This short paper explores the potential contribution of design thinking methodology to the education and training system in South Africa. Design thinking is slowly gaining traction in South Africa. Design Thinking is gaining traction in South Africa. There is offered by the Hasso Plattner Institute of Design Thinking at the University of Cape Town…

This paper is a result of the development of the R+D Project "Schools that are moving towards inclusive education: working with the local community, the student voice and educational support for promoting change" in conjunction with the Innovation Project "Building Bridges. An Educational Innovation Project in the European Higher…

The present volume collects papers from InnoConf18 [Innovative Language Teaching and Learning at University Conference], which took place at the University of Liverpool in June 2018. The theme of the conference was "New trends in language teaching and learning at university." The contributions collected here aim to reflect on best…

This paper presents the requirements work carried out as part of developing an intervention to improve students' critical thinking skills using location-based mobile learning. The research emerged from seeking to identify ways of getting Interaction Design students into real world environments, similar to those in which they will eventually be…

Argumentation skills are frequently touted as archetypal tools of democratic empowerment, yet theorization of ways to use such tools to achieve concrete social change is rare. As a result, the emancipatory "telos" anchoring American academic policy debate tends to gallop ahead of practical efforts to build empowerment through the debate…

Writing teachers interested in overcoming student resistance or unwillingness to question authority should consider using "zines" in the classroom. According to one teen-ager, zines are "sorta like a magazine you publish yourself, but other people help you out." Concentrating on about any subject that interests its writers from…

Due to the fact that college classrooms are increasingly culturally diverse, the challenge for instructors is to foster a learning environment in which students gain a more focused sense of identity and achieve academic success. Through the use of stories in the communication classroom, at-risk students from diverse backgrounds can recognize the…

Students, either male or female, can be silenced by the adversarial discourse that often characterizes argumentative situations. Alternatives proposed by feminist rhetoricians should apply to any voice silenced in the classroom. Rhetoricians concerned with empowering writers of argument have illustrated three alternatives that enable writers to…

If students are treated like the fully human beings that they are and facilitate a process wherein they come to realize themselves as integral and empowered members of a living community, then no matter what is being taught, students will respond positively. A composition instructor serving at-risk urban youth in inner-urban Oakland and San…

Epideictic rhetoric, expression of praise or blame, animates much communication, from gossip to sermons, from commercial ads to love letters. Even when writing for purposes other than to judge, writers often frame their talk with implicit or explicit expressions of praise for individuals or groups or ideas considered "good." Epideictic…

Self-empowerment techniques are personal growth activities that are used over time to create a sense of self-worth, personal accountability, and power in an individual. Generally, the goal of these techniques is to recognize, accept, and act upon individual hidden reserves of talent, ability, and courage. The techniques are learned experientially…

The project of writing and assembling the rhetoric-reader "Reading the Landscape: Writing a World" came from a wish to open for discussion a strong feeling that thinking about the land and a person's relationship to it empowers people as writers. The objective was to develop a composition course related to the environment that will…

A study examined "Learning Community" meetings at the College of Education and Human Services at the University of Wisconsin Oshkosh in which professors, inservice teachers, and preservice teachers in a 15-hour semester block connected with a clinical field experience meet and engage in dialogue about the program. A total of four…

For many teachers and theorists of composition, the ingrained reluctance to use "I" came to stand as a powerful symbol of all that was alienating and disenfranchising about an institutionalized educational system that seemed more concerned with student discipline than empowerment. Consequently, the cultivation of the use of "I"…

To encourage students of an upper division writing class to recognize the nuances of voice or tone in their written work, one instructor began the first day of each class by discussing voice and tone. After the instructor reviewed their first-day writings, students were paired with a peer partner. At the end of each semester students were…