University Instructors Research Articles

University Instructors’ Perceptions about the Prominence of Culturally Responsive Teaching Pedagogy

This qualitative study occurs in linguistically and culturally varied Moroccan higher educational contexts. It includes interviewing (10) University instructors from different universities in Morocco. The aim is to get their views and perceptions about the importance of implementing culturally responsive teaching pedagogy in their teaching methods and approaches to enhance learning opportunities for students from linguistically and culturally diverse backgrounds. The notable objective of this study is to inaugurate an appropriate teaching pedagogy to teach students from varied backgrounds and to effectively satisfy the learning and teaching processes of these culturally and linguistically diverse students. The data collected from all the participants were studied and organized according to similarities and differences. The analysis of all instructors’ answers revealed their agreement that culturally responsive teaching methods and approaches are paramount to engaging culturally and linguistically diverse students in the classroom for more academic achievements.

University Instructors' Perceptions about the Prominence of Culturally Responsive Teaching Pedagogy

University Instructors' Perceptions about the Prominence of Culturally Responsive Teaching Pedagogy

Community or Efficiency? The Perceived Importance of Community of Inquiry in Online Community College Courses

ABSTRACT Online courses are popular in community colleges among students of different backgrounds. However, compared to community college students who take face-to-face courses, those who take online courses earn lower grades and are less likely to receive a diploma or transfer to a four-year institution. Designing courses to facilitate social presence, as defined in the Community of Inquiry framework, can support student persistence and retention, but activities that support social presence may be in conflict with community college students’ expectations for efficiency in an online course. This study used an online survey to explore the value community college students placed on social presence, teaching presence and efficiency. Students reported that they valued efficiency most highly, followed by teaching presence. Social presence was the least valued of the three constructs. These findings have implications for how community college instructors design their online courses and how they communicate the relevance of course activities to students.

The perception of engineering students and instructors in a Saudi University toward E‐learning

AbstractThis study is designed to assess engineering students' and instructors' perceptions toward using E‐learning relative to their actual use metrics. A cross‐sectional survey was designed to assess perspectives among all undergraduate students from five engineering departments, in addition to those students at the general engineering level. Meanwhile, a different survey was designed and sent to the college instructors to explore their perceptions of their teaching courses. Finally, analytics data from the learning management system (LMS) log data were obtained for comparison. Additionally, the perceptions were evaluated against demographic factors for each group. The differences between both perspectives of students and instructors toward E‐learning tools are seen particularly in assessing the use of E‐learning communication, and assessment capabilities. Instructors mainly use the LMS to post material rather than taking full advantage of the other E‐Learning environment tools (communication, assessment, etc.) to promote a stronger interaction with students and foster student learning. The instructors' focus on using LMS for posting the course material is about 72%, while 68% of students have the same view on using LMS access the course material. Furthermore, the use of LMS as a communication tool is considered by about 56% of students compared with 47% of instructors who agree on this opinion. The portion of instructors perceiving the LMS as non‐difficult is 37%, while there is about 25% of them who took the opposite opinion. In the students' side there is about 52% who considers the LMS as non‐difficult compared to 20% who consider it as difficult. But investigating the log data of the LMS shows that the actual use frequency is rather low indicating an overestimated use of the LMS. The apparent overestimation of the students' and instructors' level of E‐learning usage has stemmed from the lack of or weak E‐learning culture. The analysis of the collected data shows that the length of LMS experience of the instructors has more effect on overall perception of the online courses than academic experience, rank, or academic department. Furthermore, it is revealed that the student's academic year significantly affects how these students assess the courses and instructors' interaction, while the department to which the student belongs is affecting some but not all elements of the courses. The findings of this study will help the school administration effectively develop an E‐learning framework for students and teachers to enhance overall learning performance.

College and University Instructional Physical Activity Programs, as Relevant Now as Ever

ABSTRACT In one form or another, College and University Instructional Physical Activity Programs (C/UIPAP) have been a part of American higher education for 160 years. This essay highlights the history of this evolution, as well as the ongoing need for C/UIPAP. In doing so, it sets the stage for the thematic issue of the International Journal of Kinesiology and Higher Education devoted to C/UIPAP. It further identifies advocacy strategies and tactics that align with both the Association of American Colleges and Universities’ Liberal Education and America’s Promise (LEAP) educational reform initiative, and federal government declarations aimed at improving the health and well-being of college and university students. Finally, while primarily focused on the situation in the United States, select research from the countries of Poland, Russia, and South Korea is introduced, along with a call for more international contributions about C/UIPAP.

College Physical Activity Programs: Recommendations for Stability and Growth

ABSTRACT College and University Instructional Physical Activity Programs (C/U IPAP) are in decline worldwide. Therefore, it has become paramount that leaders in the field of Kinesiology establish effective means of defending, establishing, and growing these instructional physical activity programs. The focus of this article is to provide recommendations for positioning, marketing, and leveraging the value of C/U IPAP to college/university decision-makers and students so these valuable educational experiences can be a vital part of university curricula in the future.

Crossing the boundaries through OER adoption: Considering open educational resources (OER) as boundary objects in higher education

Advocates who argue for the use of open educational resources (OER) promote the cost benefits in comparison to traditional course materials, reducing the expense of higher education for students. If institutions and their libraries are going to invest resources to assist their faculty in OER adoption, then we must understand how OER utilization could affect college instructors. OER are fundamentally different than traditional resources, in licensing and composition, therefore instructors will likely have to go beyond their usual boundaries of practice to implement OER. This small, qualitative study examines the impact of OER adoption on college instructors by investigating if OER can act as a boundary object, by analyzing if boundary crossing phenomena is present in implementation processes of instructors. By knowing this, institutions of higher education and their libraries could better allocate their resources to support faculty OER adoption.

A Line of Blood and Dirt: Creating the Canada–United States Border across Indigenous Lands

A Line of Blood and Dirt: Creating the Canada–United States Border across Indigenous Lands

Диагностика педагогического мышления студентов – будущих педагогов на основе компетентностного подхода

In the didactics of higher education, the issue of professional thinking development (so-called pedagogical thinking) for students majoring in pedagogics remains insufficiently studied. At the same time, pedagogical thinking, and the methods of its development and diagnostics can provide clear guidelines for teaching individualization and correction mechanisms. These methods should focus on fostering the professional qualities for future teachers. The purpose of the article is to describe the proprietary technology for diagnosing the level of students’ pedagogical thinking - future preschool teachers - using the group expert assessment method. Research methods and techniques. The study was carried out through a competency-based approach, which coordinates the competence-oriented goals of future teachers’ professional training with the level of their pedagogical thinking. The method of the group expert assessment was used to justify the structure, content, and students' pedagogical thinking levels. We involved qualified university instructors and pre-school teachers as experts. Findings. We determined the basic structure of pedagogical thinking and its development levels for these students. This helped to define the choice of teaching aids and targeted assistance to students within individual educational pathways. The article shows the interrelation of components and interdependence of the pedagogical thinking for students with the structural components of the professional and pedagogical competence for a bachelor degree student. The novelty of the research. The authors propose a methodology for diagnosing the development level of students’ pedagogical thinking which is coordinated with the competence-oriented goals of their professional training. The federal-state educational standard of higher education and the Professional standard “Teacher (pedagogical activity in the field of preschool, primary, basic and secondary education)” determines the content of these goals. Practical significance. The findings of the research can be applied by administrative authorities and university instructors for planning individual educational pathways of undergraduate students, as well as of post-graduate students studying the current issues of preschool education.

LESSON STUDY: USING GROUPWORK ACTIVITY TO ENCHANCE STUDENT’S OUTPUT IN EAP CLASSES

This article is a product of collaborative work between three university instructors that specifically focused on developing and enhancing students’ output using groupwork in their English for Academic Purposes (EAP) classes. The experimental part of this paper was based on the method commonly known as lesson study and aimed at observing and analyzing the use of language input covered during the classes by students. To provide favorable environment for the language practice, greater time was allocated for the production part of the lesson, where students did a role play activity in groups. The experiment proved that groupwork indeed enhances student output and engages more of them. At the same time, it was revealed that providing more time for the production part does not always lead to an increase in student talking time. Low-performing students’ output as well, did not necessarily improve during such activities.

Distance Teaching Urban Design and Planning Studio Courses during the Pandemic: Challenges and Lessons Learnt

Urban design and planning studios presented considerable challenges to teach remotely following the outbreak of COVID-19 pandemic. Planning is space-based and requires real-life experience, and existing virtual teaching platforms can hardly re-create the studio atmosphere. This paper presents an empirical study, via surveys and interviews, on how instructors in Greek universities, where online teaching carried on for three semesters, adjusted studio courses to remote teaching. Findings are organized into three rubrics: Resilience, Interaction, and Surprises. Results show that planning pedagogy needs to maintain problem-based methodologies, that existing platforms should be designed to better emulate the studio atmosphere, and that inviting guest speakers online is a practice that will remain post-pandemic.

Higher Education Teachers’ Perception, Strategies and Challenges in Teaching Critical Thinking Skills: A Case Study of Higher School of Technology Fezmorocco

In today’s digitalized and fast-evolving world, critical thinking skills have become necessary requirements for academic and professional success and sustainable development. For this reason, universities should educate and prepare highly employed graduates since the most valuable and most complicated skills to find generally not related to technical skills but relatively soft ones to thrive in this evolving world. New competencies must be added to one’s curricula. This study, therefore, investigated university teachers' perception of the importance of teaching critical thinking skills and the most effective practices adopted to enhance its development in university. The study employed a qualitative approach to investigation. 17 Moroccan university instructors answered an open-ended questionnaire. The findings showed that critical thinking continues to gain momentum. Almost all respondents believe that critical thinking skills are a prerequisite for their learners. The results also revealed that oral and written reflection and argumentation, collaborative and cooperative learning, connection with the real world, problem and project-based learning are considered the most effective practices to enhance critical thinking skills development. Getting to know University professors' perception of the importance of critical thinking skills and the sound strategies to teach them is fundamental to set up meaningful curriculum design and to prepare graduates to become more employable.

Exploration of Faculty Attitude towards Integration of Web 2.0 into Instructional Practices at University Level during Pandemic

The use of web 2.0 technology, such as social media tools, learning management systems,and presentation software, etc. has brought many changes in education in the recent era of pandemics.To examine the faculty attitude towards the integration of Web 2.0 technology was the target of the study. A descriptive cross-sectional survey design was used, and 125 university instructors were taken conveniently from the disciplines of social science, management science, and basic science. The necessary data was gathered using an attitude scale that was created by Christensen and Kenezek (2009). According to the findings of the study, age disparity, gender, and experience posed no problem in the integration of Web 2.0 technology. The overall positive attitude of the faculty implies the provision of advanced technology as well as professional development courses provided by the institutions to enhance the capabilities of faculty to cope with any further crisis.

Change in Doctoral Dissertation Topics in Forest Resources from US Universities Over Four Decades

Abstract Changes in forest resources expertise from 1978 to 2017, as measured by annual number of doctoral dissertations published on twenty topics, were examined. Using the ProQuest Dissertations and Theses Global database, titles and abstracts from 11,530 dissertations produced by fifty-six universities in the United States were selected. Automated content analysis and latent Dirichlet allocation were used to identify the optimal number of topic groupings among 7,742 dissertations that met selection criteria. Substantial differences were found in the pattern of publication among the twenty topics over time. The number of dissertations related to forest growth and silviculture; tree seedling propagation, physiology, and regeneration; and forest soil nutrients, ecology, and management declined over the past two decades. Dissertations related to forest wildlife management, including terrestrial wildlife ecology and management; wildlife food and nutrition; and fish ecology and management also declined during the same period. The number of dissertations in the fields of forest policy, politics, and social science; forest modeling, biometrics, and statistics; wood science; forest vegetation ecology; and avian ecology increased during the four decades. Dissertations published in the fields of forest economics, and forest entomology and pathology, remained relatively stable. Study Implications: We found decreasing production of doctoral dissertations focused on applied forest and wildlife management topics in recent decades. Declining doctoral-level expertise in applied fields after the early 2000s suggest that there may be reduced capacity to address practical problems facing both forest and wildlife managers. This decline also suggests that finding university instructors qualified to teach more applied forest and wildlife courses may have been more difficult over the past decade and possibly into the future. Our analysis indicated that the increased number of dissertations in adjacent sciences supporting forest resources has substantially increased capacity in these areas.

College Instructors’ Focus in the EFL Writing Classrooms: An Exploratory Study

EFL is one of the two most liberally funded academic streams in Saudi Arabia after science and technology. Universities across the country are replete with faculty that boast of enviable national and global exposure. Even so, learner standards, especially in writing skills, are way below those expected which highlights the need for rigorous research into what it is that drives the EFL teachers’ choices in the classrooms. This study carried out a systematic evaluation of teachers’ focus in the writing classes at Qassim University, with four parameters isolated for data collection: (i) writing approaches; (ii) writing performance; (iii) writing strategies, and (iv) writing skills. The study tool is a survey with 46 teachers engaged from undergraduate to research studies at the University. The findings showed that writing approaches were the highest focused variable among the EFL faculty followed by writing performance, writing strategies and lastly, writing skills. The findings showed the tendency of EFL teachers to focus on areas that do not directly help in developing their learners' ability in writing and hence, EFL teachers/ instructors’ need to focus on the practical side of the writing skills and providing adequate exposure to their learners in group, pair and individual tasks to master the writing skills. Finally, assessment needs to focus on measuring the practical side of the learners’ knowledge rather than blindly testing them on their ability to reproduce their learning.

What predicts the use of interaction-oriented pedagogies? The role of self-efficacy, motivation, and employment stability

In this study we investigate college instructors' use of practices that facilitate interactions in online college courses. We begin by drawing on several strands of literature to offer a person-purpose interaction framework with two dimensions – one regarding the entities involved in the interaction (instructor, student, content) and the other regarding the pedagogical goal of the interaction (academic, social, managerial) – that result in six sub-domains of practices. Subsequently, we examine the frequency of, and factors associated with instructors' use of these six domains, using survey data collected from online college instructors (N = 126) from a large community college. The results show that instructors using more interaction-oriented practices consistently have greater employment stability and teaching load, greater self-efficacy for using learning management systems, and greater perceived benefits of online learning for students. The findings have several implications for future research examining pedagogical behavior, as well as the design of professional development activities aimed at enhancing the use of effective online instructional practices among college instructors.

Evaluating Perceptions towards the Consequential Validity of Integrated Language Proficiency Assessment

This research study explores teacher and student perceptions to verify consequential validity and the potential washback effect of a locally developed university-level English language proficiency test which consists of reading and listening-to-writing assessment tasks. The integrated language proficiency test is used upon completion of the English language preparatory program in the Turkish context to determine learners’ access to further English medium academic courses in their departments. To examine whether this source-based proficiency test has achieved its intended outcomes, 39 freshman students and 19 university instructors, who offered courses in various departments, were surveyed through questionnaires. Interviews were conducted with the instructors to gauge their perspectives about the validity of the integrated proficiency test-based decisions (whether students pass or fail) over time in terms of the language competency and academic skills of their learners. Quantitative and qualitative data analysis also revealed evidence both for positive and negative issues concerning the consequential validity of the test. Findings may help educators to reach a better understanding of the construct of integrated language assessment tasks in EAP contexts and the consequences of their use in achieving the intended and unintended curricular goals.

An Analysis of English Schooling at College Quality Based on Modern Information Technology

The importance of learning English is increasing as China’s foreign exchanges become more frequent. China’s independent colleges have been steadily growing in recent years, with the main school’s main characteristic of cultivating applied talents, and teaching quality gradually improving. College English teaching is a practical application of college English education and instruction. The “sum of beliefs, recognized values, and technologies commonly accepted by the members of a specific community” is the world outlook and mode of behavior that a group of researchers engaged in a particular science adopts. Modern information technology has pervaded people’s work and lives since the dawn of the information age, and it is now widely used in a variety of fields. Teachers’ primary roles have shifted from disseminator of information, presenter of knowledge, transmitter of culture, and provider of correct answers in today’s learning environment supported by modern information technology to promoter of learning, organizer of activities, student helper, and interactive collaborator. This paper obtains some information useful to the development of teaching work based on the data mining algorithm used in the mining practice of the educational administration information management system. This information is useful for improving teaching quality, implementing the talent development program more effectively, mastering student skill development, and teachers’ teaching situations.

Factors that influence Translation and Interpreting technology adoption by university instructors, through the lens of the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM)

The purpose of this study was to use mixed methods to examine the factors that contribute to the adoption of translation and interpreting (T&I) technologies by university instructors. The qualitative outcomes aimed to ascertain which technologies are currently being used in Australian universities, in the categories of web-search, CAT, mobile and tablet, and language lab software and hardware. An infographic was used to help display the technologies in these four domains. The findings of the quantitative analysis indicate that the frequent use of T&I technologies in instructors’ current practice significantly affected their intention to use technologies in the future. However, their experiences in both teaching and using such technologies were not factors that influenced their future use. The instructors who viewed T&I technologies favourably tended to recommend these tools to their friends and family; they believed that these tools helped them improve the accuracy of their job performance and secure their current job, and generally gave them an advantage in the employment market. At the same time, the instructors in our study faced some issues in using T&I technologies, such as the accuracy of their output and the lifespan of the software. Regardless of the challenges they faced, if an instructor perceived T&I technologies to be useful, they tended to express an intention to continue to use such technologies in the future.

Preferences of educators and students in vocational colleges regarding teaching methods

The problem and the aim of the study. This aim of this study is to determine the teaching methods used by Industrial Electronic Equipment Troubleshooting (IEET) course instructors and the preferred teaching methods of IEET students in vocational colleges. Research methods. For data collection and analysis this study used a survey research design and a quantitative method. Stratified random samples of 360 second-year students and 113 instructors on the electronic technology programme from 53 vocational colleges were chosen for the study. Data was collected using a questionnaire with closed-ended questions. Descriptive data analysis was performed and reported in the form of percentages and means. Results. The study findings reveal that the most frequent teaching methods used by the instructor on teaching Industrial Electronic Equipment Troubleshooting courses are lecture (mean 3.88), question and answer (3.69), and presentation (3.68). Conversely, students had a high level of interest in seeking instructors who use teaching methods such as workshop (mean 4.68), simulation (4.50), web-based (4.46), blended learning (4.31), study tour (4.29), and games (40.8). Conclusion. The study found that instructors still frequently use the conventional chalk and talk method in the classroom, i.e., the lecture. Efforts need to be undertaken to ensure that teachers use a variety of teaching methods in the classroom. Teachers should use student-centred teaching approaches and technology to invest students in the learning process. It is proposed that the Ministry of Education, through the Technical and Vocational Education Division, provide training on 21st century pedagogy to vocational college instructors and provide a complete information and communication technology infrastructure to all vocational colleges to improve teaching methods among instructors.