Entries by Proceedings

Designing a Blended Teaching Environment in Higher Education: A Case Study in Statistics

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This study focuses on a challenging area in designing the blended teaching strategies for enhancing student learning of a statistics subject at the university. Findings reveal that to design an effective blended and flexible learning (BFL) environment, educators need to understand learners’ attributes in detail, use appropriate pedagogical methods and teaching strategies, integrate different learning theories with technological and content knowledge, and align learning outcomes with teaching or learning activities and assessments. It also demonstrates a more holistic and state-of-the-art approach of BFL design in meeting the university’s goals towards offering BFL-based online education to the local and global students.

How Faculty Student Partnerships Can Minimize Student Attrition and Enhance Research/Instruction

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Slovenian higher education (hereafter HE) legislation ensures that students are relatively well integrated in different evaluation procedures as well as in decision- making on the national and on the institutional level. However, the analysis of the Slovenian Quality Assurance Agency’s (SQAA) 2013 report on quality in Slovenian higher education, which contains the evaluation of more than 100 reports, indicated that only one part of the students’ population is directly integrated in the higher education development and quality assurance (QA) procedures prepared by the SQAA experts on a basis of external evaluations, site visits, and initial accreditation procedures of Slovenian study programs and higher education institutions (HEI), and a pilot research conducted among 422 students of Slovenian HEIs.

Portable Hands-On Experiments in Geotechnical Education

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This article focuses on portable, hands-on experiments in geotechnical engineering that serve as an entry point into the tutorials in Soil Mechanics and Foundation Engineering at the University of Innsbruck. Ten small portable geotechnical experiments were developed to demonstrate geo-mechanical relations during class in a clear and comprehensible way. To determine the degree of student acceptance and possible learning benefits, the experiments were evaluated with a questionnaire. This evaluation showed that experiments in geo-mechanical engineering were well received and are appropriate visualization tools. The experiments were highly appreciated by the students, who reported that they helped to make the course material more comprehensible and clear.

How University Teachers Perceive Incentives and Obstacles in Modernizing Their Teaching

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What obstacles impede introducing necessary innovations in teaching in higher education? What can be done to overcome them? These basic questions were analyzed on the basis of opinions gathered from five groups of participants from different disciplines that attended a course on improving university teaching at the University of Ljubljana in 2013-2014. Those findings cannot be generalized, as participants represented a specially motivated group of teachers (they volunteered to attend the course). Nevertheless, they can give us some valuable insights into forces that shape university teachers’ everyday teaching practice.

Students’ Engagement in the Quality Assurance Procedures in Slovenian Higher Education

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Katarina Aškerc,* Center of the Republic of Slovenia for Mobility and European Educational and Training Programs, and Alenka Braček Lalić, Slovenian Quality Assurance Agency for Higher Education, Slovenia Abstract Slovenian higher education (hereafter HE) legislation ensures that students are relatively well integrated in different evaluation procedures as well as in decision- making on the national […]

Computer Ethics: Its Necessity and Its Integration into the Curriculum

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Marion Ben-Jacob,* Department of Mathematics and Computer Sciences, Mercy College, USA Abstract Technological advances of this millennium have enabled enhanced learning experiences for students. Technology has and continues to be integrated into the educational environment from many perspectives and to different degrees. However, to facilitate the appropriate use of the power of technology in student […]

A Critical Consideration of, and Research Agenda for, the Approach of “Students as Partners”

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Colin Bryson,* Ruth Furlonger, and Fae Rinaldo-Langridge, Combined Honours Centre, Newcastle University, United Kingdom Abstract This paper that critically reviews the case for faculty-student partnership. We propose that fostering deeper engagement in students is the pre-requisite for transformational learning. The approach of students as partners may develop, and catalyse, such strong engagement. Thus far, what […]

Using Structured Reflection to Enhance Student Engagement and Professional Growth

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Slavko Cvetek,* Faculty of Health Sciences, University of Maribor, Slovenia Abstract This paper presents the findings of a small-scale study that aimed to identify areas of concern to students, future nurses, during their clinical practice in homes for the elderly. For this purpose, the author used a simplified version of critical incident analysis (Tripp, 1993). […]

Bridging the Gap between University and Business: The ESAU Project

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Néstor Lázaro,* Coordinator of the ESAU Project, Ana Bilbao-Goyoaga, Department of English and German Philology, Irene Barainca, Department of Financial Economy I, Pedro Gómez, Department of Financial Economy II, Izaskun Larrieta and Lorea Magureri, Department of Business Innovation and Management Assessment, Business School of Bilbao, University of the Basque Country, Spain Abstract Practice Firms Applied […]

Teaching and Learning Innovation Projects: Promoting Teacher Development and Innovation among Teachers and Students

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Roberto Espejo Leupin and José Mauricio Gónzalez-Suárez, Center for Innovation and Faculty Development, Andrés Bello University, Santiago, Chile Abstract In this paper presentation we discuss the experience of the teaching and learning innovation projects grants implemented by the Department of Innovation and Teacher Development (DITD) of the Office of the Vice-Rector of Academic Affairs of […]