‘A second chance at learning but it’s not quite higher education’: experience of a foundation degree

This paper reports on the findings of a recent small scale study into the experiences of mature students of a foundation degree (FD) in health and social care. This was an exploratory study that evaluated one particular FD health and social care programme in order to gain an insight into some of the issues involved in delivering higher education through further education settings, and how mature students ‘make sense’ of themselves as learners on FD programmes. This paper examines the responses of the student interviews which depict them as making sense of themselves as ‘second chance learners’ on an educational programme that is ‘not quite higher education’. Discussion of these themes in terms of Bourdieu’s notions of habitus, field and capital will be offered alongside Weick’s model of sensemaking.     

What makes a good educator? The relevance of meta programmes

This paper reports the results of a qualitative study which explores the relevance of meta programmes to students' perceptions of teaching quality. Meta programmes are a model of personality preferences from the discipline of Neuro Linguistic Programming (NLP). Research into teaching effectiveness indicates that students rate as important ‘hygiene factors’ such as the teacher's ‘knowledge of the subject’ as well as less tangible qualities including ‘ability to communicate’ and ‘student–teacher rapport’. This study reveals the need for similar qualities but, in some cases, presence of these ‘hygiene factors’ was insufficient; students cited other factors related to personality. Some students were found to like the approach of certain teachers whilst other students rated the same teachers less favourably. When questioned as to why, factors emerged that relate to the distinct teaching style adopted by these teachers that appeared to suit particular students and not others. This study suggests that a teacher's meta programmes influence the approaches adopted in their teaching and these styles suit students with matching meta programme preferences. Where students have different meta programme preferences from the teacher, then, even where the ‘hygiene factors’ are met, this leaves the student dissatisfied. There is potential for teachers to adopt teaching approaches more appropriate for the meta programme profiles of their students. Also, on the part of the students, an increased awareness of their meta programme preferences offers the potential to improve their learning experience.     

Student perceptions of successful learning support for an international high school programme: a comparative case study in Turkey

Abstract

This study used comparative case study methodology to investigate student perceptions of different programmes that prepare them for a challenging high school education programme: the International Baccalaureate Diploma Programme (IBDP). Given the benefits and challenges of the programme, educators and stakeholders want to ensure students feel ready to participate. In the literature, studies support that programmes such as the International General Certificate of Secondary Education and the International Baccalaureate Organisation’s Middle Years Programme prepare students for the IBDP; however, there is a need for students’ voices on how they perceive they are prepared through these programmes. This study investigated three different approaches to IBDP preparation by gaining student insights through a scaled-item questionnaire and interviews. Students identified experiences that gave them skills to monitor their learning and resources that motivated them to participate in an advanced upper-high school programme.     

Support for distance learners in a Nigerian distance education programme

This paper reports on a research study that draws on the perceptions of students, tutors, field centre coordinators and central management to evaluate the support services provided to students in the National Teachers’ Institute’s distance teacher training programme. Within a conceptual framework that built upon models of teaching and learning at_A_distance, both quantitative and qualitative approaches were used for data collection and analysis. Although the major forms of support provided were found to be relevant to students, the study highlights the need to improve the current level of student satisfaction by strategies that will improve the supply of course materials and tutorial support, enhance students networking and exploit the use of multimedia.     

The role of education in development: an educationalist’s response to some recent work in development economics

This paper delves beneath the widespread belief that education (often repackaged as human capital) is important in development to consider the role that the discipline of education plays in shaping the wider discourses of development. In particular, it will explore recent texts by important figures in development economics (Collier, Easterly, Sachs and Stiglitz) to see what they say (and don’t say) about education’s role in development and to contrast this with educationalists’ accounts. This will lead on to a consideration of what the implications of such a reading are for the field of international and comparative education. The paper concludes that the relative marginalisation of educational accounts in mainstream development thinking is a major challenge to which international and comparative education needs to respond.     

An exploration of student teachers’ perspectives at the start of a post-graduate master's programme on inclusive and special education

In this article we explore the perspectives of a group of teaching professionals starting a post-graduate master's programme on inclusive and special education. Set in the current context of growing interest over the preparation of teachers for inclusive education worldwide, this exploration is part of research that looks more broadly at the impact of the programme on students. In this paper we set the context of the study and present results focusing on students’ pre-understanding of the concepts ‘inclusive’ and ‘special education’, as well as their reasons for choosing the programme and expected learning outcomes. Quantitative and qualitative data were collected with a questionnaire administered to students at the beginning of the programme. Findings reveal that students saw the programme as a factor contributing to their ability to implement inclusive education in practice. However, it emerged that they had somewhat different understandings of what ‘inclusive education’ actually means. Implications for providers of inclusive education programmes for teachers are discussed.     

Development of personal initiative: impact of an intervention applied to the educational field / Desarrollo de la iniciativa personal: impacto de una intervención aplicada al ámbito educativo

Personal initiative refers to the behaviours that characterize people as being proactive, persistent and self-starting when tackling obstacles that arise as they try to achieve goals. Given the relevance of personal initiative to the educational field, the main aim of this study was to design, implement and evaluate a programme for developing personal initiative in this field. A further objective was to improve a set of variables closely linked to personal initiative. Participants included 160 students aged between 16 and 30 years and enrolled in six centres offering initial vocational training. Of the total sample, 119 students were assigned to the experimental condition and 41 to the control condition. The study’s design was quasi-experimental with a non-equivalent control group. The results indicated that the programme improved the self-starting component of personal initiative and raised the participants’ academic achievement and entrepreneurial attitude. It also had some effect on self-efficacy and on two dimensions of emotional intelligence, namely clarity and regulation.     

RESEARCH SECTION: Examining the nature and perceived causes of indiscipline in Zimbabwean secondary schools

The problem of student indiscipline is an issue of concern for teachers and parents around the world. Teachers need to maintain student discipline and for them to do so it is important that they also understand the nature of discipline problems. This study, by Lawrence Kofi Ametepee, who is studying for a PhD in special education, Morgan Chitiyo, board certified behaviour analyst and Assistant Professor of Special Education, both at Southern Illinois University, Carbondale, USA, and Susan Abu, who is currently a graduate student in the Department of Women's Studies at Texas Women's University, was designed to examine the nature and perceived causes of student indiscipline in Zimbabwean secondary schools. The authors anticipate that such an examination will promote teachers’, parents’ and policy makers’ understanding of student indiscipline, which will, in turn, enhance disciplinary policies and practices, making schools safer for all students and more effective in their role as educational and socialising agents.     

Addressing the Transition to Tertiary Education in Engineering

The transition to university is considerably more complex for both students and staff than it was a few years ago. For example, class sizes and the cultural diversity of students have increased, while the academic ability of students has decreased. If we are to produce engineering professionals who possess the necessary attributes for lifelong learning, then there needs to be a paradigm shift in the way first‐year students are treated. To this end, an orientation programme designed to break the ice between students and staff and among students, and a staff‐student mentoring scheme have been implemented in the School of Mechanical, Manufacturing and Medical Engineering at the Queensland University of Technology. A new course unit, Technology and Society, designed specifically to improve the teamwork and communication skills of students, has also been implemented. This unit is designed to increase students’ awareness of the university's facilities and its expectations and to provide an overview of the many facets of the engineering discipline. Each programme has been considered to be a success by both students and staff. This paper emphasizes the need to accommodate the growing cultural and educational diversity of first‐year students, the impersonal feeling of a university, the ‘little fish in a big pond’ feeling, the feeling of not knowing any university staff, especially academics, and not knowing what is really expected of them, especially in terms of learning strategies and how their chosen field of study fits into the more global aspects of the community.     

Active Learning session based on Didactical Engineering framework for conceptual change in students’ equilibrium and stability understanding

ABSTRACT

Engineering students on control courses lack a deep understanding of equilibrium and stability that are crucial concepts in this discipline. Several studies have shown that students find it difficult to understand simple familiar or academic static equilibrium cases as well as dynamic ones from mechanics even if they know the discipline’s criteria and formulae. Our aim is to study the impact of a specific and innovative classroom session, containing well-chosen situations that address students’ misconceptions. We propose an example of Active Learning experiment based both on the Didactical Engineering methodology and the Conceptual Fields Theory that aims at promoting a conceptual change in students. The chosen methodology allows, at the same time, a proper design of the student learning activities, an accurate monitoring of the students’ rational use during the tasks and provides an internal tool for the evaluation of the session’s efficiency. Although the expected starting conceptual change was detected, it would require another activity in order to be reinforced.     

Primary Teachers’ Reflections on Inquiry- and Context-Based Science Education

Inquiry- and context-based teaching strategies have been proven to stimulate and motivate students’ interests in learning science. In this study, 12 teachers reflected on these strategies after using them in primary schools. The teachers participated in a continuous professional development (CPD) programme. During the programme, they were also introduced to a teaching model from a European project, where inquiry- and context-based education (IC-BaSE) strategies were fused. The research question related to teachers’ reflections on these teaching strategies, and whether they found the model to be useful in primary schools after testing it with their students. Data collection was performed during the CPD programme and consisted of audio-recorded group discussions, individual portfolios and field notes collected by researchers. Results showed that compared with using only one instructional strategy, teachers found the new teaching model to be a useful complement. However, their discussions also showed that they did not reflect on choices of strategies or purposes and aims relating to students’ understanding, or the content to be taught. Before the CPD programme, teachers discussed the use of inquiry mainly from the aspect that students enjoy practical work. After the programme, they identified additional reasons for using inquiry and discussed the importance of knowing why inquiry is performed. However, to develop teachers’ knowledge of instructional strategies as well as purposes for using certain strategies, there is need for further investigations among primary school teachers.     

Tradition,Authority and Disciplinary Practice in History Education

Abstract

The concepts of ‘tradition’ and ‘authority’ are generally understood to be problematical in history curriculum design. Drawing on MacIntyre’s account of disciplines as social practices, this article argues that, to the contrary, these are concepts that need to be incorporated into any curriculum theory that attempts to build a school subject on the foundations provided by an academic discipline. In history education, there is a strong consensus towards deriving the ideas of the history curriculum from the discipline of history, and this article argues that it is therefore necessary for history curriculum theory to account for the concepts of ‘tradition’ and ‘authority’ as they exist in disciplinary practice.     

成为批判反思型教师:内涵及其途径——托马斯大学Stephen D.Brookfield教授访谈

斯蒂芬.D.布鲁克菲尔德(Stephen D.Brookfield)教授从批判理论的传统出发来探讨教师的反思。他将反思看作教师不断学习、探究自己教学的方式。当教师开展批判性反思时,他们实际上是对自己作为成人学习者有更清晰的意识;通过反思,教师持续地了解自身,了解他们与同事的关系,了解他们如何对学生施加影响。批判反思型教师不断质疑自己带到教学中的前提假设,尤其是课堂中的权力关系及其相互转换;确保课堂中的权力和权威被负责任地使用从而有助于支持学生的学习,而不是被误用或滥用而使学生感到不公或无益,或者是被胁迫或压制。他提出,每一位教师都可以运用从学生那里收集来的反馈信息、同事的感受、理论学习和对自身经验的反思这四条途径来探查自身的教学假设,寻求教学实践的改善。     

Learning to share: Australia's Building the Education Revolution and shared schools

This article analyses the conceptual and policy contexts of the Australian government's Building the Education Revolution (BER) programme. This $A15 billion commitment to renewing school facilities is the Australian government's largest single measure of economic stimulus in response to the recent global financial crisis. Public debate and analysis of BER have focused on its economic objective. The programme has a second, less publicised objective, to promote community building and engagement with schools by specifying that funded facilities will be available for community use. This article argues that, in contrast to the Australian government's rhetorical commitment to educational innovation, BER follows a modernist tradition of infrastructure provision characterised by top-down programme design and limited attention to the ‘soft’ infrastructure of organisational systems and human resources. While conceding the circumstances in which BER was developed, this article identifies areas where the programme requires further development to optimise this current high-point of investment in Australian schools.     

我国比较教育研究的成绩、挑战与对策

我国比较教育研究在改革开放30年中取得了重大成绩,学科发展日趋成熟,但是目前仍面临危机。为了应对危机,促进比较教育学科的进一步发展,需要处理好三种关系。中国教育学会比较教育分会要凝练学科文化,形成和发展学科传统,建立学科话语,倡导学术诚信,促进学者及研究组织之间的交流。     

A single-question qualitative bachelor’s programme evaluation

Conventionally, quantitative surveys are used for student evaluations in higher education, but the validity of this practice has been questioned. In the present study, we investigated a qualitative method for evaluating a bachelor’s programme. Forty-one first-year students and twenty-eight third-year students on a bachelor’s programme in Public Administration were asked to answer a single question in relation to their programme: ‘What could have been done in order to support your learning?’ The students provided rich responses of a depth and breadth not attainable through conventional surveys, making this method worthwhile for educational development at the programme level. The responses focused on students’ own learning rather than on judgement of teacher performance. The results indicate that the students underwent a transition from the first to third year, suggesting a shift in needs. For example, first-year students asked for direct interaction, whereas third-year students asked for feedback on accomplishments. Practical applications are discussed.     

A case study of assessment of graduate learning outcomes at the programme,course and task level

A shift in emphasis from educational inputs to academic outcomes as the basis for judgements of educational quality in many parts of the world has intensified efforts to develop assessment practices that provide convincing evidence that students have achieved or made progress towards the graduate learning outcomes specified for a programme of study. Examples of sound and feasible practice are still relatively rare in this area, so when assessment practices observed during the initial stages of an evaluation of a curriculum innovation in an archaeology programme conveyed an impression of unusually high quality, the original evaluation plan was expanded in order to allow further investigation. The resulting case study describes the features that contributed to assessment quality at the programme, course and task level. As the general principles and guidelines for effective practice are comprehensively addressed in current assessment literature, this case has a particular focus on the ‘technical’ such as task analysis and task relationship patterns. Though contextualised in the archaeology discipline, the study seeks to illuminate aspects of practice in terms that enable academics outside this field to identify implications for practice in their own disciplinary or institutional contexts.     

Using insider research in MEd final projects to bridge the theory/practice gap

This paper aims to identify key issues involved in MEd final project supervision and to highlight the potential of supervision from an academic institution to change educational reality through the postgraduate student-teachers’ work-based final project as insider researchers in Israeli schools. It draws on analysis of case-study data from two supervision workshops for student-teachers (Although most students studying for MEd degrees in Israel are teachers or even principals with years of experience of teaching and sometimes management they will be referred to in this paper as student-teachers for uniformity and clarity.) in a master’s degree programme in Educational Leadership. It focuses on data generated from interviews with three supervisees. The paper’s findings highlight the supervision process, indicating stages of this process that assist students to develop their research skills in order to change school reality in different scopes and dimensions and to adopt inquiry as a stance. The student-teachers identify difficulties in schools and motivate and help to implement educational change. In short, the paper provides a model that can potentially enrich practice in the field with knowledge generated by academic research and bridge the gap between theory and practice.     

Time and Space: Access and the Lifecycle of the Art Student

Reflecting on how ‘transition’ can be interpreted in the context of an art and design college, this article will discuss how the access programme at the National College of Art and Design (NCAD), Dublin supports the art students’ lifecycle in, through and out of college. The article will present an overview of NCAD’s access programme and will track its development as it has evolved and how, through a series of targeted initiatives and key partnerships it has identified, retained and supported students beyond graduation. The NCAD has a distinctive widening participation programme that is embedded in the School of Education but is part of the organic culture of the art college. This support enables the mainstreaming of NCAD’s access policy through its engagement with schools and community, seeking to raise aspirations and awareness of art and design as a life option for young people.