A Typology of Undergraduate Textbook Definitions of ‘Heat’ across Science Disciplines

The physics and chemistry education literature has grappled with an appropriate definition for the concept of heat for the past four decades. Most of the literature promotes the view that heat is ‘energy in transit’ or ‘involves the transfer of energy’ between the system and surroundings because of a difference in temperature. Given that many undergraduate students are not learning the concept of heat in physics and chemistry alone, the goal of this investigation is to explore the conceptions of heat as presented in textbooks from across the science disciplines. An analysis of the definitions of heat from physics, chemistry, the biological sciences and the earth sciences showed a significant variation in the definitions within a discipline and between the disciplines. Specifically, the physics and chemistry textbooks used ‘energy in transit’ or ‘transfer of energy’ definitions (Class I), whereas textbooks from other disciplines typically used definitions which relate heat to ‘molecular kinetic energy’ (Class II) or they used a hybrid of Class I and II definitions. Although a universal definition of heat across disciplines may not be possible (or even desirable), we suggest that discrepancies in definitions be acknowledged and clearly communicated to students.     

Teacher Educators: hidden professionals?

The pace of change in today's society means that there is an ongoing need for teachers to learn, have new knowledge and use new pedagogical approaches to meet the needs of their pupils. For many teachers, this requires redefining their identity as teachers and what ‘teaching’ means in 21st century learning environments. These changes also require teachers to be supported in learning to ‘teach’ in different ways that are relevant to their own individual needs and to the contexts in which they work throughout their career. In this article, it is argued that a more integrated and collaborative approach to teacher education is needed with better understanding of those who take up the roles of teacher educator across a teacher's career. With a particular emphasis on ‘teacher educators’ working in school to support teachers' career-long professional learning it is argued that currently many do not recognise themselves as teacher educators nor are they recognised by those they work with as teacher educators. Drawing on an empirical study carried out with mentors in schools in Scotland, it is suggested that these teacher educators may be ‘unrecognised’ and remain ‘hidden professionals’ because of the identities they construct for themselves, the values and priorities that they or others attach to their roles or because of the institutional structures and cultures in which they work. It is concluded that it will be difficult to recognise and value these ‘hidden teacher educators’ and the distinctive contribution they can make to teachers' career-long professional learning without further clarification by them and others of the roles and responsibilities they hold.     

A question of relevance: beyond the domestication of educational definition

This paper examines ways in which we, as teachers, can promote our students' critical awareness of the domesticating power of the very definition of education that is commonplace in contemporary discourse. It highlights how a first-year introduction to philosophy of education module encourages students to begin to ‘read their world’ by challenging not only the conventional renditions of education as simply ‘schooling’ but also those accompanying notions of ‘relevant learning’ that are commonly associated with an institutional and vocational focus. A further purpose of this paper is to highlight how a critical analysis of an individual's own social learning is a necessary prerequisite to personal growth and potential social transformation correspondingly. Such an analysis, it is argued, constitutes a direct assault on a much more invisible form of ‘banking’ educational practice than many Freirean educators have previously acknowledged.     

Teaching science in primary schools: What knowledge do teachers need?

Several reviews on science education have lamented the lack of content knowledge of primary teachers and implied that improvements in this area would lead to better teaching and learning. Subject knowledge, however is a complex issue. What knowledge is required and how much? There is knowledge of the ‘content’ and the ‘processes’ of science. An elusive but essential third component has been described as syntactic (Grossman, Wilson &; Shulman, 1989), experiential (Burnard, 1986) or personal knowledge. This paper argues that it is unrealistic to consider the implementation of pre-service primary science courses that will provide potential teachers with all the ‘knowledge’ that they will require to be an effective teacher of science. Science educators, can however, provide effective frameworks from which pre-service students can identify and develop their existing knowledge. If teachers of science have their knowledge of science set within a personal view of science the potential exists for their school science programs to be more comprehensive, dynamic, relevant and contemporary. One perspective that could provide this framework is that offered by ‘Science, Technology and Society’ (S-T-S).     

Learning challenges in higher education: an analysis of contradictions within Open Educational Practice

Open education, including the use of open educational resources (OER) and the adoption of open education practice, has the potential to challenge educators to change their practice in fundamental ways. This paper forms part of a larger study focusing on higher education educators’ learning from and through their engagement with OER. The first part of the study was a quantitative survey investigating educators’ learning behaviour when they learned to use OER in their practice. The second part of the study explored qualitatively how educators engaged with OER and how they conceptualised their learning. Data were gathered through interviews with 30 higher education educators. This paper reports the analysis of these interviews. The analysis draws on the theory of self-regulated learning and cultural–historical activity theory to explore the challenges adult education practitioners encounter when changing their practice. The study tests the application of a framework that traces the discursive manifestations of contradictions, exploring how this framework can be used to examine different aspects of self-regulated learning as educators learn how to use OER. We have identified three distinct tensions in higher education educators’ practice: tensions between the emerging needs of the individual (as he or she adopts new forms of practice) and organisational policies; between the transfer of responsibilities from educators to students as new practice is embedded and institutional accountability; and between cost efficiency and learning objectives. The framework for the discursive manifestations of contradictions was a useful tool used to surface these apparent tensions.     

Making learning interesting and its application to the science classroom

Generations of students are graduating from secondary school disinterested in post-secondary study of science or pursuing careers in science-related fields beyond formal education. We propose that destabilising such disinterest among future students requires science educators to begin listening to secondary school students regarding their views of how science learning is made interesting within the science classroom. Studies on students’ interest in response to instructional strategies applied in the classroom communicate the opinions (i.e. the ‘voice’) of students about the strategies they believe make their classroom learning interesting. To this end, this scoping study (1) collects empirical studies that present from various science and non-science academic domains students’ views about how to make classroom learning interesting; (2) identifies common instructional strategies across these domains that make learning interesting; and (3) forwards an instructional framework called TEDI ([T]ransdisciplinary Connections; Mediated [E]ngagement; Meaningful [D]iscovery; and Self-determined [I]nquiry), which may provide secondary school science teachers with a practical instructional approach for making learning science genuinely interesting among their students within the secondary school science classroom context.     

Do different routes to becoming a special educator produce different understandings of the profession and its core concepts?

There are multiple routes to becoming a special educator in Norway. In recent years, bachelor's degree programmes have offered an alternative to the traditional path in which special education coursework is taken as a part of teacher education. The purpose of this study was to investigate whether these different programmes produce different understandings of the special education profession and its core concepts. We surveyed 27 bachelor students and 36 teacher education students using open-ended questions concerning their future goals and expectations and the concepts of ‘inclusion,’ ‘learning disability,’ and ‘special educator’. Teacher education students were more likely to: (a) view inclusion from a broad perspective, emphasizing a sense of belonging and community, (b) define the concept of learning disability from a categorical perspective, and (c) perceive special educators as essentially ‘expert’ teachers for children with special needs. Bachelor’s degree students also emphasized special educators’ role in supporting individuals with special needs, yet were more likely to apply a relational perspective when describing the concept of learning disability.     

Research and policy in lifelong learning

It has long been acknowledged that adult and lifelong educators have exercised little influence over national education policies. This article addresses the issue, with particular reference to the research elements of policy advocacy. Researchers and policy‐makers are distinguished and related as communities of practice and intellectual categories of social function. It is argued that the concept ‘policy‐maker’ is too ambiguous to be of either theoretical or practical use, especially since the focus has shifted over the years away from the advocacy of adult education to the implementation of lifelong learning. Also, the concepts of both ‘policy’ and ‘research’ have undergone significant shifts of meaning, so that traditional ideas of the relation between research and policy are now outdated. We live in an age of public scepticism about the political uses to which research is put, and this also needs to be taken into account in the case of lifelong learning. Thus, the relation between research and the policy process needs to be reconceptualised in a future beyond lifelong learning in order to be meaningful, with the focus much more upon process than outcome. Only in this way could adult and lifelong educators expect to have any influence upon national policies.     

Learning in physics by doing laboratory work: towards a new conceptual framework

Drawing on a study that explores university students’ experiences of doing laboratory work in physics, this article outlines a proposed conceptual framework for extending the exploration of the gendered experience of learning. In this framework situated cognition and post‐structural gender theory are merged together. By drawing on data that aim at exploring the gendered experience of learning in physics in the laboratory setting, a case is made for the proposed conceptual framework to facilitate an analysis of gender as an active process that relates the dynamics of this process to the emerging physicist identities of the students. In other words, this framework allows for an analysis of the gendered learning experiences in a context such as physics education that goes well beyond the usual ‘women‐friendly’ teaching approaches.     

High school students’ approaches to learning physics with relationship to epistemic views on physics and conceptions of learning physics

Background and purpose : Knowing how students learn physics is a central goal of physics education. The major purpose of this study is to examine the strength of the predictive power of students’ epistemic views and conceptions of learning in terms of their approaches to learning in physics. Sample, design and method : A total of 279 Taiwanese high school students ranging from 15 to 18?years old participated in this study. Three questionnaires for assessing high school students’ epistemic views on physics, conceptions of learning physics and approaches to learning physics were developed. Step-wise regression was performed to examine the predictive power of epistemic views on physics and conceptions of learning physics in terms of their approaches to learning physics. Results and conclusion: The results indicated that, in general, compared to epistemic views on physics, conceptions of learning physics are more powerful in predicting students’ approaches to learning physics in light of the regression models. That is, students’ beliefs about learning, compared with their beliefs about knowledge, may be more associated with their learning approaches. Moreover, this study revealed that the higher-level conceptions of learning physics such as ‘Seeing in a new way’ were more likely to be positively correlated with the deep approaches to learning physics, whereas the lower-level conceptions such as ‘Testing’ were more likely to positively explain the surface approaches, as well as to negatively predict the deep approaches to learning physics.     

Advice for sex advisors: a guide for ‘agony aunts’, relationship therapists and sex educators who want to work with the media

Education programmes for sex and relationships are greatly needed globally. One way such information can be delivered is via the media. Sex and relationship advice has long been a popular media component, but the quality, accuracy and effectiveness of such advice—particularly from the sex ‘expert’ or ‘agony aunt’—has not been adequately addressed. Given the rising cult of the ‘expert’ and ‘self‐improvement’ features within the media alongside growing sexual health problems, this paper discusses problems associated with providing media sex education and makes suggestions for effective communication of sex and relationships messages for those who wish to be media sex educators or who already offer media sex and relationships advice and seek to improve their skills.     

Storylines in the physics teaching content of an upper secondary school classroom

ABSTRACT

Background: Physics is often seen as a discipline with difficult content, and one that is difficult to identify with. Socialisation processes at the upper secondary school level are of particular interest as these may be linked to the subsequent low and uneven participation in university physics. Focusing on how norms are construed in physics classrooms in upper secondary school is therefore relevant.

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to identify discursive patterns in teacher–student interactions in physics classrooms.

Design and methods: Three different physics lessons with one class of students taught by three different teachers in upper secondary school were video-recorded. Positioning theory was used to analyse classroom interaction with a specific focus on how physics was positioned.

Results: We identified seven different storylines. Four of them (‘reaching a solution to textbook problems’, ‘discussing physics concepts in order to gain better understanding’, ‘doing empirical enquiry’ and ‘preparing for the upcoming exam’) represent what teaching physics in an upper secondary school classroom can be. The last three storylines (‘mastering physics’, ‘appreciating physics’ and ‘having a feeling for physics’) all concern how students are supposed to relate to physics and, thus, become ‘insiders’ in the discipline.

Conclusions: The identification and analysis of storylines raises awareness of the choices teachers make in physics education and their potential consequences for students. For example, in the storyline of mastering physics a good physics student is associated with ‘smartness’, which might make the classroom a less secure place in general. Variation and diversity in the storylines construed in teaching can potentially contribute to a more inclusive physics education.     

Lifelong learning and the new educational order

Many adult educators are familiar with the term dialogue ‐akey concept in education guided by a sense of social justice. In this paper I want to reclaim some of the political agendas which are lost when the term is incorporated into education paradigms which present justice as a product to be distributed to the ‘disadvantaged’. This approach seems to ignore the role ‘advantaged’ groups play in maintaining ‘disadvantage’ (Lankshear, 1991). It also evades the issue of relations of power; relations which remain unchanged through the simple redistribution of resources. In recent times an orientation to competency based teaching has encouraged educators to focus their energy on identifying the learning outcomes one might expect from a course of study and to gear teaching behaviour to meet these outcomes. While learning outcomes are important I believe it is unrealistic to create simplistic links between teaching acts and learning outcomes. My concern is that complex and highly political processes like dialogue are being reduced, at least in some training discourses, to a series of orderly steps. This has two consequences. First, it falsely presents classroom life as a relatively predictable event. Second, these orderly steps imply that educational success lies in efficient and effective delivery techniques which may or may not take account of the political and social context of learning settings. If the techniques do not “work” educators may be left wondering what they did wrong rather than considering the viability of the steps in the first place.     

Translation and its discontents: key concepts in English and German history education

Key terms and concepts are crucial tools in teaching and learning in the disciplines. Different linguistic traditions approach such tools in diverse ways. This paper offers an initial contribution by a monolingual Anglophone history educator in dialogue with German history educators. It presents three different scenarios for the potential of translation between German and Anglophone research communities. In the case of Geschichtsbewußtsein or ‘historical consciousness’, the Anglophone field has already been enriched by the introduction of a new concept over the past decade. In the case of the fundamental group of concepts – ‘source’, ‘evidence’, ‘trace’ and ‘account’ – the Anglophone field is shown to be in surprising disarray, but clarification is within reach. German history education researchers may have a similar need; if so, perhaps they can benefit from the English language discussion. In the third case, that of Triftigkeit or ‘plausibility’, the German field is poised, again to make a significant contribution to a gaping hole in the theory, research and practice of Anglophone history education.     

Dwelling and creative imagination in Gaston Bachelard’s phenomenology: Returning to the poetic space of education and learning

Abstract

In response to the so-called crisis in contemporary education in the institutions of higher learning (USA)—the encroachment of corporatism and pervasion of standardization—there is a move to offset this dominance by reconceiving the university in terms of an intimate space of dwelling in learning and education. In light of this moribund condition in education, I address the following concerns: How should educators approach the ‘space’ of learning in the new millennium with respect to the supposed ‘new face’ of education in higher learning? What implication will such changes to curriculum have on the ‘context’ of learning? Will the context of learning now need to be reconceptualized, and if it is, what effects will this have on students and educators? Herein I consider the contributions that the philosopher Gaston Bachelard’s phenomenological ontology of space, dwelling, and the creative imagination might make to the formulation of rejoinders to these crucial questions and concerns, which offer the reader a reconceived view of the space of learning that is radically at odds with our contemporary conceptions that might be linked with social efficiency ideology.     

Changing the Metacognitive Orientation of a Classroom Environment to Stimulate Metacognitive Reflection Regarding the Nature of Physics Learning

Problems persist with physics learning in relation to students' understanding and use of representations for making sense of physics concepts. Further, students' views of physics learning and their physics learning processes have been predominantly found to reflect a ‘surface’ approach to learning that focuses on mathematical aspects of physics learning that are often passed on via textbooks and lecture-style teaching. This paper reports on a teacher's effort to stimulate students' metacognitive reflection regarding their views of physics learning and their physics learning processes via a pedagogical change that incorporated the use of a representational framework and metaphors. As a consequence of the teacher's pedagogical change, students metacognitively reflected on their views of physics and their learning processes and some reported changes in their views of what it meant to understand physics and how they might learn and understand physics concepts. The findings provide a basis for further explicit teaching of representational frameworks to students in physics education as a potential means of addressing issues with their physics learning.     

A biographical experience of teacher education in Aotearoa New Zealand

Abstract

The article analyses initial teacher education (ITE) policy and practice in Aotearoa New Zealand over forty years. Central to the local ITE context was the incorporation of the ‘monotechnic’ colleges of teacher education into the university sector in the 1990s and 2000s, following New Zealand’s structural adjustments to the state education sector in 1989 and 1990. Policy ideologies of ‘marketisation’ and ‘professionalisation’ raised expectations of the abstract knowledge base and competencies that university-based teacher education graduates would acquire, while simultaneously degrading the rich immersion in cultural, curriculum and subject studies and learning by doing that were the hallmark of the former colleges. Indigenous staff and students arguably suffered most during the incorporation years. The final section looks to New Zealand’s future demographic, environmental and socio-economic imperatives and asks how ITE can be recast to enable teacher educators and beginning teachers to face the realities and challenges of the decades ahead.     

Laura's story: Using Problem Based Learning in early childhood and primary teacher education

Increasingly, graduates across a range of professions are required to possess the ability to critically evaluate information, solve problems and participate in collaborative group work. Problem Based Learning (PBL) is a pedagogical approach to learning that emphasises student centred engagement with real problems or situations, involving learners in active decision making processes and in using theory to inform practice. This paper reports the perceptions a group of pre-service educators had to their participation in a unit of study conducted using a PBL scenario. The paper examines issues associated with teacher education, such as skills acquisition and the notion of the ‘gap’ between theory and practice. The findings reported here indicate that PBL offers the opportunity for pre-service educators to participate in a learning experience that supports them in developing skills appropriate to their profession and in understanding how theory may be related to practice.     

Educational Value and Models-Based Practice in Physical Education

Abstract

A models-based approach has been advocated as a means of overcoming the serious limitations of the traditional approach to physical education. One of the difficulties with this approach is that physical educators have sought to use it to achieve diverse and sometimes competing educational benefits, and these wide-ranging aspirations are rarely if ever achieved. Models-based practice offers a possible resolution to these problems by limiting the range of learning outcomes, subject matter and teaching strategies appropriate to each pedagogical model and thus the arguments that can be used for educational value. In this article, two examples are provided to support a case for educational value. This case is built on an examination of one established pedagogical model, Sport Education, which is informed by a perspective on ethics. Next, I consider Physical Literacy which, I suggest, is an existentialist philosophical perspective that could form the basis of a new pedagogical model. It is argued, in conclusion, that a models-based approach along with a reconstructed notion of educational value may offer a possible future for physical education that is well grounded in various philosophical arguments and the means to facilitate a wide range of diverse individual and social educational ‘goods’.     

The problems with a ‘fact’-focused approach in environmental communication: the case of environmental risk information about tidal flat developments in Japan

One of the main approaches used in communicating environmental issues to citizens is conveying ‘factual’ information about a particular environment. However, despite previous research and recommendations made by critical environmental educators, there still seems to be a belief that the more ‘factual’ information one can convey, the more citizens will become aware of the issue, and this will prompt them to change their behaviours. In this article, I will argue that continuing with a ‘fact’-focused practice in Japan and elsewhere could be problematic for three key reasons: (1) it ignores diversity in the ‘facts’ provided to people; (2) it reinforces the ‘hierarchy of knowledge’; and (3) it ignores the ‘myth of nature’ among information receivers and senders. Key recommendations for incorporating a critical environmental education approach include utilising locally available environmental information on contentious environmental issues; investigating particular terminology used and missing information (including tacit knowledge); and encouraging critical learning about statistics and pictorial representations.