Lessons learned in an urban school: Preparing teachers for the educational village

Abstract

The disparities between the education of the rich and poor of this nation will continue to grow until educators are more willing and better prepared to work effectively in a variety of schools operating within a variety of models. Teacher education must prepare new teachers with open minds, willing hearts, and myriad strategies to address the realities, strengths, and critical needs of poor, culturally diverse urban schoolchildren and their families. This article describes an initiative that engages one teacher education program with an innovative urban “full‐service” elementary school in a joint effort to serve children and families and to provide a deeper and broader experience for preservice teachers. Education students complete traditional and nontraditional field work in a full‐service school with an “educational village” mission that extends from preschool to adult education.     

Matching Student Assessment to Problem-based Learning: Lessons from experience in a law faculty

This paper focuses on experiential learning in the paradoxical postmodern moment: a period offering unparalleled opportunities for diverse groups to experiment with identities. But this in a context of frightening uncertainties and insecurities at an environmental, socioeconomic and personal level. The struggle to experiment must also be located within a powerful consumerism which can offer illusions of choice, but substitutes appearance for substance, manic materialism for existential purpose. Using cultural theory and psychoanalysis, I argue that experiential learning, in the postmodern moment, requires a holistic cultural psychology of human agency transcending the narrow vocationalist, short‐term discourse of lifelong learning. In a culture where inherited templates have fractured, experiential learning has become a vital necessity, offering, potentially, some supportive space, emotional as well as critical literacy, for the peoples of the margins, and nearer the core, to recompose selves, stories and communities, on more of their own terms.     

博雅教育的命运及可能的未来:美国大众高等教育的经验

马丁·特罗指出,高等教育的问题——包括提供博雅教育的能力——都内在于经济增长之中。制度的性质随增长而改变,“大众化”意味着对接受高等教育的机会和社会民主化的乐观态度,容易在大学中产生一种结构和文化状况,这与真正严格的、以文本为基础的、以讨论为中心的、写作密集型的博雅教育是对立的。问题的核心在于规模、质量和成本这三者看上去不可调和,也就是如何在规模日益增大的背景下使博雅教育成为可能并具有成本效益。解决当前问题的关键在于有意识的沟通,这种沟通操作性地位于高等教育录取层面。本文提出三种解决方案:对大学的适当信息之制度化,比如大学的目的和功能;在分化的高等教育体系中,将申请人与院校恰当匹配的实践;对在高校中成为一个真正的学生之预期的理解的标准化。     

Lessons from an Experiential Learning Process: The Case of Cowpea Farmer Field Schools in Ghana

Abstract

The Farmer Field School (FFS) is a form of adult education using experiential learning methods, aimed at building farmers’ decision-making capacity and expertise. The National Research Institute in West Africa conducted FFS in cowpea cultivation and we use this experience to analyse the implementation of the FFS approach. How does it work in practice? The curriculum deployed is compared to the ‘principles’ for FFS curricula. We assessed the impact of the FFS on the implementation process of Integrated Pest Management (IPM) practices in farmers’ crop management. The appreciation of different stakeholders is also recorded. The analysis shows that the FFS was used as a tool to transfer messages, rather than to foster experiential learning among farmers. The article seeks to analyse the reasons for this shift in objectives and concludes that the way in which the FFS approach was applied in the case of the cowpea project did not allow optimal benefits to be derived from IPM practices.     

The Safe Schools/Healthy Students (SS/HS) initiative: Lessons learned from implementing comprehensive youth development programs

This article provides an overview of a special issue of Psychology in the Schools that examines the implementation of the Safe Schools/Healthy Students (SS/HS) Initiative in seven local communities. An overview of the SS/HS Initiative is provided. Critical lessons learned from the seven sites are discussed with a focus on the special role that school psychologists can play in implementing these complex violence prevention programs. © 2003 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Psychol Schs 40: 447–456, 2003.     

学习研究新学科创建的辉煌历程——学习科学成功之道探秘

本文通过把握学习科学发展历程中关键学术领袖的贡献,再现了学习科学创建的辉煌历程,揭示了这一学习研究新学科的成功之道:首先,敏锐把握了20世纪下半叶学校教育从"教"向"学"转变,以及相应的教育研究向实践转向的内在需求;其次,通过发展和完善基于设计的研究,奠定了学科发展的方法论根基;再次,以开放胸怀和包容精神创建了一个具有多学科交叉背景的学习科学共同体,开辟了教育研究的第三条道路;最后,准确选择了创新发展的战略支点,通过注重战略研究、纳入国家战略、创新学习文化,实现了跨越式发展.     

The Benefits of Learning Social Welfare: Lessons from Student Perspectives

It is widely assumed that most entering MSW students exhibit a primary interest in individual clinical practice but minimal understanding of or interest in welfare policy knowledge. However, this assumption is mostly based on attitudes before and at the beginning of encountering social welfare courses. Using a mixed-methods approach of both qualitative and quantitative methods, we studied the impact of a social welfare history and policy course on MSW students' perspectives and interests. We found that the course impacted students' understanding of and approach to their professional roles as well as to their own lives as citizens. These findings hold implications for social work education curriculum designs as well as for future research in social work teaching and education.     

Lessons in Service Learning: Developing the Service Learning Opportunities in Technical Communication (SLOT-C) Database

We justify and describe our development of the Service Learning Opportunities in Technical Communication (SLOT-C) Database. The database broadens the range of organizations that instructors and students have for client-based communication projects. We argue in support of incorporating service learning into classes and facilitating partnerships among university instructors, their students, and nonprofits. We report strategies we learned for working with student interns and IT experts and strategies we developed as we worked with usability-test participants.     

Augmenting Learning in an Out-of-school Context: The Cognitive and Affective Impact of Two Cryogenics-based Enrichment Programmes on Upper Primary Students

Concepts learned in the classroom were reinforced and augmented by presenting them in a different context using cryogenics-based enrichment programmes (CBEPs) held in an out-of-school setting. The effectiveness of two CBEPs, which involve the use of liquid nitrogen and liquid oxygen, was explored. Using a sample of 265 upper primary students, it was found that both enrichment programmes were effective in promoting the learning of science concepts. Fair improvements, albeit only transient, in two attitude constructs, enjoyment of science and career preference, due to either CBEPs were detected. The CBEPs did not have any significant impact on the attitude construct relating to students’ views on the social implications of science. The impact of CBEPs showed signs of retention, specifically in the cognitive realm, and reasonable indications of influencing subsequent learning and activities of students.     

Lessons learned: towards a framework for integration of theory and practice in academic development

ABSTRACT

In this paper, I describe an approach to the integration of theory and practice at the intrapersonal, interpersonal, and organizational levels. The results of the research projects in which I have been involved over the last ten years are used to illustrate how these three levels have facilitated the identification of three tensions. These tensions together create a framework that can help academic developers better understand how to approach the challenges of advocating for the integration of higher education theory with academic practice in their own institutional environments, and how this integration is linked to existing higher education literature.     

Fostering uncertainty tolerance in anatomy education: Lessons learned from how humanities,arts and social science (HASS) educators develop learners' uncertainty tolerance

Uncertainty tolerance, individuals' perceptions/responses to uncertain stimuli, is increasingly recognized as critical to effective healthcare practice. While the Covid-19 pandemic generated collective uncertainty, healthcare-related uncertainty is omnipresent. Correspondingly, there is increasing focus on uncertainty tolerance as a health professional graduate “competency,” and a concomitant interest in identifying pedagogy fostering learners' uncertainty tolerance. Despite these calls, practical guidelines for educators are lacking. There is some initial evidence that anatomy education can foster medical students' uncertainty tolerance (e.g., anatomical variation and dissection novelty), however, there remains a knowledge gap regarding robust curriculum-wide uncertainty tolerance teaching strategies. Drawing upon humanities, arts and social sciences (HASS) educators' established uncertainty tolerance pedagogies, this study sought to learn from HASS academics' experiences with, and teaching practices related to, uncertainty pedagogy using a qualitative, exploratory study design. Framework analysis was undertaken using an abductive approach, wherein researchers oscillate between inductive and deductive coding (comparing to the uncertainty tolerance conceptual model). During this analysis, the authors analyzed ~386 min of data from purposively sampled HASS academics' (n = 14) discussions to address the following research questions: (1) What teaching practices do HASS academics' perceive as impacting learners' uncertainty tolerance, and (2) How do HASS academics execute these teaching practices? The results extend current understanding of the moderating effects of education on uncertainty tolerance and supports prior findings that the anatomy learning environment is ripe for supporting learner uncertainty tolerance development. This study adds to growing literature on the powerful moderating effect education has on uncertainty tolerance and proposes translation of HASS uncertainty tolerance teaching practices to enhance anatomy education.     

Learning from Experience: Recognition of Prior Learning (RPL) and professional development for teachers

This paper outlines recent developments in Recognition of Prior Learning (RPL) with particular reference to the application of RPL in the education and training of teachers. Furthermore it suggests that RPL will become an increasingly important aspect of professional development programmes and puts forward some ideas for the establishment of successful professional development programmes which, by using predetermined credit, incorporate RPL in a simple and effective fashion. At the same time the paper advises university faculties of education to approach RPL processes cautiously and carefully.     

Lessons learned from a decade implementing Comprehensive Sexuality Education in resource poor settings: The World Starts With Me

Today, more than half of the world population is under the age of 25 years and one in four is under age 18. The urgency of expanding access to Comprehensive Sexuality Education (CSE) notably for children and young people in Africa and Asia is greater than ever before. However, many challenges to the implementation and delivery of CSE in resource poor settings have been identified in the literature. CSE’s effectiveness could be strongly improved if these challenges were better met. This paper aims to contribute to those much-needed improvements by sharing lessons learned from a decade of implementation of one particular CSE programme, The World Starts With Me, among various populations in 11 low income countries in Africa and Asia. The aims, content, reach and effectiveness of the programme are described. Next, the challenges for implementation and delivery at student, teacher, school and context level are discussed with reference to the wider knowledge base in this area. Finally, suggestions are provided for ways forward including the increased sensitivity of programmes for normative and practical barriers to sexual health, further advancement towards gender transformativity, a far-reaching expansion of comprehensive forms of teacher training and coaching, and a serious stepping-up of multilevel ‘whole school’ approaches.     

A Case Study in the Integration of Assessment and General Education: Lessons learned from a complex process

This paper tracks an ongoing, 15-year initiative to reform and assess a general education programme at a regional comprehensive university in the US. The paper identifies four key phases in the process, chronicling emergent challenges, describing key setbacks and highlighting noteworthy successes. The authors identify five key lessons that may prove useful to other institutions planning or currently attempting to integrate assessment into their general education programme, and conclude that designing and implementing general education assessment is more challenging than assessing other programmes in post-secondary settings because it is influenced by more internal and external constituencies than any other assessment process.     

Searching for evidence of curricular effect on the teaching and learning of mathematics: Lessons learned from the two projects

The two research projects described and discussed in the special issue provided much needed longitudinal empirical data to show the curricular influence on classroom instruction and student learning outcomes. The findings have helped to advance our understanding of whether the reform curricula can bring about positive changes in classroom instruction and student learning outcomes and how such changes might be sustained. In this article we synthesize the results from the two studies and discuss several lessons learned from the projects about investigating and understanding curricular effects on the teaching and learning of mathematics.     

School-based Learning: Constraints and limitations in learning from school experience for teaching assistants

The role and numbers of teaching assistants (TAs) in English schools has grown dramatically in recent years. This is associated with professional development which could give access to Qualified Teacher Status. This part-time, school-based route is consistent with the growth of alternative routes into teaching that are based on an 'apprenticeship model of teacher training'. This model is consistent with the dominant model of 'reflective practice' in teacher training. This study of a cohort of students in their first year of a part-time degree programme for TAs examines the role of experience from constructivist and sociocultural perspectives. It concludes that the TAs' social context in school has a significant impact on the potential to learn from experience and this needs to be addressed in the design of such programmes.