Designing interdisciplinary instruction: exploring disciplinary and conceptual differences as a resource

This article presents a “telling case” of an interdisciplinary, team-teaching experience that explores how participants eschewed ethnocentricism of their fields of study in order to learn from each other, while providing instruction to students and analysing data collected from the class (a graduate course on literature and pedagogy). Through the process, the participants (a professor of English education and a professor of literature) ground the perspectives of literary interpretation in their field of study and languaculture, and developed a conceptual framework that guided their interactions and analysis of the discursive actions of the class. An ethnographic perspective served as the conceptual frame and informed how the participants observed, described, and developed claims about classroom interactions. Through this study, the participants answer calls for more examples of how faculty in higher education engage in interdisciplinary teaching and research and the need for faculty to develop conceptual ethnographic frameworks for their collaborations.     

二外日语教学中跨文化交际能力的培养

虽然跨文化交际概念提出的时间有几十年了,但是在二外日语教学中如何培养学生跨文化交际能力的论文并不多见。本文提出一些在教学中实际操作的旨在培养学生跨文化交际能力的方案。     

Deconstruction and reconstruction: Diversity as a productive resource

This article uses critical discourse analysis to show that a series of advertisements by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees are premised on a discourse of sameness that constructs difference negatively. The article moves from deconstructing these advertisements to possibilities for reconstruction that show difference as a positive and productive resource.     

Interdisciplinary and intercultural differences in learning strategy use: implications for language processing, curriculum and instruction

This investigation examines English as foreign language college interdisciplinary and intercultural differences in learning strategy use and their implications for language processing. Positivism underpins this research at the levels of ontology (standardized variables), epistemology (detachment from the subjects) and methodology, using nomothetic research strategy (survey), instruments (questionnaires) and data analysis techniques (multivariate analysis of variance and analysis of variance). Main findings show interdisciplinary differences between the Humanities and Science majors in student use of compensation strategies in favour of the Science major while finding no intermajor differences in student use of other strategies. The findings indicate no ethnic differences in learning strategy use, since European, American and Eastern ethnicities almost use typical strategies. Therefore, disagreements on alleged unmediated deterministic relationships between ethnicity and cognitive processing remain in place. Instead, curriculum and instructional designs, strategy training and individual differences rather than cultural stereotypes influence language processing. For curriculum and instructional designs to facilitate language processing and pedagogy, effective strategies should underlie national, classroom-level and school-level curriculum developments.     

Creationism as a Misconception: Socio-cognitive conflict in the teaching of evolution

This position paper argues that students' understanding and acceptance of evolution may be supported, rather than hindered, by classroom discussion of creationism. Parallels are drawn between creationism and other scientific misconceptions, both of the scientific community in the past and of students in the present. Science teachers frequently handle their students' misconceptions as they arise by offering appropriate socio-cognitive conflict, which highlights reasons to disbelieve one idea and to believe another. It is argued that this way of working, rather than outlawing discussion, is more scientific and more honest. Scientific truth does not win the day by attempting to deny its opponents a voice but by engaging them with evidence. Teachers can be confident that evolution has nothing to fear from a free and frank discussion in which claims can be rebutted with evidence. Such an approach is accessible to children of all ages and is ultimately more likely to drive out pre-scientific superstitions. It also models the scientific process more authentically and develops students' ability to think critically.     

Formal and non-formal digital practices: institutionalizing transactional learning spaces in a media classroom

This article examines how a classroom procedure known as PGE (Plan/Go-through/Evaluate) group work aims at integrating formal and non-formal media experiences and practices into classroom-based media learning. The study displays, on the one hand, how PGE group work emerged and was institutionally embedded in a media course. On the other hand, the study displays how students in this media course negotiated with their teachers by drawing on out-of-school media experiences and production practices in the process of planning classroom work. Empirically, the study draws on ethnographic observation of a vocational media studies course in the age range between 16 and 19 years at the upper secondary level in Norway. Video observations from several hours of PGE group work are analysed in order to document how students are involved in co-planning classroom work together with the course teachers. The analysis is based on cultural historical activity theory (CHAT). This theoretical position is applied in order to foreground tensions between formal institutional obligations and non-formal practices that surface in the classroom, and how an institutional measure such as PGE group work creates a transactional space for handling these differences.     

Learning in politics: Teachers’ political experiences as a pedagogical resource

The suggestion that teaching is a political act has been a divisive issue among educators. However, there has been little analysis of the ways that teachers draw on their political experiences as pedagogical resources. Using a case study of seven teachers in Porto Alegre, Brazil who were involved in politics, this article explores the relationship between political experiences and teaching citizenship. The data consisted of interviews with the teachers, observations of their teaching, and classroom materials. This research shows that politics played an important role in their efforts to teach democratic citizenship. Through the teachers’ diverse political experiences and ideologies, they developed different understandings of the relationship of politics with citizenship education that promote democratization and social change.     

Ecological and intercultural citizenship in the primary English as a foreign language (EFL) classroom: an online project in Argentina

This article describes an online intercultural citizenship project concerning the environment in the primary English-language classroom carried out in 2013/2014 between Argentina and Denmark. It is part of a network of projects coordinated by Michael Byram that involves teachers and researchers in Europe, the US and East Asia. The project is framed within the theory of intercultural citizenship in the foreign-language classroom and it is the only study set in the primary school context. Furthermore, developments in Latin America in this field are scarce and the study intends to fill an empirical gap. Although the comparative perspective is ingrained in the project, the article describes mainly the Argentinian standpoint.

At the same time, and more generally (beyond language education), it will be argued, and shown, that the project can also be framed within the notion of ecological citizenship, understood as a new form of citizenship that presents new challenges to educators. While the notion of citizenship in formal education usually assumes nationalist and patriotic mindsets, in this project ecological citizenship offers a new framework that introduces an international, transnational or global perspective. Furthermore, citizenship education tends to be reserved to secondary civics and social studies classrooms and in this sense the focus on the primary school context and on the foreign-language classroom is innovative in this project.     

Peer teaching as a strategy for conflict management and student re-engagement in schools

This article reports on a major action research program that experimented with the use of cross-age peer teaching in schools to assist teachers to manage conflict issues in their classrooms, and to re-engage disaffected students in learning. The research, which was conducted in a range of elementary and secondary schools in Australia, was part of a larger international project using conflict resolution concepts and techniques combined with drama strategies to address cultural conflict in schools. The use of formal cross-age peer teaching emerged as a highly effective strategy in teaching students to manage a range of conflicts in schools, and especially in learning to deal with bullying. Operating as peer teachers also enabled a number of students in the study, with serious behaviour problems, to re-engage with their learning. The article therefore evaluates the effectiveness of peer teaching in both conflict management and student re-engagement.     

Newspapers as a reading resource: their impact on boys and on parental involvement

This study, carried out in connection with the Newspapers in Education programme, reveals the effectiveness of newspapers as a reading resource in the classroom. Their beneficial effect is especially apparent in the motivation given to boys as readers and to the natural way in which parents, and fathers in particular, can become involved.     

Argumentation in Science Teacher Education: The simulated jury as a resource for teaching and learning

In this article, we focus on the contributions that a simulated jury-based activity might have for pre-service teachers, especially for their active participation and learning in teacher education. We observed a teacher educator using a series of simulated juries as teaching resources to help pre-service teachers develop their pedagogical knowledge and their argumentation abilities in a physics teacher methods course. For the purposes of this article, we have selected one simulated jury-based activity, comprising two opposed groups of pre-service teachers that presented aspects that hinder the teachers' development of professional knowledge (against group) and aspects that allow this development (favor group). After the groups’ presentations, a group of judges was formed to evaluate the discussion. We applied a multi-level method for discourse analysis and the results showed that (1) the simulated jury afforded the pre-service teachers to position themselves as active knowledge producers; (2) the teacher acted as ‘animator' of the pre-service teachers' actions, showing responsiveness to the emergence of circumstantial teaching and learning opportunities and (3) the simulated jury culminated in the judges’ identification of the pattern ‘concrete/obstacles–ideological/possibilities' in the groups’ responses, which was elaborated by the teacher for the whole class. Implications from this study include using simulated juries for teaching and learning and for the development of the pre-service teachers’ argumentative abilities. The potential of simulated juries to improve teaching and learning needs to be further explored in order to inform the uses and reflections of this resource in science education.     

Cognitive conflict as a teaching strategy in solving chemistry problems: A dialectic–constructivist perspective

The main objective of this study was to evaluate the effect of teaching experiments within a dialectic-constructivist framework based on the following considerations: (a) Cognitive conflicts used in the teaching experiments must be based on problem-solving strategies that students find relatively convincing: (b) after having generated a cognitive conflict, it is essential that the students be provided with an experience that could facilitate the resolution of the conflict; and (c) the teaching strategy developed is used by an interactive constructivist approach within an intact classroom. The study was based on two sections of freshman students who had registered for Chemistry I at the Universidad de Oriente, Venezuela. One of the sections was randomly designated as the control group and the other as the experimental group. To introduce cognitive conflict, the experimental group was exposed to two teaching experiments dealing with stoichiometry problems based on the concept of limiting reagent. Students in the control group were exposed to the same problems—however, without the cognitive conflict teaching experiments format. To evaluate the effect of the teaching experiments, both groups were evaluated on five different problems at different intervals during the semester, referred to as posttests. All posttests formed part of the regular evaluation of the students. Results obtained show the advantage of the experimental group on four of the posttests. It is concluded that the experimental treatment was effective in improving performance on the immediate posttests. It was observed that some students protect their core belief [see Lakatos, I. (1970). Falsification and the methodology of scientific research programmes. In I. Lakatos & A. Musgrave (Eds.), Criticism and the growth of knowledge (pp. 91–196). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press] in stoichiometry (establishing equivalent relations between different elements or compounds) by ignoring the conflicting data, just as conflicting (anomalous) data do not necessarily convince a scientist to abandon a particular theory.     

Literacy as a pathway between schooling and health-related communication skills: a study of Venezuelan mothers

This article addresses the mechanisms by which women's schooling might affect the survival and health of their children. A theoretical model is proposed in which academic literacy skills serve as a pathway between formal schooling and maternal health-related behaviors. The model is tested through multivariate analyses of interview and literacy data from 161 mothers in a poor, urban community in Venezuela. Results show that the academic literacy skills women learned in school and retained into adulthood, predict their health-related communication skills above and beyond the amount of schooling they received. The importance of female schooling in developing countries is discussed.     

Increasing inclusion in early childhood: Key Word Sign as a communication partner intervention

The importance of communication partner intervention to support the successful implementation of augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) strategies has been established. Despite this, limited knowledge and use of AAC form serious barriers to inclusion. In this study, 196 pre-service early childhood teachers were taught key word signing (KWS), one common form of AAC, along with approximately 80 Auslan signs. Participants were asked to develop ideas for implementing KWS in early childhood settings. Using participant journal entries, we conducted a thematic analysis to investigate the perceived impact of using KWS in early childhood practice. Participants reported the belief that KWS was beneficial for supporting communication development. Participants identified that using KWS can facilitate inclusive approaches through reducing barriers to participation, valuing diversity, and supporting a sense of belonging. Additionally, participants reported that engaging with inclusive approaches to using KWS formed a catalyst for fostering openness to inclusion more broadly. Overall, the findings demonstrate that approaching KWS as a communication partner intervention holds potential for contributing to the conditions for inclusion in early childhood settings in line with social relational and human rights models of disability. Implications for teacher education and inclusive practice are discussed, as are the limitations of this study.     

A structuration agency view of investor‐officer power struggles and conflict in a private firm: A tale of two agendas

Structuration theory helps to explain the role of human agency in the reciprocal relationship between social systems and structures, which Giddens called the “duality of structure.” The theory explicates how power struggles emerge and are negotiated and, depending on the restructuration, can help to resolve conflict or lead to deteriorations and dysfunction. Research has reported that at least 60% of corporations are privately held and backed by venture capital. The relationships among investors, the corporate board members, and operating officers are strategic relationships that can build or destroy a venture. I used structuration theory to frame a case study of a power struggle over control of a private firm that evolved among investors and board members. This article describes the structuration processes that contributed to functional and dysfunctional outcomes, with implications for performance improvement specialists and human resource development practice and research.     

Life experience of older women with chronic conditions: Flow and Balance as a coping resource

In this qualitative study we explored the experience and meaning of participating in Flow and Balance (FAB) in older women with chronic illness. A total of 11 participants were recruited for in-depth interviews. The findings demonstrated that participation in FAB helps cope with chronic illness and daily stress. Specifically, three themes emerged from the analysis: (a) developing positive emotions, (b) building meaningful relationships, and (c) feeling grateful in everyday life. Our findings are consistent with the existing literature that leisure-time physical activities play an important role in finding personal meaning in life for older adults living with chronic illness.     

Studying cultural diversity using information and communication technologies in teacher education: pedagogy,power and literacy

Abstract

This article investigates the relationship between new technologies, pedagogy and cultural diversity. It is clear from the project discussed in this article that studying diversity issues on-line provides scope for developing what has been called cultural literacy following Bourdieu's (1990) notion of ‘different ways of seeing’. However, there are a number of unintended effects of power that emerge in this new cultural field which need examination. These include the importance of understanding the embodied context as much as the virtual, the need to be explicit about literacy practices to challenge the dominant liberal discourse of ‘voice’ in on-line discussion, and the effects of power that emanate from teaching and learning in this field.