Under-threes’ mathematical learning – teachers’ perspectives

This project highlights preschool teachers’ views of toddlers’ learning in mathematics. The Swedish national curriculum covers even the youngest children who are 1–3?years old. Interesting questions are thus: what should mathematics be for this age group and how should preschool teachers work with maths to achieve the curriculum objectives? Data were collected through interviews with six preschool teachers working in four different preschools. The data show that the teachers emphasize the body as very important for the learning process, which means that for these children, it is not a matter of simply talking about mathematical concepts, but experiencing them bodily. The teachers also report that they now pay more attention than previously to what material the children use and how they interact with it. They are more aware of how they organize and offer the various materials in the preschool and how this influences the way children use them and, consequently, their learning processes.     

Integration of an intelligent tutoring system in a course of computer network design

INTUITEL is a research project aiming to offer a personalized learning environment. The INTUITEL approach includes an Intelligent Tutoring System that gives students recommendations and feedback about what the best learning path is for them according to their profile, learning progress, context and environmental influences. INTUITEL combines efficient pedagogical-based recommendations with freedom of choice and it introduces this tutoring support in different Learning Management Systems. During the INTUITEL project various software and pedagogical testing procedures were defined to provide the development teams with feedback, both summative and formative. The current paper describes the initial user test, which was conducted at the University of Valladolid for the course “Network Design”. The experiment was focused on real learners’ reactions to INTUITEL recommendations received by an INTUITEL-enabled LMS. Nineteen students participated in a two phase testing procedure in order to analyze the learners’ behavior with INTUITEL, as well as obtaining information about how learners perceive the influence and usefulness of the tutoring system in online learning courses. Results show that students with INTUITEL follow learning paths that are more suitable for them. Besides, the general satisfaction level of participants is high. Most learners appreciate INTUITEL, would follow its recommendations and consider the messages shown by INTUITEL as useful and caring.     

Promoting a willingness to wonder: moving from congenial to collegial conversations that encourage deep and critical reflection for teacher educators

There is an inherent expectation that educators will work towards continuously improving their practice and quality of teaching. Underpinning this expectation is an assumption that educators also engage in the process of reflection. In this article, we begin by outlining the current tensions in the field of education that relate to managerialist concerns of the measurement and monitoring of quality teaching and effectiveness. We then contextualise our particular circumstances and provide an account of a collaborative action research project we initiated to examine our team-teaching practices in a graduate entry pre-service teacher education programme. In the project, we initially focused on how we might provide for pre-service teachers’ learning while they were undertaking an internship in the final semester of their programme. Factors that required consideration included the use of face-to-face and synchronous online forms of interaction. Having experienced the powerful influence of using protocols to structure professional learning conversations with the pre-service teachers with whom we were working, we also decided to extend the conversations we were having with each other to conversations with our colleagues. Taken together, the action research framework and the processes afforded by protocols provided a structured approach for our inquiry. Conversing with the pre-service teachers involved in the programme, with each other and with our peers at a faculty-level seminar and an international conference were the main sources of data gathered during the research project. The collegial conversations that occurred when using protocols also provided a way to move to the level of critical reflection. Rather than discuss the outcomes of our project in the remainder of the article, we elected to scrutinise and theorise the significant elements that were germane to our project – the three Cs: collegiality, conversation and critical reflection. We conclude by realising that to learn about ourselves as teachers and as learners, we need to move beyond routine and technical aspects of reflection, to a level that is critical and transformative, and that this can be achieved through the use of protocols in purposeful and collaborative conversations with others.     

Improving student learning in distance education: Theory,research and practice

The aim of this paper is to examine how project-based learning in distance education can be seen to make a distinctive contribution to “improving student learning”. How has this approach to course design and assessment been put into practice in an Open University (OU) course and what assumptions about teaching and learning are involved in this course development process. The paper also looks briefly at how this project component has been evaluated by describing students’ and tutors’ experiences of learning and teaching in the form of “action research” so to reflect critically on practice and so initiate change.     

What do upper secondary school teachers want to know from research on the use of ICT and how does this inform a research design?

This study investigates what teachers taking part in a longitudinal research project on the use of ICT for teaching and learning in three upper secondary schools in Sweden want to learn more about. At the beginning of the project eighty-four teachers were invited to respond to a questionnaire relating to what teachers wanted to learn more about during their participation in a research project, both for themselves, their colleagues and their students. The questionnaire consisted of Likert-scale and open-ended questions. Sixty teachers responded, thereby yielding a response rate of 71%. In focus in this paper is a qualitative content analysis of the open-ended questions. The analysis revealed six desired areas of learning: (a) technological aspects, (b) how to use ICT for teaching and learning, (c) the Learning Management System (LMS), (d) safety and plagiarism, (e) best practice and (f) collaboration and professional development. The aspects of knowledge addressed in these themes were analysed and discussed in relation to the TPACK model. A conclusion that can be drawn from the analysis is that the teachers inquired different forms of knowledge and that interpretation of ‘technological pedagogical content knowledge’ only emerged in one of the themes. This study then informed the research design in multiple ways, the two most apparent being a survey of students acknowledging teachers’ expressed research interests and the design and implementation of a formative intervention group interview.     

Attitudes of students towards the use of a Learning Management System (LMS) in a face-to-face learning mode of instruction

Abstract

The development and use of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) in education has led to most universities incorporating elements of online learning into their traditional classrooms via the use of a Learning Management System (LMS) (Burrell-Ihlow 2009, Angeli 2005, Salisbury and Ellis 2003). However, it is not known how well students who are used to traditional face-to-face learning environments and who do not necessarily prefer online environments adapt when placed in such environments. This study investigated the attitudes of students towards the use of a LMS in a traditional face-to-face classroom. The combination of the LMS and the face-to-face mode of instruction were considered as a “mixed learning mode of instruction”.

The study aimed at assessing the attitudes of students towards a mixed learning mode of instruction. The results showed a positive trend towards the acceptance of a mixed learning mode of instruction for learning. Many students involved in this mode said that it was the mixed mode of delivery that enabled them to benefit from this course, have more contact with the lecturer and were motivated to work. Most students felt that the efficiency and quality of education had improved. These results suggest that more courses should be offered using a mixed mode delivery.     

学习分析：教育信息化的新浪潮

教育信息化经历了学习管理系统（LMS）以及Web2.0应用的变革。新技术的深入应用带来了教育＂大数据＂的高速增长,挖掘这些教育数据潜在价值的迫切需求,使得学习分析应运而生。通过文献分析法,对国内外学习分析文献进行了分析和综述,首先对学习分析进行了概念界定和历史溯源,比较了与学习分析相关概念的区别和联系,之后针对学习分析作为教育信息化新热点,对其研究、发展、技术策略等方面进行了较系统地阐释,最后总结了学习分析目前面临的挑战和愿景,以期可以对学习分析进行全方位的阐述和梳理,并促进该领域的深入研究。     

Teaching in ECE: Promoting children's language learning and cooperation on knowledge construction in everyday conversations in kindergarten

The intention of this study is to examine how early childhood education (ECE) teachers can promote children's language learning and the construction of knowledge about their environment in everyday conversations. Young children primarily learn through interactions with adults and peers, with conversations representing important arenas for language learning, as well as for learning about the environment. The research question is: How can teachers encourage a learning environment to promote children's learning to use language and collaborate on the construction of knowledge in everyday conversations? This study has a special focus on the collaboration between teachers and children, and the study was accomplished through video observations carried out in a small-town kindergarten consisting of four classes. The results revealed that the children were mostly invited to answer closed questions, and that the teachers did not invite them to work together to develop their understandings. Through the study, the ECE teacher became focused on what is taking place in everyday conversations.     

Secret codes: the hidden curriculum of semantic web technologies

There is a long tradition in education of examination of the hidden curriculum, those elements which are implicit or tacit to the formal goals of education. This article draws upon that tradition to open up for investigation the hidden curriculum and assumptions about students and knowledge that are embedded in the coding undertaken to facilitate learning through information technologies, and emerging ‘semantic technologies’ in particular. Drawing upon an empirical study of case-based pedagogy in higher education, we examine the ways in which code becomes an actor in both enabling and constraining knowledge, reasoning, representation and students. The article argues that how this occurs, and to what effect, is largely left unexamined and becomes part of the hidden curriculum of electronically mediated learning that can be more explicitly examined by positioning technologies in general, and code in particular, as actors rather than tools. This points to a significant research agenda in technology enhanced learning.     

A Self-Regulated Learning Approach to Teaching Educational Psychology

In this paper, we describe an undergraduate educational psychology course that utilizes self-regulated learning as the organizing principle. The course aims to facilitate students' development in self-regulated learning and to promote students' understanding of how to embed instruction for self-regulated learning strategies into classroom teaching. In the first section of the paper, we develop the rationale for this position and identify underlying assumptions we believe should guide the development and implementation of such a program. In the second section of the paper, we demonstrate how we have incorporated these assumptions in a basic educational psychology course.     

西方专业发展研究范式的转向与议题重构——从个体认知视角到基于实践的取向

＂发展什么＂、＂如何发展＂和＂研究什么＂是专业发展研究的三个核心问题。当前,西方专业发展研究范式呈现出从＂个体认知视角＂范式向＂基于实践的取向＂范式转向的趋势。这两种范式关于实践、知识和学习本质假设的＂隐喻＂发生了重大转变,即实践本质从＂容器观＂转向＂关系观＂、知识本质从＂固存物＂转向＂流动物＂、学习本质从＂获取＂转向＂参与＂。由于两种范式对于实践、知识和学习本质的假设不同,导致了它们关于专业发展＂发展什么＂和＂如何发展＂立场的重大转变,即从关注＂知识占有＂向聚焦＂知晓过程＂的转变、从关注＂知识迁移＂向聚焦＂发展实践＂的转变,并进而导致了＂研究什么＂的重新设定。     

Corporate learning: A knowledge management perspective

This paper provides a point of view on the relationship between learning and knowledge management in corporate training. This relationship forms the framework for the development of an effective learning management system (LMS). It comprises four sections: (1) a theoretical analysis of the relationship between training and knowledge management. In today's corporate environment, characterized by rapid change and restructuring, organizations need to become “learning organizations”; (2) some examples are provided of how training issues are intertwined with other processes, such as sales, communication, research and development (R&D), external network management; (3) corporate universities are the means for achieving those goals. They are efficient as long as they become strategy-supportive organizations. Such a structure is in need of the appropriate technology tool, an LMS; (4) it is possible to underline which functionalities are needed in order to have an efficient LMS. These are the kinds of considerations that led ID Technology in developing LiveLearning. Thus, an LMS for corporate training should take into account the relationship between knowledge management and training. An LMS should allow the integration of training with company processes and should assist in meeting corporate university goals. The same considerations also guide decision makers when choosing an LMS.     

Pre-service teachers’ questions about the profession during mentoring group conversations

The use of mentoring group conversations as a tool to support pre-service teachers’ professional development has become more common. However, there is still a lack of research that shows how conversations are used to develop knowledge. The present paper is based on ethnographical observations of mentoring group conversations, and describes how pre-service teachers who participate in an obligatory mentoring model use their conversations as an arena in their search for professional knowledge. Three areas were focused upon during the conversations: the teachers’ role and teaching practice, conditions for professional development and conditions related to the profession. The pre-service teachers mainly used conversations to question, discuss, share and reflect over pedagogical and didactical dilemmas related to teaching activities in the classroom and to their own as well as other teachers’ behaviour and attitudes in different situations. The paper provides an insight into how a mentoring model can contribute to professional preparation.     

远程合作学习项目的设计和组织——GLOBE at Night远程合作学习案例分析

远程合作学习是网络时代新的学习方式，国际国内都有不同形式不同规模的远程合作学习项目的开展和实施。其中如何设计和组织一个远程合作项目，有哪些要素需要考虑，是作者关注的问题。本文对一个成功的远程合作学习案例进行剖析，就远程合作学习项目的大体规划给出了自己的见解。     

Shifting epistemologies during instructional conversations about “good” argumentative writing in a high school English language arts classroom

A widespread instructional practice in the teaching of argumentative writing is the use of writing samples or models during instructional conversations about what counts as “good argumentative writing.” In this article, we focus on a set of lessons in a high school English language arts classroom in order to gain insight into how a teacher’s use of writing samples contributed not only to what counts as “good argumentative writing” in that classroom, but how her instructional conversations with a group of 11th grade students revealed a shift in her “argumentative epistemologies” for teaching literature-related argumentative writing. We examine simultaneously the impact of instructional conversations on the evolution of the socially constructed definitions of good argumentative writing and the teacher’s shifting argumentative epistemologies by tracing the teacher’s socially constructed definitions of good argumentative writing in the instructional conversations around argumentative writing samples as they evolve and change over time. The findings suggest that the interactional construction of “good argumentative writing” in instructional conversations was influenced by the broader instructional context (e.g., a testing regimen), by the teacher’s argumentative epistemologies for what counts as good writing, and by the conversational interaction of teachers and students in classroom lessons.

     

New technologies to support teaching for understanding

In this era of rapid change, educators increasingly recognize that students must learn how to develop and apply knowledge creatively, not simply remember what they have been told. To meet these demands, teachers need professional development opportunities that support them in a transformational process. New technologies appear to hold promise in overcoming the traditional limitations of professional development. In this chapter, we describe and analyze a program designed to provide such professional development. We begin by summarizing recurrent challenges and promising approaches to professional development organized around a set of qualities that characterize effective learning. Next, we use these qualities to describe a program that explicitly incorporates a model of teaching for understanding into the design of an online learning environment and professional development activities for educators. Finally, our analysis of this program emphasizes the Internet's unique advantages, as well as some remaining issues to resolve in online professional development for educators.In this era of rapid change, educators increasingly recognize that students must learn how to develop and apply knowledge creatively, not simply remember what they have been told. This goal requires shifting from traditional lessons based on transmitting information toward approaches that help learners build robust and flexible understanding. Such transformation of curriculum and pedagogy is a complex process for teachers who must develop new knowledge, skills and beliefs.To meet these demands, teachers need professional development opportunities that support them in a transformational process. Unfortunately, most learning opportunities for teachers fall short. They tend to be short-term workshops, focused on general topics rather than deep knowledge of subject matter and pedagogy, inattentive to teachers’ individual interests, disconnected from specific classroom practices, and isolated from ongoing support by coaches and colleagues. Formal professional development activities are often the antithesis of what is known to promote effective learning.New technologies appear to hold promise in overcoming the traditional limitations of professional development. The World Wide Web, with its rich trove of multimedia resources, interactive tools, and telecommunication facilities, accessible from anywhere on the planet, seems full of potential as a facilitator of teacher learning. Yet we know that mere access to technical resources is not sufficient to generate learning or to change practice. How might the Internet be used to support communities of reflective practitioners committed to teaching for understanding?     

Blocking in human causal learning is affected by outcome assumptions manipulated through causal structure

Additivity-related assumptions have been proven to modulate blocking in human causal learning. Typically, these assumptions are manipulated by means of pretraining phases (including exposure to different outcome magnitudes), or through explicit instructions. In two experiments, we used a different approach that involved neither pretraining nor instructional manipulations. Instead, we manipulated the causal structure in which the cues were embedded, thereby appealing directly to the participants’ prior knowledge about causal relations and how causes would add up to yield stronger outcomes. Specifically, in our “different-system” condition, the participants should assume that the outcomes would add up, whereas in our “same-system” condition, a ceiling effect would prevent such an assumption. Consistent with our predictions, Experiment 1 showed that, when two cues from separate causal systems were combined, the participants did expect a stronger outcome on compound trials, and blocking was found, whereas when the cues belonged to the same causal system, the participants did not expect a stronger outcome on compound trials, and blocking was not observed. The results were partially replicated in Experiment 2, in which this pattern was found when the cues were tested for the second time. This evidence supports the claim that prior knowledge about the nature of causal relations can affect human causal learning. In addition, the fact that we did not manipulate causal assumptions through pretraining renders the results hard to account for with associative theories of learning.     

Acceptance of learning management system: The case of secondary school teachers

There are many ICT tools that teachers can use to support teaching and learning. In recent years, Learning Management Systems (LMSs) have been present in most higher education institutions. However, the availability of LMSs in K-12 is more recent. Furthermore, we believe that LMSs are promising even for K-12 teachers in face-to-face learning contexts because they have many educational features that can support learning with students. The goal of this study is 1) to identify the factors that influence the acceptability of the LMS by teachers, 2) to see if teachers’ ICT use influences their intention to use the LMS, and finally 3) to see if teachers’ ICT use influences their perception of the affordances of LMS educational features. The LMS in our study was introduced in a school board of more than 35,000 students and approximately 2400 teachers. To study the acceptability of the LMS, we used the Technology Acceptance Model. The results obtained from the show that the perception of usefulness is a good predictor of the intent to use the LMS. As for ICT use and the affordances of LMS educational features, the results show that they are not a good predictor of the intention to use.     

The learning society as itself: lifelong learning,individualization of learning,and beyond education

This paper considers the bottom-up vision of the learning society. Unlike the top-down approach, the bottom-up approach does not start by specifying the purposes of learning which should direct the development of the learning society, but from observing interactions among learning individuals as agents. While in the relevant literature and policies much attention has been devoted to certain positions on how one's learning should respond to current change, this paper proposes that when considering the establishment and development of the learning society we should not dismiss the understanding of how individuals, concrete beings, act as they learn, since how they do so has an impact on the way in which learning is structured. This bottom-up approach has to be taken into account, for it helps us to come near to what is embedded in learning practices, and to react pertinently when we need to come to terms with substantive issues for the development of the learning society. Three aspects—lifelong learning, the individualization of learning, and learning beyond education—serve as the context for understanding what characterize the practices of the learning society.