Blended learning (BL) is still in its infancy in the United Arab Emirates, but is gaining growing attention and acceptance. The particular university under investigation offers its nationally accredited graduate programs with a BL format that makes use of synchronous virtual classrooms, asynchronous self-study, and face-to-face sessions. The…

Undergraduate student perspectives regarding specific factors associated with self-directed learning were collected through eight focus groups. A total of 80 upperclassmen provided input revealing three emergent themes in the focus groups responses: (1) Student-Controlled, (2) Faculty-Controlled, and (3) Administration-Controlled Facilitators and…

Students earning a degree in mathematics often seek information on how to apply their mathematical knowledge. One option is to follow a curriculum with an actuarial emphasis designed to prepare students as an applied mathematician in the actuarial field. By developing only two new courses and utilizing existing courses for Validation by…

This study sought to distil recommendations and curriculum design principles that could underpin the re-imagination of the RMIT University coursework Masters of Sustainable Practice (MSP). The aim of the study was to redesign the program to better meet the expectations of contemporary working professionals. Four data sources were used to develop…

This article reports on a study of academic staff perspectives on disciplinary communities and skill development in disciplinary contexts. Fifty-five academic staff were interviewed across eight disciplines in four Australian universities. Responses of historians and mathematicians are the focus of this article. A socio-constructivist framework…

To build an effective model to train excellent doctors, Nanjing Medical University has proposed a five- plus three-year combined undergraduate-master's clinical medicine degree program. The program integrates undergraduate education, the education of research students, and standardized doctor residency training into a single system, allowing…

The purpose of this article is to investigate the struggles of teacher education students when confronted with establishing a social justice curriculum. The authors' work focuses on using multicultural literature as a starting point for the critical conversations that drive curricular changes. Introducing ideas of culturally responsive pedagogy…

In this article, the authors provide an overview of engineering and the engineering design process, and describe the steps they took to develop a fifth grade-level, standards-based engineering design task titled "Getting the Dirt on Decomposition." Their main goal was to focus more on modeling the discrete steps they took to create and…

I propose an approach to service-learning that encourages and enables students to engage with human rights and social justice in ways that are democratic and effective. I describe a teaching process in which civic action can be critically reflected on not just to promote engagement and build knowledge but ultimately to encourage and equip students…

The development, since 2000, of new national curricula across the Anglophone world signals a number of policy trends, including: a move from the explicit specification of content towards a more generic, skill-based approach; a greater emphasis on the centrality of the learner; and [ostensibly] greater autonomy for teachers in developing the…

We have designed a unique guided-inquiry-inspired course for entry-level graduate students using chemical research as a mechanism to teach research-oriented problem-solving skills. The course has been designed for flexibility around a shared research experience. The curriculum can be modified each year by incorporating a new research project into…

The initiative of the Department of Higher Education and Training (DHET) in South Africa to strengthen foundation phase teaching has resulted in the development of new foundation phase (Grades R--3) programmes at institutions that did not previously offer them. In this article we reflect on the conceptualisation and development of a pre-service…

In this paper we describe the design and implementation of a technology-active introductory first year university mathematics course. The design principles underpinning the course are presented. The results of the implementation show some areas where the technology-active approach has proven of value, as well as improvements that can be made for…

The Australian Curriculum has extensive references to literacy. It appears as not only a core strand within English, but also as a General Capability for the Curriculum as a whole. Such considerable focus leads to the question of what literacy actually means within such a context, and this paper aims to better understand the conceptualising of…

In this article we explore the dynamic between the pedagogical and the urban, attending to 'agentive urban learning'. By this we mean processes by which young people build agency in the urban context, in using the resources of the city to develop their own agency, and of developing agency to act within the city. By agency, we refer to the capacity…