cultural Learning ◽  
Current Crisis ◽  
Collaborative Paper ◽  
Arts Teachers ◽  
The Hours

Abstract This collaborative paper is written against the backdrop of a current crisis in art education and provision in UK secondary schools. Education policy and the introduction of the European Baccalaureate (EBacc) has led to an increasing decline in the hours of arts teaching and number of arts teachers in England's secondary schools (Cultural Learning Alliance 2018). The results of this educational turn are well documented and the effects are being felt now in higher education, in wider culture and in the outcomes for young people in their creative capabilities, global outlook and wellbeing. Drawing pedagogy is considered with reference to this wider context and through the lens of Gert Biesta's philosophy of education that brings children and young people into dialogue with the world. It juxtaposes Tim Ingold and John Dewey in a discussion of a collaborative drawing project, Ailleurs (Elsewhere), an exchange between Plymouth College of Art (PCA) and Ecole Supérieure des Beaux-Arts Montpellier Contemporain (MoCo ESBA) in 2017. The intention is to bring a pedagogy of collaboration, resistance and encounters to bear, to argue for drawing as a singular means of working within this set of tensions. The text concludes that as research or enquiry-led teaching is at the root of an increasing amount of University teaching, finding a route into this from results-led education is a clear challenge to higher education and it sets out a collaborative, peer-to-peer learning strategy as an approach to drawing pedagogy.

scholarly journals Communication and didactics, the difficult but needful symbiosis in higher education systems

2019 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 1-13
Author(s):  
Stefano Mustica
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
European Commission ◽  
Teaching And Learning ◽  
Practical Knowledge ◽  
University Teaching ◽  
University Teachers ◽  
Equal Importance ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Teaching Learning ◽  
The University

Abstract The first purpose of the university system is to deliver qualitative education through solid didactics/educational, but not many university structures seem really interested in the subject. Sets of laws, measures, rules, and prescriptions of all kinds are in fact relegating it to a corner, making it less and less central and effective while also increasing the difficult to decipher, update and innovate it. As a matter of fact, the issue of modernization of teaching methods has been tackled decisively by the European Commission, which has placed it among the priorities of its agenda. By acting in this way, EU is manifesting the conviction that a better quality for higher education will determine a growth in development and competitiveness not only for the Union itself but also for the individual universities that will define a strategy to improve the level of their teaching and learning and to give equal importance to research and teaching. In its report on the theme of modernization and quality of teaching and learning, the European Commission summarizes its conclusions in 16 recommendations, including: - the need for adequate teaching training for teachers; - the need for the merits of teachers who make a significant contribution to improving teaching and learning methods to be recognized and rewarded. But in order to achieve such quality prospects, it is necessary for university teachers to combine the knowledge of their discipline with specific communicative, cognitive and, more generally, relational skills. All this must become a principle of the university teaching of the future. However, on a practical level, it is not uncommon to meet teachers who are not sufficiently attentive to these dimensions of the teaching-learning dynamic, failing to identify the “language” capable of transferring their theoretical/practical knowledge in the function of real learning of the student.

scholarly journals Transnational Education and e-Learning during a Pandemic: Challenges, Opportunities, and Future

2022 ◽  
Author(s):  
Atm S. Alam ◽  
Ling Ma ◽  
Andy Watson ◽  
Vindya Wijeratne ◽  
Michael Chai
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
International Education ◽  
Learning Community ◽  
Teaching And Learning ◽  
Transnational Education ◽  
Traditional Classrooms ◽  
Current Crisis ◽  
E Learning ◽  
Traditional Classroom Teaching ◽  
Teaching Learning

Higher education institutions are globally facing unprecedented disruptive trends, which have rapidly changed the landscape of global higher education due to the COVID-19 pandemic. While transnational education (TNE) is increasingly becoming popular as a provision for internationally recognised education at the doorstep of students, the temporary shift from traditional classroom teaching and learning (T&L) to remote online T&L caused by the COVID-19 pandemic has been challenging for all stakeholders to provide the similar student experience as previously. Regarding TNE programmes, the emergency replacement of traditional classrooms with virtual ones has also raised significant challenges of both equity and pedagogy. However, given the current crisis in higher education, TNE can be a cornerstone in rebuilding the post-COVID-19 international education system. This chapter explores the challenges faced by the TNE programmes based on a systematic literature review and information gathered informally from various stakeholders and discusses the opportunities and future impacts in teaching, learning, and student support as the post-COVID-19 educational landscape emerges. It also provides an insight into how a sustainable transnational learning community can be developed for the quality and sustainability of international higher education in this new decade.

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