Digital Technology and the Culture of Teaching and Learning in Higher Education

By Kwok-Wing Lai

In the last three decades there have been great changes in the higher education landscape in the economically advanced countries. For example, increasing access to higher education has resulted in a diversification of student populations that comes with a wide range of learning styles and learning needs which are rather different from the traditional, elitist student populations. At the same time, higher education institutions are asked to respond to the demands of globalisation and the knowledge economy, to prepare students with 21st century skills and competencies for the labour markets, which require changes in the curriculum and teaching practices. There are demands for increased efficiency, more transparent accountability and better performance in both research and teaching. Some policy makers see digital technology as a tool to help manage some of these changes, and in particular, to use it as a transformative tool in teaching and learning (Crook & Light, 1999).

Continued at: http://www.ascilite.org.au/ajet/ajet27/lai.html

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Access to Postsecondary Education: Can Schools Compensate for Socioeconomic Disadvantage?

By George Frempong, Xin Ma, & Joseph Mensah

While access to postsecondary education in Canada has increased over the past decade, a number of recent studies demonstrate that youth from disadvantaged socioeconomic backgrounds are vulnerable to some degree of exclusion from postsecondary education. These studies tend to emphasize the lack of financial resources and social capital as the main sources of this vulnerability. Our paper employs multilevel framework to explore the extent of the impact of schools on access to postsecondary education, especially for youth from disadvantaged background. Our analyses revealed that: (1) for youth with similar financial constraints who attend schools with relatively similar quality, those from disadvantaged socioeconomic backgrounds who attend schools with high concentration of low SES students are particularly vulnerable to exclusion from university education, and (2) a substantial portion of the SES effect operate through the impact of high school academic achievement and postsecondary education expectation on access to postsecondary education.

Continued at: http://www.springerlink.com/content/n240116240432t55/fulltext.html

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