No description available.

How can I improve as a practitioner of distance learning? With the uptake of distance learning (DL), which has been marginal for most academics, teaching contexts, traditional power structures and relationships have changed, leaving lecturers potentially disenfranchised. Proliferate literature was found addressing DL in medical education, although the practical application for academics was scarce. Unsurprisingly, the most cited article in Medical Teacher in 2010 was: ‘The Failure of e-Learning Research to Inform Educational Practice, and What We Can Do About It’ (Personal communication, Medical Teacher, October 24, ). My experience suggested DL was a disruptive technology to individuals and the organisational culture of higher education. The related research question and aim of this study were: Research Question How can I improve my practice as a University Lecturer in the development and delivery of a distance learning module in a post graduate diploma in clinical education? Research Aim To critically and systematically examine, and make informed changes to, the design and delivery of a post-graduate distance clinical education module. I hoped to inform educational practice: primarily, my own, by improving my practice as a university DL practitioner. Based on the literature of organisations and DL, I examined and evaluated the complex process of developing and then delivering an asynchronous fully online module. Maintaining an action research methodology, this study underwent two cycles. The first cycle focused on planning of the module, the second on delivery. These cycles informed my own practice, guided further development and resulted in subsequent change. Data collection consisted of documentary analysis of meetings, interviews with staff and students, formal student evaluations, web analytics and personal reflection. Data analysis incorporated both quantitative and qualitative methods to triangulate the research findings and ensure the research aim was addressed. Within this inquiry, new competencies for academics including leadership and management were exposed. Barriers to staff progress included changes and ambiguity in roles, lack of leadership and unpreparedness for responsibilities, time, and workload. Student barriers included time, fear, relevance of learning, isolation and increased autonomy. Explicit planning, organisational support and working within communities were requisite to create a ‘sustaining’ technology representing an improvement on current practices for both groups. Avoiding traditional workload assumptions that are erroneous and inaccurate, this study provides new models of organisational roles and responsibilities. Time, workload, and changing expectations of staff and students are addressed whilst uncompromisingly focusing on informing and improving practice.

This research study explores the motivation and experience of a group of academics, based in the same large publicly funded higher education institute (HEI) in Ireland, who are actively engaging in Work-based Learning (WBL) curriculum development and delivery with employers and professional bodies aimed at meeting the learning needs of the workplace. Using case study methodology, sixteen academics together with four functional leaders were interviewed. As participants understand the term 'industry' includes their Institute's engagement with public and private sector employers and professional bodies, where appropriate in this research study this term is used. The research began before the onset of the recession in Ireland in 2008. For HEIs the last few years have been a period of change and uncertainty. The research finds that the academics who participated in this study are motivated to engage in WBL curriculum development and delivery with industry for two reasons. Firstly, they perceive it as a mode of academic development which informs the development of institutional curricula and their practice generally. Secondly, these academics consider engagement in the activity as supporting the continuation of their School's tradition of service to industry, part-time students and alumni. The findings also suggest that while challenges and tensions may arise during the development and delivery of WBL curricula with industry, within the participants' Institute the voluntary, reactive, fragmented and marginal basis of the activity inhibits the development of policies and practices which might alleviate these challenges and tensions. Senior management within the Institute recognise that national funding policies make it challenging for HEls to develop activities such as WBL initiatives with industry. The research concludes by proposing that in order to exploit the potential of HEIs' engagement in WBL with employers, national and institutional policies need to be developed which recognise, develop, and sustain it as a mainstream HEI activity.

No description available.

No description available.

No description available.

My scholarship concerning improving student learning has been undertaken at each of six levels of organisation in higher education systems: Improving individual students as learners (Section 1) Improving individual teachers' ability to improve student .learning (Section 2) Improving the design of assessment so that it supports learning better (Section 5) Improving the design of all aspects of courses so that the learning of all students on the courses improves (Section 3) Improving the student support systems that underpin all courses, so that student performance and retention is improved (Section 4) Improving institutional strategies to improve student learning (Section 6) In operating at these different levels my work has progressed from focussing on the micro-level of an individual student undertaking a single learning activity in a specific context, to macro levels involving national and international comparisons of institutional strategies to improve student learning. I started working on 'study skills' (Section 1) in the mid 1970's and have worked on institutional learning and teaching strategies in the last decade (Section 6). My work on Sections 2-5 spans three decades. Research methodologies I have used include phenomenographic interviewing (Beaty, Morgan and Gibbs, 1997), depth interviewing (Gibbs and Durbridge, 1976a), psychometric development of inventories (Gibbs and Simpson, 2004a), use of existing inventories (Gibbs, 1982), use of evaluation questionnaires (Coffey and Gibbs, 2001), analysis of documents (Gibbs et al, 2000) and the use of management information systems to track student performance and progress (Gibbs and Lucas, 1997; Gibbs and Simpson, 2004b). Research designs include before and after testing of the impact of interventions (Gibbs, 1982; Gibbs and Coffey, 2004), longitudinal tracking of individual students (Beaty, Morgan and Gibbs, 1997), use of control groups (Gibbs and Coffey, 2004) and case-based studies (Gibbs, 2003a). I have undertaken and published reviews of the literature associated with five of the sections: Section 1 (Gibbs et al 1982), Section 2 (Gibbs and Gilbert, 1998), Section 3 (Gibbs, 1982), Section 4 (Gibbs, 2003d) and Section 5 (Gibbs and Simpson, 2004). Research in four of the six areas has been published in other countries: Section 1 in the USA (Gibbs, 1983) and Sweden (Gibbs, 1996a); Section 2 in Canada (Gibbs 1995d), Germany (Gibbs 1997a), Holland (Gibbs 1999a) and the USA (Gibbs and Angelo, 1998); Section 4 in Hong Kong (Gibbs and Simpson, 2004) and Section 6 in Portugal (Gibbs, 2003e), Spain (Gibbs, 2004b), and Australia (2005a). Evidence of the scale of impact of this research is outlined in each section. A citation analysis for the 18 selected publications is included as Appendix 1. A selection of 69 of my other publications are cited in support of the account in the sections below.

This thesis comprises a set of linked texts, published over a lo-year period, principally as book chapters and journal articles. The texts offer a series of analyses of the literature of higher education teaching and learninq: the nature of academic work and the ways in which it is constructed for different purposes: the ways in which teaching, research and discipline can be understood as elements of academic practice: discipline as the academic workplace and the nature of 'workplace learning' in this context: and the contribution of selected theoretical perspectives on learning and work to new understandings of academic practice. Taken together, these texts have made a significant contribution to the development of academic practice as a focus of educational research. They draw upon • An initial review of the literature of learning and teaching in higher education: • An empirical study of the construction of pedagogic and academic identity, involving extended interviews with 20 academics, • The development of successive conceptualisations of pedagogic and academic practice and identity: • The incorporation of new theoretical perspectives into the study of academic work and the cross-fertilisation of the field from different disciplinary perspectives. The published texts are arranged thematically and located both within the research field and within the development of the author's academic career. The publications are critically appraised in terms of their contribution to the development of academic practice as a focus of research into higher education, and to the emergent disciplinary field of 'work and learning'.

Η διεπιστημονικότητα αναφέρεται όλο και πιο συχνά σε συζητήσεις που αφορούν την παραγωγή της γνώσης αλλά και σε συζητήσεις με γενικότερο περιεχόμενο. Ως νέος τρόπος παραγωγής γνώσης αποτελεί μια πρόκληση για το Πανεπιστήμιο, καθώς η υιοθέτησή της επηρεάζει τον τρόπο διδασκαλίας και έρευνας που συνιστούν τους δύο πυλώνες της Ανώτατης Εκπαίδευσης. Τα ελληνικά πανεπιστήμια, προσπαθώντας να ανταποκριθούν σε αυτή την πρόκληση, έχουν υιοθετήσει διεπιστημονικά προγράμματα σπουδών σε πτυχιακό και μεταπτυχιακό επίπεδο. Συγκεκριμένα, σήμερα προσφέρονται σχεδόν 150 διεπιστημονικά μεταπτυχιακά προγράμματα σπουδών στα ελληνικά πανεπιστήμια. Σκοπός της μελέτης είναι να διερευνήσει την έννοια της διεπιστημονικότητας και τις αρχές της, και στη συνέχεια να περιγράψει τη λειτουργία του διεπιστημονικού μεταπτυχιακού προγράμματος «Περιβαλλοντικές Επιστήμες» στο Πανεπιστήμιο Πατρών. Η μελέτη προσεγγίζει το αντικείμενο της έρευνας μέσα από τη νέο-θεσμική θεωρία των οργανώσεων και εφαρμόζει την ποιοτική έρευνα που βασίζεται σε ημι-δομημένες συνεντεύξεις με μέλη της ακαδημαϊκής κοινότητας. Τα αποτελέσματα της έρευνας δείχνουν ότι –πέρα από τα θετικά και αρνητικά σημεία του εγχειρήματος αυτού- υπάρχουν δυσκολίες στην υιοθέτηση ενός νέου Παραδείγματος από το Πανεπιστήμιο, οι οποίες αποκαλύπτουν την απόσταση ανάμεσα στις επίσημες διακηρύξεις και την ανεπίσημη πρακτική. / The concept of interdisciplinarity has gained prominence in general and specialized debates. This has been fuelling concerns that the Universities, which are dominated by disciplinary structures and courses, may be on the verge of changing some of their traditional relevance. Greek universities trying to respond to this challenge have adopted interdisciplinary programs at graduate and post-graduate level. Indeed, currently Greek Universities offer almost 150 intedisciplinary post-graduate programs. By investigating the interdisciplinary post-graduate program “Environmental Studies” at University of Patras, the purpose of this study is to describe the function of this program. We investigate it from a neo-institutional theory perspective in terms of the alignment of the cognitive, normative and regulative structures of the University that provide stability to social behavior. The study is based on a qualitative research method relying on semi-structured interviews with academics. The results indicate the difficulties applying the new University “paradigm”. It is important to understand the positive and the negative points of the experimentation, and realize a key point: the distance between the formal structure and informal practice.

Σκοπός της παρούσας εργασίας ήταν η μελέτη και αποτίμηση του βαθμού συμμετοχής των φοιτητών σε δημιουργικές δραστηριότητες καθώς και η διερεύνηση της συσχέτισής του με τα προσωπικά/ κοινωνικοοικονομικά και άλλα χαρακτηριστικά των υποκειμένων της έρευνας. Ένας επιπλέον στόχος, ήταν η μελέτη των απόψεων των φοιτητών για τους τρόπους καλλιέργειας της δμιουργικότητάς τους μέσα από τη διαδικασία διδασκαλίας-μάθησης-αξιολόγησης. Για τη συλλογή των δεδομένων διαμορφώθηκε και ελέγθηκε ως προς την αξιοπιστία και εγκυρότητα κατάλληλο ερωτηματολόγιο, με ερωτήσεις κλειστού τύπου (επιλογής, διαβάθμισης τύπου Likert) καθώς και με ερωτήσεις ανοικτού τύπου, το οποίο συμπληρώθηκε από τους φοιτητές του 2ου έτους δύο τμημάτων ιδρυμάτων ανώτατης εκπαίδευσης (Παιδαγωγικό Τμήμα Δημοτικής Εκπαίδευσης (ΠΤΔΕ) του Πανεπιστημίου Πατρών και Διοίκησης Κοινωνικών-Συνεταιριστικών Επιχειρήσεων και Οργανώσεων (ΔΙΚΣΕΟ) του ΤΕΙ Μεσολογγίου). Η ανάλυση των δεδομένων της έρευνας δείχνει ότι οι περισσότεροι φοιτητές και στα δύο Τμήματα εμφανίζουν μέτριο βαθμό συμμετοχής σε δημιουργικές δραστηριότητες, χωρίς στατιστικά σημαντικές διαφορές. Επιπλέον, αν και δηλώνουν ότι έχουν έντονο ενδιαφέρον για την καλλιέργεια της δημιουργικότητάς τους μέσω των σπουδών τους, υποστηρίζουν ότι αυτό δεν αποτελεί προτεραιότητα των προγραμμάτων σπουδών ή των καθηγητών τους. Προτείνουν δε να δοθεί έμφαση σε συγκεκριμένες δραστηριότητες (πρακτική άσκηση, εργαστήρια, εισηγήσεις με συζήτηση, επισκέψεις επαγγελματιών του χώρου στο τμήμα φοίτησής τους,μαθήματα καλλιτεχνικού/αισθητικού κύκλου) με τις οποίες θα μπορούσε να αναπτυχθεί η δημιουργικότητά τους στο πλαίσιο των σπουδών τους. / The aim of the present study was to investigate and assess the participation in creative actions of a sample of students in two Higher Education departments in Greece through an especially formulated questionnaire and investigate its possible statistical relationship with the participants’ personal/socio-economic and other characteristics; a supplementary goal was to study their opinion about the ways of improving creativeness during the teaching-learning-asessment process. Results show that most of the students, in both departments, have a rather medium measure on the creativeness attitude scale with no significant differences between the groups of students of the two departments ; also, that their interest in improving their creativeness is rather high, but their opinion is that it is not a priority in the departments that they attend. They also suggest ways/activities towards creativeness /enhancement.