Papers by Christopher W. Harris
Blue Mountains International Hotel Management School, 2016
Post-secondary education in Singapore is undergoing momentous change with a hugely funded, centra... more Post-secondary education in Singapore is undergoing momentous change with a hugely funded, centrally governed and pervasive shift towards an industry engagement, lifelong learning and skills agenda across all education segments. While Singapore has long had dedicated skills and technical training available through its public-finded Continuing Education and Training programmes, Institutes of Technical Education and Polytechnics, the promotion of the Singapore Institute of Technology in 2014 to University status in its own right signalled that the hitherto research-driven Singaporean Public Universities would not be excluded from the party. The subsequent launch of the - Skills Future‖ funding to Singaporean citizens over 25 and spread throughout their working life, thereby enabling the public to take up offerings from across a plethora of approved education providers and types, furthermore emphasises this changing landscape. Such policies awaken the new dawn of a Higher Education that is modular, not refined to traditional temporal orders and aligned more to industry needs. The impact on the curriculum, structure and administration of University and Private Education Institutes will be significant.
1, 2019
Higher education; Australian universities; Canadian universities; corporatisation of universities... more Higher education; Australian universities; Canadian universities; corporatisation of universities; educational psychology; SOLO taxonomy; constructive alignment; assessment; outcome-based teaching & learning (OBTL); intended learning outcomes (ILO). Professor John Biggs is a world-famous psychologist and educationist who in 2017, was invested as a Member of the Order of Australia (AM) for "significant service to tertiary education, particularly in the fields of curriculum development and assessment". John Biggs has been actively involved in education for six decades and has been a Professor of both Education and Psychology. Professor Biggs' most groundbreaking and innovative contributions-such as SOLO taxonomy, constructively aligned OBTL (Outcome-based Teaching & Learning), criterion-referenced assessment and students' surface and deep approaches to learning-are all discussed in this wide-ranging interview. Moreover, Biggs discusses his illustrious academic career, his concerns about the corporatisation of universities and his alternative vision of higher education, and also what he refers to, tongue-firmly-in-cheek, as his "constructive but misaligned retirement".
Asia Pacific Journal of Marketing and Logistics, 2012
PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to examine the applications of the social networking software... more PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to examine the applications of the social networking software, Facebook, currently practiced by “expert user” faculty teaching within a Malaysian Higher Education Hospitality Diploma programme. Of particular interest is whether the faculty experiences with Facebook reveal its functional appropriateness for use on an experiential learning platform. The aim is also to prompt further research and experimentation with the medium on teachers and students.Design/methodology/approachPhenomenological: the researcher uses a focus group to enable the essence of teachers' experience in the utilisation of Facebook as a teaching and learning tool within the syllabus of their taught subjects in a shared hospitality curriculum to emerge.FindingsThe experiences divulged in the focus group reveal the use of Facebook as an “effective” medium for reflective purposes in relation to experiential teaching and learning activities and as a mechanism for reflective an...
Journal of Applied Learning & Teaching, 2017
With the increasing adoption of blended (flipped/ hybrid) learning yearby-year this century in hi... more With the increasing adoption of blended (flipped/ hybrid) learning yearby-year this century in higher education, the need for research on the learner experience in blended learning courses is an essential emerging body of literature, but it is one particularly under-represented in Asia. Furthermore, the assumptions emergent from a largely Western milieu investigating mostly Western students in Western University settings need to be tested in an Asian context. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to understand whether relationships exist between three hitherto well-researched factors-lecturer use of online content in teaching, the students' ages and students' understanding of contentand the participation online of working adult students enrolled in a Higher Education Blended course, but crucially one in a Singaporean Higher Education setting. The methodology employs a survey of students (n=1,047) analyzed using the Pearson Chi-Square test of independence. The findings show relationships between all three and student online participation and challenges previously held views that students in high teacher-dependency cultures like Singapore find blended and online learning inferior to traditional modes.
Journal of Applied Learning & Teaching
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The first half of 2019 was exciting for all involved with JALT. An international conference, EDU2... more The first half of 2019 was exciting for all involved with JALT. An international conference, EDU2019, took place in support of JALT (amongst other journals) in Athens, Greece, in May, 2019. EDU2019 was capably and charmingly organised by JALT Editorial Board Members Drs Margarita Kefalaki and Fotini Diamantidaki, and the action-packed conference was attended by some 100 participants from 21 countries. And then there were three exciting symposia at Kaplan Singapore, again with the offer to publish contributions in JALT:
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Jo u r n a l o f A p p l ie d Lea r n in g & T e a c h in g JALT http://journals.sfu.ca/jalt/inde... more Jo u r n a l o f A p p l ie d Lea r n in g & T e a c h in g JALT http://journals.sfu.ca/jalt/index.php/jalt/index Moses preferred a tablet or two to support his didactic classroom management style, Martin Luther was known to have posted theses as much as 95 times in one day on his wall, and school teachers moved from notes on blackboard to notes on Blackboard© (Figures 1 a-c). It seems the preferred Learning Management System (LMS) Platform changes even when the names don't and the space has never really been won (Spectrum, 2018). In the arguably post-LMS Schools of today (Mott, 2010) where digital is ubiquitous, technological affordances abound (Glowatz & O'Brien, 2018) and lines are increasingly blurred between levels and sectors of education and training, the choices for education decisionmakers from where they may minimally host materials to an environment where whole courses play out and everything in between are varied and alluring. However, educators find ourselves like Pi, sometimes agnostic and uncertain as to which to employ yet, at other times polytheist, taking sup at the altars of one platform supplier after another.
Journal of Applied Learning and Teaching, 2020
Lecturers and teachers teaching in blended learning courses have myriad teaching strategies to em... more Lecturers and teachers teaching in blended learning courses have myriad teaching strategies to employ and various online and face-to-face content at their disposal. There is still much we can find out about what and when to blend online and face-to-face components. In this study, we investigated the effects of the lecturer’s synchronous use of online content in the physical class on the subsequent asynchronous online participation and performance of higher education students. We found that the teacher’s use of the online content in the physical class has a positive effect on students’ subsequent online participation out-of-class. The results illustrate that intentional and integrated online and face-to-face components have positive impacts on students’ engagement and online participation. The results have implications for teachers, course designers, learners, and researchers of higher education blended courses.
Journal of Applied Learning and Teaching , 2019
Professor John Biggs is a world-famous psychologist and educationist who in 2017, was invested ... more Professor John Biggs is a world-famous psychologist and educationist who in 2017, was invested as a Member of the Order of Australia (AM) for “significant service to tertiary education, particularly in the fields of curriculum development and assessment”. John Biggs has been actively involved in education for six decades and has been a Professor of both Education and Psychology. Professor Biggs’ most ground-breaking and innovative contributions – such as SOLO taxonomy, constructively aligned OBTL (Outcome-based Teaching & Learning), criterion-referenced assessment and students’ surface and deep approaches to learning – are all discussed in this wide-ranging interview. Moreover, Biggs discusses his illustrious academic career, his concerns about the corporatisation of universities and his alternative vision of higher education, and also what he refers to, tongue-firmly-in-cheek, as his “constructive but misaligned retirement”.
APAC CIO Outlook 2018, 2018
When is the right time to intervene with a student who might be struggling in their learning jour... more When is the right time to intervene with a student who might be struggling in their learning journey? A complex question but one we sought to answer partly with a big data project using data we had collected over many years on our students. The Project, called the Student Journey Project, was housed in the School of Diploma Studies, of which the author is Dean and was inspired by Associate Professor Mr. Keith B Carter's book, "Actionable Intelligence: A Guide to Delivering Business Results with Big Data Fast!". This article explores the drivers, decisions, and details made on that project as well as some early results.
Berjaya Journal of Services and Management, 2015
Higher education has, under the influence of global political, economic, social and other forces,... more Higher education has, under the influence of global political, economic, social and other forces, undergone significant change, the results of which include a higher demand for user pays education and the positioning of the student as customer within a system that more and more resembles a managed economy. The concurrent emergence of management cultures, along with the commoditisation and casualisation of education, challenges traditional concepts of the role and status of faculty and the academic community. Within Tourism, Hospitality and Events education (THE), itself a relatively recent arrival, faculty status is further complicated by broader questions of legitimacy and sustainability as researchers continue to disagree on the very essence of the THE discipline and graduate. This paper seeks to develop the principles underpinning a new model of organising the THE School and its internal actors to negotiate these challenges and stake a claim within the new higher education market economy, advancing the debate between the traditional and the managerial approaches to higher education management. Identifying through a review of the literature a consensus on the THE graduate as the service thinker-doer, the paper then seeks to propose principles for organising the school that can best enable such a student to develop. The paper does this by identifying a gap in the approach of service marketing as hitherto applied to higher education; the paper uses an application of the ‘internal service blueprint’ to propose principles underpinning a model for realigning the institution around the core functions and missions of teaching, learning and research. Specifically, the lecturer is positioned as customer within the service blueprint and the student as service provider, an original exploration of the internal service blueprint within THE education.
Journal of Applied Learning and Teaching (JALT), 2017
The journal is a high-quality collection of work articulating the myriad possibilities in the ‘cl... more The journal is a high-quality collection of work articulating the myriad possibilities in the ‘classroom’ in all its forms, which also gives a voice to research and commentary on alternative approaches to teaching and learning.
The journal is open to contributions from around the world. Our journal is intended to have no geographical limits and to be within an international context on the broad subject of learning and teaching (predominantly within Higher Education). Also, we may have a focus on qualitative research, but articles will be taken on their merit.
This first issue in December 2017 consists of: three peer-reviewed articles unintentionally with a focus on technological impacts in the classroom; one education technology review; a section on book reviews; and a section with more journalistic pieces.
The distribution is conceived to be online and open. In addition, we distribute the journal through different channels to maximize the impact for our worthy contributors.
The editorial team consists of me, Chris Harris with Juergen Rudolph as the co-editor and Eric Yeo as associate editor.
Journal of Applied Learning and Teaching (JALT), 2018
JALT was conceived in 2017 as a high-quality collection of work articulating the myriad possibili... more JALT was conceived in 2017 as a high-quality collection of work articulating the myriad possibilities in the ‘classroom’ in all its forms, which also gives a voice to research and commentary on alternative approaches to teaching and learning.
The journal is open to contributions from around the world. Our journal is intended to have no geographical limits and to be within an international context on the broad subject of learning and teaching (predominantly within Higher Education). Also, we may have a focus on qualitative research, but articles will be taken on their merit.
This second issue in December 2018 consists of: three peer-reviewed articles; one education technology review; a section on book reviews; and a section with more journalistic pieces. A new genre, Interview with an educational leader, is included here with a fascinating look at education futures with Chan-Zuckerberg-Initiative's Dr. Bror Saxberg.
The distribution is conceived to be online and open. In addition, we distribute the journal through different channels to maximize the impact for our worthy contributors.
The editorial team consists of me, Chris Harris with Juergen Rudolph as the co-editor and Eric Yeo as associate editor.
Journal of Applied Learning and Teaching, 2018
With the increasing adoption of blended (flipped/ hybrid) learning year-by-year this century in h... more With the increasing adoption of blended (flipped/ hybrid) learning year-by-year this century in higher education, the need for research on the learner experience in blended learning courses is an essential emerging body of literature, but it is one particularly under-represented in Asia. Furthermore, the assumptions emergent from a largely Western milieu investigating mostly Western students in Western University settings need to be tested in an Asian context. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to understand whether relationships exist between three factors-lecturer use of online content in teaching, the students' ages and students' understanding of content – and the participation online of working adult students enrolled in a Higher Education blended course in a Singaporean Higher Education setting. The methodology employs a survey of students (n=1,047) analyzed using the Pearson Chi-Square test of independence. The findings show relationships between all three and student online participation and challenges previously held views that students in high teacher-dependency cultures like Singapore find blended and online learning inferior to traditional modes. 2 The relationships between lecturer use of online in-class, student age, student self-stated understanding and students' use of online content in a blended commerce course
In August, 2015, and after 6 months of consultation, reflection and preparation, the Kaplan Singa... more In August, 2015, and after 6 months of consultation, reflection and preparation, the Kaplan Singapore School of Diploma Studies launched version 2 of its Blended (Flipped) Learning course, the Part-Time Diploma in Commerce, a blended course whose first version has launched in April 2014 with mixed results. The following summary introduces Kaplan's approach to Blended, presents the lessons learnt from version 1 and, lastly, demonstrates the positive impact that the Blended Learning mode version 2 course is having on student pass rates compared to the same course offered face-to-face.
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Papers by Christopher W. Harris
The journal is open to contributions from around the world. Our journal is intended to have no geographical limits and to be within an international context on the broad subject of learning and teaching (predominantly within Higher Education). Also, we may have a focus on qualitative research, but articles will be taken on their merit.
This first issue in December 2017 consists of: three peer-reviewed articles unintentionally with a focus on technological impacts in the classroom; one education technology review; a section on book reviews; and a section with more journalistic pieces.
The distribution is conceived to be online and open. In addition, we distribute the journal through different channels to maximize the impact for our worthy contributors.
The editorial team consists of me, Chris Harris with Juergen Rudolph as the co-editor and Eric Yeo as associate editor.
The journal is open to contributions from around the world. Our journal is intended to have no geographical limits and to be within an international context on the broad subject of learning and teaching (predominantly within Higher Education). Also, we may have a focus on qualitative research, but articles will be taken on their merit.
This second issue in December 2018 consists of: three peer-reviewed articles; one education technology review; a section on book reviews; and a section with more journalistic pieces. A new genre, Interview with an educational leader, is included here with a fascinating look at education futures with Chan-Zuckerberg-Initiative's Dr. Bror Saxberg.
The distribution is conceived to be online and open. In addition, we distribute the journal through different channels to maximize the impact for our worthy contributors.
The editorial team consists of me, Chris Harris with Juergen Rudolph as the co-editor and Eric Yeo as associate editor.
The journal is open to contributions from around the world. Our journal is intended to have no geographical limits and to be within an international context on the broad subject of learning and teaching (predominantly within Higher Education). Also, we may have a focus on qualitative research, but articles will be taken on their merit.
This first issue in December 2017 consists of: three peer-reviewed articles unintentionally with a focus on technological impacts in the classroom; one education technology review; a section on book reviews; and a section with more journalistic pieces.
The distribution is conceived to be online and open. In addition, we distribute the journal through different channels to maximize the impact for our worthy contributors.
The editorial team consists of me, Chris Harris with Juergen Rudolph as the co-editor and Eric Yeo as associate editor.
The journal is open to contributions from around the world. Our journal is intended to have no geographical limits and to be within an international context on the broad subject of learning and teaching (predominantly within Higher Education). Also, we may have a focus on qualitative research, but articles will be taken on their merit.
This second issue in December 2018 consists of: three peer-reviewed articles; one education technology review; a section on book reviews; and a section with more journalistic pieces. A new genre, Interview with an educational leader, is included here with a fascinating look at education futures with Chan-Zuckerberg-Initiative's Dr. Bror Saxberg.
The distribution is conceived to be online and open. In addition, we distribute the journal through different channels to maximize the impact for our worthy contributors.
The editorial team consists of me, Chris Harris with Juergen Rudolph as the co-editor and Eric Yeo as associate editor.