Hunt the shadow not the substance: the rise of the career academic in construction education

Construction education is context-laden, navigating and reflecting the byzantine influences of period, place and person. Despite considerable rhetoric, in UK higher education and construction studies in particular the importance of contextualized teaching is being devalued. Over the past decade a growing number of new teaching staff to university lecturing has limited or no industrial experience of the construction sector. This paper explores the rise of the career academic in construction education and implications for teaching standards and student learning. Whilst career academics exhibit research skills and afford funding possibilities that universities find appealing, pedagogical studies suggest that experience-led, contextualized teaching offer students enhanced educational value. Policy-making and pedagogical strategies that continue to value research at the expense of teaching excellence coupled with recruitment of career academics as opposed to industry professionals present new challenges for construction education, teaching and student learning.     

Culturally responsive pedagogy for African American students: promising programs and practices for enhanced academic performance

The academic outcomes for African American students continue to lag behind their White, Latino, and Asian American counterparts. Culturally responsive pedagogy has been purported to be an intervention that may help to reverse the persistent under performance for African American students. This article highlights findings from a three-year study of an intervention program designed to increase college going rates for African American students. The authors document the manner in which overall student outcomes, graduation rates, and college going rates increased when culturally responsive pedagogical practices were used. Finally, this work calls for academic rigor to be a more germane characteristic of the culturally responsive pedagogical framework.     

Against standardised experience: leaving our marks on the palimpsests of disciplinary knowledge

This article attempts to establish the scope of critical management education in a formal educational setting. It is based on an empirical study of 24 academic staffs’ experience of engaging critical management education in four UK University Business Schools. The study seems to show that there are significant barriers to and potential pitfalls in introducing critical management education in a formal higher educational setting. The problems seem to be attributable to the institutionalised assessment rules and regulations, marketisation of higher education, power embedded in the professional roles of university teachers, learning styles and cultural diversity of students, and classroom practices required to support critical teaching and learning. Critical management education requires labour intensive pedagogy, and the approach is not to be recommended to Business Schools that are constrained by resources and experiencing low staff morale, otherwise it may generates individual self-doubt and cynicism.     

Culturally Responsive Literacy Practices in an Early Childhood Community

Early childhood educators continue to see an increase in their culturally diverse student population. As our country continues to grow as a multicultural nation, it is imperative that our early childhood classrooms embrace this rich diversity and provide experiences that affirm all students, families and communities. We (teacher educators) synthesized the current research into the following five frameworks that we believe embody the foundation of culturally responsive teaching (CRT) in an early childhood setting: (a) developing a culturally responsive classroom community, (b) family engagement, (c) critical literacy within a social justice framework, (d) multicultural literature, and (e) culturally responsive print rich environments. In this article we situate each framework within the larger context of research. Next we move beyond discussing CRT practices by offering ideas on how culturally responsive classrooms look and how to implement this pedagogy and in an early childhood setting with real classroom practices.     

Successful components of school improvement in culturally diverse schools

Contemporary phenomena, including modernization, globalization, and migration, have altered the sociopolitical and cultural conditions of schooling. Schools are called upon to respond to such change through improvement efforts fostering intercultural education. To this end, this research examines school actors’ perceptions of the successful components of school improvement in culturally diverse schools. For the purposes of this research, we used the Cypriot education system as our case study to carry out observations and interviews with head teachers, teachers, immigrant and native students, and their parents. In identifying the inputs for the improvement of culturally diverse schools, as perceived by school actors, various components emerged, including listening to student voice, socioemotional and culturally responsive teaching, and increased parental involvement. Arguably, these contributing factors bear implications for school-based leadership, building successful professional communities, and enhancing intercultural competence in schools.     

‘Do they think we live in huts?’ – Cultural essentialism and the challenges of facilitating professional development in cross-cultural settings

Depending on the particular definition of culture they employ, pedagogical approaches meant to promote integration, inclusion, and empowerment across cultural divides can end up magnifying existing feelings of alienation, exclusion, and disempowerment. This article explores the negative consequences that can arise when ‘funds of knowledge’ approaches are employed to construct ‘culturally responsive pedagogy’ through the case of the Sharing the Environment programme, a situated professional development programme that sought to promote inquiry-based environmental education at the elementary school level. The programme directors' efforts to mediate the cultural differences between the different groups of participating teachers inadvertently engendered a process of ‘othering’ that actually inflamed the ethnocentric opinions participants had of one another. I argue that the reasons their well-intentioned, theoretically grounded efforts failed so spectacularly have to do with their reliance on a particular, essentialised concept of ‘culture’ that entered science education research in the 1950s and remains at the heart of funds of knowledge pedagogical approaches.     

Latent Class Analysis in Higher Education: An Illustrative Example of Pluralistic Orientation

Although used frequently in related fields such as K-12 education research, educational psychology, sociology, and social survey research, latent class analysis (LCA) has been infrequently used in higher education. This article provides higher education researchers with a pedagogical application of LCA to classify entering freshmen based on their pluralistic orientation. This study utilized data on entering freshmen at a racially diverse institution on the West coast. LCA was used to estimate latent profile probabilities, classify freshmen into latent classes, and relate latent class probabilities to covariates. The findings indicated that a four-class model was the best fitting model: high pluralistic orientation; high-disposition, low-skill; low-disposition, high-skill; and low pluralistic orientation. Similar to previous research, the findings indicated that the probability of being classified into one group versus the other was dependent upon a student’s race/ethnicity and intended major. This approach can aid college administrators in their program planning and targeted interventions around issues of diversity.     

What contemporary work are student ratings actually doing in higher education?

It is conventionally assumed that student ratings perform a significant function in driving improvement in pedagogical practices in higher education. As a result, this form of evaluation has gradually become institutionalised in recent decades as an essential proxy for understanding teaching and course quality in universities across the world. However, with the rise of market-based models in higher education and heightened expectations for accountability mechanisms, the role and functional purpose of ratings-based student evaluation have become increasingly confused. This rising ambiguity has created strong tensions between the seminal drive of student ratings as a tool of quality improvement, and the emerging demands for its use as a transparent accountability measure for the comparative assessment of academic performativity. So are student ratings now largely a tool of quality assurance or performance measurement, or do they remain a legitimate tool for pedagogical improvement? This paper reports on a study that responded to this critical question by considering the contemporary work of student ratings in a major Australian university. The outcomes of this research demonstrate that tension between improvement and accountability motives is causing considerable confusion and discord around the role and value of the student voice. It also reveals that academics are tending to discount the often critical insights of students on the implications of their pedagogical practices as a result of the elevating institutional role of student ratings as a proxy for teaching quality. In considering these outcomes, rising levels of academic dissonance around student ratings would suggest a necessity to consider broadened evaluative strategies that are able to more effectively capture the improvement potential offered by the student voice.     

Examining increased flexibility in assessment formats

There have been calls in the literature for changes to assessment practices in higher education, to increase flexibility and give learners more control over the assessment process. This article explores the possibilities of allowing student choice in the format used to present their work, as a starting point for changing assessment, based on recent studies and current examples of flexible assessment practice in higher education. The benefits of this flexible assessment format approach are highlighted, along with a discussion of classic assessment considerations such as validity, reliability and marking concerns. The role of technology in facilitating assessment method choice is considered, in terms of new opportunities for providing student choice in the way they evidence their learning and present their work. Considerations for implementing flexible assessment choices into the curriculum are presented, along with a call that further research into such practice is needed to develop a comprehensive set of practical recommendations and best practice for the implementation of flexible assessment choice into the curriculum. The article should be of interest to curriculum developers and academics considering implementing changes to the assessment process to increase student ownership and control.     

Using modelling to make culturally responsive pedagogy explicit in preservice teacher education in Finland

Despite multiculturalism being discussed in teacher education, teachers still often feel insecure in the classroom around developing meaningful practices. This might be due to several issues about how preservice teachers are taught. In this article, modelling culturally responsive pedagogy is demonstrated as a promising strategy in shaping preservice teachers’ learning experiences and facilitating the finding of pedagogical responses in their future work. The article examines preservice teachers’ awareness of modelling as a teaching strategy in a multicultural education course in Finland, and the ways in which they connected the modelled strategy to their own learning and intentions for future teaching. A total of 246 reflective learning journals were analysed qualitatively, using a constant comparison approach. The results indicate that preservice teachers recognised and reflected on modelling culturally responsive pedagogy. They highlighted several aspects of the culturally responsive activities, environment and teacher educator behaviours modelled for them. For some preservice teachers, this recognition stayed at the level of personal awareness of own learning on the course, but for others these revelations were springboards to start forming ideas about future teaching practice. Preservice teachers articulated their intentions about the kind of teachers they would like to become, their principles in teaching, as well as specific teaching/learning activities. We present how the modelling of culturally responsive pedagogy strategies allowed preservice teachers to self-reflect, critique and connect their own learning experiences to future practice. Therefore, modelling culturally responsive pedagogy is argued to be a fruitful strategy in teacher education.     

文化回应性教学国际研究现状与趋势——基于WOS数据库的文献计量分析

在文化日益多元的今天,文化回应性教学备受关注。应用计量可视化软件HistCite 分析Web of Science检索平台SSCI数据库收录的文化回应性教学研究文献,绘制了文献引证关系图谱,对相关研究进行分析。研究发现:文化回应性教学研究自2006年后总体呈稳步上升趋势,美国是该领域学术研究最具代表性的国家;研究聚焦于文化回应性教学的内涵理解与课堂实践,文化回应性教学与教师教育;研究内容不断细化、深化与多元化。加强文化回应性教学的理论基础研究,重视本土建构与国际视野的互动研究,增强基于证据的文化回应性教学实施效果研究,推进教师文化回应性教学能力培养的追踪研究是未来的趋势。     

Beginning teachers and diversity – why the need for extended critical professional support

This article draws from a qualitative study of seven beginning teachers’ perceptions of diversity over a period of 6–18 months. The study found that while initial teacher training had broadened their understanding of diversity and its implication for teaching, it was established pedagogical practices in their schools that influenced the novices’ ongoing understanding of responsiveness to learner diversity. For these novices, the influence of the structures and systems of their school contexts began to restrict their pedagogical stance. Based on the reported findings and wider research data, the article argues the need for ongoing critical professional support for beginning teachers who can deepen their understanding of learner diversity and its pedagogical implications. It underscores the importance of a genuine partnership between schools and teacher education providers to enable the continuation of critical professional support for novices, particularly in contexts where there are no mandatory links between preservice programmes and beginning teaching like New Zealand, where this study was undertaken. The author contends that it is unrealistic otherwise to expect beginning teachers not only to challenge entrenched practices but also to sustain the efforts of initial teacher education programmes in preparing them to be responsive to diverse learners.     

Cross-Cultural Field Experiences in Alaska Native Villages: Implications for Culturally Responsive Teacher Education

The purpose of this article was to examine a cross-cultural field experience initiative that placed preservice teacher candidates in Alaska Native Village schools. The qualitative study explored 53 candidates' experiences and perceptions of schooling to construct a portrait of the sociocultural context of education in Alaska Native Villages and consider implications for designing a culturally responsive teacher education program. Findings revealed two major themes: (1) schools were spaces for teaching Alaska Native cultural traditions and languages and (2) schools were sites of separation where many White teachers were separated from the communities, applied a deficit orientation to student learning, and implemented curriculum disconnected from the local culture. Based on these findings, three key components for designing a culturally responsive teacher education curriculum were identified: (1) culturally responsive conceptual framework, (2) critical sociocultural consciousness, and (3) engagement with culturally relevant epistemology and knowledge.     

Diversity and High Academic Expectations Without Tracking: Inclusively Responsive Instruction

This article presents an instructional model (inclusively responsive instruction) that takes advantage of student diversity in order to differentiate student learning while maintaining high expectations. In the history of U.S. education, diversity and academic rigor were often considered at odds, and educators tried to emphasize one at the expense of the other. This article uses a detailed set of examples from Japanese mathematics education to illustrate how diverse ideas, as important resources, can drive classroom instruction. Teaching and learning supports are described that are essential to helping all teachers balance group and individual learning in classrooms. Current U.S. instructional approaches and the model of inclusively responsive instruction are compared in terms of balancing diversity and academic expectations.     

Towards a clearer understanding of student disadvantage in higher education: problematising deficit thinking

The increased diversity in the student body resulting from massification poses particular challenges to higher education. This article engages the uncritical use of the ‘disadvantage’ discourse and its effect on pedagogy. It explores some of the challenges of coping with student diversity, with particular reference to the South African context. Students enter higher education institutions with a variety of educational backgrounds, not all of which are considered to be sufficient preparation for the demands of higher education. The dominant thinking in higher education attempts to understand student difficulty by framing students and their families of origin as lacking some of the academic and cultural resources necessary to succeed in what is presumed to be a fair and open society. This constitutes a deficit thinking model: it focuses on inadequacies of students and aims to ‘fix’ this problem. In the process the impact of structural issues is often ignored or minimised. Employing a deficit mindset to frame student difficulties perpetuates stereotypes, alienates students from higher education and disregards the role of higher education in perpetuating the barriers to student success. In the process, universities replicate the educational stratification of societies. This article suggests that we need to find more suitable responses to diversity in the student body. These require a change in our way of thinking: we need thoughtfully to consider the readiness of higher education institutions to respond to students and to cultivate the will to learn in students. We need to find ways to research the full texture of the student experience and to value the pre-higher education contexts from which students come. In addition, the notion of ‘at risk’ students could be helpful and the original sense of the concept needs to be reclaimed.     

Perceived service quality-loyalty path: A PAKSERV based investigation of international students enrolled in business schools in Thailand

We aim to examine the international student perceived service quality of Business Schools located in Thailand to link it with their intentions to remain loyal. The survey based approach is adopted to collect data from 300 international students enrolled in various business schools in Thailand. All the dimensions of PAKSERV except Personalization are found to positively contribute to student satisfaction, which strongly leads to their loyalty to business schools. This is the first study which validates the PAKSERV scale in a business school context while collecting data from international students – investigating their perceptions of service quality to link it to their loyalty to business schools. The findings call for investment in faculty and process development to improve the international student perceptions of business schools located in Thailand. The findings will help Thai higher education policymakers specifically to improve student perceived service quality in order to attract and retain international students.     

Lessons we still need to learn on creating more inclusive and responsive classrooms: recommendations from one student–faculty partnership programme

ABSTRACT

This article presents recommendations regarding how to create welcoming and productively challenging classrooms for a diversity of students. These recommendations emerged during the pilot phase of a student–faculty pedagogical partnership programme in 2007 and remain relevant in 2017. To situate the recommendations, we evoke definitions of Whiteness, racism, and culture and briefly review key ideas from literature centred on inclusive and responsive classroom practices. We describe the genesis of the partnership programme at a college in the Mid-Atlantic United States and the methods used to document conversations with students from underrepresented groups on campus and with the faculty and students who piloted the programme, all of whom participated in a research project approved by the College’s ethics board. The majority of the article focuses on the set of eight interrelated recommendations for developing inclusive and responsive classrooms generated by the faculty and student participants in the partnership programme.     

Helping students value cultural diversity through research‐based teaching

Although international students studying in New Zealand desire and expect contact with their domestic peers, the level of cross‐national interactions remains generally low. This paper describes an initiative to promote more and better intercultural understanding within a target group of students having similar needs and interests in a higher education setting. A research‐based teaching approach progressively increased student engagement with higher order cognitive skills and both topic and process were aligned in such a way that training opportunities in intercultural competence were explored while also providing a process that offered further training in intercultural competence. Enduring appreciation of cultural diversity issues was achieved via deep styles of teaching and learning that raised awareness, changed attitudes and behaviour and ultimately impacted classroom culture. Initiative design, evaluation and results are described and limitations noted. The findings should be of interest to teachers of multicultural students and to academics studying cultural diversity issues.     

The case study method: exploring the link between teaching and research

Within the ongoing debate on the roles and tensions between teaching and research in higher education, this paper explores the extent to which the pedagogical case study method can contribute to bridge the gap between teaching and research. Based on an initial survey on 1,057 university academics, the results reveal the existence of five major groups of academics with varying degrees of link between the two topics and demonstrate the variations in the contributions that pedagogical case studies contribute to classroom teaching and to scholarly research for each subgroup. The implications for higher education at both the institutional level and the personal academic level are then explored.