Blended Learning and the Global South Virtual Exchanges in Higher Education

This volume collects a series of theoretical and practical interventions in the area of blended learning globally. It aims to present pedagogues working in higher education contexts in the developing world with models of successful blended learning initiatives designed and implemented by committed educators working with student bodies characterised by unequal access to technology and connectivity. The twelve individual chapters of this volume are an invaluable practical resource for educators but when taken as a whole the collection provides a counter to commonplace beliefs about blended learning originating within the institutions of wealthy countries. It offers theoretical, material and socially grounded currents for thinking about the place of blended learning in the Global South and is a work of resistance to pedagogical epistemologies with ‘first world’ and neoliberal biases.

Effectively Integrating a Diversity Focused Pedagogy into a Social Psychology Course

A number of faculty who teach psychology courses opt out of addressing diversity-centered content out of discomfort or glaze over this material, ultimately creating content which does not relate to increasingly diverse student bodies (Boysen, 2011; Ocampo et al., 2003). The present study examines the effectiveness and impact of utilizing a pedagogy grounded in a theory of diversity/social justice with respect to learning outcomes. The study also explores whether faculty’s teaching experience impacts student’s understanding and application of diversity focused content. Three raters categorized and coded assignment data from two course sections, containing a total of 786 undergraduate respondents. Students applied more content from diversity-centered chapters to their papers and final project. Additionally, the rate at which students applied diversity-focused concepts to assignments did not differ by instructor’s teaching experience. Findings indicate that students overwhelming resonate with diversity centered content and choose to relay constructs which align with a diversity-centered, socially just pedagogy over general social psychology content. Our findings also suggest that a diversity-driven curriculum can be effectively implemented in the classroom and received by students, regardless of prior teaching experience or exposure.

Embodiment in knots of sense-making between learning physical and virtual configurations

The purpose of this study was to explore the implications of students’ and teacher’s creative configuration in the physical and virtual world. This analysis will be performed in a secondary school. Adopting a socio-material perspective, this paper focuses on embodiment configuration features for sense-making via new technology mediation. The context of this study was a secondary school who were adopting an immersive 3 D virtual world in different teaching and learning subjects. Selected episodes from video-recordings of two types of sessions mediated by a virtual world – online and in the classroom – were analysed. The analytical framework of this paper draws on the complex and creative configurations of the body in both the physical and virtual setting. Our results highlight the creative ways in which the arrangement of teacher and student bodies acted as a mediational instrument between real and virtual settings.

The Freedom to Express Opinion Through Social Media: A Study of Higher Degree Students in Jakarta and Vicinity

This study aims to identify how higher degree students use social media to express their opinions circumventing the limitations imposed by the Information and Electronic Act in Indonesia. The students, in this fashion, conform to the roles defined in The Youth Act which require them to bravely and wisely speak up for what is right. There are three questions which were posed: 1) do the students use social media to express their opinion; 2) what types of matters are discussed; and 3) do the students think that they are free to express these opinions on social media? This research applies a qualitative approach. The data was gained through interviews. There are 12 members of student bodies who were interviewed. They come from 5 different universities in Jakarta and vicinity. The results are: 1) all of them use social media, however not all of them critical opinions of the government via this medium; 2) 50% felt that students function as agents of change; and 3) around 40% of students feel they have the freedom to express their opinion vis social media and agree with the limitations imposed by government regulations. Therefore, it can be concluded that the students manage to express their opinion through social media and perform their roles as stated in the Youth Act. Keywords: social media, freedom to express opinion, higher degree students

How Students Took Leadership of the Umbrella Movement

This chapter assesses why the prodemocracy parties were sidelined by student leaders during the Umbrella Movement. It also investigates the conflicts between the leaders of student bodies and the prodemocracy parties, which affected the trajectory of the Umbrella Movement. One factor accounting for the sidelining of the prodemocracy parties was that Beijing had largely enervated the prodemocracy parties' capacity in the legislature to shape policies via institutional and noninstitutional components of the nonsovereign, hybrid regime of Hong Kong. The debilitation made the parties irrelevant in addressing public needs and thereby eroded the public's trust in the parties and contributed to their decline, as has been found in many Western democracies. Beijing's engineering alone, however, cannot fully explain the decline of those parties. The parties' conscious choices with regard to positioning and tactics, amid an increasingly divided public, were also relevant to their decline. Indeed, the students' tactics contrasted sharply with those of the party leaders, who mostly preferred to halt the prolonged occupation in order to shorten the street inconvenience and diminish the risk of voters' backlash in impending elections.

Addressing the Mental Health Needs of Post-Secondary Students: Considerations for College Administration

Anxiety and depression are the leading causes for diminished performance and quality of life for students in their post-secondary academic career. The effects range from poor grades and dropping out to substance misuse and even suicide amongst members of student bodies nationwide. Students who are unaware of resources available to them are at risk of having these issues exacerbated over time. It is the responsibility of college administrations to prepare students for a life after college and, therefore, must enhance the treatment services and education of said services to the student bodies as a whole to alleviate these problems and to attempt to deter falling retention rates and potential tragedies on campuses.

Under the Law: Segregation and secession

Although Brown v. Board of Education was supposed to end the practice of school segregation, the current legal and cultural landscape makes it difficult for schools to remain diverse in the face of continued and growing racial isolation of U.S. neighborhoods. In fact, some predominately White communities are creating their own school districts, intentionally separating themselves from districts with more diverse student bodies. Julie Underwood explains where the law stands today and discusses the secession movement in Gardendale, Ala.