Supporting high-quality teaching in higher education through the HowUTeach self-reflection tool

This article introduces the development of the self-reflection tool HowUTeach for higher education teachers. HowUTeach is a research-based self-assessment tool created primarily for teachers in both science universities and universities of applied sciences. The purpose of HowUTeach is to increase teachers’ awareness of their teaching and thereby enhance individual self-reflection relating to work and well-being. HowUTeach uses responses to a questionnaire as a base to generate feedback that includes descriptions of different teaching dimensions as well as ideas on how to develop and improve teaching practices. This article defines these dimensions and presents the idea of counter feedback. The results from the pilot tests of HowUTeach were promising, and teachers identified that the instrument advanced their teaching practices. The tool is now being developed further.

A Collaborative Cybersecurity Education Program

This chapter presents an implementation of a cybersecurity education program. The program aims to address some issues identified in current cybersecurity teaching in higher education on a European level, like the fragmentation of cybersecurity expertise or resource shortage, resulting in few higher education institutions to offer full degree programs. As a result of the Erasmus+ strategic partnership project SecTech, the program tries to overcome those issues by introducing collaborative development to cybersecurity education. SecTech lays the foundations for a collaborative education program, like the definition of a clear content, module and delivery structure, and the appropriate tool support to facilitate collaboration and content reuse. Additional effort is required to achieve long-term success, including the creation of a community that drives the content creation and maintenance, as well as an independent governance structure to steer the project in the long-term. While the project focuses on European collaboration, a global community is envisioned.

Gamification as a Teaching Resource for English-Medium Instruction and Multilingual Education at University

Gamification has emerged in recent years as a resource that incorporates game-related elements and mechanics into the classroom to foster students' motivation, engagement, and further competences. With the proliferation of English-medium instruction (EMI) and multilingual degree programs at university nowadays, new and innovative teaching tools are desirable to help students cope with the double-challenging task of acquiring new and complex disciplinary content through a foreign language. This chapter provides an overview of some recent computer-based gamification tools that may be applied in EMI and multilingual university settings. More specifically, the main features and advantages of these tools for these specific educational contexts are explored. This chapter may be useful for researchers and practitioners in the field of EMI and multilingual teaching in higher education.

Gamification as a Teaching Resource for English-Medium Instruction and Multilingual Education at University

Gamification has emerged in recent years as a resource that incorporates game-related elements and mechanics into the classroom to foster students' motivation, engagement, and further competences. With the proliferation of English-medium instruction (EMI) and multilingual degree programs at university nowadays, new and innovative teaching tools are desirable to help students cope with the double-challenging task of acquiring new and complex disciplinary content through a foreign language. This chapter provides an overview of some recent computer-based gamification tools that may be applied in EMI and multilingual university settings. More specifically, the main features and advantages of these tools for these specific educational contexts are explored. This chapter may be useful for researchers and practitioners in the field of EMI and multilingual teaching in higher education.

Literature Review on Benefits, Opportunities, Challenges, Prospects of Online Teaching in Higher Education

Purpose: An analysis of literature review on benefits, opportunities, challenges, prospects of online teaching in higher education gives an insight into various factors leading to the effective implementation of online teaching in higher education institution. An honest attempt is made for enabling the teachers to understand these factors for adopting online teaching in higher education institutions. Design/Methodology/Approach: This study is a qualitative literature review, which is based on secondary data. This data is collected from various websites, journals, research papers, articles, several surveys, and reports. Findings/Results: Based on detailed analysis of literature review, assisted in finding out research gap and prospective research proposal which will help in the formulation of the future research study in the area of online teaching in higher education. Originality/Value: This paper analyses and identifies the research gap after a detailed analysis of the literature review. Based on the research gap, specifies the research proposal for further study. Paper Type: A literature review on benefits, opportunities, challenges, prospects of online teaching in Higher Education.

Project as a method of teaching in higher education

The article shows that the main goal of the project method is to provide students with the opportunity to acquire independently knowledge in the process of solving practical problems or problems requiring the integration of knowledge from various subject areas. The teacher in the project is assigned the role of a coordinator, expert, additional source of information At the same time it is underlined that this , practically new technology, is directed to purposeful, generally independent activity of students, carried out under the flexible guidance of a teacher, aimed at solving a communicative research or socially significant professional problem and to obtain a specific result in the form of a material and / or ideal product. Goal. The purpose of the article is to show the importance of using the method of project. The project method in teaching a foreign language in a non-language (technical) university is a didactic means of activating the cognitive activity of future engineers, a method of developing their creativity, which also contributes to the formation of certain personal qualities The main purpose of the project method is to provide students with the opportunity to independently acquire knowledge independently in the process of solving practical problems or problems that require the integration of knowledge from different subject areas. Methodology. Various forms of presentation of educational material within the project method stimulating the development of such qualities of creativity as: and originality of thought, development of ideas, active creative self-development, intellectual independence of students is revealed in the article. Results. The method of projects helps take into account the individual characteristics of students, and it significantly contributes to the development of skills and skills in teamwork, decision-making and presentation in business and professional situations.

How context influences the Continuing Professional Development of Teacher Educators within the ecological environment of the island territories of the Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States

The continuing professional development (CPD) of teacher educators has been receiving more attention over the past two decades globally. Reportedly, teacher educators (TEs) have transitioned directly to teaching in higher education (HE) as school teachers without formal preparation or support in some cases. My study aims to understand issues that promote and or hinder the CPD of the TEs within the ecological environment of the OECS and identify policy areas as a response to issues raised. The Ecological Systems Theory of Human Development was used as the theoretical framework. A Mixed Method, exploratory, sequential QUAL-quan design, is used. Data was collected in Phase 1 through semi-structured interviews from six teacher educators and eight other participants who occupy different levels of the ecological context. In Phase 2, an online survey which was informed from the interview responses was developed and administered to the population (n=53) of the TEs. Data analysis was conducted using thematic analysis and simple descriptive statistics for the Phases respectively. Integration occurred at reporting and discussion of findings. Findings revealed that participants value CPD but a weak CPD culture exists. Findings indicate lack of financial support and recognition for CPD efforts, heavy workload, family commitments, costs, time and appropriate support from the various systems within the ecological environment hindered more than promoted their development. A consensus emerged among participants, that proper systems and policies are needed to systematically address the CPD of the TEs. Recommendations are made in light of the findings.

Literature Review on the Factors Affecting Teaching Effectiveness of Undergraduate Engineering Programmes

A great deal has been written, over the past three decades, on what constitutes effective teaching in higher education. Teaching effectiveness has been a key concern for universities since it pertains to the achievements of skills required for the competitive job market. The current practice of teaching the engineering fundamental non-culminating courses in undergraduate engineering programmes is through traditional teaching methods. This literature review aims to identify the factors that influence teaching effectiveness of undergraduate engineering programmes. The literature reviewed indicates that researchers have identified lecturers’ ability, course characteristics and teaching methods & material as pertinent measurements of Teaching Effectiveness.

Design and Realization of a Fuzzy Comprehensive Evaluation System for Music Teaching in Higher Education

In recent years, music teaching in higher education has developed quickly, and attracted more and more attention. However, there is not yet a mature method to evaluate the education and teaching (ET) effect of music teaching in colleges. To solve the problem, this paper combines modern information technology and fuzzy comprehensive evaluation (FCE) to design and realize a FCE system for assessing the ET effect of music teaching in higher education. Firstly, the functional and non-functional requirements of the system were analyzed in detail. On this basis, the overall architecture and functional modules of the system were designed and realized. Application results show that the proposed system operated stably, and met the needs of ET effect evaluation. The research results are of theoretical and practical significance to the promotion of information-based teaching evaluation, the enhancement of management efficiency and quality, and the improvement of ET effect of music teaching in colleges.