Bland Tomkinson

Theory and legitimacy in professional education: a practitioner review of reflective processes within programmes for new academic staff

The authors review research literature on coherent theoretically based approaches to the use of reflective processes within programmes of initial professional education for new academic staff. Employing a novel methodology that incorporates practitioner perspectives, they establish a framework that highlights the role of personal and social factors, and also pedagogic and theoretical considerations, in shaping reflective processes. The included studies identified participants who had engaged in certain categories of reflection. Certain fundamental outcomes, however, such as changes in professional commitment, were never seen across an entire cohort. The article thus discusses the intended learning outcomes that programmes might legitimately seek to meet. Dans cet article, nous examinons la littérature de recherche portant sur les approches théoriques cohérentes sur l’usage des processus réflexifs dans le cadre de programmes d’éducation professionnelle initiale pour le personnel académique novice. A l’aide d’une nouvelle méthodologie incorporant les perspectives du praticien, nous établissons un cadre qui met en lumière le rôle des facteurs sociaux et personnels, de même que les considérations théoriques et pédagogiques, mettant en forme les processus réflexifs. Les études visées par l’article ont permis d’identifier des participants s’étant engagés dans certaines catégories de réflexion. Des conséquences fondamentales, telles que le changement au niveau de l’engagement professionnel, n’ont cependant pas été observés pour l’ensemble de la cohorte. Nous discutons donc des objectifs d’apprentissage que les programmes pourraient, de façon légitime, chercher à atteindre.

Online PBL: A Route to Sustainability Education?.

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to investigate online problem‐based learning (PBL) as a route to achieving sustainability education using sponsored projects.Design/methodology/approach – The Royal Academy of Engineering sponsored project at Manchester; to foster education in sustainability through inter‐disciplinary problem‐based approaches, has since been extended to other groups and to a broader array of issues. One of the limiting factors is the ease with which this approach can be taken in the case of large numbers of students and a commensurate requirement for large numbers of facilitators. The University of Keele, together with partners from the universities of Manchester and Staffordshire, was awarded National Teaching Fellowship Scheme funding to explore further the use of blended or online approaches, in order to overcome these limitations. The pilot unit already has a certain amount of support using the BlackBoard virtual learning environment (VLE) but this scenario is supposed to rely en...

Developing a strategy for student retention

Attracting and retaining high-calibre students in science and engineering is becoming more difficult. At the same time, we are urged by the UK Government to recruit from a wider pool. This has necessitated a review of how we go about recruiting and retaining our students. This paper sets out some of our underpinning ideas. Student retention needs can be focussed on a number of stages. First, school-level motivation, starting at secondary, and probably even primary school level. Second, recruitment of students of the appropriate calibre, motivation and experience. Third, student induction, including an overview of subject and programme. Fourth, ongoing student support.

Education for Sustainable Development: an inter‐disciplinary pilot module for undergraduate engineers and scientists

The coming together of a number of initiatives provided a springboard for an innovative pilot programme in education for sustainable development. For some time problem‐based learning has gathered momentum as an approach to educating professionals. More recently, there has been a burgeoning interest in inter‐disciplinary approaches to the complex societal and environmental issues that face the world as a whole. At the same time, professional engineering institutions have been reflecting on appropriate approaches to the education and development of future engineers. Building on work already undertaken by some of the authors, the Royal Academy of Engineering sponsored an inter‐disciplinary pilot programme in sustainable development for undergraduate engineers and scientists in the University of Manchester. The pilot was innovative not only in its inter‐disciplinary approach to sustainable development but also in its approach to the development of the curriculum. Inter‐disciplinary exercises were designed that enabled a contextual, active, collaborative and cumulative approach to learning. The assessment was also designed to align to the learning approach. Evaluation of the pilot programme suggests that it was well received by the students, and the post‐doctoral researchers who acted as facilitators, and also that there were gains in both understanding of the issues and also in approaches to learning.

Learning Style Preferences: An Examination of Differences amongst Students with Different Disciplinary Backgrounds.

The context of this study is of students with backgrounds in a variety of engineering and social science disciplines, and from first degrees in different countries, coming together to study Project Management. Tailoring teaching to all individuals’ learning styles is not possible, but, in an attempt to learn how to teach better in ways that fit students’ different needs, the preferred learning styles of engineering and humanities students are measured by use of the Memletics Learning Styles Quiz. Individual scores are normalised, and individual students’ preferences for one style over another are calculated. Statistical analysis shows that the engineering students express a significantly stronger preference for a logical learning style over visual, verbal, aural, physical or solitary learning styles, and for a visual learning style over both verbal and aural learning styles, whereas students with a social science background expressed significantly stronger preferences for a social learning style than for a logical learning style. Additionally, the learning style preferences of groups of engineering students in the UK and in Malaysia are compared, showing stronger preferences among the UK students for logical and social learning styles, and among the Malaysians for a solitary learning style.

Assessment of Projects, Portfolios and Dissertations: Achieving Equity

A variety of different assessment formats has evolved in higher education in recent years – many inspired by task-related activities in the working environment. Some are not new: at Masters level, the dissertation is long-established, whereas at undergraduate level, projects and portfolios are proving increasingly popular. Portfolios are particularly favoured for professional subjects. Implementing these alternative forms of assessment is not always straightforward even when strict rubrics are applied. As a consequence, double-marking is frequently used in an effort to reduce the subjectivity of marks awarded. Unfortunately, this strategy too can prove problematic – as recent studies have shown – especially when there is an irreconcilable disagreement between first and second examiners. In the article, we focus on this issue of inter-marker conflict and through a series of simple statistical models offer insights into how final marks might more fairly be determined.

Post-disaster Reconstruction of the Built Environment: Rebuilding for Resilience Edited by Dilanthi Amaratunga and Richard Haigh, Wiley-Blackwell, London, 2011 336 pp, ISBN 978 1 4443 3356 5, £75.00 (hb)

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