Engineering design in the classroom: Is it good science education or is it revolting?

The changing emphasis of science education today includes a shift from a narrowly disciplinary view of science to a more socially and technologically situated perspective. This article reports on the implementation of engineering design projects in about two dozen U. S. secondary science classrooms, following an inservice professional development course conducted at a university engineering college. Using data from an evaluation of the project and three sociological themes—secrecy and ownership, social persuasion and the status of facts, and the relationship between money and science—I argue that technological design projects provide a sociologically fruitful approach for teaching new themes in science education. However, teachers must rethink the nature of their subject matter, something that may be difficult if their training was disciplinary in emphasis.     

Teaching Latinx students: Do teacher ethnicity and bilingualism matter?

Prior research has indicated that both mainstream (e.g., positive classroom behavior management) and culturally responsive teaching practices (e.g., cultural socialization in the classroom and promoting parent involvement), as well as teacher-student ethnic match, are associated with greater academic achievement for students of color. The purpose of this study was to examine teacher-student ethnic match and culturally responsive teaching self-efficacy as predictors of self-reported teaching practices used with Latinx students. The present study used a sample of 236 teachers (38.6% Spanish-speaking Latinx) of Latinx students in New York City public schools. We found that bilingual Latinx teachers reported using more effective mainstream and culturally responsive teaching practices compared to non-Latinx teachers (who did not speak Spanish). Using structural equation modeling, we found support for a model in which greater reported use of effective teaching practices by bilingual Latinx teachers is mediated by their greater culturally responsive teaching self-efficacy. Taken together, the findings suggest that greater confidence with culturally responsive teaching among Spanish-speaking Latinx teachers contributes to improved classroom environments for Latinx students.     

New public management in korean higher education: Is it reality or another fad?

The purpose of this study is to analyze changing patterns of governance in Korean higher education through the window of the NPM, so as to compare policy developments in Korea to wider international trends. Building upon Braun & Merrien (1999)’s earlier analytical framework on university governance, the study focuses on the following dimensions in analyzing the Korean case: (1) the belief system of the government regarding the role of universities; (2) the university-state relationship in terms of both ‘procedural’ and ‘substantive’ autonomy; and (3) the distribution of power and authority within individual universities. The results of the analysis suggest that, although some typical elements of the NPM governance model can be found, the NPM principles have yet to be firmly incorporated into Korean higher education. The study argues that the main reasons for this retardation in the implementation of the NPM driven reforms in Korea would be: (1) the general cynical attitude of professors towards the NPM governance model which was considered as the legacy of the former military regime and (2) the lack of a necessary coherence of government policies over the past two decades (i.e., the heavy emphasis on accountability without an accompanying increase in institutional autonomy). The study recommends, as a conclusion, that a more systematic and integrated implementation strategy would be needed so as to create the necessary preconditions for the NPM principles to be able to work properly in Korean higher education.     

Motivation in special education: doing it differently or doing it better?

This article discusses how one special school for pupils with moderate-learning difficulties reflects themes in the literature on pupil motivation. It aims to highlight good practice and is based on reflections from prolonged working with the school as an advisory teacher, illustrated with teacher, pupil and parent comments from Y6 Education Health Care Plans and Y7 annual review documents (n = 23) and from OFSTED reports. It beings by exploring the origins and influences on pupil motivation, identifying the differences between intrinsic and extrinsic motivation and examining motivational traits and attributions within individuals. It then discusses the motivational influences of the social and learning contexts of the school: organisation, curriculum and pedagogy, and goals and rewards. Throughout, school-specific observations are related to and discussed alongside themes in the literature. Motivation is commonly defined in quantitative terms that describe the intensity, direction and duration of behaviour and effort. It is the qualitative aspects of how motivation is aroused and maintained that are germane to this paper.     

Teaching in higher education: Good teaching through students’ lens

This study explored 2475 Israeli students’ conceptions of good teaching and examined the relationship between these conceptions and students’ background characteristics. Data were collected using an internet survey designed to measure students’ conceptions regarding five teaching dimensions referring to goals to be achieved, long-term student development, teaching methods, relations with students, and assessment. Results indicate that students perceived assessment as the most important of the five teaching dimensions and long-term student development as least important. Only gender and field of study made a salient difference in students’ perceptions of good teaching. Implications for the evaluation of teaching are discussed.     

Assessing the Practicum in teacher education – Do we want candidates and mentors to agree?

One of the most important components of teacher education is the practical part, the Practicum, and assessment of the candidates’ performance plays a major part in forming the future generation of teachers. Little is known about the extent of agreement between the two main actors in the Practicum, the candidates and the school-based teacher educators. The aim of this paper is to add information about a rather blurred area of assessment in teacher education. The findings indicate there is a considerably extent of disagreement about assessment in the Practicum between the mentors and the candidates. It is suggested that instead of seeing the disagreements merely as obstacles to valid assessment, they can be exploited to initiate professional learning for the candidates.     

The impact of teacher immediacy on students' motivation: Is it the same for all students?

This study investigated the impact of teachers’ use of immediacy behaviors on students’ reported motivation to study over the course of a semester. Students’ state and trait motivation to study for a class was measured at three points during a semester. Reports of teachers’ use of verbal and nonverbal immediacy were collected at two points in a semester. It was hypothesized that not all students would respond similarly to a teacher low in immediacy. Support was found for this hypothesis. Students beginning the semester with either low or moderate state motivation to study were found to have increased levels of motivation later in the semester when exposed to a highly immediate teacher. Students beginning the semester with high motivation maintained high motivation regardless of the level of immediacy they reported their teacher of having.     

A fair game or no contest? Contested identities in teacher education

The narrative of one ethnic minority early childhood student teacher tells of her journey as she (re)constructs her identities as a Cook Island woman and as a pre-service teacher, during a teacher education course in New Zealand. This story conveys her experiences of learning across different pedagogical paradigms. Findings show that teacher education lecturers can significantly enhance the learning experience for ethnic minority pre-service teachers by incorporating existing knowledges and understandings in course content and delivery.     

Supporting students with impairments in higher education: social inclusion or cold comfort?

This paper uses a discursive analysis to examine the experience of ‘inclusion’ from several stakeholder groups in one university. The research team included disability support staff at the institution, external disability consultants and academic researchers. A critical focus group investigation centred on four groups: students who were identified as having an impairment (SWIs), academic staff (teachers), administrators and students who did not identify as having an impairment (non‐SWIs). Interviews had facilitators with both research and disability expertise. Groups recounted different experiences of inclusion. SWIs, drawing on a rights discourse, emphasised a lack of resourcing and barriers created by the teaching staff. In contrast, teachers, administrators and (to a lesser extent) non‐SWIs emphasised the importance of social inclusion, reflecting discourses around needs and humanist notions of care and support, which largely seemed to miss the core of SWI concerns about recognition of their technical competence. For all groups, questions around disclosure of disability were of greater concern than tensions between needs and rights or the recent publication of a Code of Practice for the higher education sector. The findings challenged some of the researchers’ own assumptions, with unexpected implications for practice.     

MOOCs in teacher education: institutional and pedagogical change?

We study the implementation of a MOOC initiative which involved two distinct teacher education institutions at HEIs, and where the implementation was led by a governmental body. Our aim was to see in what ways this initiative changed the teacher education involved, in terms of institutional organisation and pedagogics. Based on interviews with stakeholders from the government and from the two HEIs, we found that the process of implementing and piloting the MOOC faced various sorts of resistance. Our study might serve as a contribution to researchers and practitioners involved in development and running MOOCs as cross institutional initiatives, in that it addresses the diversity of challenges new study models are facing within HEIs. It may also be of interest to teacher education departments responsible for continuing education programs, since it demonstrates the opportunities that comes with a MOOC to provide larger groups of in-service teachers with new educational possibilities.     

Kindergarten entrance assessment: Is it worth the effort?

School psychologists frequently are involved in assessment programs for children entering kindergarten. A comparison is made between screening and assessment related to norm-based and criterion-referenced assessment. Normbased testing can be either categorical or deficit-centered, while the criterion approaches tend to be academic or cognitive-developmental. In order to make appropriate decisions, we need to know the problems and outcomes related to each approach. It is also felt that assessment should be related to the underlying issues in developmental psychology and the type of kindergarten experiences provided for the child.     

Learning in non-formal education: Is it “youthful” for youth in action?

This article offers insights into the practices of a non-formal education programme for youth provided by the European Union (EU). It takes a qualitative approach and is based on a case study of the European Voluntary Service (EVS). Data were collected during individual and focus group interviews with learners (the EVS volunteers), decision takers and trainers, with the aim of deriving an understanding of learning in non-formal education. The research questions concerned learning, the recognition of learning and perspectives of usefulness. The study also examined the Youthpass documentation tool as a key to understanding the recognition of learning and to determine whether the learning was useful for learners (the volunteers). The findings and analysis offer several interpretations of learning, and the recognition of learning, which take place in non-formal education. The findings also revealed that it is complicated to divide learning into formal and non-formal categories; instead, non-formal education is useful for individual learners when both formal and non-formal educational contexts are integrated. As a consequence, the division of formal and non-formal (and possibly even informal) learning creates a gap which works against the development of flexible and interconnected education with ubiquitous learning and mobility within and across formal and non-formal education. This development is not in the best interests of learners, especially when seeking useful learning and education for youth (what the authors term “youthful” for youth in action).