Description:
The research on sociocultural approaches to pedagogy is full of teachers who attempt to draw on "historically accumulated and culturally developed bodies of knowledge and skills" (Moll, Amanti, Neff, & Gonzalez, 1992, p.133) to engage their students in learning in the classroom. In the field of educational technology, research examining young people's lives largely focuses on school contexts, and tends to ignore the value of informal learning outside of the school gate. In this chapter, the "other" (Lévinas, 1979) concerns the formal curriculum outcomes performed in the out-of-school lives of young people's practices with digital technologies.
Description:
The High Level Architecture (HLA) offers a dramatic extension of reuse for distributed simulation components. At the same time the HLA represents a significant training and education challenge if adoption of the architecture is to proceed at an adequate pace. In this context it is appropriate to consider tools and techniques that support effective pedagogy for HLA. This paper describes two innovations that have proved useful in short courses for HLA developers. The first supports scripting of basic HLA interactions so that a significant first encounter with HLA can proceed without the cognitive overhead of program development. The second supports an extended HLA software development training exercise in which groups of students work independently on components of a complete HLA simulation. An exercise of this scope becomes problematic when incomplete and possibly incorrect components are tested against each other. The tool described offers an adaptable test harness of correct components, in various states of completion, against which students can initially test their work.
Description:
The High Level Architecture (HLA) offers a dramatic extension of reuse for distributed simulation components. At the same time the HLA represents a significant training and education challenge if adoption of the architecture is to proceed at an adequate pace. In this context it is appropriate to consider tools and techniques that support effective pedagogy for HLA. This paper describes two innovations that have proved useful in short courses for HLA developers. The first supports scripting of basic HLA interactions so that a significant first encounter with HLA can proceed without the cognitive overhead of program development. The second supports an extended HLA software development training exercise in which groups of students work independently on components of a complete HLA simulation. An exercise of this scope becomes problematic when incomplete and possibly incorrect components are tested against each other. The tool described offers an adaptable test harness of correct components, in various states of completion, against which students can initially test their work.
Description:
This paper explores some of the possibilities and dilemmas that have arisen for us as tertiary teachers of future teachers as we attempt a critical pedagogy through literacy. We are interested in problematising both the so-called 'literacy problems' of current preservice teachers, and also the orthodox canonical understanding of academic literacies. Grounded in the constraints of contemporary neo-conservative socio-political circumstances of life, including education, we imagine the possibility that education could be otherwise. Our critical literacy pedagogical approach seeks to disrupt our students' taken-for-granted understandings of themselves, their world and what it is, and could be like, to be teachers in schools. The material on which this paper is based is derived from our reflections on students' written responses to our pedagogy as we engage in on-going action research about our teaching. Through the language used in the responses, we see evidence of students' engagement (or not) in the critical enterprise. Contradictions emerge regarding the varying discourses about learning, knowledge, teaching and academic literacies that the students and we, as teachers, live out in the tertiary classroom. In making visible our struggles to explore with our students that which is 'not yet', we foreground and celebrate tertiary teaching.
Description:
This paper explores some of the possibilities and dilemmas that have arisen for us as tertiary teachers of future teachers as we attempt a critical pedagogy through literacy. We are interested in problematising both the so-called 'literacy problems' of current preservice teachers, and also the orthodox canonical understanding of academic literacies. Grounded in the constraints of contemporary neo-conservative socio-political circumstances of life, including education, we imagine the possibility that education could be otherwise. Our critical literacy pedagogical approach seeks to disrupt our students' taken-for-granted understandings of themselves, their world and what it is, and could be like, to be teachers in schools. The material on which this paper is based is derived from our reflections on students' written responses to our pedagogy as we engage in on-going action research about our teaching. Through the language used in the responses, we see evidence of students' engagement (or not) in the critical enterprise. Contradictions emerge regarding the varying discourses about learning, knowledge, teaching and academic literacies that the students and we, as teachers, live out in the tertiary classroom. In making visible our struggles to explore with our students that which is 'not yet', we foreground and celebrate tertiary teaching.
Description:
The impetus of this study comes from the 2009 Commonwealth Government of Australia’s $16.2 billion investment in school infrastructure under the Building the Education Revolution (BER) program. The BER program was supposed to stimulate the economy through creating construction jobs by building schools and ensuring that workers had jobs during the global financial crisis. Provision of learning spaces and learning space design was secondary to this need to create construction jobs. This thesis aimed to explore the teaching activity using an activity system based on Cultural-Historical Activity Theory (CHAT) (Engestrom, 1987) with the intent of bringing out or exposing the contribution made by the BER school infrastructure program on teaching especially around issues of pedagogy, teamwork, wellbeing, collaboration and interactions with students. Using a mixed-methods approach, the study utilised three sources of data, document analysis, online survey responses and focus group interviews. In the first phase, data were collected using a document analysis, this information guided the design of the online survey instrument, which was used to collect data in the second phase. Data collected using both the document analysis and online survey responses were used in the third phase, which involved focus group interviews. The data analysis involved identifying, grouping together and labelling document analysis, data from the online survey and transcripts of focus group interviews. These were coded and organised into themes, or units of meaning. The quantitative data was presented in frequency tables and descriptive statistics. This quantitative data was corroborated with extracts from focus group interviews and document analysis data where possible. The study’s findings demonstrated that school infrastructure supports teacher collaboration by allowing for team planning and co-teaching. Furthermore, the study revealed a link between teacher collaboration and teacher wellbeing. The study findings indicate that when teachers plan together and co-teach, their workload is reduced contributing positively to teacher wellbeing. The study suggests that a relationship exists between school infrastructure and student-teacher interactions, which serves to reduce negative interactions when dealing with outside classroom behaviour. The present study seeks to generate insights that, while unique to participants and individuals, are anticipated to be of interest to teachers more broadly. Potentially, the findings from this study could inform other educational contexts, for example, school architectural designers. Significantly, this research seeks to contribute to literature on the importance of school infrastructure on teacher performance ultimately improving student-learning outcomes.
Description:
The impetus of this study comes from the 2009 Commonwealth Government of Australia’s $16.2 billion investment in school infrastructure under the Building the Education Revolution (BER) program. The BER program was supposed to stimulate the economy through creating construction jobs by building schools and ensuring that workers had jobs during the global financial crisis. Provision of learning spaces and learning space design was secondary to this need to create construction jobs. This thesis aimed to explore the teaching activity using an activity system based on Cultural-Historical Activity Theory (CHAT) (Engestrom, 1987) with the intent of bringing out or exposing the contribution made by the BER school infrastructure program on teaching especially around issues of pedagogy, teamwork, wellbeing, collaboration and interactions with students. Using a mixed-methods approach, the study utilised three sources of data, document analysis, online survey responses and focus group interviews. In the first phase, data were collected using a document analysis, this information guided the design of the online survey instrument, which was used to collect data in the second phase. Data collected using both the document analysis and online survey responses were used in the third phase, which involved focus group interviews. The data analysis involved identifying, grouping together and labelling document analysis, data from the online survey and transcripts of focus group interviews. These were coded and organised into themes, or units of meaning. The quantitative data was presented in frequency tables and descriptive statistics. This quantitative data was corroborated with extracts from focus group interviews and document analysis data where possible. The study’s findings demonstrated that school infrastructure supports teacher collaboration by allowing for team planning and co-teaching. Furthermore, the study revealed a link between teacher collaboration and teacher wellbeing. The study findings indicate that when teachers plan together and co-teach, their workload is reduced contributing positively to teacher wellbeing. The study suggests that a relationship exists between school infrastructure and student-teacher interactions, which serves to reduce negative interactions when dealing with outside classroom behaviour. The present study seeks to generate insights that, while unique to participants and individuals, are anticipated to be of interest to teachers more broadly. Potentially, the findings from this study could inform other educational contexts, for example, school architectural designers. Significantly, this research seeks to contribute to literature on the importance of school infrastructure on teacher performance ultimately improving student-learning outcomes.
Description:
This paper proposes some possibilities for thinking with a landscape as a pedagogical concept, inspired by posthuman theory. The idea of thinking with a landscape is enacted in the Australian Alps (AA), concentrating on the contentious environmental dilemma involving introduced horses and their management in this bio-geographical location. The topic of horses is of pedagogical relevance for place-responsive outdoor environmental educators as both a location-specific problem and an example of a troubling issue. The paper has two objectives for employing posthuman thinking. Firstly, it experiments with the alternative methodological possibilities that posthuman theory affords for outdoor environmental education, including new ways of conducting educational research. Secondly, it explores how thinking with a landscape as a pedagogical concept may help open ways of considering the dilemma that horses pose. The pedagogical concept is enacted through some empirical events which sketch human-horse encounters from the AA. These sketches depict some of the pedagogical conversations and discursive pathways that encounters can provoke. Such encounters and conversations are ways of constructing knowledge of the landscape, covering multiple species, perspectives and discursive opportunities. For these reasons, this paper may be of relevance for outdoor environmental educators, those interested in the AA or posthuman theorists. [Author abstract]
Description:
Recent times have seen a large increase in the numbers of international students attending Australian universities. At some universities, international students comprise up to twenty percent of the whole student cohort. Yet university teachers report that they feel ill-equipped and untrained to teach such students. International students themselves report that they feel undervalued and that their teaching and learning needs are often not well met. This paper reports on research on the experiences of both university lecturers and international students of teaching and learning at Australian universities. This research found strong evidence of a ‘gap’ in perceptions between staff and students about how well the learning needs of international students are being met and a general lack of awareness amongst university lecturers of teaching and learning issues in relation to international students. The paper will detail the impacts of these issues in terms of curriculum, pedagogy and assessment, and the broader factors influencing the learning of international students. It will suggest some strategies for better internationalising not only curriculum content, but also teaching methods and assessment practices. Such strategies will be of benefit not only to international students but also all learners in a diverse learning environment.
Description:
Recent times have seen a large increase in the numbers of international students attending Australian universities. At some universities, international students comprise up to twenty percent of the whole student cohort. Yet university teachers report that they feel ill-equipped and untrained to teach such students. International students themselves report that they feel undervalued and that their teaching and learning needs are often not well met. This paper reports on research on the experiences of both university lecturers and international students of teaching and learning at Australian universities. This research found strong evidence of a ‘gap’ in perceptions between staff and students about how well the learning needs of international students are being met and a general lack of awareness amongst university lecturers of teaching and learning issues in relation to international students. The paper will detail the impacts of these issues in terms of curriculum, pedagogy and assessment, and the broader factors influencing the learning of international students. It will suggest some strategies for better internationalising not only curriculum content, but also teaching methods and assessment practices. Such strategies will be of benefit not only to international students but also all learners in a diverse learning environment.
Description:
This paper investigates undergraduates' innovative reflection-as a scripted and performed comedy routine in their School Revue-on their introduction as pre-service teachers (PSTs) to the discourses of Information Technologies (ITs) in teaching in schools. It is a small case study that we present here, mondful of the lack of generalisability that this presents, but we feel that it does lend itself to a close examination of a wide array of issues, experiences and outcomes in this small group that wrote and implemented the sketch in the Revue. Given the primacy of the role of language in any educational undertaking, it is perhaps not surprising that the focus of this sketch is on language, particularly as it is received by students, in that group of novice IT for Education students.
Description:
This paper investigates undergraduates' innovative reflection-as a scripted and performed comedy routine in their School Revue-on their introduction as pre-service teachers (PSTs) to the discourses of Information Technologies (ITs) in teaching in schools. It is a small case study that we present here, mondful of the lack of generalisability that this presents, but we feel that it does lend itself to a close examination of a wide array of issues, experiences and outcomes in this small group that wrote and implemented the sketch in the Revue. Given the primacy of the role of language in any educational undertaking, it is perhaps not surprising that the focus of this sketch is on language, particularly as it is received by students, in that group of novice IT for Education students.
Description:
In this paper we consider the aspect of teacher education which takes place, not in the school, but in the university classroom. Teaching about teaching, it is argued, must be grounded in students' understanding of the present, but must foster both hope and critique. Beginning from Maxine Greene's (2000) concept of imagination, this paper develops a notion of critical imagination as a way of conceptualizing a critical pedagogy in the university classroom. Two pedagogical strategies based on critical imagination are outlined and analyzed. Writing is prioritized as a pedagogical tool. Excerpts from our professional teaching journals, together with samples of students' writing in response to these strategies, clothe the strategies in the reality of teaching practice. We argue that the use of teaching strategies based on critical imagination as a means of 'jarring' students to think differently seems to move our students to think a little more humanely and a little more critically. But this is neither a simple nor unproblematic task.
Description:
In this paper we consider the aspect of teacher education which takes place, not in the school, but in the university classroom. Teaching about teaching, it is argued, must be grounded in students' understanding of the present, but must foster both hope and critique. Beginning from Maxine Greene's (2000) concept of imagination, this paper develops a notion of critical imagination as a way of conceptualizing a critical pedagogy in the university classroom. Two pedagogical strategies based on critical imagination are outlined and analyzed. Writing is prioritized as a pedagogical tool. Excerpts from our professional teaching journals, together with samples of students' writing in response to these strategies, clothe the strategies in the reality of teaching practice. We argue that the use of teaching strategies based on critical imagination as a means of 'jarring' students to think differently seems to move our students to think a little more humanely and a little more critically. But this is neither a simple nor unproblematic task.
Description:
Drawing on the findings from studies in Australia and Norway that explored the use of laboratories in the preparation of nursing students for entry to practice, this article identifies the pedagogical challenges for the undergraduate education of nurses. The findings from both countries are compared and, in spite of distinct differences in the level of financial investment, there are striking similarities between the ways in which laboratories are used in the two countries. The laboratories were designed to predominately represent acute care hospital environments. The participants demonstrated a high level of commitment and strongly held beliefs in the laboratory as a safe place to facilitate self-paced learning and as an environment where students can practice until they become competent and confident. However, at the same time, there was a striking lack of evidence to support these views. The participants in both countries reported a common approach to instruction: a proce! ss of teacher demonstration, followed by student repetition and practice. Variability in students' motivation also was reported and the participants especially expressed concern for those students with a low level of interest in the basic skills associated with personal care. The possibilities and limitations of using skill laboratories as part of the practical preparation for nursing are discussed, using the metaphor of laboratories as "fiction".
Description:
Davis and Sumara (2003) argue that differences between commonsense assumptions about learning and those upon which constructivism rests present a significant challenge for the fostering of constructivist approaches to teaching in schools. Indeed, as Rink (2001) suggests, initiating any change process for teaching method needs to involve some understanding of the theories supporting it. Although there has been considerable discussion about constructivism in the physical education literature over the past decade, there has been less attention paid to the assumptions about learning and knowledge that underpin it. This article makes a contribution toward redressing this oversight in the literature by examining the epistemology and assumptions about learning that constructivist theories of learning rest upon. Drawing on the work of Davis and Sumara (2003), I suggest that the term "complex" learning theories may offer a more useful description of the sometimes confusing range of constructivist approaches. I provide examples of, and suggestions for, the application of constructivism in practice and within which the body forms a prominent theme.
Description:
In order to critique the notion of ‘learner voice’ in vocational education and training (VET) policy, this paper draws from a project conducted by the authors on behalf of the Australian National VET Equity Advisory Council (NVEAC). The term ‘learner voice’ is used extensively throughout NVEAC documentation to describe the engagement of ‘disadvantaged’ students within the VET system. However, the concept of ‘voice’ being advocated, we argue, is a particularly ‘thin’ one which is linked to notions of client feedback, managed participation and the commodification of training rather than any broad sense of democracy, equity or social transformation. The paper critically examines current practices in relation to learner voice within the VET policy framework and their implications for the contested role of VET in contributing to social equity and redress of social and economic disadvantage.