‘Knowing is not enough; we must apply’: reflections on a failed action learning application

This paper reflects upon a sub-optimal action learning application with a strategic business re-design project. The objective of the project was to improve the long-term business performance of a subsidiary business and build the strategic plan. Action learning was introduced to aid the group in expanding their view of the real problems confronting the business and simultaneously implement a learning method to improve the organization's leadership team's critical thinking as a whole. Ultimately, the goal was the creation of organizational learning as the project progressed through an integrative, systems problem-solving approach. The author uncovered that corporate culture was an insurmountable hurdle in reaching the optimal application of action learning. The purpose of this paper is to reflect upon the application of action learning and outline probable reasons for the failure in reaching the ultimate application of action learning.     

‘They think that swearing is okay’: first lessons in behaviour management

Despite a considerable body of literature devoted to the ‘behaviour management’ of pupils, there is little that actually considers the experience of beginning teachers in learning to cope with that behaviour. Here we consider the experience of student teachers and illustrate their attempts to form deeper understanding, connections between theory and practice and the contribution made by other teachers. It is argued that students at this first stage of classroom teaching experiences are, despite the inevitable anxieties in their new encounters, starting to make deeper sense of them than can be provided by tips on discipline. There is a need for caution against over‐emphasis of behaviour management as misleading, premature categorisation that could inhibit new teachers' capacity to build the relationships with pupils on which good teaching depends.     

‘But that wasn't enough’: exploring affective assemblages within a professional relationship

This paper engages with the early childhood–school relationship. The relationship has a long-standing history of being defined by a series of divisions and separations. Research has identified the divisions and separations to be largely determined by differences around concepts of learning and pedagogy. Discursive analyses of these differences often result in a series of impasses. The aim of this paper is to move beyond these discursively determined impasses. I draw on data from a small pilot study where a group of early childhood teachers come together to talk about their use of Transition Statements. I bring to the analysis of the data the concept of affective assemblages. This allows me to look beyond that which has been discursively produced in order to ask new questions, and to offer new ways of being in relationship.     

‘It’s not that easy to solve’: edTPA and preservice teacher learning

This three year qualitative study of a university pilot of the edTPA, a performance assessment for preservice teachers, questioned candidates’ learning at the nexus of claims that the edTPA serves a dual role as both a formative assessment for candidates’ ongoing learning as well as a summative assessment of their readiness to teach. The analysis highlighted affordances and constraints of the assessment in the areas of: (1) depth of professional learning, (2) differentiation for diverse learners, (3) focus on school, community and family context, (4) professional reflection within classroom realities, and (5) as an evaluation tool. The discussion positions the findings alongside other published implementation studies of the edTPA in terms of current reforms. It especially problematizes the positioning of preservice teachers as professional learners in light of pressures for compliance and standardization.     

‘Time is not enough.’ Workload in higher education: a student perspective

Students' workload has been recognised as a major factor in the teaching and learning environment. This paper starts by structuring the different conceptualisations of workload described in the scientific literature. Besides the traditional distinction between objective and subjective or perceived workload, a distinction between conceptualisations focusing on the perception of quantitative and qualitative aspects of workload comes to the fore. This qualitative study investigates what workload means for students in higher education. Forty Civil Engineering and Educational Sciences Master's students were interviewed. The results show that ‘having time’ is a precondition for experiencing a manageable workload. When this precondition is fulfilled, the interest of a student and the ability to plan and set priorities play an important role in the perception of workload. Finally, the results show that several aspects of the learning environment can influence this interest and the perception of workload.     

‘I’m good,but not that good’: digitally-skilled young people’s identity in computing

Computers and information technology are fast becoming a part of young people’s everyday life. However, there remains a difference between the majority who can use computers and the minority who are computer scientists or professionals. Drawing on 32 semi-structured interviews with digitally skilled young people (aged 13–19), we explore their views and aspirations in computing, with a focus on the identities and discourses that these youngsters articulate in relation to this field. Our findings suggest that, even among digitally skilled young people, traditional identities of computing as people who are clever but antisocial still prevail, which can be unattractive for youths, especially girls. Digitally skilled youths identify with computing in different ways and for different reasons. Most enjoy doing computing but few aspired to being a computer person. Implications of our findings for computing education are discussed especially the continued need to broaden identities in computing, even for the digitally skilled.     

‘It’s good enough that our children are accepted’: Roma mothers’ views of children’s education post migration

The discrimination of Roma groups across Europe has been highlighted by several international organisations. For many, poverty, racism and their children’s systematic exclusion from education are ‘push’ factors when deciding to migrate. This study explores Roma mothers’ views of their children’s education post migration and their attitudes to education more broadly, by adopting an intersectional framework and examining issues of difference and belonging as experienced by Roma mothers and their children. While Roma mothers recognised the value of education for social mobility, they remained aware of the limited resources they could draw upon, in the absence of desirable economic and cultural capitals, and as a result of their ethnicity, social class, gender and ‘undesirable migrant’ status. There was a perceived hopelessness in relation to the chances that Roma children have to overcome their marginalisation through schooling, pointing to the need for dedicated policy interventions when working with Roma families.     

You betcha it's random: riffle shuffling in cards games – when is enough,enough?

When playing card games, how many times should a deck be shuffled in order to achieve randomness? This article shows how card shuffling can be used as a classroom exercise to reinforce construction and interpretation of confidence intervals.     

‘Do they really do that in Korea?’: multicultural learning through Hallyu media

ABSTRACT

As new media spaces expand opportunities for engagement with geographically distant people and places, this article examines how communication practices within such spaces may construct cultural differences. The study’s data source was a website on which people posted, watched, and discussed Asian dramas. Qualitative data included writing, visual images, and interactions created within the site’s Korean dramas forum. Analyses of user-generated discussions revealed discourses about Korean distinctiveness. The forum functions as a virtual multicultural learning community where youth who lived outside of Korea imagined and negotiated an understanding of Korean culture. As these youth participated in Hallyu (the Korean Wave) through their engagements with its media, their discourses on Korean distinctiveness reinscribe Koreans as a global Other. Implications of this study include ways that online transnational engagements with Korean dramas in particular, and Hallyu media in general, shape current learning about Korea, as well as the possibilities and challenges of new media affordances for Internet-mediated multicultural learning.     

‘They’re the bosses’: feedback in team supervision

Team supervision of PhDs is increasingly the norm in Australian and UK universities; while this model brings many improvements on the traditional one-on-one research supervision, it also introduces new complexities. In particular, many students find the diversity of opinions expressed in teams to be confusing. Such diversity in supervisor feedback is often experienced as unsettling, and the study indicates that students generally seek consensus from their supervisory team. The power dynamics existing in the relations between team members in this situation need to be carefully considered, and supervisors must be alert to the ways in which doctoral students can be effectively and productively inducted into the norms of academic debate and collaborative research projects. The paper explores the implications of diversity in feedback in relation to developing a pedagogy of supervision.     

‘They won't take you as a man,as a real man’ why men can't teach young children in foundation phase

This article focuses on how male and female primary school teachers’ account of the suitability of male teachers in early years or Foundation Phase (FP) of schooling. We draw from an in-depth qualitative interview-based study to examine how ideals around hegemonic masculinity have effects for the characterization of FP within traditional feminine qualities such as nurturing and caring for children. These qualities contrasted with hegemonic masculinity and fuelled the disassociation between men and teaching young children. We found that whilst men had the responsibility to provide financially for children, their involvement in childcare duties was linked to low-status work gendering the construction of carework as women’s work. The shame and embarrassment associated with teaching young children were an important mechanism to police and regulate hegemonic masculinity. Analysing how male and female primary school teachers construct hegemonic forms of masculinity provides insights into the reproduction of FP as a feminised profession as well as the construction and maintenance of counter feminist masculine ideals. Addressing forms of masculinity that are premised on male domination is vital in South Africa, especially as the need to alter masculinities and deepen gender equality has barely touched this phase of schooling.     

‘Man enough to do it’? Girls and non‐traditional subjects in lower secondary education

This article examines the processes influencing the choice of non‐traditional subjects by girls in lower secondary education in the Republic of Ireland. In particular, we focus on the traditionally ‘male’ craft technological subjects, namely Materials Technology (Wood), Metalwork and Technical Graphics. Analyses are based on detailed case studies of 12 secondary schools, placing them in the context of national patterns of subject take‐up. Strong gender differentiation persists in the take‐up of these technological subjects. Commonalities are evident across schools in the way in which the subjects are constructed as ‘male’. However, some students, both female and male, actively contest these labels, and school policy and practice regarding subject provision and choice can make a difference to take‐up patterns. It is argued that the persistent gendering of subjects has implications for the skills acquired by students, their engagement in education, and the education, training and career opportunities open to them on leaving school.     

‘We not I’ not ‘I Me Mine’: Learning from Professional Memory about Collectivist English Teaching

This article investigates the professional memories of English teachers who began their careers between 1965 and 1975. The teachers began their careers in circumstances that offered opportunities to work in collectivist ways. Their memories reveal a strong collective identity, a powerful sense of agency and a critical engagement with the aims of English teaching. It is argued that by exploring these memories, and by re-imagining English as a ‘relational’ or ‘heteroglossial’ activity, current practitioners might find inspiration to work collectively and collaboratively to challenge dominant conceptions of the subject.     

‘They are not serious like the boys’: gender norms and contradictions for girls in rural Kenya

This paper reconsiders urban–rural and modern–traditional dichotomies by exploring the multiple and contested gendered issues that secondary school girls face in rural Kisii, Western Kenya. Findings are drawn from a qualitative case study and explore the ways that gendered norms interact with new ideas of gender equity in and out of the classroom. It is argued that this rural setting offers a highly complex environment for girls in local day secondary schools who often face multiple challenges; many of which are at risk of being overlooked by assumptions that the rural context, where the girls live and are educated, is timeless, static and isolated. Implications are considered for the reconceptualisation of ideas of gender equity in education to go beyond quantitative measures such as enrolment and parity of attention in class to account for out-of-school challenges and the ways in which girls are treated while in school.     

‘Korea … it's not really actually an Asian country’: Australian children's experiences of an intercultural school partnership programme

ABSTRACT

In Australia, intercultural understanding has been prioritised in education and curriculum documents at both federal and state levels. Alongside this educational priority, schools have also been encouraged to demonstrate ‘engagement’ with ‘Asia’, such as through a partnership with another school in the Asia-Pacific region. My research findings are based on an ethnographic study of Year 5 and 6 Australian children's experiences of an intercultural school partnership initiative through on-line classroom exchanges over a two-year period. Through a critical analysis of ‘complexity reduction’ I draw attention to the processes through which children made sense of perceived racial and cultural differences as part of their involvement in partnership activities and conclude with some reflections on the extent to which educational initiatives such as intercultural school partnership programmes that aim to foster intercultural understanding can do so without reinforcing unequal intercultural relations and stereotypes.     

‘… do that and I'll raise your grade’. Innovative module design and recursive feedback

In an attempt to ensure students had a positive experience in their first semester, and to encourage future effective use of tutors’ feedback comments, a post-1992 university used a module in the school of education to develop an innovative feedback process. The process involved four stages: a first submission of written work, written feedback on that work, viva on student understanding of feedback, and final submission of written work. Between the viva and final submission, students could choose to improve their work for a specified number of grade points. The innovation was met favourably by students, and overall grades were improved against the previous iteration of the module. The project showed promise for adaptation in other forms for use across the University, though some ideological issues around assessment remain unresolved. The matter of the innovation and institutional quality standards is discussed in detail.     

‘The students do not know why they are here’: education decision-making for Syrian refugees

This case study, conducted collaboratively between education scholars and education practitioners, describes and analyses the ways in which Syrian refugee teachers and an NGO are developing and implementing non-formal education (NFE) programming in three refugee settlements in Lebanon. Utilising the INEE Minimum Standards for Education in Emergencies, we analyse teachers’ and programme administrators’ decision-making processes regarding curriculum, language of instruction, and pedagogy as well as how and why these decisions are made in the absence of a guiding framework or policy for NFE. We also consider the ways in which the nation-state writ large still helps to influence these decisions in the ‘global era’.     

‘The degree is not enough’: students’ perceptions of the role of higher education credentials for graduate work and employability

The UK Government is calling upon higher education students to see their learning as an investment that will give them direct benefits in the labour market. At the same time, the relationship between educational credentials and their returns in labour market has been changing in recent times. Based on a qualitative study with 53 final‐year undergraduate students in a pre‐1992 university, this article examines the way higher education students understand the role of their educational credentials in relation to their future employability. It shows that students perceive their academic qualifications as having a declining role in shaping their employment outcomes in what is perceived to be a congested and competitive graduate labour market. While academic credentials are still seen as a significant dimension of their employability, students increasingly see the need to add value to them in order to gain an advantage in the labour market.