Curriculum Unit Research Articles

Sustainable development in Portuguese higher education institutions from the faculty perspective

Higher education institutions play a fundamental role and have great responsibility in promoting sustainability and achieving sustainable development goals. It is therefore essential to study the teacher's perceptions of incorporating sustainability since they are responsible for promoting competences and preparing citizens to respond with solutions to future challenges. The aim of this research is to analyse the perceptions of sustainability held by teachers at Portuguese public higher education institutions. A descriptive and exploratory study was conducted by administering an online questionnaire. The sample is made up of 444 teachers from different Portuguese public higher education institutions (54.1% women and 45.9% men). The results show that while most teachers believe higher education institutions promote the integration of sustainability in their activities, only 16% consider that sustainable development is holistically integrated in the institutions' different activities. About 30% of the teachers report that they largely or extensively integrate sustainable development in their curricular units, but only 20% of them state that higher education institutions provide regular or systematic training in SD. Teachers prefer to increase students' sustainable development education through conferences, seminars, or research projects. Almost 90% of teachers are concerned about climate change or the environment, but only 40% or less engage in sustainable development-related activities. Four clusters are also identified, representing teachers' different perceptions of the higher education institutions' promotion of sustainability, teachers' participation in sustainable development issues and concerns about climate change. Although teachers feel that sustainability is starting to be integrated in higher education institutions, this is not done holistically; moreover, differences are found between teachers in polytechnics and universities and between different scientific areas.

Educating Teachers for Sustainability and Social Justice: A Service-Learning Project in Physical Education Initial Teacher Education

The Sustainable Development Goals are a mission for all societies. Higher education has an essential role in preparing citizens for this global challenge by adopting student-centred approaches and active methodologies. Service Learning (SL) is recognised as having educative value in promoting values, teamwork, and social awareness. The pedagogical project reported in this study was built with the underpinnings of the SL and active learning methodologies and aimed to describe and analyse the experience built on the principles of SL for Society within the theme of Olympics values. This study took place during the school placement curricular unit of a master’s programme in the Physical Education Teacher Education programme at (blinded for review). Seventy-two preservice teachers, organised in groups, were invited to develop an SL for Society project subordinated to the theme of “No one should be left behind” (ASD 2030). An analysis of the 22 projects revealed a spectrum of seven themes: (1) Inclusion, (2) Environment and Sustainability, (3) Gender Equality, (4) Health and Wellness, (5) Olympic and Social Values, (6) Cultural Heritage and Intergenerational Relations, and (7) Learning Communities. While conceiving, planning, implementing, and evaluating the projects, the preservice teachers understood the importance of embracing inclusion, equity, sustainability, and social justice in teaching.

Discrepancy analysis in university curriculum evaluation

Curriculum evaluation in university education is crucial to improve the quality of professional education. This paper proposes a rubric to evaluate the university curriculum in order to obtain accurate information on its current state and to guide its restructuring according to the needs of updating and institutional demands. Emphasis is placed on the adoption of an objective methodological approach as opposed to subjective criteria. The methodology used, called "discrepancy analysis", is based on a theoretical model of an ideal curriculum with 10 components, each with a weighted value according to its importance. The evaluation of the curriculum is based on how close or far it is from this ideal model, reflecting its effectiveness and quality. The professional profile stands out as a fundamental source in the development of the curriculum, and must be relevant, comprehensive and consistent with the educational concept adopted by the institution. A rubric is presented to evaluate the professional profile in terms of coherence, relevance, completeness, clarity and structure. The constituent elements of the curriculum, such as the situational diagnosis, the doctrinal framework, the institutional decisions and the scope of work performance, are evaluated to ensure their alignment with the professional training objectives and the needs of the labor market. The organizational structure of the curriculum, the generation of curricular units, the design of the syllabus, the writing of summaries and the recommendations for the development of syllabi are crucial aspects that are evaluated to ensure the coherence and effectiveness of the university curriculum.

Efficacy of a Supplemental Small-Group Early Literacy Intervention Implemented by Early Childhood Educators.

Phonological awareness and alphabet knowledge are fundamental building blocks for literacy development. We identified preschoolers with persistent delays in these skills and evaluated the efficacy of a supplemental curriculum to remediate deficits in early literacy skills. Using a cluster design, 21 classrooms were randomly assigned to early literacy versus language intervention conditions. Sixty children identified through fall semester assessments of phonological awareness and alphabet knowledge were enrolled in small-group instruction. Teachers completed eLearning modules, used a digital platform to enter data and facilitate data-based decision making, received practice-based coaching, and delivered 12 weekly units of an early literacy curriculum. Comparison teachers delivered similarly administered small-group language instruction. Large effects were evident for letter sounds, phoneme segmentation, first sound, and first sound fluency measures (d = 0.92, 4.77, 1.15, and 1.50, respectively), and nonsignificant, small effects for letter naming and blending measures (d = 0.26 and 0.27). This early literacy intervention package had practical benefits, with 90% of experimental group preschoolers exceeding the phonemic awareness benchmark for beginning kindergarten compared to 45% in the comparison group, for example. Providing preschool teachers with tools and support for implementing a tiered approach to early literacy intervention holds promise for producing impressive gains in skills required for children to succeed in later schooling.

The impact of integrating bioscience and nursing subjects in a first-year nursing curriculum: A retrospective study

AimThe aim of this study is to explore the effects of integrating bioscience and nursing units on academic achievement and perception in the first-year nursing curriculum. BackgroundNursing students have historically found biosciences difficult and struggle to relate it to nursing practice. In response, nursing and non-nursing academics have employed different teaching modes and integration strategies to enhance learning. Despite these efforts, substantial gaps still persist concerning the integration of biosciences within nursing curriculum and the effect of integration on student academic achievement and student perception. DesignRetrospective descriptive. The setting was a large University in Victoria Australia with two undergraduate nursing campuses (metropolitan and non-metropolitan). MethodStudent academic records and online evaluation surveys that were completed from 2014 to 2019 were examined. Students self-reported their experiences of the unit using a five-point Likert scale and two open-ended questions. Descriptive and inferential statistics were used to analyse the data. Content analysis was used to analyse the two open-response survey items. ResultsFirst-year student records from 2014 to 2016 (pre-integration) and 2017–2019 (post-integration) were examined. Student mean age was 24.5 years (SD 7.2) and 20.9 years (SD 4.8) pre-integration and post-integration respectively. There was a statistically significant decrease in student attrition from pre-integration (n=536, 29.9%) to post-integration (n=358, 20.2%) (p <0.001), and a significant improvement in students’ mean academic scores post-integration in the first semester 61.9 (SD 15.9) and 67.0 (SD 14.9) respectively, confidence interval 3.9–6.2 (p <0.001). Student satisfaction with the units improved post-integration, from 77.8% to 85.8% (χ2 = 10.1076) (p=0.001). However, there was no significant difference in students’ perception of feeling overwhelmed, and their self-reported ability to link theory to practice. ConclusionIntegrating bioscience and clinical nursing practice units in the first-year curriculum can help decrease student attrition rates, improve student academic results and increase student satisfaction which may lead to an overall improvement in student learning experiences.

ANALISIS KEMAMPUAN MAHASISWA CALON GURU FISIKA DALAM MENGINTERPRETASIKAN DAN MENGGUNAKAN KURIKULUM MERDEKA

This study aims to get an overview of the abilities of prospective physics teacher students in interpreting and using the Independent Curriculum. The sample for this study was 55 physics education study program students from the 2019-2021 class at the University of West Sulawesi, who were selected based on the experience of students teaching at school and who had programmed microteaching and PPL courses. The instrument used in this study was an Independent Curriculum questionnaire with alternative answers Strongly Agree (SA), Agree (A), Disagree (D), and Strongly Disagree (SD) which were compiled by researchers and validated by 3 experts. The research data were analyzed descriptively quantitatively and grouped into Very High, High, Low, and Very Low assessment criteria. The results show that the ability of prospective physics teacher students in interpreting and using the Independent Curriculum is based on indicators of understanding the outlines of the Independent Curriculum, indicators of understanding learning and assessment, indicators of understanding the development of the operational curriculum of educational units in the Independent Curriculum, and indicators of understanding the development of projects to strengthen Pancasila student profiles respectively each is in the high criteria.

Educators engaged in curriculum work: Encounters with relationally responsive curriculum practices

AbstractThe Culturally Nourishing Schooling (CNS) project is focused on whole‐of‐learning community efforts that aim to improve the educational experiences and achievements of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander learners. The project supports school‐based professional learning strategies, broad school or system‐level initiatives and deep engagement with local community, including students and their families. One of the professional learning strategies in the project is a 2‐day intensive curriculum‐focused workshop, which ran for the first time in 2021 within urban, regional, and remote school settings across New South Wales, Australia. The first day of the curriculum workshop introduces teachers and local Cultural Mentors to three analytic frameworks that they utilise to appraise curriculum resources available in the public domain. The curriculum resources appraised are all examples of curriculum designed to support educators with embedding an Indigenous knowledges focused National Cross‐Curriculum Priority into their curriculum. On the second day of the workshop, teachers are tasked with appraising and revising a curriculum unit of work that they or colleagues have planned for the upcoming teaching semester. The curriculum workshop culminates with the revised teaching and learning resources being presented to the full group of workshop participants, and subsequently each teacher is asked to write a reflection about the curriculum work that they have engaged in. For this paper, data analysis draws on ‘three sensibilities’ that invite enacting a form of onto‐epistemic heterogeneity. These sensibilities are multiplicity, horizontality and dialogicality. This analytic undertaking simultaneously explores the entanglements, and grapples with the possibilities, of re‐imagining curriculum and related pedagogical practices that seek to ‘delink from the colonial matrices of power’.

Embedding Sustainability Justice in Greek Secondary Curricula through the DeCoRe Plus Methodology

This paper describes the processes of embedding Sustainability Justice in secondary education curricula for economic courses in Greece applying the DeCoRe plus methodology and participatory action research. These processes resulted in a reconstructed curriculum that was implemented by nine teachers teaching courses in economics. Sustainability justice emphasizes the ethics and praxis of education for sustainability and requires an understanding of the curriculum as a process and praxis and teaching as an ethical and political praxis. The implementation of the diagnostic evaluation of DeCoRe plus showed that economics teachers in Greece select more behavioral than constructive-emancipatory teaching approaches. On the other hand, the implementation of the reconstructed curriculum units in their courses using the DeCoRe plus methodology revealed a shift from instructive to constructivist and emancipatory teaching and learning approaches. Teachers by the great majority declared the political and ethical perspective of teaching and seeing curriculum as a living text that can always be under the process of deconstruction, construction, and reconstruction.

GREEN CHEMISTRY AND SUSTAINABLE SCIENCE: A Green Approach to Sustainable STEM in K-12 - Chapter 5: Curriculum Unit

GREEN CHEMISTRY AND SUSTAINABLE SCIENCE: A Green Approach to Sustainable STEM in K-12 - Chapter 5: Curriculum Unit

Perceptions of future basic education teachers about the potential of programming in the educational context

ABSTRACT Besides the development of disciplinary skills, programming contributes to the development of abilities such as reasoning, problem solving and creativity. Therefore, it is fundamental that in the initial teachers training, programming is an integral part of the curricular unit programs of didactics. This will make it possible to contribute to the integration of programming in future teachers’ practices, in a way that should encourage them to promote the development of the skills listed above in their students. This article describes a study developed in the context of a higher education institution, with students of a master’s degree in teaching. This is a case study sought to understand the future teachers’ perceptions about the potential of programming, before and after attending a workshop about Scratch. The results suggest that future teachers have positive perceptions about the potential of programming in an educational context, which is likely to contribute to its integration into pedagogical practice. It was also found that the workshop contributed to changing the perceptions of these future teachers, namely those whose perceptions were not so favorable to the use of programming in and for learning.

The World Café method and spaces dedicated to active teaching & learning: A dynamic combo that motivates students for biosciences learning

ABSTRACT A pilot experiment was developed in a Biomedical Sciences curricular unit to test how using a different knowledge-sharing method (World Café) in a Space for Active Learning and Teaching would affect students’ engagement. Each working group was asked to prepare a poster summarising a different topic about the physiology of the oocyte. On the activity day, rotating discussion sessions moderated by tutors took place, with groups answering different questions to deepen their knowledge. Students appreciated the dynamic and supportive environment that reduced anxiety while fostering knowledge-sharing. They also mentioned they prefer this method to traditional lectures and credited modern facilities for increasing their motivation to learn. We recommend the World Café method for improving collaborative work skills and learning in biomedical education. This study also highlights the need for institutions to provide up-to-date infrastructures, as this appears to have a direct impact on students’ engagement.

Postsecondary French, German, and Spanish teachers' conceptualizations of social justice: A case study

AbstractSocial justice and critical pedagogies have become an increasingly important focus in language education in recent years. Although instructional and professional development resources are increasingly available, little is known about how language teachers understand social justice and related pedagogies, particularly in postsecondary contexts. Relatedly, little is known about how teachers understand critical pedagogies that prioritize language‐content integration through a simultaneous focus on proficiency development and engagement with target language texts. This multiple case study addresses these research gaps by examining postsecondary French, German, and Spanish teachers' conceptualizations of social justice in language education as they created social justice curricular units. Findings show that these conceptualizations are complex and multifaceted and span the what, why, and how of social justice in language education. Insights gleaned from these findings have important implications for language teacher professional development and future research.

Entrepreneurship Education in Engineering Courses: Critical Success Factors

The teaching of entrepreneurship in engineering study programs is an understudied area of research.. In an ever-changing economy where continuous innovation (much of it originating from engineering) is a prerequisite for a country's competitiveness and business growth, a purely technical education for engineers appears insufficient to provide organizations with a comprehensive contribution. The growing recognition of this contribution has led higher education institutions (HEIs) offering engineering study programs, which did not previously include entrepreneurship modules in their curricula, to introduce curricular units (CU) to fill this gap and encourage their students to explore the commercial potential of their research/technologies.

Entrepreneurship Education Pedagogical Approaches in Higher Education

Entrepreneurship education, as an emerging scientific field, has undergone significant evolution at the conceptual and praxis levels. The concept of entrepreneurship was considered from a broad perspective as the capacity to act upon opportunities and ideas, thereby creating social, cultural, or financial value in diverse contexts. The study and cultivation of this competence are highly relevant to enhancing employability and equipping young people with the skills, knowledge, and attitudes necessary within an entrepreneurial culture for the exercise of active citizenship. This study aims to consolidate the concept and analyse the pedagogical approaches in entrepreneurship education, particularly focusing on experiential learning. It also explores the most frequently used instructional methods in higher education programmes. The research is based on a comprehensive literature review, complemented by a case study of the entrepreneurship education programme implemented at the University of Lisbon, in Portugal, enriched by data collected from one of its curricular units. Experiential learning emerges as a valid approach in entrepreneurship teaching, especially when teachers effectively combine practical experience with theory while learners assume the shared responsibility of learning from experience. As the most recommended instructional methods, one can point to collaborative pedagogical models, namely problem-based learning, project-based learning, peer assessment, design thinking, formative feedback, service learning, and active methodologies that integrate digital technologies.

Teaching Science to Students with Disabilities Using Socio-Scientific Issues

Students with disabilities experience inequitable learning opportunities in science classrooms. To create equitable learning environments, science teachers must embed supports within their curriculum units. Teachers rely on their beliefs about the capabilities of their students, their role as science teachers, and the goals of science education to adapt their curriculum units. Curricular changes occur through their pedagogical design capacity (PDC) during lesson planning and enactments, in which their beliefs inform their PDC choices. Yet there is little research regarding science teachers’ beliefs about teaching students with disabilities and how they enact their science curriculum materials in general education science classrooms. This qualitative case study focused on one secondary biology teacher who taught a socio-scientific issues (SSI) based unit in a remedial biology classroom. Teacher beliefs and PDC served as the theoretical and analytical frameworks. Data included classroom observations and stimulated recall interviews. Findings show the teacher’s beliefs about her students’ capabilities, role as their science teacher, and goals for science learning drove her PDC. She scaffolded, adapted, and improvised to support learners, while not changing the rigor of the curriculum unit. This study illustrates a vision of equitable science instruction with implications for bringing this vision to life for students with disabilities in science classrooms.

생태공감 프로그램이 초등학교 학생들의 공감 관점에 미치는 효과

Objectives This study aimed to find out the effect of the ecological empathy program that affects the perspective of ecology. Methods For this study, a total of 209 students from the 3rd to 5th grade of elementary school were selected. The experimental group was set as one class of the 3rd grade, and compared with the control group of the 3rd to 5th grade. The program developed in this study consisted of a total of eight sessions, and consisted of the process of forming empathy through scientific knowledge, experience, and moral judgment. The pre- and post-test were classified into ecological perspective, species-oriented perspective, and family-oriented perspective. The McNemar test was conducted to find out the educational effect. Results As a result of the study, it was found that the students in the control class did not naturally change to the ecological perspective by maturation regardless of the grade. In the case of the experimental class students who studied the program developed in this study, the areas where statistically significant changes were observed were empathy for the situation in which wolves harm villagers and why pests such as mosquitoes and poisonous snakes must exist in the ecosystem. However, it was difficult for students to form an ecological perspective due to difficulties in empathizing in the situation of family damage. In addition, it was confirmed that it is difficult for elementary school students to develop an ecological perspective only with the contents of the ecosystem-related unit of the science curriculum presented in the 5th grade. Conclusions Therefore, based on the proposal of this study, it is necessary to develop an ecological empathy program to provide elementary school students with opportunities to form and deepen their ecological perspectives.

Strengthening STEM Teaching in Rural, Indigenous-Serving Schools through Long-Term, Culturally Responsive Professional Development

This paper describes a particular teacher professional development model offered in schools on and bordering the Navajo Nation in the southwestern United States. The Diné Institute for Navajo Nation Educators (DINÉ) offers professional development across all content areas and grade levels, but here we focus specifically on our work in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) content areas. Our work is situated explicitly within the literatures on Indigenous education, Native Nation Building, and culturally responsive schooling, but we also draw broadly on research in STEM education and teacher professional development. The research question explored in this paper is: To what extent and in what ways do teachers in the DINÉ develop STEM curriculum units that evidence culturally responsive principles and STEM education best practices? We share findings from three cohorts of teachers in the DINÉ’s STEM-focused professional development seminars. Teacher-authored curriculum units developed in the DINÉ were analyzed with two specific protocols: the CRAIS Tool, and the SCOOP notebook. Finally, we look closely at the curriculum units written by a single teacher in the DINÉ across the three years in order to get a clearer understanding of the nuances and richness of the findings and themes reported from the aggregate data.

Teaching Qualitative Research in Psychology: A Look at the Portuguese Reality

Qualitative research has been increasingly used in the field of psychology. Consequently, concerns about the development of students’ skills in qualitative research have arisen. The main goal of this paper is to characterize the current state of art of the qualitative research teaching in Portuguese bachelor’s degrees in psychology. A documentary analysis was performed, and the data collection was conducted through an online search: first on the website of the General Directorate of Higher Education, and afterwards on the online sites of each of the Portuguese universities where the first cycle of psychology is taught. A content analysis was made by two coders and a discussion about categories was made until a consensus was reached. The data revealed the existence of 31 undergraduate courses in psychology at 31 Portuguese teaching institutions. There were 12 undergraduate courses at 12 public universities, and 19 undergraduate courses at 19 private universities. Despite the diversity in the study plans in the degree of psychology, most of them included qualitative research methodology teaching. However, the data analysis revealed different designations of the curricular units (CUs) related to qualitative research, as well as a different number of credits (European Credit Transfer and Accumulation System—ECTS). In addition, there were variations in the academic year in which the qualitative research CUs were taught and registered in their syllabi. This study indicates that undergraduate Portuguese psychology students generally have some training in qualitative research but the way it is carried out and the training contents are not uniform for all the existing degrees. It is important to reflect on the importance of qualitative research in psychology and further studies on qualitative methods teaching practices are still needed.

Core practices for project-based learning: Learning from experienced practitioners in the United States

Significant efforts have been made in the US to develop project-based curricular units and examine their implementation. However, there has not been a similar focus on studying and understanding how teachers enact project-based learning. Building on the work related to core practices in teaching, we seek to develop a better understanding of the foundational teaching practices of teachers and leaders who have experience in implementing project-based curricula. Our analysis produced a multi-level framework, identifying four goals of PBL teachers and 11 core practices related to those goals.

Organizational socialization in universities: an empirical study

The aim of this study was to analyze organizational socialization in universities. The research is based on a quantitative approach, supplemented by descriptive fieldwork. Interviews and surveys were conducted with faculty members of the territorial polytechnic universities in the state of Táchira. The results show that none of the institutions have a socialization and integration program, and there is a welcoming process led by program coordinators, in which information is mainly provided about the curricular unit and its workload. However, the teachers express dissatisfaction with this process, as it does not facilitate adequate socialization and integration. In conclusion, it is necessary to design organizational socialization strategies for the teachers of the universities analyzed, with the aim of promoting effective integration in the academic sphere.