<p>Biochemistry is part of life science: a fast developing multidisciplinary area. The overall aims of this thesis and the work underlying it were to find ways in which to develop competence in biochemistry at university level and to assess complex learning. A particular interest was the development of experimental work as a means to promote learning.</p><p>The study focuses on changes made in two educational settings. The aim of the changes was to develop competence, amongst both students and teachers. Therefore, the research in the three first papers has in some aspects, and to different extent, the characteristics of action research. Broadly, the changes can be described as making experiments more open, with multiple formative and authentic assessment methods involving both students and teachers. The empirical studies included questionnaires, interviews, questions asked during experimental work, written material as formulated objectives, examination questions and answers, reports, other products; and grades/judgements made by teachers and students. Collected data were analyzed in several different ways. Statistical methods included the use of mean values, paired T-tests, Spearman rank correlation coefficients and Principal Component Analysis. Interview data as well as some questionnaire data were analyzed using analytical induction techniques. Some categories were based on thematic content analysis, while others were based on Bloom’s taxonomy. Students’ attitude positions were categorized according to Perry’s framework. </p><p>The main results can be summarized as follows; </p><p>The students’ learning was improved by open ended versions of experimental work, according to both their and the researchers’ opinions. Planning, approaching problems from different perspectives and evaluating the results of their own experimental work promote the students’ capacity for higher order cognitive thinking. However, the synthesis level constitutes a threshold and particular support is needed for students with a more dualistic view of teaching, learning and experimental work. </p><p>Introducing formative and authentic assessment is a way to help students to make progress, and to develop competence. The importance was clearly demonstrated of involving both teachers and students in discussions of aims and criteria and of making them explicit. Feedback from teachers’ and students’ own reflective activities about subject content, and their learning as well as affective factors were shown to be central for complex learning. Based on our studies, areas were identified for the critical development of competence and for promoting learning in biochemistry at university level. These areas are; multidisciplinary and complex learning, communication skills of different types, metacognitive perspectives, attitude development, and affective factors. </p><p>The students see experimental work as crucial for their learning and therefore important in terms of assessment. Therefore, experimental work can and ought to be assessed. However, similarities and discrepancies were observed between students’ and teachers’ perspectives for both the aims and assessment of experimental work. Our conclusion is that a combination of assessment methods is needed in order to be able to make a high qualitative assessment.</p>

Literature on the evolution of the American higher education system includes a historical and consistent debate over the definition of the higher education mission in the country. Recent debate focuses on mission differentiation between the university and the community college. Acknowledging systemic changes in higher education historically occurred within regions of the country and even individual states, Alaska higher education development serves as an interesting and relatively unstudied example and the focus of this study. This research addressed this debate in higher education—mission definition—through a historical analysis of the University of Alaska Anchorage (UAA) over the 25-year period between 1984 and 2009. As the largest of the three major administrative units (MAUs) in the University of Alaska system based on credit hours and number of students, UAA became the logical focus of the study. In addition, higher education in Anchorage was greatly influenced by the 1987 state higher education merger as three of the five MAUs in the university system were located there. The purpose of this study was to historically describe the development of and changes in higher education missions—university and community college—at UAA during this period. This historical analysis was designed to answer two primary questions: - How have traditional university missions developed and changed at the University of Alaska Anchorage between 1984 and 2009? - How have traditional community college missions developed and changed at the University of Alaska Anchorage between 1984 and 2009? Data from predominantly primary sources were collected, evaluated, analyzed, and interpreted in four major areas: (a) the 1970s higher education background in Alaska, (b) the University of Alaska leadership (board of regents and presidents), (c) professional external reviews and reports of the university system, and (d) growth and development trends in university and community college trends at UAA. There were six main findings from this study. First, public higher education in southcentral Alaska, in particular Anchorage, was in a tremendous amount of turmoil during the 1970s. This turmoil included debate and conflict primarily over missions, institutional identity, and organizational structure. Secondly, the 1987 merger eliminated the visible and separate identity of community college operations in Anchorage. The community campuses—Kenai Peninsula College (KPC), Kodiak College (KOC), Matanuska-Susitna College (MSC), and Prince William Sound Community College (PWSCC)—were somewhat spared this total identity elimination due to geographical separation from the main UAA campus in Anchorage and the retention of college names associated with these dispersed campus locations. A third finding was the similarity of recommendations from several external reviews concerning the comprehensive—university and community college—missions within the University of Alaska system following the merger. The common theme within all these reviews was a need to better differentiate the missions of the university from the missions of the community college. Fourth, the type of student attending UAA has changed. In the years following the merger, the typical UAA student was older, less diverse, part-time, and non-degree seeking. By 2009, the characteristics were somewhat different; the typical UAA student was now younger, and more diverse, full-time, and degree seeking. A fifth finding was the consistency of growth and development in university missions at UAA. Baccalaureate and graduate degree programming and university-sponsored research prospered under the new university system structure at UAA. The growth in both baccalaureate and graduate degree programs exceeded the averages at UAA and far surpassed similar rates in certificate and associate degree programs. Finally, at UAA, many community college missions remained robust in operation, but often obscured in visibility and identity. These robust community college missions included academic programming focused on transfer education and technical or vocational education. At the same time, other community college missions faltered within the comprehensive university structure, particularly developmental education and continuing education and workforce development. / Graduation date: 2012

Biochemistry is part of life science: a fast developing multidisciplinary area. The overall aims of this thesis and the work underlying it were to find ways in which to develop competence in biochemistry at university level and to assess complex learning. A particular interest was the development of experimental work as a means to promote learning. The study focuses on changes made in two educational settings. The aim of the changes was to develop competence, amongst both students and teachers. Therefore, the research in the three first papers has in some aspects, and to different extent, the characteristics of action research. Broadly, the changes can be described as making experiments more open, with multiple formative and authentic assessment methods involving both students and teachers. The empirical studies included questionnaires, interviews, questions asked during experimental work, written material as formulated objectives, examination questions and answers, reports, other products; and grades/judgements made by teachers and students. Collected data were analyzed in several different ways. Statistical methods included the use of mean values, paired T-tests, Spearman rank correlation coefficients and Principal Component Analysis. Interview data as well as some questionnaire data were analyzed using analytical induction techniques. Some categories were based on thematic content analysis, while others were based on Bloom’s taxonomy. Students’ attitude positions were categorized according to Perry’s framework. The main results can be summarized as follows; The students’ learning was improved by open ended versions of experimental work, according to both their and the researchers’ opinions. Planning, approaching problems from different perspectives and evaluating the results of their own experimental work promote the students’ capacity for higher order cognitive thinking. However, the synthesis level constitutes a threshold and particular support is needed for students with a more dualistic view of teaching, learning and experimental work. Introducing formative and authentic assessment is a way to help students to make progress, and to develop competence. The importance was clearly demonstrated of involving both teachers and students in discussions of aims and criteria and of making them explicit. Feedback from teachers’ and students’ own reflective activities about subject content, and their learning as well as affective factors were shown to be central for complex learning. Based on our studies, areas were identified for the critical development of competence and for promoting learning in biochemistry at university level. These areas are; multidisciplinary and complex learning, communication skills of different types, metacognitive perspectives, attitude development, and affective factors. The students see experimental work as crucial for their learning and therefore important in terms of assessment. Therefore, experimental work can and ought to be assessed. However, similarities and discrepancies were observed between students’ and teachers’ perspectives for both the aims and assessment of experimental work. Our conclusion is that a combination of assessment methods is needed in order to be able to make a high qualitative assessment.

No description available.

In the contemporary U.S., the state, through the Legislative Assembly, the State Board of Education, and the Department of Education, sets policies for K-12 education. These include goals and standards that affect the kinds of influences local officials, parents, and students can have on various education programs, required and elective coursework, graduation requirements, and curriculum content. The state ought to be able to justify their education policies to citizens. I argue here for a pragmatist informed "minimalist approach" to justifying education policies. This approach has state officials (and subsequently local officials) use local, situated reasons for justifying their education standards, goals, and curriculum. I argue that if state officials utilize a minimalist approach to justify education policies, it will be easier for citizens to contest (or support) the state's policies because the language employed will better represent citizen's local, situated common experiences, and be contestable on those grounds. One consequence of this minimalist approach is that state officials could exclude justifications that are made by appealing to isolated, abstract conceptions. Isolated, abstract conceptions are, as pragmatists such as Rorty have argued, transcendental in nature and doomed to failure; fortunately, as the pragmatist defense of a minimalist approach shows, they are also unnecessary. Some implications of adopting a pragmatist-informed approach is that the state should give up terms and phrases that attempt to (i) construct a unifying theory for justification or for truth; (ii) construct and somehow universally justify a single best particular method for interpreting texts and analyzing scientific processes; and/or (iii) construct comprehensive and complete standards. Rather, state officials ought to identify local, situated reasons for particular policies. From these local appeals, state officials could construct a minimal set of education policies that leave room for local officials and teachers to have particular freedoms in constructing programs, projects, and curricula. I approach this argument through a critique of select education policies in Oregon, Texas, Arizona, and Tennessee. I argue that these policies, like many education policies and standards, lack adequate justifications. Those justifications that are provided are too vague and susceptible to interpretations that are not relevant to the particular purposes of the policies. For instance, certain policies have illegitimately led to the denial of funding for "Ethnic Studies" programs in Arizona, or allowed for irrelevant teacher and student criticisms of theories within the sciences to be explored and entertained as legitimate in Tennessee classrooms. My recommendations, if followed, would give state officials grounds for excluding the concerns of citizens that are not relevant to particular policies and provide a legitimate, justifiable basis for constructing state education policies. / Graduation date: 2013

published_or_final_version / Education / Master / Master of Education

“We often spend too much time coping with problems along our path that we forget why we are on that path” Peter Senge This study describes and analyses the implementation of Organisation Development (OD) to a previously disadvantaged school. OD is a relatively new method of planned change in South Africa. Unlike more traditional change initiatives, OD promotes collaboration; it tries to involve all members of an organisation in problem solving and decision-making. It is an applied behavioural science discipline dedicated to improving organisations and the people in them. Previously disadvantaged schools in South Africa continue to be disadvantaged. Ten years after the introduction of democracy there have been few changes in some of these schools and some seem to be getting worse. This study was an attempt to introduce a process of planned change to one such school. Since 1994 many changes have been imposed on our schools with new curricula, increased class sizes, changes in systems of assessment and teaching methods and the abolishment of past procedures such as corporal punishment. Teachers have had little say in any of these changes and this has resulted in resistance, resignation, frustration and in many cases a lack of ability to cope. OD was introduced to Acacia High School in the form of a Survey Data Feedback (SDF). An action research process followed and a diagnosis was made followed by action planning and then the execution of a plan. My study follows this process and the implementation of the plan describing its successes. Sadly change was not sustained and I highlight some of the challenges that face the school in order to bring about real long-term improvement in the culture of learning and teaching.

The structure of an education system and its curricula reflects the influence of a specific paradigm. Since the onset of colonial rule and apartheid in South Africa about everything in the South African society, including the education system and curricular issues in particular, have been shaped in accordance with the macro paradigm: the modern Western paradigm. The emergence of a new paradigm: the postmodern paradigm, created the possibility of a new order of thinking which influenced all societal domains and aspects and propelled the society into the new millennium. Since 1994 a new approach forms the corner stone of all the new South African policy documents on education. It is for this reason that the issue of an arts education curriculum is investigated from a paradigmatic point of view with reference to the modern, the postmodern and the African paradigms. Various components, roles and dynamics of educational curricula cast in the modern paradigm framework are compared with characteristics of their counterparts in the postmodern paradigm framework, and how they can influence the design of curricula, especially arts education. The contribution of an African paradigmatic perspective is accounted for. A new approach to curriculum development based on the ideals of a learner-centred education approach, an outcomes-based education approach and the integration of subjects into specific learning areas has officially been adopted as the approach for transforming education and curricular issues, resulting in the present Curriculum 2005. Within the context of the Arts and Culture learning area of this Curriculum, the study concentrates on and emphasises the integration of the four art forms of dance, drama, music and visual art in order to overcome the legacy of fragmentation of a curriculum. The study culminates in a proposed integrated arts education outline for curriculum development that defines the rationale and vision for South African arts education. The researcher contends that there is sufficient scope for arts education to contribute its unique aesthetic values to the new national curriculum in South Africa and that integration of these art forms does not in any way diminish the unique character of each. / Didactics / D. Ed. (Didactics)

Text in Afrikaans / Die ontstaan en verloop van Christelik-nasionale onderwys as die histories-geworde onderwysideaal van die Afrikaner word in hierdie studie ondersoek en evalueer ten einde die moontlike toekomstige voortbestaan daarvan in Suid-Afrika te kan aantoon. Die verband tussen lewensbeskouing en onderwys is allereers aangetoon, met besondere verwysing na die ontstaan en wese van die Christelik-nasionale lewensbeskouing en onderwysleer. In die terugskou is die verloop en posisie van Christelik-nasionale onderwys vanaf 1652 tot en met 1997 van nader beskou. Aandag is aan die volgende onderwysfasette gegee: onderwysdoelstellinge, onderwysbeheer, onderwysinhoud (met spesiale verwysing na godsdiensonderrig) en medium van onderrig. Ten slotte is bevindinge en 'n gevolgtrekking rakende Christelik-nasionale onderwys in Suid-Afrika verwoord. Enkele aanbevelings vir die voortbestaan van Christelik-nasionale onderwys is ook gemaak. / In this study, the genesis and course of Christian National Education, as historic cultivated educational ideal of the Afrikander, are examined and assessed in order to be able to predict its future in times to come. First of all, the relation between view of life and education is indicated, with special reference to the genesis and nature of the Christian National view of life and doctrine of education. In the historical survey the course and position of Christian National Education from 1652 to 1997 are indicated. Attention is focused on the following educational aspects: aim of education, governance of education, content of education (with special reference to religious instruction) and medium of instruction. Finally, findings and a conclusion regarding Christian National Education in South Africa are expressed. Some recommendations for its continued existence are also provided / Educational Studies / M. Ed. (Historiese Opvoedkunde)

This study is comprised of four chapters and an Epilogue. Chapter 1 treats, by way of historical description, the founding of America's institutions of higher learning as defacto centers of evangelical Protestant indoctrination and ethos. Chapter 2 is a record of the rejection of evangelical Protestantism in the interest of making the colleges and universities nonsectarian. This was accomplished first by a gradual "broadening'' of the curricula. Later, the schools became altogether secularist in disposition. Chapter 3 recounts the factors leading to the changes in the institutions. Chapter 4 is an evaluation of competing truth claims in the aftermath of the demise of Protestantism and a review of the gains and losses that came with the change. Finally, the Epilogue is a case study of one institution that reversed the trend. / Philosophy, Practical and Systematic Theology / M.Th. (Systematic Theology)