Design principles for support in developing students’ transformative inquiry skills in Web-based learning environments

The aim of this explorative study was to find the factors limiting sixth-grade learners’ outcomes in acquiring skills related to the transformative inquiry learning processes as well as to analyse the interrelations between inquiry skills in order to develop an optimal support system for designing Web-based inquiry learning environments. A Web-based learning environment ‘Young Scientist’ was developed and applied to the domain of integrated science. The skill of identifying the correct research questions appeared to be a prerequisite for formulating research questions. When students understand how to identify the research questions correctly, there is no need for supporting formulation of research questions or hypotheses. We have found that at the stages of analysing data and inferring, students have to be provided with the tools to activate their prior knowledge, assignments help to organize their work into manageable sections, and reflective support or adaptive feedback to relate the results achieved with the process of inquiry. Our findings demonstrate that the effectiveness of inquiry learning can be strongly influenced by regulative support; however, a particular level of initial inquiry knowledge in theoretical context is also needed in order to develop inquiry skills in a situational context.     

Field-based preservice teacher research: Facilitating reflective professional practice

Preservice teachers enrolled in a middle level endorsement block provided evidence of their professional, affective, and collaborative dispositions as they reflected upon their conception of early adolescents, appropriate instruction practice, and the empowerment of teachers and students. Research indicates that empowering future teachers as reflective professionals requires teacher education programmes to structure learning experiences that model reflective practice and facilitate the development of engaged learning communities. Through case study research this group of preservice teachers was able to gain a contextual understanding of early adolescents that not only impacted their perception and understanding of the target age group but also allowed them to negotiate their preconceptions, the theoretical understanding presented in their course work, and the authentic observations in the middle school classroom.     

Journal writing as a way to know culture: insights from a travel study abroad program

In this work, we explore journal writing as a way to come to know culture, particularly cultural phenomenon, vastly different from one’s own firmly held and enacted beliefs. In this research, we accept the premise that writing is a way of knowing and adopt journal writing as a tool through which students can explore the knowledge they have developed as a result of their academic travel study experiences, all being participants in the China Study Abroad Program. Narrative threads from numerous graduate students’ journals are seamed together through the use of narrative inquiry’s analytical tools. The narrative exemplars that were created reinforce the personal, social, and professional importance of creating a reflective writing space through which many expressions of culture and students’ reflective responses to them can be channeled in productive and potentially transformative ways.     

Future Oriented Colleges and Universities

The AIR model we describe in this article is a practical framework for cultivating reflective inquiry into ethical issues that students, faculty, and administrators experience in the midst of busy daily lives and encounter in classroom discussions in a discipline field. The model is highly adaptable to academic and workplace settings and enables students to clarify and refine their ethical thinking and make more caring, compassionate, and respectful choices. Quantitative and qualitative assessment indicates that students who use AIR as an organizing framework become more empowered and competent to engage in reflective ethical inquiry.     

Classroom teacher effectiveness research and inquiry,and its relevance to the development of public education policy: an Australian context

This paper has as its focus an analysis of the question and problem of classroom teacher effectiveness research and inquiry. It presents an examination of what counts as valid and worthwhile research in classroom teacher effectiveness studies for the development of education policy within an Australian context, the State of Victoria. The Government’s Blueprint, the major education policy document of the Victorian State Labour Government, outlines its educational approach. Important and core features of government direction for education policy include a focus on social and economic disadvantage. A priority for the Victorian State Labour Government is tangible and measurable improvement in the performance of the public education system. A particular concern is the problem of academic underperformance within public schools, particularly those designated as low-performing and situated in socially and economically disadvantaged communities. Building the capacity of the State’s teacher workforce forms a key component of the Blueprint, and State Government direction in public education. The paper utilises a qualitative theoretical framework. Eight education policy actor/participants were interviewed and their responses analysed using a critical discourse approach. The main findings indicate that education policy actors advocate a strong belief in particular forms of evidence-based research for the development of education policy in the area of classroom teacher effectiveness.     

Exploring the transformative potential of recognition of prior informal learning for learners: A case study in Scotland

This article presents an overview of the findings of a recently completed study exploring the potentially transformative impact upon learners of recognition of prior informal learning (RPL). The specific transformative dimension being reported is learner identity. In addition to providing a starting point for an evidence base within Scotland, the research findings have the potential to enhance future development within the recognition of prior informal learning area, in particular in higher education institutions (HEIs) and across the sector. A qualitative case study using a constructionist approach is utilised to develop contextual understandings of the learner experience of RPL. The study identifies connections between the RPL process and the development of learner identity. Semi-structured interviews with RPL learners provided rich data. This study asserts that learner identity fluctuates throughout learners’ experiences and therefore the development of learner identity is not linear but nonetheless that identity changes as part of the RPL process. A number of issues ultimately impact upon learner identities, including the role of RPL advisors and RPL mechanisms and processes. This research concludes that RPL has the potential to be transformative for some learners and identifies some areas worthy of further exploration.     

Effective Professional Development in Science and Mathematics Education: Teachers' and Facilitators' Views

This study compares the views of teachers and professional development facilitators about effective professional development (PD). We analyzed interviews with 72 teacher participants and 23 PD facilitators involved in nine science and mathematics PD projects. The teachers' themes for characterizing effective PD included classroom application, teacher as learner, and teacher networking. Similarly, the PD facilitators discussed effective PD as having classroom application and experiences for teachers as learners. In addition, PD facilitators shared the need to develop collegial relationships with teachers and improve teacher knowledge. These views correspond to some of the standards and recommendations described in policy and research documents on effective PD. Criteria of effective PD in these documents that the participants did not mention included: (1) challenging teachers' content and pedagogical content knowledge with transformative learning experiences, (2) encouraging teacher leadership for sustained support, and (3) focusing on student learning by instructing teachers on how to use student data to inform their teaching practice. Our findings have implications for designing PD that reflects the criteria of standards-based reform.     

课堂志：一种草根化田野式的课堂研究范式

课堂志是研究团队针对课堂田野中的直观现象、事件或行为,进行详细、动态和情境化的观察、访谈和深描,以求探究特定课堂文化背景下的课标要求、学生学习、教学行为和课堂文化的一种定性研究方法。在研究中宜遵从人种志研究倡导的原则,建立科学的资料编码体系,加强定性与定量研究的结合,规避其作为一种研究方法的缺陷。     

How Arizona Community College Teachers Learn to Teach

A survey of novice community college teachers in Arizona examined what learning experiences are available to help them learn to teach, and how valuable they consider those experiences to be in learning to teach. These activities can be organized into four general categories: reflective activities, classroom application, formal methods of learning teaching strategies, and college-based activities. Of these activities, new teachers value reflective activities the most, followed by classroom application, then formal methods of learning teaching strategies. College-based activities got the lowest ranking. These rankings raise two questions that warrant further professional exchange and research. First, are college-based professional development activities actually less valuable in promoting student success, or are they simply perceived that way by faculty members? Second, is there an intuitive process that new teachers use to learn to teach that relies more heavily on reflective and applied activities?     

Conceptualising food research in higher education as a matter of social justice: philosophical,methodological and ethical considerations

Globally, food concerns in higher education have emerged as an issue of critical importance. Food acquisition struggles and high rates of food insecurity among students have been documented, yet food within higher education continues to be an under-researched area of study. This paper calls for advancing research that critically engages with food concerns in higher education. The argument is made that food concerns should be viewed as a social justice matter, and a case is made for conducting research on food concerns by adopting an alternative approach to research in this area – a transformative paradigm. The paper advances new insights for the philosophical, methodological and ethical dimensions to researching food in higher education as a matter of social justice. The argument is made that a transformative approach to research is conducive for examining the experiences of those who are marginalised within the context of higher education and confront food challenges.     

The Learning Research Cycle: Bridging Research and Practice

A science teacher and her mentor reflect on their participation in the Learning Research Cycle, a professional learning model that bridges research and practice in both university and public school contexts. Teachers do scientific research in scientists’ laboratories, then bridge their scientific experiences with the design of new classroom learning environments and teacher-driven educational research projects. Science students do scientific research via their teachers’ lessons that bridge laboratory research with classroom learning. Scientists and educational researchers bridge their research interests to create new questions centered on teaching and learning in authentic science learning environments. The authors engaged in this qualitative inquiry present their perspectives on “what goes on,” “what we have learned,” and “what it means to the larger community.”     

Beyond cultural competence: transforming teacher professional learning through Aboriginal community-controlled cultural immersion

ABSTRACT

This paper problematises the concept of cultural competence in teacher professional learning arguing instead for opportunities to develop critical reflexivity in the ongoing construction of a pedagogical cultural identity. In the Aboriginal context within Australia, this research study demonstrates how attaining cultural knowledge, understandings and skills is most effective when professional learning is delivered by local Aboriginal cultural knowledge holders. This research study analyses the New South Wales Aboriginal Education Consultative Group Connecting to Country cultural immersion programme for local communities and schools. A mixed methods approach, analysing quantitative and qualitative data from questionnaires and interviews, highlights the significant impact this experience has on teachers in building relationships with local Aboriginal community members. Teachers reported learning new knowledge about local Aboriginal people, culture, history and issues that challenged their assumptions, personal and collective positioning and pedagogical approaches to teaching Aboriginal students. Implications from the study identify the significance of privileging Indigenous ways of knowing, being and doing in order to realise culturally responsive schooling and empower teachers as critically reflective change agents in their schools. It further identifies the need for significant human and financial investment so that all teachers can engage with this authentic and potentially transformative professional learning experience.     

Intercultural language teaching as a catalyst for teacher inquiry

This study investigated how two teachers of languages, facilitated by university researchers, developed their practices with regard to intercultural language teaching. Taking a qualitative case study approach, we collected data from classroom observations, interviews, debriefing conversations, and guided reflective pieces written by the teachers. Findings indicate that the opportunities for teachers to inquire into their own practices shifted these teachers' approaches to language teaching to accommodate a curriculum expectation to develop students' intercultural communicative competence in plurilingual contexts. The study offers valuable insights for teacher education into the ways teachers' inquiries can support teachers’ responses to curricular change.     

Results Speak for Themselves

The author has undertaken a narrative inquiry that explores the political and cultural positioning of drama education in the English secondary school. The inquiry also serves as both an experiment in and an argument for the relevance of a storying methodology in educational research. The reader is encouraged through the employment of particular expressionistic features, borrowed from the poetic mode, to enter into reflective conversation with the text. This, the author argues, is an approach to research that not only compliments drama pedagogy through its shared values, but that can be regarded as a continuance or widening of the reflexive conversation that begins in the drama classroom.     

Learning thoughtful reflection in teacher education

The notion of reflection has become an object of attention in education, but the research on this topic is often reduced to mere reflective practice. A relevant part of educational literature portrays reflection as a wholly beneficial practice for practitioners, but also for researchers. In the nursing field, in particular, reflection is largely practised and deeply examined. Reflection is specifically encouraged in teacher education, where ‘how-to’ manuals are widely used to explain strategies for turning teachers into reflective practitioners. In some cases, a specific kind of reflective approach is proposed, such as critical reflection. From the analysis of this technical literature, I observe that a wide range of approaches for fostering reflection have been applied, but little research evidence shows how effective these approaches are. Taking this problem into account, this article presents a research study on reflection. It first introduces a specific and unusual concept of reflection – that of phenomenological conception – and then goes on to develop an empirical investigation that enacts a phenomenological method of inquiry and is aimed at exploring the potential of the use of journal writing as a tool for enhancing reflection, and documents the data that emerged. The research was developed in a university context where the student teachers were asked to ‘reflect on the life of the mind’, in order to learn how to take a reflective stance. The student teachers wrote entries in a reflective journal in which they were requested to describe the lived experiences of the mind as they came to their reflective attention. The data emerging from the experience were made sense of through a qualitative method of analysis. The findings of the research are useful for designing an effective method for enhancing reflective practice.

     

Portraits of marginalized lives: Stories of literacy and collaboration in school and prison

The purpose of our paper is to focus on two multicultural literacy programs that we have developed in different sites in a major Canadian urban centre. We compare an inner city elementary school and a provincial correctional facility (jail) in order to study two respective literacy programs, as grounded in the experience of marginalized populations, with a view to promoting the transformative reconstruction of the meaning of education for individuals. In this discussion we provide a context for understanding these two educational sites; for examining the pedagogical dimensions of them; and for sharing portraits of our participants both in custody and in the classroom; and, finally, for exploring the interactive, collaborative approach undertaken in our respective programs and in our research together. Through this research inquiry, we, like our participants, have experienced the value of sharing and writing stories about schooling and life experiences from an immigrant/refugee perspective.We have attempted to illustrate how researchers and their participants can collaborate to create alternatives for encouraging self-expression and discovery in education. Our vision of education is that more attention needs to be given to marginalized individuals and populations in the context of curricular innovations that both enhance and promote literacy development and personal self-esteem. Culturally sensitive literacy programs can have the potential to transform students, teachers, and researchers to become writers of their own educational stories and, moreover, authors of their own lives.     

‘We don't believe media anymore’: Mapping critical literacies in an adult immigrant language classroom

This article maps critical literacies conceptually and empirically in the context of adult immigrant language classrooms. It begins by describing Deleuze and Guattari's cartographic approach. Then it traces critical literacies situated conceptually within a Freirean paradigm before mapping them differently through the Deleuzian-informed Multiple Literacies Theory (MLT). MLT frames critical literacies as reading intensively, that is, disruptively. This alternative conceptualization is then mobilized empirically in relation to the problems and politics produced in the qualitative study of one language classroom. In this classroom, reading a newspaper article provoked a series of transformative events or becomings, a concept created by Deleuze and Guattari and which is central to MLT. A research cartography is presented as a series of vignettes weaving data and concepts. This empirical mapping of media literacies and reading intensively offers insights into the politics of becoming in adult immigrant language classrooms and opens conceptual lines of flight between critical literacies and reading intensively.     

Supporting pre-service elementary teachers in their understanding of inquiry teaching through the construction of a third discursive space

Several international reports promote the use of the inquiry teaching methodology for improvements in science education at elementary school. Nevertheless, research indicates that pre-service elementary teachers have insufficient experience with this methodology and when they try to implement it, the theory they learnt in their university education clashes with the classroom practice they observe, a problem that has also been noted with other innovative methodologies. So, it appears essential for pre-service teachers to conduct supportive reflective practice during their education to integrate theory and practice, which various studies suggest is not usually done. Our study shows how opening up a third discursive space can assist this supportive reflective practice. The third discursive space appears when pre-service teachers are involved in specific activities that allow them to contrast the discourses of theoretical knowledge taught at university with practical knowledge arising from their ideas on science and science teaching and their observations during classroom practice. The case study of three pre-service teachers shows that this strategy was fundamental in helping them to integrate theory and practice, resulting in a better understanding of the inquiry methodology and its application in the classroom.     

In search of well‐started beginning science teachers: Insights from two first‐year elementary teachers

The purpose of this qualitative case study was to explore what aspects of two first‐year elementary teachers' practices were most consistent with an inquiry‐based approach, what PCK served as a mechanism for facilitating these practices, and what experiences have mediated the nature and development of these teachers' PCK. For each of the participants data included audio‐recorded interviews, video‐recorded classroom observations, lesson plans, and samples of student work. Data analysis illustrated that both participants engaged their students in question‐driven investigations, the use of observational data, making connections between evidence and claims, and communicating those claims to others. Moreover, there was clear evidence in the findings of the study that a considerable degree of coherence existed between the two participants' knowledge on one hand and their instructional practices on the other hand. The participants perceived specific learning experiences during their programs as being critical to their development. The contribution of this study lies in the fact that it provides examples of well‐started beginning elementary teachers implementing inquiry‐based science in 2nd and 5th grade classrooms. Implications of the study include the need for the design of university‐based courses and interventions by which teacher preparation and professional development programs support teachers in developing PCK for scientific inquiry and enacting instructional practices that are congruent with reform initiatives. © 2010 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Res Sci Teach 47:661–686, 2010