Thursday 14 December 2023

Rethinking Assessment Methods in The Age of AI : Case of language or Multilingual studies

Rethinking assessment methods in the age of AI has become a must for any educationalist involved in higher education context or K12 at large. A case in point, one needs to reconsider tasks such as assignments or homeworks. These product-based type of assessment activities need to be reshaped and reformulated through other authentic assessment methods: case studies, peer to peer discussion (in-class), mind mapping + oral presentations, use of recorded videos and podcasts, provide critical thinking assignments whereby the critical thinking components should also be presented visually in a public speaking context (peer to peer). Therefore, assessments in courses such as writing, essays, translation, commentary or else, need to be combined with another authentic and live activity (usually oral or an audiovisual artifact need to be used and added to the other assessment technique).

Yet, and if we come back to the realities of modern higher education context in many contexts, such as the GCC, we would notice that there is a real need for a political will within the institution to implement such type of approach. Faculty development opportunities need to be procured and provided, also classroom sizes and faculty workload need to be rethought and aligned with the requirements of the new approach on assessment. So, a new philosophy needs to be adopted.

Fouad

Sunday 2 April 2023

Approche -Porgramme

New curriculum approach

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Friday 10 March 2023

Translator Education : Pedagogy, Practice and Research: Today I had a very interesting peer-to-peer intera...

Translator Education : Pedagogy, Practice and Research: Today I had a very interesting peer-to-peer intera...: Today I had a very interesting peer-to-peer interaction with my colleagues in the department. I was pleased with their interest and reaction...




Today I had a very interesting peer-to-peer interaction with my colleagues in the department. I was pleased with their interest and reactions. We discussed the relevance of Gibb's pedagogical approach to teaching in a university context. In other words, teaching in order to enable students' competencies instead of providing educational experiences that force them to memorize. In other words, how to teach in order that students understand and perform at the same time. 
The core focus was on whether our educational context allows us to facilitate a competency based type of pedagogies, usually oriented to enrich students' experience and prepare them not only for work but also for a sustainable lifelong venture. 
The teacher's engineering ability in designing and developing thriving learning environments seems to be the most challenging criteria in this enterprise. Added to that, the ability to integrate the experiential model in instruction is another challenging hurdle to surmount. This continuous professional development may help instructors to lead the competency based approach to teaching & learning.
 
All in all, leadership and management support is definitely needed to activate that approach, since it will be difficult to implement that important aspect of the teaching and learning scholarship without reducing the useless administrative burden and twisted bureaucracy that usually inhibit educational success either at the student, faculty or institutional levels.

Tuesday 8 November 2022

Understanding by design.... a good example of the scholarship of teaching and learning: does it work in the Arab Higher Ed context....? to what extent???

I don't know, but I think we are way way way far to believe , accept and implement that approach in our region. The purposeful intention ( or may be not) to strip faculty of their identity as professionals, dynamic reflective practitioners  and action research leaders ...are the main elements impeding faculty( henceforth, higher ed educators) in the region we work in to be innovative and engage in  transformative educational exchanges. We still practice and have upon us the policing, inspecting, and negative monitoring practices that demolish and diminish our potential to make sense of what we can do and launch our potential  in research and  teaching and ...also, some community engagement ...etc.

In my opinion a better monitoring of the situation can be done by attracting competent faculty with processional and grounded educational experience in the scholarship of teaching and learning in a higher education context, to get rid of the traditionally inherited curriculum practices from early 60' and which were predominantly used at school level to control the huge mass of kids and excessively monitoring the teachers. Changing the vision and approach is key. Faculties have PhDs and not BA's, and some do have educational training ( pedagogical training ) or extended experience in academia topped with professional development workshop in teaching adults or Higher Ed students. Institutions need to limit that irrelevant interventions camouflaged under the umbrella of Quality Assurance. Quality assurance is not admin only.

 Quality assurance needs to take care of the source of the problem: pedagogy/faculty profile and commitment and also those who believe in the innovative ways to addressing complex problems in higher education/industrial models ca contain production and industrial operations where machines and technology can be used and controlled.... not the case with humans .......paper work and all policy and admin stuff is time consuming and needs to be addressed otherwise, not burdening faculty with it . 

Provide educators chances to get ongoing , relevant and customized training & education in the new practices in higher education, not those inherited from industrial models of education from primary or secondary education context. Pedagogical practices are not transferred from your previous teacher, or are ad hoc, there is a whole scholarship behind teaching & learning in a higher education context. Read the literature. If we engage in that, the excessive and tiresome negative monitoring/moderating will not hold. So, recruitment of key profiles is step ONE. These profiles may be costly. Here we need to make a choice: save our image as a university and reach higher stages and ranks or remain the way we are by using and continuously implementing the wrong practices that will not lead to positive outcomes neither at local or global levels.

The video is just an example of the kind of endeavors and philosophies that need to be adopted to intervene differently in higher education.

Saturday 18 June 2022

Importance of professional acumen for instructors engaged in professionally oriented programs (application to translation/interpreting programs)





When teaching students / training trainees in a professionally oriented college or university context, a very key element is needed in instructor, teacher or trainer profile: professional knowing & doing as well as having a sense of belonging to a either a hybrid or sole disciplinary area. The most distinguished/ golden rule is when the teacher, trainer or instructor succeeds in transferring the doing and knowing of the profession to the students....including developing the corresponding identify ( or what is referred to in education literature with self-concept). Of course , students can not make sense of the new knowledge and practice since they have never been exposed to the environment yet unless they did so via internship or occasional access.

Nowadays , many programs in academia claim to provide future/practitioners/ professionals ( as they say) and this creates a certain type of misalignment in terms of existing human resources and needed outcomes in the program. This is due to the lack of such pertinent profiles. The victim in this operation is, of course,  the student and the institutions image/ brand name......on along term. Therefore, quality and supervision of instructor profile and competencies becomes necessary to guarantee a decent level quality of education and assure parents and society alike  of the serious and relevant mission of the institution. In a public university context, this remains a far reached outcome, at least in most of intuitions. In the private Higher Ed sector, the objective can be reached and fulfilled to a certain level. Parents want to ensure that  clear mechanisms ( pedagogical & professional) need to be in place to make sense of their investments, an that it should be fair.

Last, the ache's heal is in the human factor ( faculty, instructor, student, parents) and not in the object ( content, courses, assessments...etc).  For example, investing in humans intervening in the educational contexts and set criteria for them to practice the profession ( even at private sector level) is a fundamental requirement to ensure quality in education. You cannot provide ' transitioning solutions' that could ruin the face value of the intuition - even if you do so temporarily. It is risky. It belittles from the good standing of the institution in place. Brining in an academic or 'someone in the team' to do the temporary task, although not qualified to do so, may impact negatively on students  and minimize from their motivation towards learning and may change their perception towards the entire department/institution.

The above reflections has application in translation & interpreting programs, especially those oriented towards developing professional and market oriented competencies without neglecting or sidelining the academic component( the practical/less abstract and transferable skills and abilities)

Fouad

Tuesday 26 April 2022

Simultaneous interpreting ....fully online!

Last semester I taught the advanced course in simultaneous interpreting for my MA students at SEU . It was delivered fully online by then, but now it is delivered in a hybrid format. I used the interpreting environment on zoom ( you need to pay for it) to teach it. Students appreciated the experience of interpreting remotely and it did make sense for them that it could be done remotely ( I mean conference /simultaneous interpreting). The Zoom conference interpreting facility was the solution to go for at that time and  it did fulfill the requirements of the training purposes and objectives. Zoom replaced the interpreting lab environment and no technical issues were faced during the training sessions.

I was the designer and developer of this graduate course that contains 14 modules, 7 Critical thinking assignments, 6 discussion points, a mid and final exam. I am glad I was involved in the design/development and implementation of this course.



Rethinking Assessment Methods in The Age of AI : Case of language or Multilingual studies

Rethinking assessment methods in the age of AI has become a must for any educationalist involved in higher education context or K12 at large...