The relationship between engagement in the scholarship of teaching and learning and students’ course experiences

While there has been a good deal of discussion about the scholarship of teaching and learning, and models have been developed to understand its scope, the effects on students’ learning of academics engaging in the scholarship of teaching and learning are unclear. In the context of initiatives to develop the scholarship of teaching and learning in a large research‐intensive university in Australia, this paper discusses the relationship between faculty performance on a set of scholarly accomplishments in relation to teaching and learning from 2002 to 2004, and changes in students’ course experiences from 2001 to 2005. The paper provides evidence of the relationship between the scholarship of teaching and learning and students’ course experiences and demonstrates the effectiveness of institutional strategies to encourage the scholarship of teaching and learning.     

Parental belief and parental engagement in children’s learning

This article reports on a small scale study, examining the influence of parental faith belief on parental engagement with children’s learning. The literature surrounding parental engagement and the impact of familial belief on children’s outcomes is examined. It is clear from work in the US that familial faith belief has an impact; however, the previous literature is almost entirely quantitative in nature and does not reflect the faith make up of the UK. The article then reports the results of an online survey of parents, examining parental perception of the impact of belief, of faith/belief group and other issues on their engagement with their children’s learning. Analysis of the results are presented, and contextualised for the UK.     

University students’ and teachers’ conceptions of teaching and learning in the biosciences

In this study we compare university teachers’ and first-year students’ conceptions of teaching and learning at the Faculty of Environmental and Biological Sciences. The conceptions were analysed using data from open-ended questionnaires. The results showed that at the beginning of studies the gap between teachers’ and students’ conceptions of teaching and learning is substantial. This finding has important implications for the educational process. In order to enhance successful studying from the beginning of students’ university careers, it is important for teachers to become aware of the differences between students’ and teachers’ conceptions of learning.     

Promoting children’s participation: the role of teachers in preschool and primary school learning sessions

The aim of this study is to provide insights into the social construction of participation in joint activities in Finnish preschool and primary school classrooms. The article deals with two issues: How do teachers promote participation in a preschool classroom as compared with a primary school classroom? What similarities and differences are found? It also considers the question of how the similarities contribute to the continuity from preschool to primary school in terms of participation. Based on observation data insights are provided into the interactions between teachers and children by using extracts from teacher‐led learning sessions. The teachers used a diversity of strategies to promote participation in both contexts. In the preschool the focus was on participation and interaction as such, whereas in the primary school the emphasis was more clearly on academic learning. The findings suggest that teacher support of active participation and friendly relationships, together with creative and playful activities in the preschool, enrich children’s curiosity, and nourish children’s motivation for and interests in academic learning.     

Analyzing the development of children’s thinking: a review of “learning and teaching early math: the learning trajectories approach”

Journal of Mathematics Teacher Education -     

The educational e-portfolio: preliminary evidence of its relationship with student’s self-efficacy and engagement

Education and Information Technologies - The educational use of portfolios has been increasing in the last few years, especially as technology has also developed electronic versions of portfolios....     

Dialogic teaching and students’ discursive identity negotiation in the learning of science

This study sought to understand how dialogic teaching, as enacted in everyday classroom interaction, affords students opportunities for identity negotiation as learners of science. By drawing on sociocultural and sociolinguistic accounts, the study examined how students’ discursive identities were managed and recognized in the moment and over time during dialogic teaching and what consequences these negotiations had for their engagement in science learning. The study used video data of classroom interactions collected from an elementary science learning project and placed a specific analytic focus on four students in particular. The results reveal evidence of a rich variety of discursive identities exposed during dialogic teaching, thus demonstrating how the students’ identity negotiations were configured according to the social architecture of classroom discourse. Addressing the temporal dimension of dialogic teaching points out critical shifts in the students’ discursive identities, of which identification is argued to be pivotal when creating equitable science learning opportunities.     

Using ‘big ideas’ to enhance teaching and student learning

Organising teaching of a topic around a small number of ‘big ideas’ has been argued by many to be important in teaching for deep understanding, with big ideas being able to link different activities and to be framed in ways that provide perceived relevance and routes into engagement. However it is our view that, at present, the significance of big ideas in classroom practice is underappreciated while their implementation in teaching is perceived as ‘unproblematic’. In this paper we address these issues; while we draw on the experiences of two major research projects focusing on teachers’ pedagogical reasoning, we attempt to investigate big ideas from a conceptual stance. While the domain is important, we argue that the source of big ideas should include reflection on issues of student learning and engagement as well as the domain. Moreover, big ideas should be framed in ways that are richer, more generative of teaching ideas and more pedagogically powerful than topic headings. This means framing them as a sentence, with a verb, that provides direction and ideas for teachers. We posit three different kinds of big ideas: big ideas about content, big ideas about learning and big ideas about the domain; the last two result in teachers having parallel agendas to their content agendas. In addition to discussing how pedagogically powerful big ideas can be constructed, we draw on data from highly skilled teachers to extend thinking about how teachers can use big ideas.     

Improving engagement: the use of ‘Authentic self-and peer-assessment for learning’ to enhance the student learning experience

Innovative assessment practices have the potential to shift the way universities function. By focusing on well-designed assessment tasks, where students are expected to work collegially and are actively involved in self- and peer-assessment, the opportunity to engage students in the assessment process is realised. This article contends that students are significantly and detrimentally disengaged from the assessment process as a result of traditional assessments that do not address key issues of learning. Notable issues that arose from observations and questioning of students indicated that vast proportions of students were not proofreading their own work were not collaborating on tasks; had not been involved in the development of assessment tasks; and that students had insufficient skills in relation to their ability to evaluate their own efforts. These facts led the author to conceptualise new models of assessment focusing on authentic learning and the authentic assessment of that learning through self- and peer-assessment. Authentic assessment for sustainable learning (AASL) and Authentic self-and peer-assessment for learning (ASPAL) were trialled with approximately 300 undergraduate education students at the University of Notre Dame Australia. This article explains the conceptual development of the models and provides justification for their implementation.     

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.     

Role of the local centre in strengthening student support in UWI’s distributed learning programmes

A key component of conventional distance education organizations has been the network of local study centres, set up to serve as a bridge between students and the educational organization. With the capacity of information and communication technologies (ICTs) to enable direct contact between the educational institution and its dispersed students, it is arguable that the local site is no longer necessary. This article reports on a study that explores the factors that suggest the need to revisit the role of the local study centre in view of the growing interest in ICT‐supported distance learning. The study, conducted in the University of the West Indies Distance Education Centre, comprised a survey of students and interviews conducted with site coordinators. Based on the results obtained, the article makes recommendations for enhancing the student support role of the local study centre.     

Examining student teachers’ engagement with the theory-practice link in initial teacher education

The theory-practice debate has been a perennial issue in initial teacher education (ITE). By reporting a mixed-methods study in an ITE programme characterized by a university-based ‘theory-first’ approach in Hong Kong, this study offers useful empirical evidence to analyse the theory-practice issue. 346 student teachers of a BEd Programme participated in the quantitative survey, 15 of whom were interviewed. The quantitative findings showed significant positive correlations between three types of perceived professional competence and two aspects of student teachers’ engagement with the theory-practice link. The qualitative findings offered an in-depth understanding of the ways in which student teachers connected theoretical knowledge learned in ITE coursework and practical experience in ITE fieldwork in developing their professional competence: (1) theoretical knowledge as a guide for professional decisions and a tool for reflection on practice; (2) practicalizing theoretical knowledge: adapting theoretical knowledge to practice situations. In the process of engagement, theoretical knowledge was transformed and adapted to practice situations when student teachers coped with the challenges of the teaching contexts in their ITE fieldwork. While affirming the value of student teachers’ engagement with the theory-practice link, the findings of the study shed light on ITE practices for preparing student teachers for such engagement.     

ESD and lifelong learning: a case study of the Shangri-la Institute’s current engagement with the Bazhu community in Diqing,China

International Review of Education - This article argues that ESD should be integrated into lifelong learning and provides an example of how this might be done. It draws on a case study of a joint...     

ESD and lifelong learning: a case study of the Shangri-la Institute’s current engagement with the Bazhu community in Diqing, China

This article argues that ESD should be integrated into lifelong learning and provides an example of how this might be done. It draws on a case study of a joint project between the Shangri-la Institute and the Bazhu community in Diqing, southwest China, to analyse a community-based approach to Education for Sustainable Development and assess its implications for lifelong learning. The article examines the different knowledge, skills and values needed for ESD across the life span and asserts the need for these competencies to be informed by the local context. The importance of linking ESD with local culture and indigenous knowledge is emphasised. The article goes on to propose methods for integrating ESD into lifelong learning and underscore the need for learning at the individual, institutional and societal levels in formal, non-formal and informal learning settings. It calls for institutional changes that link formal, non-formal and informal learning through the common theme of ESD, and establish platforms to share experiences, reflect on these and thereby continually improve ESD.     

The roles of engagement and competition on learner’s performance and motivation in game-based science learning

Educational technology research and development - In a game-based learning (GBL) environment for seventh-grade students, this study investigated the impact of competition, engagement in games, and...     

From resource to document: scaffolding content and organising student learning in teachers’ documentation work on the teaching of series

We examine teachers’ use of resources as they prepare to teach the topic of numerical series of real numbers, in order to identify how their personal relationship with mathematical content—and its teaching—interacts with their use of a commonly used textbook. We describe this interplay between textbook and personal relationship, a term coined in the Anthropological Theory of the Didactic (ATD, Chevallard, 2003), in terms of documentation work (resources, aims, rules of action, operational invariants), a key construct from the documentational approach (DA, Gueudet & Trouche, in Educational Studies in Mathematics, 71, 199–218, 2009). We do so in the case of five post-secondary teachers who use the same textbook as a main resource for teaching the topic. Documentational analysis of interviews with the teachers led to the identification of their aims and rules of action (the what and how of their resource use as they organise their teaching of the topic) as well as the operational invariants (the why for this organisation of their teaching). We describe the teachers’ documentation work in two sets of aims/rules of action: scaffolding mathematical content (series as a stepping stone to learning about Taylor polynomials and Maclaurin series), and organising student learning about series through drill exercises, visualisation, examples, and applications. Our bridging (networking) of theoretical constructs originating in one theoretical framework (personal relationship, ATD) with the constructs of a different, yet compatible, framework (documentation work, DA) aims to enrich the latter (teachers’ documentation work) with the individual agency (teachers’ personal relationships with the topic) provided by the former.     

The dynamics of learning engagement and its relationship with teachers’ classroom practices in primary school

The current study was part of a larger project which examined teachers’ classroom practices and relationships with students’ learning engagement in primary-school education in Estonia. The focus was the role of autonomy supportive and structured teaching on learning engagement. Two primary-school teachers and their 46 students were selected for this study. The aim of the study was to explore how teachers’ classroom practices influence students’ learning engagement over two years during grade two and grade four of the educational system. Three trained observers rated classroom practices and students self-reported learning engagement. The results highlight primary students’ high-learning engagement, and did not confirm an expectation that low-autonomy-supportive teaching results in low-learning engagement in primary school.     

The role of authentic teaching cases and mastery approach goals in online pre-service teachers’ self-regulated learning

Instructional methods in higher education are changing in response to the growing popularity for distance learning courses. Investigating methods of instruction that will assist in the manner that coursework is taught in online courses is therefore a significant enterprise to research. Specifically, examining the relation between theory and practice in programs of teacher education where application is an integral part of the curriculum as well as students’ future career is of utmost importance. Instruction using the case study method enables instructors to involve their students with the realities of teaching using scenarios built around authentic educational dilemmas, where students can problem-solve varying outcomes and generate possible solutions from multiple theoretical viewpoints. Self-regulated learning has been consistently shown to be a fundamental component in the academic success of online learners. Existing research studies on distance learners has specifically shown mastery-approach goals to be predictive of self-regulated learning. This study found significant relationships between the use of authentic case studies in online preservice teaching, self-regulation, and mastery approach goals. Additionally, the results of this study also identified that the relationship between self-regulation and mastery approach goals was strengthened when using case studies that were authentic.

     

Does teaching to the test improve student learning?

A central concern surrounding test-based accountability is that teachers may narrow teaching practices to improve test performance on a curriculum-based specific knowledge test rather than student learning more broadly. Two of the most common teaching practices that “teach to the test” are providing test-specific classwork and increasing the frequency with which students take practice tests. Whether such teaching practices improve student learning—both in terms of learning the content associated with a specific knowledge test as well as more general learning—is a largely unanswered question. To approach this question, this paper uses a student fixed effects approach to analyze the impact of these kinds of narrow teaching practices on student performance on a specific test as well as a general knowledge test. We find that test-specific classwork and practice tests with specific test items tend to have little or negative impacts on curriculum specific or general knowledge test performance, except for male students, and that subject practice tests (without emphasizing test-specific items) have positive effects on student outcomes on both kinds of tests, but larger on the curriculum-specific than on the general test, and much larger on the curriculum-specific test for male students. We discuss the logic for these results and what they tell us about the effectiveness of test-focused teaching practices more generally.