Interest-Driven Learning Among Middle School Youth in an Out-of-School STEM Studio

The concept of connected learning proposes that youth leverage individual interest and social media to drive learning with an academic focus. To illustrate, we present in-depth case studies of Ryan and Sam, two middle-school-age youth, to document an out-of-school intervention intended to direct toward intentional learning in STEM that taps interest and motivation. The investigation focused on how Ryan and Sam interacted with the designed elements of Studio STEM and whether they became more engaged to gain deeper learning about science concepts related to energy sustainability. The investigation focused on the roles of the engineering design process, peer interaction, and social media to influence youth interest and motivation. Research questions were based on principles of connected learning (e.g., self-expression, lower barriers to expertise, socio-technical supports) with data analyzed within a framework suggested by discursive psychology. Analyzing videotaped excerpts of interactions in the studio, field notes, interview responses, and artifacts created during the program resulted in the following findings: problem solving, new media, and peer interaction as designed features of Studio STEM elicited evidence of stimulating interest in STEM for deeper learning. Further research could investigate individual interest-driven niches that are formed inside the larger educational setting, identifying areas of informal learning practice that could be adopted in formal settings. Moreover, aspects of youth’s STEM literacy that could promote environmental sustainability through ideation, invention, and creativity should be pursued.     

Youth Disciplinary Identification During Participation in Contemporary Project-Based Science Investigations in School

Recent science educational policy reform efforts call for a shift toward practice-focused instruction in kindergarten–Grade 12 science education. We argue that this focus on engaging students in epistemic practices of science opens up new possibilities for the design of learning environments that support the stabilization of learners’ science-linked identities. Learning environments often assume that youth come to them without relevant identity resources to contribute or that the learning environment has no bearing on the disciplinary identification of individuals. We conducted this research while developing a year-long course to teach high school biology by engaging youth in interest-driven projects focused on contemporary topics. We explored how engaging youth in the epistemic practices of science in culturally expansive ways supported their science-linked identification. We propose a model grounded in social practice theory that describes aspects of students’ stabilization of disciplinary identities. We found that (a) deepening participation in scientific practices is linked to whether or not youth have opportunities to coordinate their engagement with their existing identities; and (b) material, relational, and ideational identity resources and qualities of the learning environment mediate how youth stabilize disciplinary identities in interactional moments.     

Beyond the learning process and toward the knowledge creation process: Linking learning and knowledge in the supportive learning culture

This integrative literature review synthesizes the concepts and process of organizational knowledge creation with theories of individual learning. The knowledge conversion concept (Nonaka & Takeuchi, 1995; Nonaka, Toyama, & Byosière, 2001) is used as the basis of the organizational knowledge creation process, while major learning theories relevant to working adult learners are newly synthesized into four types of individual learning processes: adaptive, generative, transformative, and reflective. The results suggest an integrative conceptual flow map of individual and organizational learning facilitated by culture and management system enablers. Implications for using this conceptual framework for practicing performance technology solutions are also discussed.     

生态系统管理研究综述

生态系统管理是生态学的一个分支学科。在对生态系统管理的产生及研究历程和现状的梳理的基础上对当前学界提出的生态系统管理的概念、构成要素及主要议题,生态系统管理的原则以及具体行动步骤进行综述。生态系统管理是在社会—经济一自然（生态）复合生态系统的视角下进行的管理活动,与传统的自然资源管理有着本质的区别。     

Critical action learning – rituals and reflective spaces

This paper is written to outline our ideas on rituals and reflective places and how this thinking has emerged through our writing, facilitation and reflections around critical action learning and critical leadership. We attempt to show the conceptual framework that underpins our vision of Critical Leadership and how out of this work we have begun to develop new action learning techniques which we believe help to make the action learning we teach and practise, more critical. In describing these concepts of criticality we consider the tripartite elements of each of the three concepts we call Critical Leadership. That is ‘knowing, being, doing’; ‘space, place and pace’ and ‘thinking, feeling, willing’. We then go on to demonstrate how these three concepts helped us to shape our new action learning technique entitled ‘The Coliseum’. We believe that this new action learning technique enhances the likelihood of critical action learning taking place by underscoring key elements such as encouraging feedback, initiating deep listening, promoting challenge and, perhaps, in the end, precipitating enlightenment.     

Analysing Creative Design Process: A Set of Tools to Understand Activity in its Socio-cultural and Historic Context

Previous theoretical frameworks used to research and explain creative design processes tend to privilege individual expression and not address the context in which the process occurs. This is problematic due to the ways in which creative activities are embedded in and shaped by socio-cultural and historic contexts. In this article we focus on the ways in which cultural historic activity theory (CHAT) and its analytical activity systems can be used to reveal creative processes in context. We draw on the tools and concepts of CHAT and data from a study of visual communication design (VCD) students and lecturers situated within a transnational higher education (TNHE) context at a university in China. An analytical framework was constructed to research practices used in creative design process learning. The dynamic nature of CHAT offers design process research methods a set of analytical tools to capture the powerful parts played by artifacts and interactions within specific sociocultural and historic learning contexts.     

Design Domain: Created Space,Creative Space

In this article, I describe and explore Design Domain, a large‐cohort course for which I am academic coordinator and which is enacted across six design programmes at the Glasgow School of Art (GSA). I unpack Design Domain’s context and intentionality as a ‘created space’, where student learners are exposed to different ways of thinking, making and doing, with an emphasis on working within discipline but pushing boundaries beyond the discipline. Next, I evaluate Design Domain as a ‘creative space’, unpacking its lineaments and evaluating its positives and challenges. Then, I set out initial reflections on the taxonomy of disciplinarities, arguing that these can be usefully reappraised when applied to a pedagogical framework like Design Domain, which blends predominantly individual learning with particular and specific points of collective commonality of purpose and action. Finally, I describe how I will go onto develop my understanding via an action research informed evaluation of a recent Design Domain project in Communication Design, where students of graphic design, photography and illustration worked together. I frame the type of critical questions I might ask of staff and student respondents in an action research informed evaluation study, and I offer a preliminary conclusion: that it is more appropriate to focus on ways of thinking than prescribing ways of doing, and that this might bring practice and process into a more adaptive theoretical framework.     

Pedagogies for the ‘Dis‐engaged’: Diverse Experiences of the Young People’s Arts Award Programme

Art education is often praised for its engaging programmes and inclusive pedagogies, with many initiatives created with the intention of widening access for those who are deemed to be lacking. This article investigates one such programme – the young people’s Arts Award, which is a nationally recognised qualification for young people aged 11–25. I call upon a range of pedagogies in order to critique the Arts Award within the context of informal and alternative education settings in the United Kingdom. Drawing on a 12‐month ethnographic study, the research was conducted across five diverse programmes which included youth work projects and alternative provision. I present two cases – ‘learning to be an artist’ and ‘learning to behave’ – which demonstrate a hierarchy of pedagogy in the application of this programme across these particular contexts. Artists’ Signature Pedagogies are used as an analytical framework to explore the affordances of working with artists through the programme. Further, I engage with the Pedagogy of Poverty to demonstrate that young people who were classified as ‘dis‐engaged’ were more likely to receive lower quality programmes, low‐level work and over‐regulated teaching. I argue that despite changes to the ways that young people access art education, there continues to be unequal opportunities. This finding is significant for not only creative practitioners and youth arts workers, but also arts education policy makers and programmers.     

How groups cooperate in a networked geometry learning environment

This paper presents a small group computing environment in which four students each control a different point in a geometric space, such that as a group they collectively manipulate the vertices of a quadrilateral. Prior research has revealed that students have considerable difficulty in learning about the interrelationships among quadrilaterals shapes. In this study, we investigated how a designed environment can help support students’ learning in this area. In particular, in a case study of two student groups, we used the notions of appropriation and objectification to explain how students learned from one another different ways of using the technology and of explaining geometric concepts to progress in their geometric reasoning. When the students did not attain a shared focus of attention, they were not able to appropriate others’ approaches to using the technology or explaining geometric concepts. In one group, although some individuals demonstrated learning gains, when the coordination among the group members fell apart, not all the members were able to benefit. On the other hand, another group which demonstrated more group-oriented behavior—listening to one another, sharing the same focus of attention, engaging in coordinated actions—was able to benefit as a whole and did better overall on individual assessments.     

Learning environments at the margin: Case studies of disenfranchised youth doing science in an aquarium and an after-school program

In this article, we explore how two informal educational contexts—an aquarium and an after-school science program—enabled disenfranchised learners to adopt an identity as insiders to the world of science. We tell the stories of four youth, relating what doing science meant to them and how they positioned themselves in relation to science. We contribute to the extensive literature on the value of learning beyond the school walls, yet focus on ethnically and linguistically diverse youth from low-income backgrounds who have often been excluded from such settings. We suggest that such out-of-school settings are particularly important to youth who have few other opportunities to interact with and relate to science in positive ways.     

网络学习共同体的自组织生态及其实现机制

网络学习共同体是一种新型学习生态系统。从生态视角进行分析可以发现它具有开放性、非平衡、非线性、涨落性等独特的自组织特征,是一种自组织学习生态系统。对其自组织生态实现机制的解释,则可以从技术生态、知识生态、人际生态三个方面展开,分别解释网络学习共同体的自组织物质基础、自组织结构特征、自组织动力来源等基本问题,可作为网络学习共同体研究的一种有效分析框架。     

Extending Learning Communities: New Technologies,Multiple Literacies,and Culture Blind Pedagogies

Technologies such as videoconferencing used for distance education are creating ways for high schools to extend their learning communities to connect youth with professional communities of practice in ways that approximate the face-to-face interactions in traditional classrooms. These technologies are often touted as a way to augment course offerings and curricula, particularly those needed for college-going. The use of videoconferencing technologies alone, however, does not ensure that the desired forms of interaction will occur particularly given their reliance on traditional banking-model pedagogies and literacies. In this article, we focus on college bound Black and Latino/a youth from under resourced urban communities and their negotiations of new technologies, multiple literacies, and traditional pedagogies within a music education learning community extended through videoconferencing technologies. Employing a multicultural feminist critical theoretical framework, we unearth the ways Black and Latino/a youths identities as active learners and college-bound musicians shape, and are shaped, in the interplay of new technologies, multiple literacies, and traditional pedagogies within a music education classroom.     

Long-Term Mentors’ Perceptions of Building Mentoring Relationships with At-Risk Youth

Youth mentoring, defined within this study, as the pairing of a youth at risk with a caring adult, is an intervention that is often used for youth at risk for academic and social failure. We sought to understand mentors’ perspectives of the fundamental elements that foster positive mentor–mentee relationships that build resiliency and increase social and academic success. Twelve participants with extensive experience in mentoring youth at high risk participated in structured interviews during two focus groups. Major themes revealed in data analysis included needs for supportive acceptance and consistency to help the mentees build social literacy and future visioning.     

How do teachers learn in the workplace? An examination of teacher learning activities

In this study, two data collection instruments were used to examine how Dutch secondary school teachers learn in the workplace. Firstly, they completed a questionnaire on their preferences for learning activities on two occasions. Secondly, during the intermediate period, they reported learning experiences in digital logs. Results of both instruments indicate that teachers often learn by critical individual reflection and by involving colleagues in particular challenging or problematic situations. An additional finding concerns the reporting of sequences of learning activities in the digital logs which is clearly different from the focus on single learning activities as found in most literature and as used in the questionnaire. Furthermore, the digital logs provided a fine‐tuning of the concepts of ‘involvement of colleagues’ and ‘experimentation’ in relation to teacher learning. The study concludes with a critical reflection on both data collection instruments. Finally, implications for future research on how teachers learn are discussed.     

New rules of the game: youth training in Brazil and Finland as examples of the new global network governance

Young people labelled ‘disadvantaged’ or ‘at risk of social exclusion’ are increasingly directed into publicly funded or NGO-based, partly privately financed projects in order to secure their desired integration into society through work or further education. In this article, we carry out a comparative analysis of youth training programmes in Brazil and Finland based on empirical fieldwork undertaken in two separate research projects. The research data consist of qualitative interviews of the projects’ participants and management. The focus of the analysis is on youth employment projects as discursive practices, that is, on the ways that knowledge on employment and employment-related responsibilities is produced in the discourses and practices of the projects. Despite the different contexts, the analysis shows that the youth training projects share a number of commonalities with regards to the shaping of the self as entrepreneurial and self-regulated. This is linked to the global dominance of a new form of governance, which relies on and actively promotes the individualisation of responsibility and obscures the structural and societal forces that lie behind youth unemployment and exclusion. We suggest that engaging young people in critical discourses about the sources of inequality would be the key to more equitable forms of development.     

Imagery,intuition and imagination in quantum physics education

In response to the authors, I demonstrate how threshold concepts offer a means to both contextualise teaching and learning of quantum physics and help transform students into the culture of physics, and as a way to identify particularly troublesome concepts within quantum physics. By drawing parallels from my own doctoral research in another area of contemporary physics—special relativity—I highlight concepts that require an ontological change, namely a shift beyond the reality of everyday Newtonian experience such as time dilation and length contraction, as being troublesome concepts that can present barriers to learning with students often asking “is it real?”. Similarly, the domain of quantum physics requires students to move beyond “common sense” perception as it brings into sharp focus the difference between what is experienced via the sense perceptions and the mental abstraction of phenomena. And it’s this issue that highlights the important role imagery and creativity have both in quantum physics and in the evolution of physics more generally, and lies in stark contrast to the apparent mathematical focus and lack of opportunity for students to explore ontological issues evident in the authors’ research. By reflecting on the authors’ observations of a focus on mathematical formalisms and problem solving at the expense of alternative approaches, I explore the dialectic between Heisenberg’s highly mathematical approach and Schrödinger’s mechanical wave view of the atom, together with its conceptual imagery, at the heart of the evolution of quantum mechanics. In turn, I highlight the significance of imagery, imagination and intuition in quantum physics, together with the importance of adopting an epistemological pluralism—multiple ways of knowing and thinking—in physics education. Again drawing parallels with the authors’ work and my own, I identify the role thought experiments have in both quantum physics education and in physics more generally. By introducing the notion of play, I advocate adopting and celebrating multiple approaches of teaching and learning, including thought experiments, play, dialogue and a more conceptual approach inclusive of multiple forms of representation, that complements the current instructional, mathematical approach so as to provide better balance to learning, teaching and the curriculum.     

Support for assessment practice: developing the Assessment Design Decisions Framework

There are many excellent publications outlining features of assessment and feedback design in higher education. However, university educators often find these ideas challenging to realise in practice, as much of the literature focuses on institutional change rather than supporting academics. This paper describes the conceptual development of a practical framework designed to stimulate educators’ thinking when creating or modifying assessments. We explain the concepts that underpin this practical support, including the notions of ‘assessment decisions’ and ‘assessment design phases’, as informed by relevant literature and empirical data. We also present the outcome of this work. The Assessment Design Decisions Framework. This provides key considerations in six categories: purposes, contexts, tasks, interactions, feedback processes and learning outcomes. By tracing the development of the Framework, we highlight complex ways of thinking about assessment that are relevant to those who design and deliver assessment to tertiary students.     

Flexible learning in teacher education: myths,muddles and models

While there has been widespread take‐up of the concept ‘flexible learning’ within various educational environments—and equally frequent references to the flexible ‘natures’ of the computer and communication technologies that often underpin flexible learning initiatives—the relationship between technologies and flexibility is not a simple one. In this paper we examine some of the more persistent myths about technologies that are intertwined with discourses of flexibility. We highlight some of the more common ‘muddles’ that these myths can lead us in to and argue that the ‘mess’ that so often results from well‐intentioned moves to ‘be more flexible’ is largely a result of the ways that CCTs, or indeed any new educational technology or strategy, is theorized. Drawing on a recent study of online teaching and learning in higher education, we outline a new framework for examining these and related issues as they apply to teacher education.     

Some Key Issues in Creating Inquiry-Based Instructional Practices that Aim at the Understanding of Simple Electric Circuits

Many students in secondary schools consider the sciences difficult and unattractive. This applies to physics in particular, a subject in which students attempt to learn and understand numerous theoretical concepts, often without much success. A case in point is the understanding of the concepts current, voltage and resistance in simple electric circuits. In response to these problems, reform initiatives in education strive for a change of the classroom culture, putting emphasis on more authentic contexts and student activities containing elements of inquiry. The challenge then becomes choosing and combining these elements in such a manner that they foster an understanding of theoretical concepts. In this article we reflect on data collected and analyzed from a series of 12 grade 9 physics lessons on simple electric circuits. Drawing from a theoretical framework based on individual (conceptual change based) and socio-cultural views on learning, instruction was designed addressing known conceptual problems and attempting to create a physics (research) culture in the classroom. As the success of the lessons was limited, the focus of the study became to understand which inherent characteristics of inquiry based instruction complicate the process of constructing conceptual understanding. From the analysis of the data collected during the enactment of the lessons three tensions emerged: the tension between open inquiry and student guidance, the tension between students developing their own ideas and getting to know accepted scientific theories, and the tension between fostering scientific interest as part of a scientific research culture and the task oriented school culture. An outlook will be given on the implications for science lessons.     

Common features of expertise in working life: implications for higher education

ABSTRACT

We need to know what it means to be an expert in working life today. Universities are often accused of neglecting the basic idea that higher education should be relevant to working life, and research on the subject of expertise in today’s workplace is lacking. Thirteen experts from different fields were interviewed and the obtained data were analysed using grounded theory as an analytical approach. The research questions were: (1) How do experts define expertise? (2) What kind of problems persist in their work? and (3) How are ‘routine’ and ‘adaptive’ expertise performed? The results revealed that expertise is more a social and collaborative phenomenon than an individual property. Experts develop new solutions and seek constant learning in their work. They excel at spontaneous problem solving. These findings suggest that, to prepare students to become experts, deliberate learning and practice should be provided within a framework of collaborative problem solving.