Cindy Gunn

Exploring MATESOL student ‘resistance’ to reflection

Many teacher training programs, including MATESOL programs, encourage their trainees to be reflective practitioners. The MATESOL program at The American University of Sharjah (AUS) is no exception and offers the students many opportunities for reflection. This article discusses my experience with a recent cohort’s reaction to being asked to reflect on their own teaching and learning in the final course of the program ‘ELT 619: Practicum in TESOL’. Unlike other cohorts, several students in the class were showing what seemed on the surface to me as resistance to keeping a reflective journal and to examining their beliefs about teaching in learning in their lesson plans. Rather than deduct grades and otherwise force students into reflecting as per the course objective and assignments, I decided to conduct an Exploratory Practice investigation of this situation and search for a greater understanding of the students’ reactions and apparent resistance to the reflective assignments I gave them.

Making mathematics meaningful for freshmen students: investigating students’ preferences of pre-class videos

Engaging students in university mathematics classes can be a challenge for professors. One pedagogical technique is the use of pre-class videos in a flipped classroom. The students are exposed to the concepts and theories before attending class so that class time can be devoted to interacting with the content to better understand it. Most of the research into the flipped classroom shows that the students generally like the idea and feel they benefit from the approach; but to date, there is no conclusive research showing that students’ improve their grades. This research is a precursor to a larger study on the flipped classroom in university mathematics classes and investigates the types of videos undergraduate students prefer to help guide the development of a pre-class videos library. Eight-one students in three university mathematics classes in a private university in the United Arab Emirates were involved in the study.

Group projects in foundation electrical engineering courses: Do they help, harm or make no difference to the students’ learning experience?

This paper discusses research investigating to what extent, if any, group work influences the students’ learning experience in Fundamentals of Electronics. Two classes of second year students from the College of Engineering at American University of Sharjah were involved. At least one class project is an established assignment in the class and is usually done in groups. For the purposes of this research, one class completed the project in groups and the other class completed it individually. The students were then given a short test specific to the material covered by the project. They also filled out a short survey and participated in focus group interviews to discuss their experience. The results indicate that although many of the students stated they enjoyed working in groups, a number of them admitted they did not gain a full understanding of the course material through the group work activity.