Glasgow-Gaza collaboration across bordersAnia Rolińska (Bill Guariento, dr Nazmi Al-Masri)

anna.rolinska@glasgow.ac.uk@anzbau

English for Academic StudySchool of Modern Languages and CulturesGLOBAL

CONNECTIONSAND COLLABORATIONS

Wider project context

Subject specific pre-sessional course >

Science / Engineering / Technology >

Electrical engineeringCivil engineeringMechanical engineeringSoftware engineeringBiomedical engineeringGeology, Statistics

6.5 IELTS > Master’s/PhD at UofG

UofG Students

Approx. 40 students

• 80% at PG level

• L1: mainly Mandarin and Arabic plus Thai, Korean, Italian and Portuguese

Assessment until 2015

St-TSPRE

1500

Outcomes until 2015

St-TSPRE

1500 content knowledge

language skills

study skills

entering a PG programme at UofG

English for Specific Purposes

‘Requires the careful research and design of pedagogical materials and activities for an identifiable group of adult learners within a specific context’ (Dudley-Evans and Johns, 1991: 298)• Context• Situational practice• Cross-cultural issues• Authenticity of communication and materials• Needs analysis

Current changes in the world pose a challenge on teachers who need to prepare their ESP students to ‘deal with global communicative practices online, in all their complexity’ (White, 2007: 325)

Engineering education

‘Today, engineers throughout the world must take it for granted that they will work in other countries or be employed alongside people who have been trained in other countries’ (Lucena et al., 2008)

‘an ability to learn how to learn, an ability to form learning communities, and an ability to collaborate in distributed corporate settings, across countries, continents and cultures’ (Schaeffer et al., 2012)

Engineering education

Most effective ILOs:• a scholar; • a lifelong learner; • a global citizen

(Biggs and Tang, 2011)

‘Mega trends’: • changes forced by the fragile world

economy; • student and professional mobility; • use of communication technology; • the increasingly loud voice of the social

imperative (Shuman et al., 2005)

Innovations in 2015

StsSPRE

1500

Revised outcomes

StsSPRE

1500

language skills

study skills

contextualised content knowledge

entering a PG programme at UofG

transferrable skills

EAST - Partnership with IUG

StsSPRE

1500

IUG Students

18 students

• 80% at PG level

• Civil engineering, IT, Environmental engineering, Biological science, Mathematics and 2 Eng Lit

In practice – incentives

Informal development of• language skills• transferrable skillsContent knowledge exchange

Mini course in providing constructive feedback

Project technologies

EAST milestonesIUG students submitted engineering-related scenarios

EAST milestones

• Generating electricity for wastewater treatment

• Water drainage and sea pollution in Gaza

• Toxicity of pesticides in Gaza

• Groundwater salinity in Gaza

• Road traffic and effects on the environment

• Development of Arabic OCR

• I.T. applications in medicine

Students formed groups of 4-6 based on the scenario choice.

EAST milestones

Students communicated via social media to research scenarios, ask questions and get ongoing content-related feedback.

EAST milestones

Students used language purposefully and collaboratively

EAST milestones

• UoG students submitted essays.

• Groups of UoG students gave presentations to audiences in Glasgow and Gaza.

Learning outcomes

St-TSPE

1500

Project evaluation

Project evaluation

Project evaluation

Project evaluation

UofG student voices

IUG student voices

Challenges

Technology-related• connectivity• hardware/software• electricity shortages

Organisational• time and task management• thinking on your feet

Motivational• UoG students• IUG students• staff

Ways forwardOutputs• Constructive feedback training – CC-

licenced materials.

Research• Collaborative staff-student writing: extended

reflections on critical incidents and transformative learning;

• Comparative analysis of assignments prior/post project;

• Student tracking studies.

Developments• More balanced set of outcomes for both

groups;• ‘Leader by example’ mentoring scheme;• Other disciplines.

Last words

‘Methods to encourage students to embrace ambiguity, avoid premature closure, and increase reflection may greatly improve their creative skills’ (Daly et al, 2014)

The potentialities of the socio-constructivist framework can be fully exploited (Ligorio et al., 2011)

In reference to online learning: ‘negotiate, construct, and reconstruct new meanings from the contributions of others, in a genuine process of shared knowledge construction’ (Mayordomo and Onrubia, 2015)

‘learning is inherently social, which makes student interaction an important part of education’ (Schaeffer et al., 2012)

Very last words

‘Digital technologies offer many potential ways to foster global awareness in classrooms. Through infusion of both global education and technology in teaching and learning, teachers can foster students’ understandings of the interrelationships of people worldwide, thereby preparing students to participate meaningfully as global citizens’ (Crawford and Kirby, 2008)

‘our world has become increasingly “flatter”, or “connected”, since the turn of the century’, ‘the classrooms of today should look nothing like the classrooms of the past’ (Friedman, 2005)

ReferencesBiggs, J. & Tang, C. (2011) Teaching for Quality Learning at University, Buckingham: Open University Press, McGraw Hill.

Crawford, E. and Kirby, M. (2008) Fostering Students’ Global Awareness: technology applications in social studies teaching and learning. Journal of Curriculum and Instruction, 2(1), 56-73.

Daly, S.R., Mosyjowski, E.A., Seifert, C.M. Teaching creativity in Engineering courses, Journal of Engineering Education, 2014, 103/3, 417-449.

Dudley-Evans, T. and St John, M.J. (1991) Developments in Esp. A multidisciplinary approach. Cambridge: CUP.

Friedman, T.L. (2005) The world is flat: A brief history of the twenty-first century. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux.

Ligorio, M.B., Loperfido, F.F., Sansone, N., Spadaro, P.F. (2011) Blending educational models to design blended activities. In F. Pozzi & D. Persico (Eds) Techniques for fostering collaboration in online learning communities: Theoretical and practical perspectives. Hershey, PA: IGI Globla, 64-81.

Lucena, J., Downey, G., Jesiek, B., Elber, S. (2008) Competencies beyond countries: The re-organization of Engineering Education in the United States, Europe and Latin America, Journal of Engineering Education, 97/4, 433-447.

Mayordomo, R.M. & Onrubia, J. (2015) Work coordination and collaborative knowledge construction in a small group collaborative virtual task, Internet and Higher Education, 25/1, 96 -104.

Schaeffer, D., Panchal, J.H., Thames, J.L., Haroon, S., Mistree, F. (2012) Educating engineers for the near tomorrow, International Journal of Engineering Education, 28/2,  381-396.

Shuman, L. J., Besterfield-Sacre, M., McGourty, J. (2005) The ABET ‘Professional skills’: Can they be taught?  Can they be assessed?, Journal of Engineering Education, 94/1, 41-55.

White, C. (2007) Focus on the language learner in an era of globalization: Tensions, positions and practices in technology-mediated language teaching. Language Teaching 40/4,321–326

Photo credits - CC

Without Science by Brian Talbot (2006) https://flic.kr/p/bW9ge

Powerpoint presentation by Matthew Hurst (2009) https://flic.kr/p/6XFFqY

Writing? Yeah. by Caleb Roenigk (2012) https://flic.kr/p/brNqFE

Gaza crowd by blhphotography (2002) https://flic.kr/p/EboVZ

DEV DEV <summer of code/> by Chattanooga Public Library (2013) https://flic.kr/p/f6HGaK

Key skill assessment unit: problem solving by Richard Howes (2008) https://flic.kr/p/4m6viF

Teamwork and team spirit by 드림포유 (2007) https://flic.kr/p/o4ZHuD

Language by Jurek d. (2015) https://flic.kr/p/qJHt7n

https://easttelecollaboration.wordpress.com

anna.rolinska@glasgow.ac.uk

Questions?