Mindfulness and discussing “thorny” issues in the classroom

Being in the moment, showing compassion, being non-judgmental, acknowledging deep emotional challenges without getting stuck: these are mindfulness characteristics important to us as teachers, yet not often included in teacher preparation. These concerns become magnified when we focus on difficult knowledge and thorny issues, like topics related to gender and race. Using a sociocultural framework, we address how mindfulness, heuristics, and other contemplative practices can be adopted to create safe, supporting, and healing spaces for such complex, often emotionally painful discussions. Participant narratives are used extensively to provide a voice to those marginalized or hurt. Drawing from these narratives and their experience in discussing thorny issues, we put forth possible solutions and interventions that can create spaces that encourage and support critical discourse through mindful practices. The development of a heuristic for discussing thorny issues whose characteristics can be adopted by interested teachers and educators to help frame and mediate this type of difficult discussion is an outcome of this research.     

Key issues for research in self‐directed learning

This paper consists of two parts. The first part gives an overview of two major paradigms which have influenced research in education; the positivist/empiricist and the interpretive. It is argued that research into self‐direction has been dominated by the positivist/empiricist paradigm and that, because of a fundamental incompatibility between the assumptions underlying positivism and those underlying ‘self‐direction,’ research into self‐direction has been ‘blocked.’ It is suggested that the adoption of an interpretive paradigm promises to reinvigorate and redirect research into self‐direction in learning.

The second part of the paper represents an attempt to develop a research agenda into self‐direction from an interpretive perspective; that is, one which takes account of the learner's subjective construing of the learning situation. This subjective construing includes pur elements: (1) the learner's view of learning in general; (2) the learner's view of the specific learning endeavour being researched; (3) the learner's view of assistance or direction received; and (4) the learner's view of autonomous leaming and the development of personal autonomy. It is also suggested that any adequate research into ‘self‐direction’ should ideally take account of the perspective of the facilitator or other person offering help and assistance, since learning situations depend largely on the quality of the relationship established between the learner and the ‘helper’.     

Providing for the gifted in the regular classroom— Am I really mad?

The needs of gifted students can be met in a regular classroom when the teacher plans individual learning programs for the gifted that are related to what the teachers and students will actually do in class.     

Researcher–participant positioning in classroom research

Now that the discursive practices of students and teachers consume the attention of many classroom researchers, it is timely to consider the interrelationships between researchers and their participants or "subjects." Positioning theory gives prominence to the position/speech-act/storyline triad in conversations. While positioning theory has informed several poststucturalist scholars in a variety of settings, the authors are unaware of other studies where the positions/positioning of researcher and participants have become the focus of investigation. In this article the authors demonstrate how the application of positioning theory can be helpful in understanding conversations between researchers and their research participants, particularly in interviews. Also, they discuss the issues of power relations, subjectivities, validity, and ethics as they relate to the research relationships identified in the study.     

A Mouse in the classroom

Tom has a mouse atschool.It has pink eyes,ablack nose, and big ears.     

A bee in the classroom

①噢，教室里有只蜜蜂。②在哪儿?看，在灯上。③现在在哪儿?在风扇上。④看，在墙上。闪三O冬这是什么?是蜜蜂。不，是黑板。⑥r有只蜜蜂在黑板上。噢，真是只蜜蜂。呵呵。A bee in the classroom@郭连元~~     

Tape recorded lectures in the college classroom — II

Summary An experiment was carried out which contrasted the effectiveness of a conventional instructional methodversus a method based upon tape recorded lectures plus student-led discussions. Subjects for the pilot experiment were 36 students enrolled in a pre-service teacher education course at San Francisco State College. The conventionally-taught section was instructed by a standard lecturediscussion approach. The tape-taught section listened to hour-long taped lectures, and discussed the content of the lectures with the assistance of a student discussion leader. After the initial meeting of the semester, the instructor had no contact with the tape-taught class. On the basis of group performance on several criterion measures, no significant differences between the conventionallytaught and the tape-taught students were found. It was concluded that the instructional technique featuring taped lectures was effective.     

Factors associated with Chinese undergraduates’ perceptions of the ethical issues in classroom assessment practices—a mixed methods study

Educational Assessment, Evaluation and Accountability - Although studies have been conducted on educators’ perceptions of assessment practices, few studies explored students’...     

Documenting reflection‐in‐action in the classroom: searching for appropriate methods

Schon's [1983] account of “reflection‐in‐action” as a process of “refraining” experience as it proceeds has attracted considerable interest among teacher educators. But that interest has been accompanied by a great deal of confusion, perhaps because “reflection” is such a broad term with familiar meanings. Schon distinguishes the more familiar reflection‐on‐action from reflection‐in‐action that he sees occurring spontaneously within action.

A challenge facing those who stress reflection as a central feature of professional education for teaching involves finding ways to recognize and record the process of reflection‐in‐action in classrooms. This paper promotes discussion of what it means to analyze teaching from the perspective of reflection‐in‐action. After outlining some problems associated with recognizing reflection‐in‐action, data are considered from studies of metaphors and personal accounts of learning to teach. One teacher illustrates the potential of inferring reflection‐in‐action from accounts of changes in teaching practices. Parallel documentation of observations of teaching and interviews about that teaching emerge as a promising approach to the documentation of reflection‐in‐action in classrooms.     

Teacher characteristics for success in the classroom: Chinese principals’ perceptions for hiring decisions

Two research questions guided this study of teacher selection: (a) What characteristics do Chinese principals look for when hiring teachers? And (b) what is the effect of participants’ gender, experience, or school location on perceived characteristics of effective teacher candidates in hiring? Both interviews and a questionnaire survey were used to collect data from a southwest city of Shandong Province, China. In this mixed design study, quantitative results were consistent with the qualitative results. Additionally, the study results are intended to help readers better understand school principals’ perceived characteristics of effective teachers in a Chinese context and provides a framework for future comparative research between China and the USA.

     

Is the classroom obsolete in the twenty-first century?

Abstract

Lefebvre’s triadic conception of spatial practice, representations of space and representational spaces provides the theoretical framework of this article, which recognises a productive relationship between space and social relations. Its writing stems from a current and ongoing qualitative study of innovative teaching and learning practices in new technology-rich flexible learning spaces, characterised by large open spaces, permeable boundaries and diverse furnishings emphasising student comfort, health and flexibility. Schooling in the twenty-first century, certainly in the developed world, is required to ensure that children and school-leavers have appropriate life-long skills in preparation for participation in the twenty-first century knowledge economy. This world is characterised as complex and dynamic, deeply influenced by globalisation and the revolution in digital technology. Developing these skills calls into question ‘outmoded’ transmission models of teaching and requires teachers and school leaders to approach their work in radically new ways. Open school design encourages flexibility in learning and teaching, and allows collaborative, team teaching, with designers claiming significant educational benefits. This arrangement of multiple classes using innovatively designed, technology-enriched common space, facilitated by multiple teachers, working in collaborative teams, is far-reaching in its likely implications for community expectations and responses, relationship-building, assessment, student learning, teachers’ work and initial teacher education.     

Silencing the everyday experiences of youth? Deconstructing issues of subjectivity and popular/corporate culture in the English classroom

This paper investigates the influence of popular/corporate culture texts and discourses on the subjectivities and everyday social experiences of young people, and the extent to which such influences are critically analysed in the English classroom. I present two levels of synthesised information using data analysis born of a mixed-methods postgraduate research project with a group of 15- and 16-year-old high school students in Perth, Australia. First, I argue that popular culture texts position young people to assume subjectivities that are heavily informed by the ideologies and discourses of popular/corporate culture. Moreover, I argue that young people's social currency is often defined by the extent to which individuals demonstrate an alliance to such ideologies and discourses, and that individuals who deviate from popular norms experience subjugation and exclusion within peer and social settings. Second, I deal pedagogically with subject English and areas of it that hold relevance in terms of the integration and analysis of ‘the popular’. I argue that many students feel their teachers are ‘out of touch’ with the everyday realities of young people and their popular culture influences, and that there is a lack of commitment by teachers to critically analyse popular culture texts in the classroom. The paper concludes by arguing that such failures risk producing students whose everyday experiences are silenced and who are denied the critical learning spaces necessary to deconstruct the ways they are positioned to adopt certain subjectivities. Moreover, critical and progressive pedagogical praxis need to be further deployed by educators in order to effectively analyse the relationship between youth subjectivities and popular/corporate culture discourses.     

Undergraduate students’ achievement goals for conducting research: examining the motivational benefits of laboratory classroom affiliation

Rooted in achievement goal theory, the buffering hypothesis posits that contextual factors serve to moderate the deleterious effects of personal achievement goals on relevant outcomes. The present study sought to test this hypothesis by examining the interactive effects of classroom affiliation perceptions and personal achievement goals for conducting research on participants’ goal strivings within physics, biology and chemistry laboratory classes. Participants consisted of 185 undergraduate students voluntarily engaged in faculty-led research. Results indicated that affiliation strengthened the positive association between research mastery goals and class-based mastery approach goals. In contrast, perceptions of affiliation in the laboratory environment weakened the relationship between research mastery goals and performance approach goals. The importance of academic climates as facilitators of goal striving in classrooms designed to cultivate research skill development is discussed.     

Characteristics of teachers’ choice of examples in and for the mathematics classroom

The main goal of the study reported in our paper is to characterize teachers’ choice of examples in and for the mathematics classroom. Our data is based on 54 lesson observations of five different teachers. Altogether 15 groups of students were observed, three seventh grade, six eighth grade, and six ninth grade classes. The classes varied according to their level—seven classes of top level students and six classes of mixed—average and low level students. In addition, pre and post lesson interviews with the teachers were conducted, and their lesson plans were examined. Data analysis was done in an iterative way, and the categories we explored emerged accordingly. We distinguish between pre-planned and spontaneous examples, and examine their manifestations, as well as the different kinds of underlying considerations teachers employ in making their choices, and the kinds of knowledge they need to draw on. We conclude with a dynamic framework accounting for teachers’ choices and generation of examples in the course of teaching mathematics.

Follow‐up evaluation of an inservice programme based on action research: some methodological issues

The long‐term success of professional development programmes depends on both the quality of the original offering and the availability of subsequent support services. The primary intention in this article is to raise a number of methodological issues relating to follow‐up evaluation, which is defined here as an appraisal of the residual effects made some time after formal completion of a programme. Specifically, it is shown how the timing and design of the evaluation, and the indices used for assessing outcomes, can influence the conclusions. The evaluation of a particular inservice programme for primary school principals provides the vehicle for the discussion, but the principles are readily generalizable.     

Students’ goals and self-regulation in the classroom

This chapter argues for an understanding of action regulation as inextricably related to the motivational process of goal setting and planning. Within this conceptual framework our research has explored students’ action patterns, both in normal ongoing classroom situations and in stressful circumstances. Goals are emphasized as essential aspects of the motivational quality of activities, namely through the role they play in the regulation of action. In this study the detection of students’ behavioral goals is addressed. Several achievement and social goals are described and ways to assess students’ goal setting and planning processes are proposed. Strategies that students use to handle classroom stressors are explored. These include strategic flexible action, strategic rigid action, passive behavior, and disorganized behavior. These strategies represent distinct forms of action regulation. Relations between students’ strategies, which are viewed as indications of their control, and agency beliefs are also examined. Finally, classroom features, which might help or hinder students’ self-regulation are discussed, including teachers’ goals and students’ perceptions of teachers’ goals for classroom activities.     

Commentary: How readily can findings from basic cognitive psychology research be applied in the classroom?

The commentary discusses phenomena highlighted in the studies of the special issue such as the hypercorrection effect, overconfidence, and the efficiency of interventions designed to increase monitoring accuracy. The discussion is based on a broader theoretical framework of self-regulation of learning that stresses the inferential character of metacognitive experiences, as posited by the cue utilization approach, the interrelations of metacognition with affect, and the influence of prior knowledge and individual differences factors on monitoring accuracy. The implications of the findings of the studies for learning in the classroom are also pointed out.