Improving the digital capacity of schools by using the SELFIE tool for collective reflection

Schools play a crucial role in preparing students for a technology-driven world. Although schools incorporate technology for teaching and learning in promising ways, reviewing their organisational strategies would enhance their digital capacity—namely, the effective integration of technology in teaching and learning practices. This article presents insights for improving schools' digital capacity provided by school leaders, teachers, and students from fourteen European countries, through open-ended questions on the SELFIE online tool for collective reflection. This article presents the thematic analysis conducted on 5247 excerpts collected through SELFIE questionnaires, referring to participants' perceptions of their schools' digital infrastructure, the usefulness of technology for teaching and learning, and the perceived need to make the most of technology. Findings align with international studies, which confirm that schools' digital infrastructure still needs improving, while teachers need more training on embedding technology in their teaching practices. Findings also reveal differences in school leaders, teachers, and students' viewpoints and experiences on technology use in their schools. Comparing viewpoints and experiences regarding a school's digital capacity by using a comprehensive and structured process of collective reflection, the SELFIE tool is unique within the field and can offer insights to school communities, education policymakers and researchers.     

谈素质教育与创新型人才的培养

当前,新的社会经济形式迫切需要高素质的现代人--创新型人才.科技创新靠人才,人才培养靠教师.我们要以知识创新为核心,以培养创新型人才为目标,充分发挥教师的创新性,充分发挥学生的主体作用,培养大批创新型人才.     

Constructing model of teachers’ innovative behaviour in school environment

Teachers’ innovative behaviour influences not only their teaching practices and professional habits, but also has an impact on students’ creation of novel and original ideas. In spite of the increasing demand for innovative behaviour, and also relatively high academic achievements of Estonian students in international comparison, teachers in Estonia often do not use innovative teaching practices, according to Teaching and Learning International Survey (TALIS). This study explores possible school environmental factors that may support the innovative behaviour of teachers. A model, where self-efficacy as a trait and different types of teaching practices as behaviour, are components of the model of teachers’ innovative behaviour. It is supposed that teachers’ innovative behaviour appears in school environments and may be supported by the following factors: interaction and involvement, need and freedom for innovation. The study is carried out as a secondary data analysis, based on a sample of TALIS survey. The results indicate that although the three factors mentioned do not constitute the integrated phenomenon, they do describe different aspects of a teachers’ innovative behaviour.     

ICT and play in preschool: early childhood teachers’ beliefs and confidence

This study investigated early childhood teachers’ beliefs about information and communications technology (ICT) and play in preschool, as well as their confidence in integrating ICT in the classroom. A 28-item questionnaire was compiled and administered to 190 early childhood teachers in Greece. Although ICT play (which can provide learning opportunities) has largely replaced traditional childhood play, in Greece, there is inadequate integration of ICT in early childhood education. In this study, two factors were extracted: ‘playing with ICT as an effective mode of learning and developing children's technological competence’ and ‘ICT use as free play’. The fewer the years of teaching experience and the higher the teachers’ computer self-efficacy, the stronger was the view that ICT play is not just free play. Teachers’ beliefs and confidence affect their classroom practices and, consequently, the children's learning. Viewing ICT as a mode of learning that should be embedded in the curriculum is expected to lead to ICT integration in a teacher's daily practices. The implications for in-service teacher training are therefore discussed.     

Listening to learning outside the classroom: student teachers study playground literacies

This article reports on ongoing work in initial teacher education (ITE) where student teachers have been required to observe and record children's play, to describe and analyse this, and to consider the pedagogical implications. They have been introduced to a theoretical background, which takes into account the increasingly multi‐modal nature of literacy practices, and have been shown a methodology for conducting a small‐scale ethnographic research project on the playground. They have been encouraged to consider how the unofficial literacy practices of the children's homes, communities and popular culture might affect the official practices of the school, and to understand how children absorb and recreate texts from beyond the school curriculum. The article reflects the student teachers' findings on school playgrounds, with narratives re‐enacted and drawn from popular media, imaginative use of playground space, and games that explore the pupils' present and future lives. Student teachers begin to recognise the vital role of socio‐dramatic play in the development of emergent literacy. They also develop insights on applying children's expertise outside the classroom to their literacy practices within the school.     

Differential Use of Elementary Science Kits

The use of kits in elementary science classes is a growing trend in some countries. Kits provide materials and inquiry lessons in a ready-to-teach format for teachers to use in their science instruction. This study examined elementary teachers' instructional strategies, classroom practices, and assessment types in relation to the frequency of science kit use. A total of 503 elementary teachers from an urban school district received professional development, implemented kits in their classrooms for a year, and then completed a survey about science kit use and teaching practices. Despite similarities in demographic characteristics (gender, ethnicity, certification/educational level), there were significant differences in teachers' use of inquiry-based teaching and assessment practices by kit use. Teachers who reported using kits the most often were significantly more likely to report that their students designed and implemented laboratory investigations as well recorded, represented, and analyzed data. In addition, the high kit users indicated that they were more likely to use student groups, require students to use evidence to support claims, and use alternative assessments of student work including portfolios, notebooks, and long-term projects than those teachers who used kits less frequently. Those teachers who reported using kits the least often were significantly more likely to report having students practice for standardized tests. The role of kits in promoting reform-based teaching practices is discussed.     

A case for adapting and applying continuance theory to education: understanding the role of student feedback in motivating teachers to persist with including digital technologies in learning

In New Zealand schools, the adoption and persistent use of digital tools to aid learning is a growing but uneven, trend, often linked to the practices of early adopters and/or robust wifi infrastructure. The Technology Adoption Model is used internationally to gauge levels of uptake of technological tools, particularly in commerce and also in education. However, this model is inadequate when it is used to attribute reasons for teachers adopting technologies for learning. This article offers an alternative view to understanding why teachers continue using digital technologies for learning. It focuses on the role of student voice and teachers’ pedagogical purposes as motivators, even when teachers have technological hurdles to overcome. The article engages with continuance theory as a lens for understanding these motivations via a qualitative thematic analysis of Moodle postings made by a 2012 cohort of initial teacher education students. The intention is to signpost ideas that might better explain teachers’ continued use of digital technologies in classrooms even if conditions for use are not optimal.     

Transforming practice in Design and Technology: evidence from a classroom-based research study of students' responses to an intervention on inclusive design

This article offers evidence from a classroom-based research study in English secondary schools which developed an innovative approach to teaching in Design and Technology based on inclusive design (also known as universal design). The research evidence highlights how creative, problem-solving approaches in Design and Technology can be used to provide authentic, engaging learning experiences for students. This study, entitled ‘Designing our Tomorrows', introduced secondary school teachers and students to the principles and practices of inclusive design through an intervention using specially designed resources. In this article, findings from the study's qualitative pre- and post-intervention interviews are presented to illustrate how this type of approach can stimulate students' creativity and understanding of design.     

What happens when students do simulation-role-play in science?

This article outlines some of the findings based on a study by three teachers and a university academic of role play in the teachers' classes. The study focuses on the results of role plays undertaken with students in mixed ability classes from three high schools in New South Wales. Role plays, where students play parts in scientific phenomena such as the electrons in an electric circuit or molecules from food in digestion, are not new to science education. But, what happens when students participate in role plays in science? In this report it is suggested that simulation-role-play may allow students to demonstrate their understanding, explore their views and develop deeper understanding of phenomena. A strategy for using analogical analysis in simulation-role play is suggested but concerns are raised about the students' capacity to distinguish role play from the subject matter being studied.     

Adapting Self-Regulated Strategy Development in Persuasive Writing for Adolescents Who Are Deaf or Hard of Hearing

Within the special education community, research and policy focus on teachers implementing evidence-based instructional practices with fidelity. However, special education teachers may have to adapt evidence-based practices if the research supporting those practices has not yet included studies that represent populations in the classrooms (i.e., students with low-incidence disabilities). That is, there may be a tension for teachers between adopting evidence-based instruction and adapting lessons to meet the needs of students. This article describes one teacher's adaptations to an evidence-based practice in writing to meet the needs of her adolescent students who are deaf. Her experience models ways teachers can use professional wisdom to adapt evidence-based practices to meet the needs of students with disabilities.     

Teachers' framing of argumentation goals: Working together to develop individual versus communal understanding

For students to meaningfully engage in science practices, substantive changes need to occur to deeply entrenched instructional approaches, particularly those related to classroom discourse. Because teachers are critical in establishing how students are permitted to interact in the classroom, it is imperative to examine their role in fostering learning environments in which students carry out science practices. This study explores how teachers describe, or frame, expectations for classroom discussions pertaining to the science practice of argumentation. Specifically, we use the theoretical lens of a participation framework to examine how teachers emphasize particular actions and goals for their students' argumentation. Multiple-case study methodology was used to explore the relationship between two middle school teachers' framing for argumentation, and their students' engagement in an argumentation discussion. Findings revealed that, through talk moves and physical actions, both teachers emphasized the importance of students driving the argumentation and interacting with peers, resulting in students engaging in various types of dialogic interactions. However, variation in the two teachers' language highlighted different purposes for students to do so. One teacher explained that through these interactions, students could learn from peers, which could result in each individual student revising their original argument. The other teacher articulated that by working with peers and sharing ideas, classroom members would develop a communal understanding. These distinct goals aligned with different patterns in students' argumentation discussion, particularly in relation to students building on each other's ideas, which occurred more frequently in the classroom focused on communal understanding. The findings suggest the need to continue supporting teachers in developing and using rich instructional strategies to help students with dialogic interactions related to argumentation. This work also sheds light on the importance of how teachers frame the goals for student engagement in this science practice.     

Is it the way they use it? Teachers,ICT and student achievement

We provide evidence on whether ICT-related teaching practices affect student achievement. We use a unique student-teacher dataset containing variables on a wide set of very specific uses of computer and ICT by teachers matched with data on national standardized tests for 10th grade students. Our identification strategy relies on a within-student between-subject estimator and on a rich set of teacher's controls. We find that computer-based teaching methods increase student performance when they increase students’ awareness in ICT use and when they enhance communication. Instead, we find a negative impact of practices requiring an active role of the students in classes using ICT. Our findings suggest that the effectiveness of ICT at school depends on the actual practice that teachers make of it and on their ability to integrate ICT into their teaching process.     

Teacher educators' competences in fostering student teachers’ proficiency in teaching and learning with technology: An overview of relevant research literature

Teacher educators play an important role in preparing student teachers to integrate technology into their classrooms. This article presents an overview of research literature on teacher educators' competences in preparing their students to teach with technology. A literature search yielded 26 relevant research articles. Four domains of competence were identified: technology competences, competences for pedagogical and educational technology use, beliefs about teaching and learning and competences in professional learning. The literature focuses on teacher educators’ competences in using technology for teaching. Research on the competences that teacher educators need and have as second-order teachers is lacking. Recommendations for future research are discussed.     

Professional knowledge or motivation? Investigating the role of teachers’ expertise on the quality of technology-enhanced lesson plans

In an expertise study with 94 mathematics teachers varying in their relative teacher expertise (i.e., student teachers, trainee teachers, in-service teachers), we examined effects of teachers' professional knowledge and motivational beliefs on their ability to integrate technology within a lesson plan scenario. Therefore, we assessed teachers' professional knowledge (i.e., content knowledge, pedagogical content knowledge, technological knowledge), and their motivational beliefs (i.e., self-efficacy, utility-value). Furthermore, teachers were asked to develop a lesson plan for introducing the Pythagorean theorem to secondary students. Lesson plans by advanced teachers (i.e., trainee teachers, in-service teachers) comprised higher levels of instructional quality and technology exploitation than the ones of novice teachers (i.e., pre-service teachers). The effect of expertise was mediated by teachers' perceived utility-value of educational technology, but not by their professional knowledge. These findings suggest that teachers’ motivational beliefs play a crucial role for effectively applying technology in mathematics instruction.     

Urban schools' teachers enacting project‐based science

What teaching practices foster inquiry and promote students to learn challenging subject matter in urban schools? Inquiry‐based instruction and successful inquiry learning and teaching in project‐based science (PBS) were described in previous studies (Brown & Campione, 1990 ; Crawford, 1999 ; Krajcik, Blumenfeld, Marx, Bass, & Fredricks, 1998 ; Krajcik, Blumenfeld, Marx, & Solloway, 1994 ; Minstrell & van Zee, 2000 ). In this article, we describe the characteristics of inquiry teaching practices that promote student learning in urban schools. Teaching is a major factor that affects both achievement of and attitude of students toward science (Tamir, 1998 ). Our involvement in reform in a large urban district includes the development of suitable learning materials and providing continuous and practiced‐based professional development (Fishman & Davis, in press; van Es, Reiser, Matese, & Gomez, 2002 ). Urban schools face particular challenges when enacting inquiry‐based teaching practices like those espoused in PBS. In this article, we describe two case studies of urban teachers whose students achieved high gains on pre‐ and posttests and who demonstrated a great deal of preparedness and commitment to their students. Teachers' attempts to help their students to perform well are described and analyzed. The teachers we discuss work in a school district that strives to bring about reform in mathematics and science through systemic reform. The Center for Learning Technologies in Urban Schools (LeTUS) collaborates with the Detroit Public Schools to bring about reform in middle‐school science. Through this collaboration, diverse populations of urban‐school students learn science through inquiry‐oriented projects and the use of various educational learning technologies. For inquiry‐based science to succeed in urban schools, teachers must play an important role in enacting the curriculum while addressing the unique needs of students. The aim of this article is to describe patterns of good science teaching in urban school. © 2006 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Res Sci Teach 43: 722–745, 2006     

指导大学生课外科技创新活动的经验与思考

大学生课外科技活动以其独特的优势在高校大学生科技创新能力的培养过程中起到不可低估的作用.本文对作者近年来指导大学生参与各种创新设计大赛并获奖作品的实施过程进行了分析和总结,得出一些经验和有效途径:(1)它山之石,可以攻玉,合适地引导学生延伸创新外沿,以多样化的手段和方法突破创新难度和高度.(2)指导教师落实全方位指导,包括决策、组织、技术及心理等,促进课外科技活动的有效开展.文章最后对新时代特征对大学生课外科技活动的要求进行了思考.     

Preparing Community-Engaged Teachers

The goals of teacher education must evolve beyond the teaching of strategies and methods toward a process for beginning teachers' critical interrogation of their social locations and the ways they engage with the realities of teaching and learning. One way that this is accomplished is by incorporating opportunities for community engagement beyond classroom walls in ways that employ teaching practicum experiences in K–12 classrooms. This article describes one teacher educator's experiences preparing secondary English and literacy preservice teachers enrolled in a Teaching Writing Course where students participate in the coordination and facilitation of a community writing event for local middle and high school students. Preservice teachers witnessed writing instruction and youth writing practices that thrived in an educational partnership among multiple stakeholders, including students, parents, teachers, administrators, university professors, and community youth liaisons. Then I share examples of students' reflections post-Writing Our Lives experiences to demonstrate their emerging understanding of the role of community engagement in their development of teacher identities.     

Different ways that secondary schools orient to lifelong learning

This article describes and discusses research into lifelong learning in secondary schools that was undertaken at the Australian Council for Educational Research. The project explored ways of helping secondary school students develop an intrinsic interest in learning, in the belief that such an approach will encourage young people to keep learning throughout their lives. Skills and values that help young people to develop characteristics of lifelong learners are outlined. The article suggests that development of these characteristics may be impeded by the strong influence of competitive end-of-school assessment in many schools, and the difficulty of changing the practices and attitudes of some of the people who play a significant role in a young person's education: parents and teachers.     

#Class Again? How Education Faculty Engage the Disengaged College Student

Technology should play a role in the classroom, however, the gaps that currently exist between student and teacher use of technology can impede successful technology integration. While teacher education programs and faculty build courses based on foundational pedagogies in the field of curriculum and instruction, current needs, such as technology skills, may be overlooked as an essential part of the coursework for preservice teachers. This article presents a synthesized list of available websites and applications for both teacher educators and preservice teachers which can serve as a starting point for technology integration. If faculty can create an environment that honors and assesses the technological skills of their students and commit to understanding how the next generation of learners are using technology to learn, there may be a future impact on the classrooms of those preservice teachers as they start their own careers.     

Traditional vs. innovative uses of computers among mathematics pre-service teachers in Serbia

This study examined pre-service teachers’ intentions to use computers in traditional and innovative teaching practices in primary mathematics classrooms. It extended the technology acceptance model (TAM) by adding as external variables pre-service teachers’ experience with computers and their technological pedagogical content knowledge (TPCK). Data collected from 226 participants revealed that the proposed model had a good fit for both traditional and innovative uses of computers. Structural equation modelling suggested that the established TAM variables, together with TPCK and experience, were significant determinants of pre-service teachers’ intentions to use computers in teaching mathematics at both levels. The most dominant determinant of behavioural intention was TPCK, followed by attitude. The proposed model explained 22.7% of the variance in the use of computers in traditional teaching practices and 27.6% of the variance in the use of computers in innovative teaching practices. The implications for mathematics teaching are discussed in the final section.