Enacting post-reflexive teacher education

The purpose of this article is to re-conceptualize Schön’s call for a phenomenology of practice – moving away from reflection and towards post-reflexion – by explicitly drawing on philosophical and methodological tenets of phenomenology, specifically some of Vagle’s theorizing of a post-intentional phenomenology. Finally, we use this conception of post-reflexion to articulate a set of three concrete post-reflexive pedagogies of teacher education – An Affective Pedagogy; A Post-Reflexive Entangled Pedagogy; and An Interrogated “Assumptions of Normality” Pedagogy.     

Making Pedagogical Adaptability Less Obvious

In this article, I try to make pedagogical adaptability a bit less obvious. In particular, I use some post-structural philosophical ideas and some concepts at the intersections of social class and race to re-interpret Dylan Wiliam's conception of formative assessment. I suggest that this interpretation can provide opportunities to resist the urge to treat adaptability as only a technical teaching practice; to experience adaptability as a dynamic, complicated, and reciprocal relationship between teacher and student, rather than something that only the teacher invokes; and to explore some of the complex ways in which adaptability is socially-classed in classrooms.     

Curriculum as post-intentional phenomenological text: working along the edges and margins of phenomenology using post-structuralist ideas

In this article, I experiment along the edges and margins of the phenomenological notion of intentionality using the Deleuzoguattarian concepts of multiplicity and line of flight. Working from Pinar et al.’s anticipation that phenomenology would undergo discursive shifts tending towards the post-structural, I theorize curriculum as post-intentional phenomenological text. To illustrate, I use this post-intentional figuration to theorize some of my recent professional development work with teachers and argue that post-intentional phenomenological theorizing might be useful for curriculum theorists.     

National Assessment of Writing Proficiency Among Norwegian Students in Compulsory Schools

The paper reports and discusses a government‐initiated nationwide assessment of writing proficiency among Norwegian compulsory school students. A sample‐study of 7th and 10th grade students are discussed and reported with regard to challenges in measuring writing skills in a valid and reliable manner. For the 7th graders the results showed a greater proportion of narrative texts, and in contrast to more scientific oriented texts, was assessed as “lower than expected”; however, for the 10th graders the tendency was opposite with respect to central linguistic components. Low correlations between the raters were ascertained at both levels, indicating different views among teachers as to what can be expected of students' writing proficiency. The results are discussed in relation to the usefulness of the theoretical model as a basis for assessment of writing proficiency, as well as other obstacles to constructing valid and reliable writing tests.     

Critically-oriented pedagogical tact: learning about and through our compulsions as teacher educators

The work of critical teacher education centers on making sure future teachers learn to be critically-oriented practitioners. In this article, I assert that this sort of learning must first begin with the critical teacher educators themselves, and that much of the most fruitful learning manifests itself in the teacher educator’s compulsions. Drawing on a key finding from a phenomenological study that focused on cultivating pedagogical tact in teaching, I suggest that the ways in which I compulsively strategized at times limited what I could accomplish as a critically-oriented teacher educator; that each of us as teacher educators have compulsions that limit just as much as they make possible; and that our examinations of these compulsions are important for our students’ growth as critically-oriented practitioners.     

Phenomenological Methodologies in the Field of Educational Communications and Technology

The purpose of this paper is to clarify the philosophical and methodological variations of phenomenological research methods and their role in the field of educational communication and technology (ECT). Phenomenology is a qualitative research methodology concerned with investigating phenomena as they manifest through lived-experiences. The unit of analysis resides in the intentional meanings of phenomena. Analysis of those intentionalities, however, has evolved over the past century; phenomenologists have viewed intentionality as something that is: described (transcendental phenomenology), interpreted (hermeneutic phenomenology), or resists centering and embraces contexts, situations, and the partial (post-intentional phenomenology) (Vagle 2014, 2018). To conduct phenomenological research, then, one must be able to articulate the specific philosophical underpinnings associated with each approach and the suitability of each approach. To support researchers and practitioners in the field, this paper explicates philosophical and methodological variations of more prominent phenomenological research approaches as well as related issues and affordances. In doing so, this paper offers scholars in the field various perspectives in which to ground future phenomenological research.     

Reviews

This article aims to set out considerations resulting from international collaboration between educational thinkers in Norway and Wales concerning the proposed Foundation Phase in Wales and the Norwegian Framework Plan for Day Care Institutions, which cater for the same age of child. The essential feature of the Welsh proposal is the aim to place ‘well-being’ at the heart of educational work with children between the ages of three and seven. There needs to be an explicit consideration of the view of the child within policy and practice in order for the Foundation Phase to be successfully implemented. Welsh policy-makers and practitioners need to openly adopt a sociocultural view of the child in order to place well-being at the centre of the Foundation Phase at the level of the classroom, particularly at Key Stage 1. Well-being is considered in the light of Norwegian approaches. Practice in Norway and the findings from the recent EPPE project in Britain are used as a source of guidance for Welsh practitioners.     

Adult,Flexible Students’ Approaches to Studying in Higher Education

A Norwegian translation of the Approaches to Studying Inventory (ASI‐32) was administered to 1477 adult students attending flexible study programs in higher education in Norway (2004‐05). The intention was to investigate their approaches to studying, taking into account their educational backgrounds and their present, challenging study conditions. The latter being characterized by off‐campus studies and shortage of time due to working‐life and family obligations. This article is concerned with two questions: (1) Is prior education correlated with approaches to learning among these students? and (2) To what extent are contextual constraints, personal effort, and self‐efficacy associated with study approaches among these students? This study shows that adult, flexible students are primarily meaning oriented. The first‐time students among them, however, are more reproducing oriented than students with prior higher education. Self‐efficacy turned out to be more strongly associated with approaches than personal efforts. Obligations of everyday life, contrary to hypothesis, did not have the expected impact.