Working the system: Development of a system model of technology integration to inform learning task design

There has been extensive investigation into factors affecting digital technology integration in learning and teaching, but the complexity of integration continues to elude understanding. Thus, questions about how digital technologies can be best used to support learning persist. This paper argues that methods designed to address complex systems are needed to understand the interplay between teaching, learning and digital technologies. Starting with a developing system model of teachers' technology integration, this study revises the model to include factors of students' experience using digital technologies and beliefs about learning. The revised model is then used to demonstrate possible effects of student experiences in a technologically integrated group learning task. Analysis draws on data from a large-scale Australian study of technology innovation (N = 7406). Data mining techniques are used to identify patterns of students' technology use and perceptions of group work. Findings inform revision of the model to include factors of students' experience and learning and their effects on teachers' practice. Implications for learning design and students' learning experiences are explored.     

Evoked prior experiences in first-year university student learning

In this article, we focus on three aspects of students' prior experiences of learning: evoked conceptions of learning, evoked motivation and evoked self-efficacy. We show how, for a first-year undergraduate population, these three aspects of evoked prior experience relate to students' approaches to learning and their perceptions of the learning environment as well as to their previous schooling, their gender and the broad discipline area in which they are studying. In doing so, we confirm that evoked prior experiences are distinct and measurable and can be used to better understand the ways in which students experience learning in higher education.     

Nature/nurture and intelligence in current introductory educational psychology textbooks

Self-regulated learners understand, value, and engage academic learning in ways that are fundamentally different than their peers who have difficulty in school. We discuss how students become aware of themselves as learners and the kinds of theories that students construct about schooling. Children's ideas about success and failure, their awareness and attribution, and their metacognition and motivation, develop concurrently as they progress through formal education. We focus on developmental changes in students' theories about learning and how they are influenced by variables in school such as task difficulty, helping behavior, and standards of success. Instructional conditions that promote children's self-regulated learning are also discussed. We believe that self-regulated learning is a desirable educational outcome that can be fostered by teachers who minimize academic competition, explain appropriate strategies, provide assistance during problem solving, and promote an atmosphere of collaboration in classrooms.     

“I Thought We Were Over This Problem”: Explorations of Race in/through Literature Inquiry

This article examines classroom practices that draw upon students' understandings of race and equity as they engage in critical literature inquiry to explore issues of power in our society. Our research team, comprising a fifth-grade classroom teacher, a doctoral candidate, and a university professor, analyzed students' written and digital projects to better understand what new skills, strategies, and meaning-making opportunities emerge when race is centralized in the curriculum. We documented the various ways students were able to voice their thoughts through multimodal learning in an elementary language arts classroom.     

Exploring science teaching in interaction at the instructional core

Recent instructional reforms in science education aim to change the way students engage in learning in the discipline, as they describe that students are to engage with disciplinary core ideas, crosscutting concepts, and the practices of science to make sense of phenomena (NRC, 2012). For such sensemaking to become a reality, there is a need to understand the ways in which students' thinking can be maintained throughout the trajectory of science lessons. Past research in this area tends to foreground either the curriculum or teachers' practices. We propose a more comprehensive view of science instruction, one that requires attention to teachers' practice, the instructional task, and students' engagement. In this study, by examining the implementation of the same lesson across three different classrooms, our analysis of classroom videos and artifacts of students' work revealed how the interaction of teachers' practices, students' intellectual engagement, and a cognitively demanding task together support rigorous instruction. Our analyses shed light on their interaction that shapes opportunities for students' thinking and sensemaking throughout the trajectory of a science lesson. The findings provide implications for ways to promote rigorous opportunities for students' learning in science classrooms.     

Learning through discussions

Students studying a third‐year e‐commerce subject experienced face‐to‐face and online discussions as an important part of their learning experience. The quality of the students' experiences of learning through those discussions is investigated in this study. This study uses qualitative approaches to investigate the variation in the students' understanding of what they were learning through discussions, and how they went about engaging in them. Quantitative analyses are used to investigate how the students' experience related to their performance. Key outcomes of the study include that the quality of the students' experience of learning through discussions is positively related to their performance and that face‐to‐face and online discussions have qualitatively different benefits for learning.     

Changing the Metacognitive Orientation of a Classroom Environment to Stimulate Metacognitive Reflection Regarding the Nature of Physics Learning

Problems persist with physics learning in relation to students' understanding and use of representations for making sense of physics concepts. Further, students' views of physics learning and their physics learning processes have been predominantly found to reflect a ‘surface’ approach to learning that focuses on mathematical aspects of physics learning that are often passed on via textbooks and lecture-style teaching. This paper reports on a teacher's effort to stimulate students' metacognitive reflection regarding their views of physics learning and their physics learning processes via a pedagogical change that incorporated the use of a representational framework and metaphors. As a consequence of the teacher's pedagogical change, students metacognitively reflected on their views of physics and their learning processes and some reported changes in their views of what it meant to understand physics and how they might learn and understand physics concepts. The findings provide a basis for further explicit teaching of representational frameworks to students in physics education as a potential means of addressing issues with their physics learning.     

Learning with trade unions: a contemporary agenda in employment relations

This paper seeks to advance our understanding of the credit transfer phenomenon in the UK, specifically how students draw on a credit as a form of institutional cultural capital. Drawing on interviews with 26 part-time mature learners, this paper examines the progressive and retrospective orientations to study that surfaced in students' accounts of credit transfer and their lifelong learning journeys. A common theme of ‘unfinished business’ appeared to dominate these accounts and a narrative-oriented analysis of the findings revealed the role of credit transfer in enabling students to complete varied personal projects or forms of ‘unfinished business’. The findings of this work suggest that in an increasingly complex higher education market, there is a need to understand students' strategic use of the credit they accumulate. In particular, this paper explores how credit transfer features in the narratives of students' successful learning journeys.     

Teachers as Designers of Learning Environments

Abstract

This study examined how six Singapore teachers approached the design and implementation of a unit of work (topic) to demonstrate exemplary classroom practices that engage learners and use ICT in knowledge-generative rather than presentational activities. After a reflection and feedback session on the first lesson observation involving the researcher and the teacher, the teacher redesigned the lesson to enhance ICT use and involve students more actively in their learning. Our study revealed that there is a difference between students' physical engagement and cognitive engagement in a task and that the teacher, as a designer of the learning environment, needs to make explicit the cognitive processes involved in using the tool to ensure students' effective use of ICT. The teachers' understanding of what constitutes effective learning and their roles in students' learning determine how they design the learning environment. In essence, it is the teacher's skill in managing the “tripartite” partnership of IT tool, learning task, and teacher support that brings about higher levels of student engagement.     

Instructional practices in secondary science: How teachers achieve local and standards-based success

This article reports on analyses of the instructional practices of six middle- and high-school science teachers in the United States who participated in a research-practice partnership that aims to support reform science education goals at scale. All six teachers were well qualified, experienced, and locally successful—respected by students, parents, colleagues, and administrators—but they differed in their success in supporting students' three-dimensional learning. Our goal is to understand how the teachers' instructional practices contributed to their similarities in achieving local success and to differences in enabling students' learning, and to consider the implications of these findings for research-practice partnerships. Data sources included classroom videos supplemented by interviews with teachers and focus students and examples of student work. We also compared students' learning gains by teacher using pre–post assessments that elicited three-dimensional performances. Analyses of classroom videos showed how all six teachers achieved local success—they led effectively managed classrooms, covered the curriculum by teaching almost all unit activities, and assessed students' work in fair and efficient ways. There were important differences, however, in how teachers engaged students in science practices. Teachers in classrooms where students achieved lower learning gains followed a pattern of practice we describe as activity-based teaching, in which students completed investigations and hands-on activities with few opportunities for sensemaking discussions or three-dimensional science performances. Teachers whose students achieved higher learning gains combined the social stability characteristic of local classroom success with more demanding instructional practices associated with scientific sensemaking and cognitive apprenticeship. We conclude with a discussion of implications for research-practice partnerships, highlighting how partnerships need to support all teachers in achieving both local and standards-based success.     

Writing as a Tool in Teaching Sketching: Implications for Architectural Design Education

This article discusses the process of a study designed to develop university students' sketching skills in schools of architecture. Acknowledging the relationship between cognition and writing, it aims to investigate the role of writing in learning sketching among architecture students and to examine how students regulate their thoughts by writing as they work on their free hand sketches. It includes writing texts before and after sketching tasks to improve sketching. The study was implemented in a school of architecture at a Turkish university as part of an elective course on sketching. The students' works were evaluated in terms of their sketches, texts and self‐reports of their thinking and the views and comments of the tutor who carried out the programme. This article discusses how the study was conceived and developed. The results of this study may provide insights for educators in developing strategies in teaching and learning of sketching and design, using multi modes of thinking.     

Genetically modified food in perspective: an inquiry‐based curriculum to help middle school students make sense of tradeoffs

To understand how students learn about science controversy, this study examines students' reasoning about tradeoffs in the context of a technology‐enhanced curriculum about genetically modified food. The curriculum was designed and refined based on the Scaffolded Knowledge Integration Framework to help students sort and integrate their initial ideas and those presented in the curriculum. Pre‐test and post‐test scores from 190 students show that students made significant (p?<?0.0001) gains in their understanding of the genetically modified food controversy. Analyses of students' final papers, in which they took and defended a position on what type of agricultural practice should be used in their geographical region, showed that students were able to provide evidence both for and against their positions, but were less explicit about how they weighed these tradeoffs. These results provide important insights into students' thinking and have implications for curricular design.     

Where is the engineering I applied for? A longitudinal study of students' transition into higher education engineering,and their considerations of staying or leaving

This paper presents results from a qualitative longitudinal study of students' transition into higher education engineering. The study aims at comparing upper-secondary school students' expectations of engineering with their actual experiences when encountering the engineering programme. It explores how this encounter provides a platform for students to become integrated during first year. We find that students' expectations are poorly met by their first-year study programme. In their attempt to bridge the gap between their expectations and their experiences, the students apply three strategies: some endure the gap, some constantly try out different study strategies and some compromised their expectations and identities to become more aligned with the study programme. The findings show that even when students successfully manage to bridge the gap, their strategy may turn out to be counterproductive from a learning point of view. The implications of the study are discussed.     

Understanding Learner-centredness: Does it consider the diverse needs of individuals?

In light of the significant changes happening in all sectors of our society, we in the education sector and in particular in the universities, have adopted a number of innovative ideas for delivering education. Many of these innovations deal with procedural aspects related to learning and consequently little concern has been shown to individuals' beliefs about knowledge and dispositions for learning. Beliefs and dispositions are powerful tools to effect a more meaningful and sustainable change to how individuals engage in learning. This paper discusses some recent findings from research into university students' beliefs about the nature of knowledge and their conceptions of learning, and identifies the implications for a learner-centred university education. Learners' beliefs both informal and formal may influence the way they approach learning. Do they learn to apply, or learn to understand? The effort they make to learn depends on their perception of how the learning will reward them. The paper also explores the cross-cultural beliefs about knowledge and conceptions of learning.     

Listening to Students,Listening to Myself: Addressing pre-service teachers' fears of mathematics and teaching mathematics

This paper describes a self-study in which I, as a teacher educator, seek to understand how to respond effectively to my pre-service students' fears about learning and teaching primary mathematics. I studied my students' response to a new mathematics methods course that is tied to practicum. Results include the importance of listening closely to students' feelings about learning and teaching math, responding with opportunities to re-learn primary math concepts in a collaborative and hands-on environment, and providing opportunities for pre-service teachers to experience success with math teaching in primary school settings. What I did not realize at the outset was that the students and I would be on a parallel journey. While I endeavored to listen to their voices, I struggled with my limited voice as a sessional instructor. While they struggled to feel like “real” math teachers, I struggled to feel like a “real” math professor. Fear of teaching math to young children was mirrored by my fear of pioneering a new course. Examination of a key incident in the first year of the course and of the role of a critical friend helped me to see and understand these parallel paths.     

Working while teaching,learning while working: students teaching in their own class

This paper examines the context of teacher education in which certain students work as teachers whilst at the same time they study in a teacher education programme. The two phenomena that are discussed are the integration of theory and practice, and learning while working. These are located in the wider framework of teachers' pedagogical thinking, and research‐based teacher education. The paper reports on students' experiences of the success of integrating theoretical studies in their work as teachers and the related issue of how a student's everyday grasp of classroom practice has been taken into account in their studies. The paper also raises the issue of the university–school relationship through students' estimations of the impact that their participation in teacher education has brought to the school in which they work and other key aspects of the university–school relationship.     

Technology,learning and instruction: distributed cognition in the secondary English classroom

In this paper, we analyse interactions between secondary students and pre‐service teachers in an online environment in order to understand how their meaning‐making processes embody distributed cognition. We begin by providing a theoretical review of the ways in which literacy learning is distributed across learners, objects, tools, symbols, technologies and the environment in modern English language arts classrooms. This is followed by a case study where we identify how programme values, textual resources and cultural schema function as distributed tools. In traditional schools, with an emphasis on taking standardised tests, the learning environment is designed on the view that learning is a transaction that happens solely ‘inside the head’. Unfortunately, this pushes many students to the margins of classroom engagement and participation. By analysing students' and pre‐service teachers' online discourse, we argue that virtual spaces can facilitate critical dialogue and can act as catalysts for a distributed theory of mind.     

The role of design ethics in maintaining students' privacy: A call to action to learning designers in higher education

Maintaining students' privacy in higher education, an integral aspect of learning design and technology integration, is not only a matter of policy and law but also a matter of design ethics. Similar to faculty educators, learning designers in higher education play a vital role in maintaining students' privacy by designing learning experiences that rely on online technology integration. Like other professional designers, they need to care for the humans they design for by not producing designs that infringe on their privacy, thus, not causing harm. Recognizing that widely used instructional design models are silent on the topic and do not address ethical considerations such as privacy, we focus this paper on how design ethics can be leveraged by learning designers in higher education in a practical manner, illustrated through authentic examples. We highlight where the ethical responsibility of learning designers comes into the foreground when maintaining students' privacy and well-being, especially in online settings. We outline an existing ethical decision-making framework and show how learning designers can use it as a call to action to protect the students they design for, strengthening their ethical design capacity.

Practitioner notes

What is already known about this topic

• Existing codes of ethical standards from well-known learning design organizations call upon learning designers to protect students' privacy without clear guidance on how to do so.
• Design ethics within learning design is often discussed in abstract ways with principles that are difficult to apply.
• Most, if not all, design models that learning design professionals have learned are either silent on design ethics and/or do not consider ethics as a valid dimension, thus, making design ethics mostly excluded from learning design graduate programs.
• Practical means for engaging in ethical design practice are scarce in the field.

What this paper adds

• A call for learning designers in higher education to maintain and protect students' privacy and well-being, strengthening their ethical design capacity.
• A demonstration of how to use a practical ethical decision-making framework as a designerly tool in designing for learning to maintain and protect students' privacy and well-being.
• Authentic examples—in the form of vignettes—of ethical dilemmas/issues that learning designers in higher education could face, focused on students' privacy.
• Methods—using a practical ethical decision-making framework—for learning design professionals in higher education, grounded in the philosophy of designers as the guarantors of designs, to be employed to detect situations where students' privacy and best interests are at risk.
• A demonstration of how learning designers could make stellar design decisions in service to the students they design for and not to the priorities of other design stakeholders.

Implications for practice and/or policy

• Higher education programs/institutions that prepare/employ learning designers ought to treat the topics of the designer's responsibility and design ethics more explicitly and practically as one of the means to maintain and protect students' privacy, in addition to law and policies.
• Learning designers in higher education ought to hold a powerful position in their professional practice to maintain and protect students' privacy and well-being, as an important aspect of their ethical design responsibilities.
• Learning designers in higher education ought to adopt a design thinking mindset in order to protect students' privacy by (1) challenging ideas and assumptions regarding technology integration in general and (2) detecting what is known in User Experience (UX) design as “dark patterns” in online course design.

     

The interplay between students' motivational profiles and science learning

Students' motivation plays an important role in successful science learning. However, motivation is a complex construct. Theories of motivation suggests that students' motivation must be conceptualized as a motivational system with numerous components that interact in complex ways and influence metacognitive processes such as self-evaluation. This complexity is further increased because students' motivation and success in science learning influence each other as they develop over time. It is challenging to study the co-development of motivation and learning due to these complex interactions which can vary widely across individuals. Recently, person-centered approaches that capture students' motivational profiles, that is, the multiplicity of motivational factors as they co-occur in students, have been successfully used in educational psychology to better understand the complex interplay between the co-development of students' motivation and learning. We employed a person-centered approach to study how the motivational profiles, constructed from goal-orientation, self-efficacy, and engagement data of N = 401 middle school students developed over the course of a 10-week energy unit and how that development was related to students' learning. We identified four characteristic motivational profiles with varying temporal stability and found that students' learning over the course of the unit was best characterized by considering the type of students' motivational profiles and the transitions that occurred between them. We discuss implications for the design and implementation of interventions and future research into the complex interplay between motivation and learning.