Science and Technology Education

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Browsing Science and Technology Education by Subject "Empowerment"

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    Educational leadership and learner achievement: contemporary issues
    (National University of Science and Technology, 2015) Shava, George, N.
    The context of school leadership in Africa has been changing, which is reflected particularly in numerous past and ongoing educational reforms and school restructuring movements. At the macro level, the main trend of educational reforms include re-establishment of new national vision and new educational aims for schools, restructuring educational systems at different levels for new educational aims and market driving, privatizing, cost sharing, greater self management and self governance and diversifying school education throughout the world. At the meso level, there is increased parental and community involvement in school leadership. At the school site level, the major trends consist of ensuring educational quality, standards and accountability. At the operational level, the main trends include the use of Information and Technology (ICT) in learning and teaching and applying new technologies in management, and making a paradigm shift in learning, teaching and assessment. This paper examines educational leadership and learner achievement in schools. In this article I argue that, in many parts of the world, including both developed and developing countries, there is increasing recognition that schools require effective leadership schools are to provide the best possible education for learners. I conclude that the combined direct and indirect effects of school leadership on learner achievement may be small but educationally significant.
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    The Student Factor in building an e-learning culture: Experiences at the University of Botswana
    (Academic Publishing Limited, 2008-06) Phuthi, Nduduzo; Molwane, Olefile Bethuel
    This paper presents findings of a small study on the prevailing characteristics and preferences of university students that can be linked to their motivation to adopt and sustain e-learning as their key learning strategy. The qualitative case study was carried out through a questionnaire survey, interviews and classroom observations of third year students enrolled in a five-year degree programme in design and technology at the University of Botswana. The university has embarked on a deliberate path of technological transformation through the University of Botswana e-learning initiative (UBel) which has been significantly supported by the institution’s management (Thurab-Nkhosi et al 2005). In this study, students were taken through a variety of learning activities incorporating internet-searches, group work and peer presentations, media-enhanced lectures, and guest lecturing. Through these activities, the students were encouraged to discover and communicate their strengths and preferred learning styles in an attempt to inform their readiness and motivation to embark on full-scale e-learning as desired by UBel. Owing to various reasons, the bottom-up approach to organizational transformation and innovation diffusion is often less explored because of, among others, problems of feasibility and expediency. The largely imported e-learning technology is often assumed transferable and appropriate for all students, regardless of background, orientation and aspirations. While e-learning is indeed suitable for the maturing and independence- seeking university learners who need more guidance than shepherding, few academics appear to understand who their students are, and which of their characteristics can be useful to bring about identified change in the learning and teaching processes. It has been suggested that university students, the most sensitive section of society, are open to ideas and have unsettled minds looking for change, while the universities they attend are centres of revolutionary ideas (Dibaj 2000). There are opportunities to derive from this. For their part, higher education students in Botswana have been, and are being, shaped in the realm and mindset of the prevailing socio-cultural environment around them. Being citizens of a fast economically developing country with a rare ‘inborn’ multi-party democracy described as ‘an oasis of tolerance and non-violence amid civil strife and political chaos’ among its neighbours (Rule 1988), Botswana university students are likely to portray situation-consistent behaviours and attitudes towards learning in general, and e-learning in particular. The findings of this study suggest that the surveyed students were largely expressive but unempowered knowledge and information recipients whose intellectual potential and multiple intelligences (Pritchard 2005) were not being fully exploited. They preferred less challenging learning tasks only because they were used to them, but would otherwise welcome active, interactive and information-rich experiences in their learning, with e-learning as a definite favourite.