Using reflective diagrams in professional development with university lecturers: A developmental tool in online teaching

The use of online technology within universities is increasing. However, this expansion is not accompanied by an associated increase in investment in lecturers' pedagogical knowledge to assist them in the transition. The major challenge now is to encourage the use of pedagogically sound technologies. At present, lecturers often lack the tools to describe the journey that they take when embarking to teach online. This paper focuses on the journey undertaken by a group of lecturers at a Western Australian university as they explored the relationship between their pedagogy and technology in a 1-year research project in which they engaged in monthly professional development workshops. At the concluding workshop the lecturers drew diagrams in order to add visual representations to their reflection process. The diagram, therefore, can be used as a diagnostic tool to identify lecturers' positions in relation to their pedagogy and use of technology and as a developmental tool to show their journey towards a more integrated approach in their online teaching.     

University teachers' experiences of academic leadership and their approaches to teaching

The study examined associations between university teachers' experiences of academic leadership, their perceptions of a specific academic context and their approaches to teaching in a particular subject that was taught in that context. The sample consisted of 439 lecturers in Australian universities in four fields of study. Lecturers completed surveys of their experiences and approaches. Structural equation models derived from student approaches to learning theory were developed and tested. The experience of leadership for teaching and a collegial commitment to enhancing student learning were found to be associated with the experience of the context of teaching and to lecturers' approaches to teaching.     

Working with uncertainty to support the teaching of critical reflection

This paper explores the cumulative reflections of lecturers examining their tacit assumptions of teaching practice. Despite extensive literature on the educational value of reflection, there is less visible research on teachers assessing their own reflective thinking. This longitudinal interpretive study uses Larrivee's assessment framework with a purposive sample of UK business students. Findings reveal insights for teaching reflection; acknowledging the discomfort of reflexive practice encourages learners to experiment with knowledge interpretation. The students' struggle to engage in reflection resonated with lecturers' parallel difficulties. The teaching approach balances deliberate structure with uncertain outcomes to trigger fresh interpretation of developmental theory and workplace relevance. Practice implications for lecturers are that harnessing uncertainty can provoke deeper insights that enable students to direct their learning and develop reflective skills. This case study offers a practical assessment example to enrich reflexive teaching, with scope to compare and replicate in different disciplinary settings.     

Exploring the interactive patterns of concept map-based online discussion: a sequential analysis of users’ operations,cognitive processing,and knowledge construction

Concept maps can be used as a cognitive tool to assist learners' knowledge construction. However, in a concept map-based online discussion environment, studies that take into consideration learners' manipulative actions of composing concept maps, cognitive process among learners' discussion, and social knowledge construction at the same time are still lacking. Therefore, this study employed lag sequential analysis to empirically explore learners' behavioral patterns in a concept map-based online discussion environment. We explored learners' operations in the concept map tool, and their discussion behavioral patterns of cognitive processing phases and social knowledge construction. The results showed that it was easier for learners to define a node than to define a relationship when they used the concept map. Additionally, the concept map can enhance higher level cognitive processing phases and lead learners to return to the main discussions from off-topic discussions significantly.     

Teachers and Teaching: Subjectivity,performativity and the body

It has become almost commonplace to recognise that teaching is an embodied practice. Most analyses of teaching as embodied practice focus on the embodied nature of the teacher as subject. Here, we use Butler's concept of performativity to analyse the reiterated acts that are intelligible as—performatively constitute—teaching, rather of the teacher as subject. We suggest that this simultaneously helps explain the persistence of teaching as a narrow repertoire of actions recognisable as ‘teaching’, and the policing of conformity to teaching thus embodied. However, like performatively accomplished subjectivity, this repertoire is unstable and ambiguous, and thus open to change and disruption. Moreover, teacher subjectivities may lead them to mobilise these possibilities of disruption.     

Construction and validation of a survey instrument to determine the gender-related challenges faced by pre-service male primary teachers

The gender-related challenges facing males entering the primary-school teaching profession have been well documented in the academic literature over recent decades. The majority of these data have come about through qualitative reports. Whilst qualitative methods provide important perspectives into these issues, the use of valid and reliable quantitative survey tools has received less attention. This paper discusses the construction, piloting, and subsequent tests for reliability and validity involved in developing a robust survey tool to measure the gender-related challenges faced by pre-service male primary teachers during their university study and professional experience in schools. Utilizing Senocak's four stages of survey development and Rasch modelling techniques, data analysis showed high levels of validity and reliability for the survey tool.     

Teaching for Democracy in Higher Education

Britain, South Africa and Russia all have national policies that acknowledge that higher education should play a role in the development of democracy. This paper reports how a group of teaching staff in British, South African and Russian universities view the relationships between their teaching and their understandings of its democratic purposes. There are some common ways in which the relationship between teaching and democracy is understood. These point towards a concern for greater equality between teachers and learners. There is also a widely held view that globalisation may impact in ways which are counter to lecturers' educational and democratic purposes. However, the different cultures and histories of the countries heavily influence such understandings. The study suggests that professional development of university teachers might pay more attention to the democratic purposes of higher education.     

Preferred teaching styles and modes of thinking among university students in mainland China

The present study had three purposes. The first was to further explore the psychometric properties of the Preferred Thinking Styles in Teaching Inventory [Zhang, L. F. (2003). The preferred thinking styles in teaching inventory. Unpublished test. The University of Hong Kong: Hong Kong]. The second was to test the hypothesis that the preferred teaching styles of mainland Chinese university students in the present investigation are similar to those of students in Hong Kong and the United States in previous studies. The final and most important purpose was to examine the incremental validity of modes of thinking beyond students’ self-rated abilities in predicting students’ preferred teaching styles. Two hundred and fifty-six (109 male and 147 female) university students from Beijing, the People's Republic of China, participated in the research.After the reliability and validity of the Preferred Thinking Styles in Teaching Inventory were ascertained, the following findings were obtained. First, like university students in Hong Kong and the United States in previous studies, mainland Chinese students in the present study also expressed a strong like for teaching styles that are creativity-generating and that allow collaborative work. Similarly, they indicated a strong dislike for teaching styles that are norm-conforming, that require multi-tasking but without communicating a sense of priority, and that restrict students to working individually, without collaboration with others. Going beyond the previous studies, the present study found that an integrative mode of thinking positively contributed to students’ preference for teaching styles that are creativity-generating and that encourage group work, but negatively contributed to students’ preference for teaching styles that are norm-favoring and that discourage collaborative work. Implications of these findings are discussed in relation to teaching that accommodates diverse thinking styles and teaching that generates creative thinking.     

Basic Principles in the Education of Environmentalists

Abstract

A computer based simulation model that traces the recreational use patterns within park and wilderness areas has been employed as a teaching tool in a recreation management course at the University of Vermont. Use of the Wilderness Travel Simulation Model in the classroom reduces the complexity of the system under study, allows students to act as managers (devising and testing their own management strategies), and increases the students' exposure to the characteristics of an actual park or wilderness area. The value of the model as a teaching tool was supported by the students' high degree of interest and enthusiasm in the class.     

Walking the Talk in Initial Teacher Education: Making Teacher Educator Modeling Effective

This self-study investigated student teachers' perceptions of teacher educators modeling practices within a large lecture class in an initial teacher education program. It also studied factors that affected student teachers' developing ideas and practice. Phase 1 collected data from student teachers through focus group interviews and course and teaching evaluations, as well as data from lecturers. Phase 2 collected further qualitative data from teacher educators to inform questions arising from Phase 1 findings. While student teachers' perceptions of critically reflective processes and teaching models modeled by lecturers were varied, they affirmed the positive value of lecturer modeling. Data highlighted gaps between lecturers' intentions and the student teachers' perceptions. Data confirm that effective modeling is difficult to achieve, particularly in large lectures. Student teachers were challenged by the demands of engaging critically with new content while also being attentive to modeling. Recommendations include explicitly unpacking our teaching practices, using training strategies to support student teachers in developing the ability to reflect critically, and increasing opportunities for student teachers to practice various teaching models and strategies.     

Assessing reflective thinking in solving design problems: The development of a questionnaire

Reflection is a critical factor in solving design problems. Using good methods to observe designers' reflection is essential to inform the design of the learning environments that support the development of design problem‐solving skills. In this study, we have developed and validated a novel self‐reporting questionnaire as an efficient instrument to explore reflection, called Assessing Reflective Thinking in Solving Design Problems (ARTiD). This questionnaire has been developed based on the three‐dimensional model for reflective thinking: the timing, the objects and the levels of reflection. A total of 294 undergraduate and graduate students in the fields of engineering, computer science and instructional design were recruited to participate in one of four iterative, formative tests through which reliability and validity analyses were performed to revise and confirm the questionnaire. Examples of participants' reflection patterns were demonstrated to show the practical value of this questionnaire. In conclusion, the final version of ARTiD was presented as a valid instrument to explore students' reflection for research and educational practice. In addition, we found that ARTiD can be used as an effective learning tool to guide student designers' reflections toward better learning and performance.     

Conceptions of good teaching and how they influence the way adults and school leavers are taught

Seventeen lecturers in three departments in a university were interviewed about their conceptions of good teaching, their perceptions of the differences between adult and full-time students, and the actual strategies and methods they employed in their practice of teaching the two student groups. Results showed that there were common perceptions of the way adult students differed from their full-time adolescent counterparts. However, they reacted differently to those perceived differences. Three major types of accommodation were found: catering for weakness, treating both groups in the same way, and remediating weaknesses. The lecturers' conceptions of good teaching could be categorized into two main categories: transmissive and facilitative. Cross-tabulation of the teaching conception of the individual lecturers with their orientation to accommodation showed that those holding a transmissive conception tended to cater for the weakness of their students or make no distinction between teaching adult and full-time students. Those perceiving teaching as facilitating learning were more likely to try to remediate the weaknesses of their students.     

地方高校文科专业实践教学模式创新论

创新是高校发展的灵魂。高等教育大众化背景下社会对人才培养规格提出的新要求和地方普通高校自身发展中存在的一些问题,促使地方普通高校文科专业实践教学模式必须实现创新。地方高校要创新实践教学思路,必须从自身实际出发,并结合专业特点,积极探索具有自身特色的实践教学模式,以提高学生的实践能力。     

Academic professional development practice: What lecturers find valuable

In an increasingly challenging tertiary environment where academics need more than ever to be skilled across a range of areas, including that of teaching, understanding what constitutes effective professional development is crucial. This paper reports on what a group of lecturers at an Australian university find valuable in developing their professional expertise by means of work-embedded events and activities. It was considered important to probe lecturers' understandings in line with constructivist approaches that encourage the involvement of participants in the learning or development process. Particularly where participants are highly educated and self-aware, drawing out their knowledge and practice seems a fruitful way of informing approaches to professional development. The study revealed that lecturers found a wide range of strategies useful in developing their professional expertise, with a predominance of those strategies being collaborative in nature. The paper suggests some practical ways in which universities can support professional development activities which lecturers identify as valuable.     

An examination of the relationship between verbal aggressiveness,conflict management strategies,and conflict interaction goals

The purpose of this investigation was to explore the relationship between respondents' trait verbal aggressiveness, conflict management strategies and conflict interaction goals. Data were collected from 105 undergraduate students at a small private affluent southeastern university. Participants were asked to recall a dispute that they had had with a close friend. They completed the OCCI, verbal aggressiveness, and conflict goals measures. Results indicated that verbal aggressiveness was associated in predictable ways with participants' conflict strategies. There also was a substantial and significant negative relationship between verbal aggressiveness and concerns about relational goals during conflicts. These results establish a foundation for future lines of research regarding conflict goals and extend previous investigations regarding verbal aggressiveness.     

Development and validation of a theoretically based,multidimensional questionnaire of student evaluation of university teaching

The authors describe the development and validation of a multidimensional instrument of students’ evaluation of university teaching (the Pedagogical Questionnaire of the University of Porto). The goal was to develop an instrument based on a sound psychometric analysis and simultaneously supported by the learning theory. Based on the data from 4875 questionnaires, the present study examined the fit of the proposed multidimensional model of university teaching to the whole sample and to various specific university programmes of study using confirmatory factor analysis (AMOS 5.0). Results clearly supported the applicability of the proposed model for the whole university and across programmes of study, demonstrating the validity and reliability of the instrument in evaluating several distinct dimensions of the quality of university teaching.     

Literacy,social justice and inclusion: a large-scale design experiment to narrow the attainment gap linked to poverty

This paper describes the development and use of a tool designed to support educators to use a broad range of professional knowledge to enable inclusive literacy teaching that delivers social justice and narrows the attainment gap associated with poverty. The tool encourages teachers to formally recognise and act on a wide range of evidence about students as learners and to design their literacy curriculum and teaching according to this evidence. The research operationalised a Capabilities approach to inclusion and a design experiment methodology, working with 48 schools, 650 teachers and 12,783 students. A paired sample T-test showed a significant improvement in standardised age scores and that the ‘tail of underachievement’ shortened for all social groups. Goodman and Kruskal's gamma showed a weakening of the relationship between poverty and attainment. This gives cause for cautious optimism that attainment gaps associated with economic disadvantage can be narrowed if educators act on a wider range of evidence in literacy teaching, and if education researchers develop and trial tools to support them.     

The impact of school policy and stakeholders' actions on student learning: A longitudinal study

This paper proposes a theoretical framework on how school policy can promote student learning. School policy is considered to have an indirect effect on student achievement by changing school stakeholders' actions toward improving the School Learning Environment (SLE) and teaching practice. A reciprocal relationship between school policy and stakeholders' actions is also considered. A longitudinal study was conducted to test the framework's main assumptions. A stratified sample of 64 primary schools was selected and students' achievement in Mathematics at the beginning of Grade 4 and at the end of the next three consecutive school years was measured, alongside the school policy and teachers' actions with regards to issues associated with teaching and the SLE. The results of multilevel structural equation modelling analyses supported the main assumptions of the framework. Implications for the development of school policy are drawn and suggestions for further research are provided.