Lucia Zundans-Fraser

Enhancing the Inclusive Self-Efficacy of Preservice Teachers through Embedded Course Design

This study was an initial investigation into the effects of Embedded Design on the self-efficacy of pre-service teachers studying inclusive education. Forty-one participants completed pre- and postquestionnaires to determine differences in self-efficacy prior to and again at completion of an inclusive education course in an undergraduate teaching degree. A modified version of the scale developed by Hickson (1995), the “Self-Efficacy toward Future Interactions with People with Disabilities” (SEIPD) was employed for data collection. This data was supplemented by way of anonymous formal student feedback collected from the university. Findings indicate that the theoretically designed course did in fact significantly improve self-efficacy between pre- and postoccasions. Limitations of the present study are discussed as well as implications for future practice in the design of preservice courses for inclusive education.

How do institutional practices for course design and review address areas of need in higher education

ABSTRACT Universities are under stress and pressures to critically evaluate and reform curriculum and the way learning and teaching are implemented. Tensions appear to exist among the external pressures, the organisational structure of universities and their daily operations that are often conflicted and appear to work against coherence and depth in courses. In this study, the course design and approval process of Regional University was examined in light of four areas of need identified in the higher education literature to determine the extent to which the organisational structures (policies, regulations and guidance to course developers) reflect these. It is argued that knowledge about such a process is of considerable value for quality institutional practice in the sector.

The role of collaboration in a comprehensive programme design process in inclusive education

This study focused on the role of collaboration in a comprehensive programme design process in inclusive education. The participants were six members of an inclusive education team and an educational designer who together comprised the design team. The study examined whether collaboration was evident in the practice of programme design and associated institutional processes. This was determined through an examination of institutional documents and reflections on collaborative practice provided by design team members in semi-structured interviews about their experiences. The study found that designing the programme collaboratively was more time intensive and at times challenging but ultimately produced a more coherent programme with transparent design, structure and content for students and teachers.

The Quality Illusion in Learning and Teaching

This book is about improving the quality of learning and teaching at scale in higher education . All universities have great teachers and groups of academics that enthusiastically pursue curricular innovation. Much more elusive however is the way universities scale up the learning and teaching excellence of individuals and groups to exert a whole-of-organization impact on the quality of the learning experience for all students. While such an impact is frequently claimed in mission statements and marketing materials, we will show what it really takes to substantiate such claims with the models, systems, methods, and tools required to attribute a university’s learning and teaching efforts to student learning at scale.

Moving Forward with the Self-organizing University

The goal of the preceding chapters has been to make a case for a different kind of university, one that can self-organize to act upon the quality of learning and teaching at scale. Each chapter has engaged in strong critique of the status quo of learning and teaching in pre-contextual universities followed by the description of an alternative approach—the self-organizing university (SOU). In this chapter, we describe the forces that drive change in higher education and those that sustain the status quo. We then take up the shifts in thought and action required to create a self-organizing university. We introduce nine shifts required to build a new schema that migrates the conversation about change in higher education from the pre-contextual to the SOU.

Learning and Teaching Productivity

In this chapter, we take up learning and teaching productivity in the Self-Organizing University (SOU). We build upon the work of preceding chapters to show how the SOU demystifies quality and efficacy as it relates to productivity in university learning and teaching. To open the chapter, we make the case for improved productivity.

Governing for Learning and Teaching

In this chapter, we explain what governance in an SOU looks like including the principles and practices that underpin the approach. In the SOU, governance is an emergent expression of a university’s learning and teaching context, its model and professional practice reflected in day-to-day normal work. We have reserved a discussion of the organizational design of governance for the fifth chapter of the book to show how governance in the SOU expresses many of the ideas, methods, and tools described in the preceding chapters.

Designing Universities for Better Learning and Teaching

In this chapter, we explain the cornerstone of the self-organizing university (SOU) approach—embedded design. Embedded design translates a university’s big ideas about learning and teaching into day-to-day normal practice. We build a rationale for embedded design and show how the principle is applied to the organizational design elements of the SOU to create a university capable of professionally controlled practice at scale.

Getting the Right Feedback for Learning and Teaching

In this chapter, we explain new opportunities for gathering and using data in a self-organizing university (SOU). We define and describe an approach entitled emergent feedback (Bain 2007) and show how it is different from traditional notions of evaluation, performance monitoring, and acquittal on strategic plans.

Agency and Leadership for Learning and Teaching

In this chapter we take up a second inconvenient truth in the modern university: Despite the fact that the core business of a university is learning and teaching, those who engage with the effort frequently do not know a lot about it in a professional sense. In the following pages, we frame this issue of agency for learning and teaching as a wicked problem for universities and describe how the problem is addressed in the Self-Organizing University (SOU).