Doctor of Philosophy / Curriculum and Instruction / F. Todd Goodson / Kay Ann Taylor / This qualitative case study examined how successful professors who were awarded the Coffman Chair for University Distinguished Teaching Scholars at Kansas State University describe their teaching experiences, philosophies, and best practices in undergraduate teaching and learning. Educators today are concerned about what are the best practices to educate new generation students to survive in a rapidly changing world. Additionally, because most research focus on best practices on the implementation or evaluation of a specific methodology, method, or strategy in one particular course or program, this research addressed the need to investigate the teaching experiences, philosophies, and best practices of outstanding award winner professors in different areas; to understand the challenges they face and the ways they handle undergraduate teaching and learning. This qualitative case study was informed by Critical Theory as the theoretical framework, grounded in Constructivism, because critical theory cares about social justice while abandoning obsolete, elitist and antidemocratic features of traditional concepts of education. Seven distinguished teaching scholars, who belong to Psychological Sciences, School of Integrated Studies, Political Sciences, Horticulture and Natural Resources, Modern Languages, English, and Physics departments, voluntarily participated in this study. Multiple methods were used to collect data including demographic questionnaires, semi-structured interviews (time line elicitation interviews, formal interviews, and photo elicitation interview), analysis of documents, and journaling. Seven themes emerged from my findings. The first theme identified the influential people and struggles encountered by professors when they were students. The second identified events that led professors in choosing their major, why they became teachers, and their teaching strengths and passions. The third identified the challenges they face when teaching undergraduate students and mentoring support received as professors. The fourth identified how participants described themselves as successful professors and the way they organize and balance their academic and personal life. The fifth identified specific educational theories the professors apply in their teaching, the insights of their teaching philosophies, and their thoughts about the importance of education. The sixth identified the way professors decide the curriculum to teach and the way they evaluate their students. Finally, the seventh theme identified the significant work they did as recipients of the Coffman Chair for University Distinguished Teaching Scholar, and their teaching best practices. Recommendations for practice and future research were also addressed. Thus, this study contributes to the understanding of teaching experiences, philosophies, and best practices of successful professors in undergraduate teaching and learning, based on evidence which is the personal experiences of the participants for the benefit of every person involved in education.

Doctor of Philosophy / Curriculum and Instruction Programs / F. Todd Goodson / This qualitative case study examined how successful professors who were awarded the Coffman Chair for University Distinguished Teaching Scholars at Kansas State University describe their teaching experiences, philosophies, and best practices in undergraduate teaching and learning. Educators today is concerned about what are the best practices to educate new generation students to survive in a rapidly changing world. Additionally, because most research focus on best practices on the implementation or evaluation of a specific methodology, method, or strategy in one particular course or program, this research addressed the need to investigate the teaching experiences, philosophies, and best practices of outstanding award winner professors in different areas to understand the challenges they face and the ways they handle undergraduate teaching and learning. This qualitative case study was informed by Critical Theory as the theoretical framework, grounded in Constructivism, because critical theory cares about social justice while abandoning obsolete, elitist and antidemocratic features of traditional concepts of education. Eight distinguished teaching scholars, who belong to Psychological Sciences, School of Integrated Studies, Political Sciences, Horticulture and Natural Resources, Modern Languages, English, Physics, and Anthropology and Social Work Departments voluntarily participated in this study. Multiple methods were used to collect data including demographic questionnaires, semi-structured interviews (time line elicitation interviews, formal interviews, and photo elicitation interview), analysis of documents, and journaling. Seven themes emerged from my findings. The first theme identified the influential people and struggles encountered by professors when they were students. The second identified events that led professors in choosing their major, why they became teachers, and their teaching strengths and passions. The third identified the challenges they face when teaching undergraduate students and mentoring support received as professors. The forth identified how participants described themselves as successful professors and the way they organize and balance their academic and personal life. The fifth identified specific educational theories the professors apply in their teaching, the insights of their teaching philosophies, and their thoughts about the importance of education. The sixth identified the way professors decide the curriculum to teach and the way they evaluate their students. Finally, the seventh theme identified the significant work they did as recipients of the Coffman Chair for University Distinguished Teaching Scholar, and their teaching best practices. Recommendations for practice and future research were also addressed. Thus, this study contributes to the understanding of teaching experiences, philosophies, and best practices of successful professors in undergraduate teaching and learning, based on evidence which is the personal experiences of the participants for the benefit of every person involved in education

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The fact that people tend to alternate between languages for various communicative purposes seems to increasingly interest researchers all over the world. Thus, the linguistic phenomenon of codeswitching has been given more academic attention in recent years than ever before. This particular topic has also been infused by new research because of an ongoing pedagogic debate about whether languages other than the target language should be used in foreign languages classroom or not. The debate consists of two major opinions. On one side, adherents claim that use of non-target languages limits natural target language-input and therefore damages the learning process. On the other, it is argued that non-target languages may even be beneficial for the learning process since they carry many pedagogic opportunities with them otherwise gone lost. This paper aims to find out how, and to what extent, foreign language teachers at a Swedish for Immigrants-school codeswitch into English in class. Moreover, it is also of interest to investigate how they think about their own codeswitching and how their reasoning may reflect their codeswitching self-awareness. In search for answers to these questions, three teachers have been observed in class. Later, the teachers have been interviewed to reflect upon their own codeswitching. The study revealed clear differences in the teachers’ codeswitching and codeswitching-reasoning, However, similarities were also found, and that all three teachers shared the main objective to develop their students’ communicative competence. Moreover, they also proved to have a rather realistic picture their own codeswitching. Not only were they able to roughly estimate how, and how much, they each codeswitched. Their individual results also went in line with their reasoning to a high extent, suggesting that they all have a high degree of codeswitching self-awareness.

Submitted in fulfillment of the requirements of the degree of Masters of Technology: Information Technology, Durban University of Technology. Durban. South Africa, 2015. / Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) are ubiquitous nowadays, and there are many situations where they are overall perceived either as advantageous or as disadvantageous; but there are other situations where it is unknown whether they are overall advantageous or disadvantageous. For example, ICTs are perceived as advantageous for communication, but texting during driving is perceived as worse than drinking while driving. Concerning for example eLearning which is the use of ICTs in education, the fact that it has not yet eliminated the problem of poor academic performance raises the question as to whether ICTs are advantageous or not in education especially when one considers their high cost. Therefore, the aim of this study is to examine the perceptions of educators on the advantages and disadvantages of eLearning. This aim will be subdivided into three types of research objectives: (a) to select from existing literature suitable theories that can be applied to the examination of educators’ perceptions on the advantages and disadvantages of eLearning; (b) to design a model of the factors affecting educators’ perceptions on the advantages and disadvantages of eLearning; (c) to empirically test the above announced model; (d) to propose recommendations on how to optimize the impact of eLearning. Objectives a, b, and d were accomplished through the review of existing appropriate literature on teaching and learning, and on eLearning; but objective c was met through a survey of 65 educators of Camperdown town schools in the Pinetown district of KwaZulu-Natal province of South Africa. The outcomes of these four objectives are as follows: (a) Constructivism, Progressivism, and Self-regulated learning can be used as suitable theories applicable to the examination of educators perceptions on the advantages and disadvantages of eLearning; (b) It makes sense to hypothesize that educators perceptions on the advantages and disadvantages of eLearning are affected by their demographics and by their adherence to learning theories; (c) Empirical test conducted by this study confirm that educators perceptions on the advantages and disadvantages of eLearning are affected by their adherence to constructivism and to progressivism; (d) It can be concluded that the impact of the use of ICTs on teaching and learning will be optimized through the deployment of constructivist and progressivist educators as champions of eLearning projects in schools.