CHI TIẾT NGHIÊN CỨU …
Tiêu đề
Developing employability skills in humanities and social sciences using the flipped model
Tác giả
Ravenscroft B.; Luhanga U.
Năm xuất bản
2014
Source title
Proceedings of the International Conference on e-Learning, ICEL
Số trích dẫn
3
DOI
Liên kết
Tóm tắt
Canada, as elsewhere, is experiencing a growing demand for accountability in the higher education sector, and universities are being pressured to provide evidence that they are preparing their graduates for the workforce. In Ontario, Canada's most populous province, the Ministry responsible for higher education has articulated the "essential employability skills" required for graduates; these include communication skills, critical thinking and problem solving skills, and interpersonal skills. Through accreditation requirements, professional programs in business, health sciences and engineering have developed graduate-level competencies and embedded them into their curriculum, but the emerging need to demonstrate these skills in graduates from traditional liberal arts and science disciplines, presents bigger challenges. Even if agreement can be reached about the specific qualities humanities graduates might need in the workplace, other questions remain. How can these skills be developed in subjects that lack clear practical applications? And how can skills be fostered when first-and second-year university courses often have very high enrolments and are commonly taught in large lecture format? This case study examines how the flipped classroom model is providing students with greater opportunities to develop employability skills in humanities and social science courses. Four high-enrolment, introductory courses-psychology, sociology, classics, and gender studies-have been redesigned from traditional lecture format into flipped classroom models with the goal of enhancing student engagement through active learning. By replacing some lecture time with online learning, the courses are able to focus face-to-face learning activities on group work, collaborative learning and the application of knowledge. The effectiveness of these course transformations is being examined through a longitudinal descriptive research study that examines whether students engage in their learning differently in flipped courses. Quantitative data was collected via student surveys in the last offerings of the traditional format courses and is being gathered with each flipped classroom offering, using the Student Class-Level Survey of Student Engagement (CLASSE). Independent sample T-tests of the data for each course show that average scores in the flippedformat courses are higher than in the traditional versions. Specifically, the majority of the courses show statistically significant (p < 0.05) improvements in areas associated with employability skills such as collaborative learning, writing skills and higher order thinking skills. The results of this research verify the importance of instructional strategies and course design in achieving the development of employability skills, and suggest that the flipped classroom model can enable this process. By examining the specific ways in which these courses were transformed in the light of the corresponding research results, this paper offers other institutions insights into how to promote the development of similar skills in courses the humanities and social sciences. The demand for institutions of higher education to demonstrate that their graduates have acquired employability skills is a relevant issue across the globe. While much of the discussion has been focused on professional disciplines, this paper presents insights and research into developing these skills in humanities and social sciences.
Từ khóa
Blended; Course design; Employability skills; Flipped; Humanities; Social sciences
Tài liệu tham khảo
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Nơi xuất bản
Academic Conferences Limited
Hình thức xuất bản
Conference paper
Open Access
Nguồn
Scopus