Evidence-Based Learning: Three Institutions and Three Teaching Firms Together Prepare Students to Succeed

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Hans-Peter (Hepi) Wachter, University of Oklahoma, USA

Abstract

Evidence-based learning (EBL) is not foreign to the teaching in a design school. Very much related to the EBL concept is the engagement in environmental design problems, which require students to analyze and synthesize a problem in the built environment. This paper will argue that design students immersed in collaborative, evidence-based learning (CEBL) are, after completing the learning experience, more highly motived and better prepared problem solvers than traditional cognitive learners and that such students integrate better what they know. The project discussed emanates from multi-disciplinary design collaboration between architecture students and interior design students at the University of Oklahoma and from faculty and resources of the Texas A&M University and the College of Architecture at the SE University in Nanjing, China. Each of the three universities has a close relationship with a working architectural firm that was involved in the process. Using a professional project and engaging design professionals from the participating firms as advisers, clearly shifted the teaching approach toward evidence-based learning. One single synchronous guest lecture series, available through video conferencing to all participants, minimized organizational efforts, cost, and sustainability in the classroom and insured a single focus on content. The contacts each institution had to affiliated teaching firms and practitioners brought a wealth of expertise into the classroom and enriched student learning otherwise too difficult to accomplish.
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An Initial Certificate of Teacher Development: the UNAB Experience

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Roberto Espejo, Mariana Ahumada, Guido Fuentealba, Carolina Cáceres, Carolina Pino, & Mauricio González-Suarez, Universidad Andrés Bello, Chile

Abstract

In this paper we present the experience of the training team in university pedagogy at the Andrés Bello University (Chile) concerning the design and implementation of an initial certificate of teacher development. This certificate is awarded following the completion of three courses: “Planning and Syllabus Design,” “Active Methods for Learning,” and “Pedagogic Strategies in Virtual Environments.” Each course is intended to promote a standpoint wherein teachers consider students as individuals who can take control of their own learning, considering methodological strategies as well as up-to-date materials and contents. In our paper we also discuss assessment and follow-up work for this process.
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Improving Graduateness and Employability: A Career Management Approach

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Kethamonie Naidoo, Council on Higher Education, South Africa

Abstract

Universities are under increasing pressure to produce the kind of graduates that employers want and employers often report that graduates do not possess the desired attributes for employment (Glover et.al. 2002: 293; Parker & Griesel, 2009; Chetty, 2012; Keeling & Hersh, 2012). Universities are exploring different options to make graduates more “work ready” for a wider variety of work contexts. The challenge for universities is to systematically plan to improve graduateness in a pedagogically sound way within the curriculum. This paper draws on the view of Bridgstock (2009) who explains that in a rapidly changing knowledge intensive and technologically advancing economy, students require more than a set of graduate attributes that are desirable to employers in the immediate future. The focus should instead be on developing in graduates the attributes that would best serve them, employers and society for the longer term and be relevant for future decades. Bridgstock (2009:32) identifies self-management and career management skills as necessary graduate attributes that would allow graduates to “proactively navigate the world of work and self-manage the career building process” regardless of the dynamically changing and unpredictable work contexts. The key concepts, graduate attributes, graduateness, employability and career management are explained and thereafter, the use of a career management portfolio as a pedagogically sound, systematic and strategic approach for improving graduateness are explained. Some implications of implementing such an approach are also considered.
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