Tuesday Onsite Presentation Session 4

Professional Training, Development & Concerns in Education

Session Chair: Alexius Chia

15:35-16:00

66677 | Interdisciplinary Writing Retreats to Grow Academic Publications: Evidence of What Works

Cath Fraser, Toi Ohomai Institute of Technology, New Zealand

It is a truth, universally acknowledged, that a professor in possession of good data must be in want of a writing intervention! Teaching staff in higher education have to be many things to many people: content experts who are pedagogically strong; teaching and learning leaders who are empathetic and nurturing; faculty members who are collaborative team players. As if that wasn’t enough, they also need to be research-active and published. For time-poor academics, producing scholarly outputs can often fall to the bottom of the list. In our institute, we have found our annual residential writing retreat to be one of the most effective professional developments in supporting academic writing activity and growing the number and quality of research outputs. Our Research Office has been running these week-long off-campus retreats for over 13 years, with a recent formal evaluation conducted of seven retreats, using a mixed-methods methodology comprising survey feedback and semi-structured interviews. This presentation would share our results: both publications and the tangential benefits which participants noted as a consequence of working alongside colleagues from other departments and disciplines. Examples here include coaching relationships, cross-disciplinary connections and collaborations, and a new/renewed engagement with research culture. The presentation will also share enablers and barriers to attendance and productivity, and suggested work-arounds. This capability-building strategy is readily adaptable to a range of contexts, and we hope that international colleagues will find some new insights and take-aways in our version of this well-established scholarly practice.

16:00-16:25

67878 | The Importance of Entrepreneurial Training for Post-pandemic Era in Hong Kong

Mei Mei Lau, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hong Kong

Yuk Chau Lam, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hong Kong

Wah On Cheng, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hong Kong

Sheung Man Yuen, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hong Kong

The Covid-19 outbreak on a global scale has sparked fears of an economic crisis and recession. With the economy heavily battered by the pandemic, unemployment rate in Hong Kong is at a 17-year high. Entrepreneurship is a way for every industry to stay competitive during the global pandemic. To equip youngsters with skills to become entrepreneurs, relevant trainings to students in the higher education sectors are required. The purposes of this research are to review the area of intention literature on the theory of planned behavior in relation to entrepreneurial training, to develop an entrepreneurial intention model about the impact of entrepreneurial training on the capacities, abilities, and desirability to start a business, and finally, to evaluate the need of training in entrepreneurship to students in higher education. An exploratory study was conducted and the sample comprised 340 university students who will graduate within 1 to 2 years’ time. Findings reviewed that entrepreneurial training is perceived to be critical to students’ career development. More importantly, they believe that they can step out of their comfort zones to learn new skills and kick-start a new venture. Finally, the study suggests some insightful directions for future research.

16:25-16:50

67312 | An Uneasy Co-existence With COVID-19: Reimagining Teaching & Learning in a Post-Pandemic World Alexius Chia, National Institute of Education, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore

The COVID-19 pandemic has left very few countries in the world unscathed, and many continue to suffer the crippling consequences brought about by the virus and measures taken to prevent its spread. While Singapore has had relative success in keeping the population safe by imposing a partial lockdown and tough safe management measures, what surprised everyone was that it was these very same measures that inadvertently unearthed the presence of deep-seated inequalities amongst a sizable group of learners from low-income families who had no means to access online resources when schools instituted home-based learning. As we amble towards an uneasy co-existence with the virus, we continue to be faced with a host of issues – including inequality of access – that affect what education might look like in this new normal. Schools and institutions of higher learning (IHLs) now have to grapple with new sets of demands. This presentation will start off by describing the various challenges faced by an education institution in Singapore that provides initial teacher preparation and teacher professional development for local and regional participants. It will then discuss some of the measures adopted, with regard to teaching and learning, in response to accompanying consequences brought about by disruptions caused by the pandemic. The presentation will end by postulating what teaching and learning might entail in a post-COVID-19 era and steps it should take to negotiate future uncertainties. Examples used in this presentation are culled from various teacher professional development courses conducted locally and regionally.

16:50-17:15

68544 | A Case Study of Pre-Service Teachers’ Physics Laboratory Skill in Measurement and Uncertainty

Trai Unyapoti, Srinakharinwirot University, Thailand

Suwicha Wansudon, Srinakharinwirot University, Thailand

Phatcharida Inthama, Srinakharinwirot University, Thailand

Thanida Sujarittham, Bansomdejchaopraya Rajabhat University, Thailand

In a physics laboratory, an experimental result and its uncertainty are significant because they permit others to evaluate the quality of the experiment. This is the most essential competency for high school science teachers. The purpose of this study was to explore laboratory skills in physics, particularly measurement and uncertainty. Data were collected from pre-service science teachers and pre-service physics teachers during the academic year 2022. The participants were given a measurement and uncertainty exam during class. Their responses were analyzed using the following procedures: reading an estimated value and uncertainty from a measurement, giving the uncertainty from the repeated measurement, propagating uncertainty, and writing the final results. The test revealed that the majority of responses lacked knowledge of uncertainty and the propagation of uncertainty. They provided incorrect answers and were unable to provide reasonable responses. In this work, the results will be discussed, along with the future direction of the research.