Moral Boundaries: A Political Argument for an Ethic of Care

Design for the Real World: Human Ecology and Social Change

Aditya Johri and Barbara M Olds, eds, Cambridge Handbook of Engineering Education Research, Cambridge University Press, 2014, ISBN: 978-1-107-01410-7

Cambridge Handbook of Engineering Education Research

Open Education gained more visibility as a result of the emergence of Open Educational Resources (OER) and Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs). This article discusses whether MOOCs should be considered as OER. Open Education and OER can be treated as two strands with different historical roots even though, in theory, OER are an aspect of Open Education. Different OER definitions and typologies are analyzed in relation to their dimensions and categorizations. Furthermore, the four conditions and two original categories of MOOCs are discussed, leading to a debate on their quality. It turns out that there are two perspectives on MOOCs: from an OER perspective, MOOCs as a product can be called OER. From an Open Education perspective, MOOCs are going beyond OER as enablers of Open Education and are understood as an innovative way of changing education. These perspectives are reflected by the OpenEd Quality Framework. The short answer to our leading question is: sometimes, and it depends on your perspective.

/pdf/are-moocs-open-educational-resources-a-literature-review-on-1cm1gj2n7l.pdf

Are MOOCs Open Educational Resources? A literature review on history, definitions and typologies of OER and MOOCs

Learning management systems have become a key component of teaching and learning in higher education. However, the evidence on the importance of learning management systems to learning is still in ...

Exploring lecturer and student perceptions and use of a learning management system in a postgraduate public health environment

Employing phenomenological techniques this qualitative study investigates perceptions of collaborative relationships between instructional designers and faculty at an R1 university. While past research has considered the growing involvement of instructional designers in course development, and knowledge and skills expected from an instructional designer, little attention has been paid to what constitutes an effective collaboration and how it can be developed from the perspectives of both instructional designers and faculty. Based on semi-structured interviews of faculty and instructional designers, the following four thematic categories were uncovered: (1) reasons for collaborative efforts; (2) structure of collaborative relationships; (3) supports of and barriers to collaboration; and (4) essential competencies and strategies for instructional designers and faculty in a collaborative partnership. Our findings support the existing research on the importance of collaboration between instructional designers and faculty, and spotlights instructional designers in the higher education setting. They also outline key elements of an effective relationship, including understanding the role of an instructional designer, trust and rapport building (and its components), administrative support and faculty buy-in. Suggestions are made for to how overcome potential barriers to ensure an effective and collaborative partnership. Implications and future directions for research and training programs are discussed.

Faculty and instructional designers on building successful collaborative relationships

In the past decade, there has been an increasing focus on the ethical content of designed artifacts, including the ways in which engineers and technologists are responsible for considering ethical issues relating to the end user or context for which they are designing. Creating sustainable postsecondary ethics education has been an increasing focus in engineering and technology education scholarship, with the goal of developing students’ ability to understand and make ethically-sound design decisions through evidence-based instructional strategies. In this study, we focus on the ways in which a transdisciplinary educational experience might encourage the development of empathic ability by documenting the activities of undergraduate technology students as they sought to develop an off-the-grid toilet for the “developing” world. Students were exposed to multiple instructional strategies that encouraged them to reconsider their notion of “difference” as it might apply to their semester-long design project. We present several themes of instructional strategies that emerged from instructors and students, and contextualize these strategies in relation to the students’ development of empathic ability. The students in this course struggled to develop empathy that had practical implications for their design activity, suggesting the need for a larger shift in the ability of students to create empathically-driven action. We found that a substantial change in empathic ability also requires a certain amount of vulnerability and ability to position-take (i.e., taking the position of another), indicating the need for “safe spaces” that challenge student perspectives while also encouraging trust and honesty.

Instructional Strategies for Incorporating Empathy in Transdisciplinary Technology Education

Many scholars have cited the importance of integrating humanities and social science content into engineering and technology education, noting the value in building students’ deep competence in communication and interpersonal skills, including an understanding of how technology is intertwined with societal and human needs. However, there is relatively little guidance as to how viewpoints and content from liberal education perspectives might be integrated systematically into a single, transdisciplinary learning experience that allows students to view the world through different lenses from a variety of disciplinary perspectives while locating and synthesizing information crucial to solving interesting and worthwhile problems that may not be obvious from a solely technical or solely humanities perspective. In this paper, we present a case study including multiple iterations of a learning experience that integrates liberal education, design, and technology content and forms the core of an undergraduate transdisciplinary degree program. Using an ethnographic approach, we trace the evolution of students’ and instructors’ perceptions and intentions in relation to integrating liberal education, and document these perspectives through interviews, focus groups, and course observations.

/pdf/systematically-integrating-liberal-education-in-a-54pgf9xbsr.pdf

Systematically Integrating Liberal Education in a Transdisciplinary Design Studio Environment

Collaboration has been identified as a key 21 century skill, vital for success in multidisciplinary environments that are increasingly common in engineering and technology contexts. While researchers have frequently discussed how students develop competencies that facilitate success in groups, little is known about how individual students build their own sense of competence and autonomy after working primarily in groups. In this paper, we present results from an undergraduate transdisciplinary degree program in which students spent the first two years of their core degree experience working almost exclusively in groups, while also developing an individual set of disciplinary interests and competencies. Researchers built an understanding of students’ individual and group development through extended ethnographic engagement, focus groups, and interviews as students worked concurrently on group and individual projects for the first time during the first semester of their junior year. Based on analysis of this transitional semester, we identified strategies that students used to build an individual sense of competence, in both technical and “soft” skills. These strategies allow for a fuller conversation regarding how students adapt competence gained in their group experiences and identify new areas of competence that must be confronted and mastered. These findings indicate the need to further understand the differences in the ways that the sequencing of group and individual work might impact the development of competencies in individual students, and the ways in which a projectbased environment can encourage this development in a systematic and sustainable way.

Terri S. Krause

Papers

Faculty and instructional designers on building successful collaborative relationships

Instructional Strategies for Incorporating Empathy in Transdisciplinary Technology Education

Systematically Integrating Liberal Education in a Transdisciplinary Design Studio Environment

Moving Towards Individual Competence From Group Work in Transdisciplinary Education