An exploration for a critical practicum pedagogy: dialogical relationships and reflections among a group of student teachers     

Kedir Assefa Tessema 《Educational Action Research》2013,21(3):345-360

Student teachers’ potential to change and reflect on their activities can be positively influenced by the opportunities created in teacher education programs. This paper explores an educative opportunity with the researcher and his practicum advisees by facilitating a continuum of reflective school‐based activities through a dialogical relationship. The opportunities were sought through the researcher’s personal action research project during a practicum assignment at Haramaya University, Ethiopia, in the 2005/06 academic year. The action research was an exploratory practicum pedagogy in which the researcher, as a teacher educator practitioner, and eight student teachers as pedagogical and research participants, seized opportunities of collaboration and dialogical relationships. In the process, the participants examined pedagogical issues which emerged out of continuous and intimate discussions. Furthermore, the process affirmed the possibility of engaging educatively in contexts where resources are inadequately provided.  相似文献   

The Teacher Education Reform Process in Ethiopia: Some consequences on educators and its implications     

Kedir Assefa Tessema 《Teaching Education》2013,24(1):29-48

With the emergence of the discourse of TESO, teacher education in Ethiopia has been struggling to change rhetoric and practice by reaffirming a managerially driven reform performance. The terrain is now characterized by fresh, but globally dominant rhetoric. Salient in the emerging discourse is reform mottos and agendas such as ‘active learning’, ‘competence’, ‘participatory’, ‘paradigm shift’ and ‘system overhaul’. However, the process pursued by the ‘reform’ task performers is noticeably and evidently characterized as a managerial approach which sidesteps pedagogues and pedagogy in favor of fulfilling instrumental, central and market‐oriented agendas. The process has so far signaled a ‘reform’ process which I typically refer to as peripheralization of pedagogical practitioners. Conspicuously absent in the process is a critical vision of learning to teach and a structural continuum that connects faculty and school. The process has so far clung to the reinscribing of traditional modes of doing teacher education which has fallen far short of fulfilling what is in the high sounding rhetoric.  相似文献   

Mixing enhancement in T-junction microchannel with acoustic streaming induced by triangular structure     

Sintayehu Assefa Endaylalu  Wei-Hsin Tien 《Biomicrofluidics》2021,15(3)

The T-shaped microchannel system is used to mix similar or different fluids, and the laminar flow nature makes the mixing at the entrance junction region a challenging task. Acoustic streaming is a steady vortical flow phenomenon that can be produced in the microchannel by oscillating acoustic transducer around the sharp edge tip structure. In this study, the acoustic streaming is produced using a triangular structure with tip angles of 22.62°, 33.4°, and 61.91°, which is placed at the entrance junction region and mixes the inlets flow from two directions. The acoustic streaming flow patterns were investigated using micro-particle image velocimetry (μPIV) in various tip edge angles, flow rate, oscillation frequency, and amplitude. The velocity and vorticity profiles show that a pair of counter-rotating streaming vortices were created around the sharp triangle structure and raised the Z vorticity up to 10 times more than the case without acoustic streaming. The mixing experiments were performed by using fluorescent green dye solution and de-ionized water and evaluated its performance with the degree of mixing (M) at different amplitudes, flow rates, frequencies, and tip edge angles using the grayscale value of pixel intensity. The degree of mixing characterized was found significantly improved to 0.769 with acoustic streaming from 0.4017 without acoustic streaming, in the case of 0.008 μl/min flow rate and 38 V oscillation amplitude at y = 2.15 mm. The results suggested that the creation of acoustic streaming around the entrance junction region promotes the mixing of two fluids inside the microchannel, which is restricted by the laminar flow conditions.  相似文献   

Participatory Plant Breeding with Traders and Farmers for White Pea Bean in Ethiopia     

T. Assefa  B. Dagne  W. Argaw  D. Tessema  S. Beebe 《The Journal of Agricultural Education and Extension》2013,19(5):497-512

Abstract

Purpose: This research, conducted in Ethiopia, involved select stakeholders in the variety evaluation process early: to identify a greater number of acceptable varieties and to shorten a lengthy research and release process.

Design/methodology/approach: A Participatory Plant Breeding (PPB) approach was used in both on-station and community-based trial evaluations. Farmers, traders and processors evaluated bean varieties for promotion, considering field performance, culinary characteristics, market value, and canning acceptability.

Findings: Within four years, two varieties were identified and recommended for release which were high performing, had excellent consumption and cooking characteristics for local foods, fetched high local market prices and met international canning quality standards.

Practical implications: (1) Ethiopian men and women have distinct criteria for evaluating white pea beans, the former putting emphasis on marketability, with women focusing on food security issues. Both groups might be involved in the selection process. (2) Key characteristics cited by farmers, for instance, use for forage, may not be taken into account in the formal breeding process. Expanding the criteria used to determine which varieties should be released would make economic sense. (3) Farmers screened for local product acceptability before researchers put forward lines for testing by the export and canning industry. Local acceptability need not necessarily conflict with market chain acceptability—if the right processes are followed.

Originality/value: The context was unusual: a) the region was drought-prone; and b) the crop had to meet rigorous canning requirements, plus local preferences. The involvement of traders and processors was novel, as was the use of a ‘participatory framework’ even when the product had to meet stringent market requirements.  相似文献   

The Unfolding Trends and Consequences of Expanding Higher Education in Ethiopia: Massive Universities, Massive Challenges     

Kedir Assefa Tessema 《Higher Education Quarterly》2009,63(1):29-45

There have been significant increases in the number of universities and student enrollments in the last fifteen years in Ethiopia. The numerical gains have brought about improved access to higher education for students. The expansion has also diversified fields of study and opened opportunities to pursue higher degrees to a significant number of students. Furthermore, the opportunity created for the university staff includes increased university job security, positions in the university leadership and scholarships for PhD degrees. On the other hand, the downside effects of the massification have worsened the conditions of university teaching staff. Among others, it has resulted in increasing work load and extended work schedules for academic staff. A managerialist culture has evolved that measures teaching against instrumental outcomes. There is a sense of deprofessionalisation and deskilling among staff manifested in practices that are disconnections from professional knowledge, skills and attitudes. As staff are increasingly over-engaged, by taking more weekly class hours and managerial responsibilities, less 'down time' is available to keeping with developments in their fields of specialisation and practice  相似文献