Integrated Learning Project Research Articles

CLIL Approach and the Fostering of “Creactical Skills” Towards a Global Sustainable Awareness

In this article we will present a study undertaken in the scope of a Content and Language Integrated Learning project, which was implemented at a local private primary school in the Oporto area, Portugal. This project takes into account the promotion of a teaching and learning process based on the fostering of 21st Century skills, the so-called "creactical skills" i.e., critical thinking and creativity into action (Ohler, 2013) and a global and sustainable awareness. By tackling these, each child has got the chance to develop values and behavior for a sustainable future planet and a positive society transformation based on equality, respect towards diversity, and the finding of solutions to glocal problems. By developing an action research project and following a mixed-method research methodology , we analysed the project's implementation, online questionnaires, and other data including lesson plans, supervision reports/notes, pictures, videos and projects in order to find evidence of practices which foster the "creactical skills". The results show that pupils' critical thinking, creativity, collabora-tion, and cultural awareness skills may have been fostered, but there is still some work to be done regarding other skills mainly due to teachers' approaches which have to change.

Modification of Teaching/Learning Strategies of University Teaching Staff

The paper considers the problem of changing the traditional model of higher education into the up-dated model of blended learning. The paper focuses on the problem of changing the teaching/learning strategies as the necessary condition for creating and improving the modified educational environment at Universities taking into consideration the advanced achievements in science and social development. The article dwells on the existing possibilities for a student-centered teaching/learning process where the student creates his individual educational track. The authors have considered the reimagining means of teaching/learning strategies for teaching staff by aiming at effective blended learning. Having analyzed the results of pilot studies, shortcomings of conventional teaching and statistical information on graduate employment, the authors have stated the fact that neither conventional teaching nor the so-called innovative educational technologies could close the gap between educational aims and results. The acute shortage of up-dated theoretical psychological and peda gogical knowledge as well as the lack of due consideration for reimagining of teaching/learning strategies have been suggested as the deep-rooted causes of this gap. The paper suggests the definition of teaching/learning strategies and the developed model of their application for University educational environment. The authors have shown the existed blended learning models and the experience of their implementation in the Russian Federation and abroad. The role of educational moderator at creating a new type of teaching/learning interaction by using a Tutorial FL Navigator has been justified and illustrated by FLT at University. The student turns into a member of academic community while entering the environment of Content and Language Integrated Learning Project (CLILP). The potential prospects of blended learning model have been analyzed using the project method in teaching foreign languages (Content and Language Integrated Learning Project). The conclusion of blended learning effectiveness for transformation the general foreign language teaching into expanded professional education has been drawn on the base of obtained empiric and statistical evidence.

Industry-based, transdisciplinary, complex problems as realistic settings for applying the M in STEM

In this paper, we consider the perceived effectiveness of using industry-based transdisciplinary, complex problems as a vehicle for final year undergraduate mathematics students to apply their knowledge and skills in realistic settings, preparing them for the world of work. The discussion centres on a recently designed, implemented and evaluated model for a capstone subject incorporating a work integrated learning project in a Bachelor of Mathematics degree. To provide background for the discussion, we present the motivation for introducing such learning activities into the programme as well as the design of the model itself. We also report on the outcomes of implementation of the Work Integrated Learning experiences, discussing participant perspectives and describing lessons learnt over the two years. We conclude with a set of identified characteristics of capstone experiences in mathematics, and with a call to re-conceptualize the ways design teams collaborate to support academics.

Featuring Students' Strengths Through an Integrated Learning Project.

Featuring Students' Strengths Through an Integrated Learning Project.

The Challenge of Providing Work-Integrated Learning for Law Students – the QUT Experience

This paper explores the elements necessary for a university to create an academic model for a successful work-integrated learning experience in light of the current policy imperatives of the higher education sector in Australia. It identifies some of the practical issues encountered in attempting to implement those models and hypothesises on what an effective work-integrated learning experience for undergraduate law students should look like taking into account the available research on students’ perceptions of engaging learning experiences. It culminates in the proposal of a Virtual Work Integrated Learning Project which is currently under design in the Faculty of Law at the Queensland University of Technology.

Integrating History and Philosophy of the Life Sciences in Practice to Enhance Science Education: Swammerdam’s Historia Insectorum Generalis and the Case of the Water Flea

Hasok Chang (Sci Educ 20:317–341, 2011) shows how the recovery of past experimental knowledge, the physical replication of historical experiments, and the extension of recovered knowledge can increase scientific understanding. These activities can also play an important role in both science and history and philosophy of science education. In this paper I describe the implementation of an integrated learning project that I initiated, organized, and structured to complement a course in history and philosophy of the life sciences (HPLS). The project focuses on the study and use of descriptions, observations, experiments, and recording techniques used by early microscopists to classify various species of water flea. The first published illustrations and descriptions of the water flea were included in the Dutch naturalist Jan Swammerdam’s, Historia Insectorum Generalis (1669) (Algemeene verhandeling van de bloedeloose dierkens. t’Utrrecht, Meinardus van Dreunen, ordinaris Drucker van d’Academie). After studying these, we first used the descriptions, techniques, and nomenclature recovered to observe, record, and classify the specimens collected from our university ponds. We then used updated recording techniques and image-based keys to observe and identify the specimens. The implementation of these newer techniques was guided in part by the observations and records that resulted from our use of the recovered historical methods of investigation. The series of HPLS labs constructed as part of this interdisciplinary project provided a space for students to consider and wrestle with the many philosophical issues that arise in the process of identifying an unknown organism and offered unique learning opportunities that engaged students’ curiosity and critical thinking skills.

Evaluation of the biomass fractionation capability of the ultrafiltration permeate: A learning project for chemical engineering students

This paper presents a 6-month integrated learning project, suitable for chemical engineering students in their last academic course (4 years bachelor). Within the Department of Chemical and Environmental Engineering at the University of the Basque Country (UPV-EHU), the performance of the project was established offering to the students the possibility of developing practical aspects studies in order to introduce them to the engineering profession. The general goals of the project have been to develop basic competences, such as the capability of finding and synthesizing the available information, the active participation in a team work, the improvement of the communications (oral and written) skill, the time management, the problem identification, strategy raising, the autonomy, in summary, to improve the students’ performance in multitask problem solving using a team work approach. The proposed educational objectives were achieved. The participant students were positive when asked whether, overall, the development of this project was “worth the effort” indicating as the most important benefit the developing of considerable indepth understanding and expertise in their work field.

Crossing Borders: Evaluating a Work Integrated Learning Project Involving Australian and Vietnamese Students

The value of work integrated learning (WIL) is well-established in the education of information management (IM) professionals. Adding value to WIL through cross-cultural or cross-disciplinary experiences is considered in this article. Using online communication, simulation activities, and onsite work, students from RMIT Melbourne and RMIT Ho Chi Minh City were involved in planning, negotiating, and delivering specific projects in the Da Nang General Hospital (DNGH) in Vietnam as part of their WIL . Evaluation of the whole project was undertaken through the collection of data from an online survey which rated the importance and performance of specific elements of the project. Feedback from focus group interviews was also collected and has informed the evaluation. The analysis of the data revealed positive participant perceptions of the outcomes of the project and its importance which may be taken into consideration by similar cross-cultural projects.

An integrated learning project in university context: students' voices

Adult education - like instructive processes involving new generations - shows two important aims: improvement of professional competence and democratic process promotion as basis for a renewed pedagogical relationship between individual and society. Formative paths planned according to the point of view of a new educability are actions of promotion, increasing and development of the individual, of building a new thinkability, both individual and collective, through improvement, change and factivity of learning conditions along the whole life (lifelong learning). This paper refers to an experience of planning, managing, and supplying in blended modality of a course activated at the University of Padua leading to the master degree in “Scholastic planning and project management of educational formative activities” and it intends to describe the theoretical frame of reference, the methodology, the implemented tools, and the overall reached results.

Lignin oxidation to generate vanillin: An integrated learning project for chemical engineering students

This paper presents an integrated learning project of 8 months duration, suitable for chemical engineering students entering their First year of major concentration. This project prepares students for a career in chemical engineering and aids their performance in multi-task problem solving using a teamwork approach. In the process, they develop essential competences, such as communication, perseverance, time management, and autonomy.

Changing primary education in Palestine: Pulling in several directions at once

This article uses concepts from Bernstein's theory of curriculum and pedagogic practice (1971, 1977, 1990, 1996) in order to understand the micro-processes of schooling and, in particular, to locate and understand the type of pedagogy proposed for Palestinian schools by the Integrated Learning Project (ILP) whose introduction and trajectory in the wider social context is located, adopting Bernstein's model of cultural reproduction (1990). Three means were employed for data collection: non-participant classroom observation; informal and semi-structured interviews; and interrogation of secondary sources, relying heavily on official and school documents. A conversational modality of interview with key persons responsible for planning, training and monitoring of the ILP was also used in order to provide contextual data about policy processes. What was revealed suggested that even though there were some changes in particular areas in school practice, it does not seem that they can be regarded as amounting a child-centred pedagogy. There was little evidence to show that teachers in general were working effectively toward meeting pupils' different needs.

An Integrated Learning Project in Introductory Soils

An Integrated Learning Project in Introductory Soils