Florence Dujardin's List: Education

Educational Developments is the magazine

Written Communication, Vol. 26, No. 4, 417-453 (2009)

The authors describe two pedagogical strategies—rhetorical sentence combining and rhetorical pattern practice—that blend once-popular teaching techniques with rhetorical decision making. A literature review identified studies that associated linguistic and rhetorical knowledge with success in engineering writing; this information was used to create exercises teaching technical communication students to write Introduction, Methods, Results, and Discussion (IMRaD) reports. Two pilot studies report promising results: Preliminary findings suggest that students who were taught this method wrote essays that were perceived as significantly higher in quality than those written by students in a control section. At the same time, however, the pilot studies point to some challenges and shortcomings of exercise-oriented pedagogies.

Facebook and other social media have been hailed as delivering the promise of new, socially engaged educational experiences for students in undergraduate, self-directed, and other educational sectors. A theoretical and historical analysis of these media in the light of earlier media transformations, however, helps to situate and qualify this promise. Specifically, the analysis of dominant social media presented here questions whether social media platforms satisfy a crucial component of learning - fostering the capacity for debate and disagreement. By using the analytical frame of media theorist Raymond Williams, with its emphasis on the influence of advertising in the content and form of television, we weigh the conditions of dominant social networking sites as constraints for debate and therefore learning. Accordingly, we propose an update to Williams' erudite work that is in keeping with our findings. Williams' critique focuses on the structural characteristics of sequence, rhythm, and flow of television as a cultural form. Our critique proposes the terms information design, architecture, and above all algorithm, as structural characteristics that similarly apply to the related but contemporary cultural form of social networking services. Illustrating the ongoing salience of media theory and history for research in e-learning, the article updates Williams' work while leveraging it in a critical discussion of the suitability of commercial social media for education.

This exploratory study investigates the academic leadership roles and responsibilities performed by programme directors in higher education (also known as programme leaders or course leaders). It will be argued there has been a lack of recognition and research into the leadership role for programme directors, attention instead focusing on departmental heads and senior managers. The many challenges facing higher education are discussed, including the need for effective leadership. Failure to recognize, identify and develop the skills involved could be a costly omission for any institution. The study described in this article draws on a number of in-depth informal interviews with academic staff, each encouraged to reflect and ‘tell their story’ regarding their role in providing academic leadership and to explore key themes and critical factors to achieving success and to consider if the perspective on academic leadership at programme director level can be identified. The study identifies themes which suggest that programme directors provide a unique and influential academic leadership role; one that has a significant impact on the quality of student learning and programme innovation. The findings also suggest a programme director’s ability to lead is not derived from positional authority but in their ability to influence by transforming policy into practice. The concept of ‘influence’ represents a recurring theme in both the literature and the findings of the study. The degree to which programme directors have influence is governed by the individual’s personal attributes and the situation within which they operate. The organizational structure that best permits programme directors to develop their leadership potential is one based on shared or distributed leadership.

Free teaching and learning resources for staff and students across the FE/HE sector

This report has been written to contribute to the current debates about educational
quality in undergraduate education in the U K, and about the need to justify increases
in resources on the basis of indicators of educational quality. This report will identify a
range of dimensions of quality and examine the extent to which each could be considered
a valid indicator, with reference to the available research evidence. I t attempts to identify
which kinds of data we should take seriously and which we should be cautious of placing
weight on. S ome of these dimensions we might be wise to pay attention to currently lack
a solid evidence base, especially in relation to research carried out in the U K context, and
so the report also identifies priorities for research and for data collection and analysis.

Like: •2007, Rao, V., Chanock, K., & Krishnan, L., A Visual Guide to Essay Writing: how to develop and communicate argument

The lines between traditional face-to-face teaching and traditional distance learning programmes are blurring and “blended learning”, combining virtual with face-to-face teaching, is the latest buzz phrase.

The study investigates the effect of e-learning, blended learning and classroom learning on students' achievement. Two experimental groups together with a control group from Umm Al-Qura University in Saudi Arabia were identified randomly. To assess students' achievement in the different groups, pre- and post-achievement tests were used. The results of the study (N = 148) show that there was a statistically significant difference between the three methods in terms of students' achievement favouring the blended learning method (n = 55) with a substantial effect size of 1.34 (Hedges' g). No significant difference was found between the e-learning (n = 43) and traditional learning groups (n = 50) in terms of students' achievement and with a negligible effect size of 0.02.