Posts

Showing posts from 2017

The Future of Discipline Based Education Research

Discipline Based Education Research (DBER) has been a clear force in international research circles in disciplines like Physics (PER), Chemistry (CER) [not to be confused with Computing Education Research], Engineering (EER) and a number of others. A recent article by Finkelstein and Hendersson et al. recommends that these areas also link up with the SoTL movements and STEM education to effectuate more informed research based educational change. See their article  https://stemeducationjournal.springeropen.com/track/pdf/10.1186/s40594-017-0076-1?site=stemeducationjournal.springeropen.com  and collaboration web site  http://www.trelliscience.com/DBER-A/ Computing Education Research should not miss the boat here. We need to be actively involved if we are not to be marginalised in the debate. I urge my colleagues around the world to engage with these initiatives. This is an interesting development and debate is desperately needed as we position our area, and understand how these

Why are We Here?

The mission of Higher Education is increasingly unclear, at least to me! Pedagogies are evolving, and student learning approaches are perhaps not what they were 30 years ago. We need to get a better grip on the overall mission of higher education and the reason why we are all (academics and students) participating in this system. I have held several talks recently on change and the role of subject education research "ämnesdidaktik" on the development of models for learning and teaching in higher education. Perhaps the most important insight is that we may well be forcing students down a path they do not wish to follow. And there are terrible consequences to the movement towards student-centric and student-active learning in the context of modern tertiary education. The impacts are several, but for me the most interesting are For the first time, EVER, we propose to actually assess all learning outcomes. Students are expected to actively engage with our "overst