Bernstein in the urban classroom: a case study

Despite a long-standing concern within the sociology of education for ameliorating educational inequality, the challenge of improving educational opportunities for disadvantaged students remains deeply entrenched. While ‘macro’ issues such as segregation and systemic inequalities in school funding and access to qualified teachers must be addressed as matters of social and educational justice, Basil Bernstein's novel focus on ‘relations within’ education as the site of pedagogic discourse offers teachers and those working inside school systems a particularly powerful vision for promoting more equitable outcomes for students. This paper examines this assertion through a case study of the ‘mixed’ pedagogical practice of a successful teacher in a fifth-grade urban classroom in the United States.     

Portfolio assessment: direct from the classroom

Portfolios have been regarded as a means of personal self‐expression. This study reports on student real‐life experiences with portfolio assessment. The focus group comprised 150 freshmen (100 females) from a small campus of a tertiary educational institution. For two semesters (approximately 30 weeks), students engaged in numerous activities selected to encourage deep learning and understanding of mathematical concepts. Because students were not involved in the experiment, ecological validity was maximised, and observations may be regarded as fairly authentic and worthy of analysis. Generally, students reported learning much from portfolio assessment and felt an integral part of the assessment process. Portfolio assessment appeared to empower students and provide them with the self‐respect they desired. Future research could compare results from everyday observations with those from experiments.     

丁玲与中国无政府主义运动：破解丁玲研究之谜

丁玲早期参加过无政府主义者们组织的活动，也与一些无政府主义者有过密切接触，因而受到了无政府主义思想的深刻影响。其早期作品对超拔于世俗生活之上的性爱乌托邦的追寻，标志着中国性爱小说走出了五四“爱情-婚姻-家庭”的世俗程序，进入到一个新的精神空间，使中国女性文学创作进入了一个新阶段。     

Corporal punishment and the pain provoked by the community of enquiry pedagogy in the university classroom

Abstract

Education for transformation and social justice calls for critical, reflective, imaginative and independent thinkers with enquiring minds and a strong sense of curiosity – the ends and means of what Jonathan Jansen calls a ‘pedagogy to disrupt’ and Gert Biesta a ‘pedagogy of interruption’. For this reason, I introduced an innovative pedagogy in some of my courses at the School of Education, University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg – the internationally established ‘community of enquiry’ pedagogy. I report on how in an Ethics course the pedagogy opened up a space for undergraduate students to disclose their own experiences of corporal punishment in the schools where they were placed for teaching practice. The pedagogy made room for a critical incident to emerge that was painful for both tutors and students, but, as I argue, crucial for participation, inclusion and the demands of open-mindedness, critical thinking and also solidarity required in a deliberative democracy.     

“Fleeting pockets of anarchy”: Streetwork. The exploding school

Colin Ward (1924–2010) was an anarchist and educator who, together with Anthony Fyson, was employed as education officer for the Town and Country Planning Association in the UK during the 1970s. He is best known for his two books about childhood, The Child in the City (1978) and The Child in the Country (1988). The book he co-authored with Fyson, Streetwork. The Exploding School (1973), is discussed in this article as illustrating in practical and theoretical terms Ward’s appreciation of the school as a potential site for extraordinary radical change in relations between pupils and teachers and schools and their localities. The article explores the book alongside the Bulletin of Environmental Education, which Ward edited throughout the 1970s. It argues that the literary and visual images employed in the book and the bulletins contributed to the powerful positive representation of the school as a site of potential radical social change. Finally, it suggests that “fleeting pockets of anarchy” continue to exist in the lives of children through social networking and virtual environments that continue to offer pedagogical possibilities for the imaginative pedagogue.     

Key Issues in Sex Education: reflecting on teaching,learning and assessment

Drawing upon critical reflections of staff and student experiences of teaching, learning and assessment on an undergraduate module entitled Key Issues in Sex Education, we discuss the strategies used to engage students in debates around sex and relationships education (SRE). To date, there is little research which evaluates how formal assessments can be made relevant to students' exploration of this subject. In the case of this module, assessment requires students to first deliver a seminar presentation that focuses upon a self-selected issue within the field of sexual politics, policy and practice. Students then submit a manifesto, in the form of posters, leaflets or flyers pitched at relevant stakeholders, and which adheres more to the conventions for political campaigning, rather than the standard essays or examinations commonly used to assess undergraduates. In the light of this, we critically reflect upon student evaluations in respect of this module, address various problems and paradoxes, and offer recommendations for encouraging students to find their own voices when debating complex issues of not only SRE, but also sex, gender and sexualities more widely.     

An assessment of the effectiveness of a classroom activity designed to teach the value of lifelong learning

Many agree that educational systems should instill in students the value of lifelong learning (LLL), but few have suggested how to accomplish that or how to measure the effectiveness of those curricular initiatives. We developed a technique intended to strengthen students' beliefs about the value of LLL and piloted use of a recently developed scale to assess changes in commitment to LLL. Using a quasi-experimental procedure, we presented students with faculty members’ career biographies describing their personal career paths, including how they learned from their experiences and how they had to adapt and adjust to changing circumstances. To assess beliefs about LLL, students completed Bath and Smith's Propensity for Lifelong Learning (PLLL) scale. We found that students who listened to career biographies had significantly stronger beliefs regarding the value of LLL than the students who were not exposed to the career biographies. We concluded that listening to career biographies strengthened commitment to LLL and that the PLLL scale is a useful outcome measure of this commitment. We discussed limitations and future directions of our method and measurement instrument.     

Fill the classroom with life: deepening the reform of Chinese primary and secondary classroom teaching

Classroom teaching is a life-practice in which both teacher and pupils engage and bring in their authentic and living experiences. Classroom teaching should be seen as a period of life-experience that is a meaningful component of the lives of both teachers and students. However, this is not how teaching is seen in most pedagogical and educational theory, teacher education, and in Chinese classrooms, and this perception inhibits reform. What must be understood to facilitate a view of teaching as a life-practice?     

Process-model feminism in the Corporate University

ABSTRACT

In a period characterised by worries over the rise of the corporate university, it is important to ask what role feminism plays in the academy, and whether that role is commensurate with feminist values and ethics. Commercial and political pressures brought to bear on the encounter between instructor and student can rob teaching of its efficacy, and the effects of institutional limitations on research may be equally troublesome. This essay argues that through a process-model approach, feminists can understand and intervene in ongoing shifts in institutional governance and mitigate their effects on teaching and research, and that process-model pedagogy is a form of microactivism existing independent of pedagogical content, making process-model feminism fundamentally materialist, radically strategic, and highly portable. Through a discussion of pedagogical and administrative practices in which process-model feminism can intervene, this essay suggests a way of understanding and inhabiting feminism’s current place in the ‘corporate’ academy.     

“企业课堂”的构建与实施

＂企业课堂＂是在新型高职教育机制下运行的教学模式.课程、师资、生产条件和教学条件是＂企业课堂＂的要素,＂企业课堂＂课程建设过程包括课程教学目标的设定、课程内容的选取、课程的实施过程、课程的教学资源建设和考核标准.构建＂企业课堂＂需要培养专任教师的实践操作能力和在生产现场处理问题的能力,企业指导教师的授课能力.     

A STEM extended learning project to raise awareness of social justice in a Year 3 primary classroom

Governments worldwide are advocating for STEM curricula as essential to economic viability but the opportunity for STEM to create a re-envisioned world where there is equal access to wealth, opportunities, and privileges is less prominent. The literature has also not clearly articulated how the combination of the individual disciplines areas: science, technology, engineering and maths should be structured to form a cohesive paradigm within a contextual real-world problem. This paper details one example of a STEM unit had with an equity and social justice agenda. The teacher orchestrated a range of learning experiences to develop student intellectual and emotional engagement with the learning experience sequence, which was to design a pair of shoes for students in a refugee camp using resources that might be available there. Her teaching approach involved the choreography of student attention to the different dimensions of STEM. While all were in play particular disciplinary concepts and practices were foregrounded at different times. We propose that teaching STEM involves a choreography of focus on the different disciplines of Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths, with the relative weight at any one time and overall depending on the nature of the task that is to be accomplished.     

Voice,identity, and the organizing of student experience: managing pedagogical dilemmas in critical classroom discussions

The current paper explores the discursive complexities of teaching and learning in inclusive, critically oriented classrooms. It argues that to accomplish the ontological goals of higher learning, we need to focus on the construction of student voice, or the ability to be considered in and have influence on teaching and learning. The paper further explores the relationship between having voice and the interactional negotiation of identities and relationships among students and teachers. It is suggested that teaching and learning through inclusive, critically oriented classroom discussions is bound in the organizing of complex social experiences, and requires teachers to navigate at least three inherent pedagogical dilemmas lesson management, emotion labor, and structure.     

浅析如何提升高职教育的课堂教学效率

伴随着社会和教育事业的不断进步,如何让职业教育更加有效,如何将学生培养成为对社会需要,具有真正能力而非纸上谈兵的有用之才,这些都逐渐成为了人们日益关注的焦点所在。提升教学效率,让学生在教学活动当中用更短的时间收获更佳的教学效果,这也是培养学生的关键所在。本文将根据自身经验,就如何在有限的教学时间中发挥更好的教学效果,让学生收获更大的成功作一些简单介绍。     

Demystifying the rubric: a five-step pedagogy to improve student understanding and utilisation of marking criteria

Marking-criteria rubrics are commonly used to judge the quality of student work, but few students receive instruction to effectively use and apply rubrics. This study investigates an intervention designed to encourage effective utilisation of rubrics. The study, completed over two years (2011: n?=?189 respondents; 2012: n?=?464 respondents) in a large first-year course, explored how five instructional activities, used formatively and sequentially impacted student learning. This intervention comprised: (1) deconstruction of the rubric and standardising the marking method; (2) examples and exemplars; (3) peer review; (4) self-review; and (5) a reflective diary. Results showed an increase in student confidence with marking criteria and assessment (89% in 2011) and a statistically significant improvement in marks. Most students (77% in 2011 and 90% in 2012) rated each intervention as useful. Student feedback indicated that substantial changes occurred between initial drafts and final submission, which resulted in improvements in student performance scores.     

我国高等教育学学科发展的特殊性分析

20世纪70年代末以来我国高等教育学学科发展的特殊性可以归结为三个方面,即构建学科体系的“目标指向”,学科研究的“热点趋向”和学科研究的“泛化现象”。分析学科发展的特殊性是为了从学科自身去寻找学科发展不成熟的原因。     

Dreaming of ‘nowhere’: A co-autoethnographic exploration of Utopia-dystopia in the academy

Abstract

In this postformal co-autoethnographic research, the authors explore the changing landscape of American research universities from their respective locations as mid-career, post-tenure critical pedagogy scholars. By using autobiographical narratives in parallel with a running discussion of rodent habits and habitats, they explore the influence of Enlightenment humanism and Western epistemology in a) forming ‘the academy’ as an institution, and b) regulating how research and knowledge production are taken up within a rapidly neoliberalizing context. They recalibrate their ‘theories of change’ to recast critical researchers and critical pedagogy in relation to a volatile and hostile institutional context. By moving away from progress narratives of education for social change, the authors posit that critical pedagogy and critical research can be thought of as akin to ‘wayfinding,’ providing guidance, direction and reprieve while within the disorienting and violent flux of neoliberalization.     

学前教育学、普通教育学、高等教育学与教育学关系刍议——兼论教育学的未来

作为一门学科，教育学的发展历程非常独特。教育学产生之时，普通教育兴起，教育学随之以普通教育为研究对象，以师资培训和学生培养为学科旨趣而迅速发展起来，其结果是教育学长期被等同于普通教育学。事实上，就在普通教育学兴起之时，伴随着对幼儿教育的关注，学前教育学作为教育学的一部分也同时兴起。但正像学前教育长期被划分在正规国民教育之外、不属于义务教育范畴一样，学前教育学虽然名义上属于教育学的分支学科，但长期以来由于教育学几乎等同于普通教育学，学前教育学一直独自发展。二战以后，伴随世界范围内高等教育的蓬勃发展，高等教育研究迅速兴起。20世纪70年代末，东西方学者共同提出了高等教育学这一概念。随着高等教育学的最终出现并逐渐成熟，目前教育学已面临“三分天下”的困局。在未来的学科建设中，能否破解学科分裂的困局，有机地融合学前教育学、普通教育学与高等教育学，将成为教育学重建过程中走向学科统一的关键。     

Exploring the tactfulness of implementing play in the classroom: a Hong Kong experience

‘Learning through play’ in early childhood education is widely advocated, but studies show that play is not easily enacted in classrooms. The quality of learning through play has been questioned in various countries, especially when learning outcomes are a global concern. This paper examines how one teacher implemented learning through play within a formal and didactic Hong Kong pre-school classroom. Following this real-life adaptation of the play pedagogy, this paper aims to illuminate the practical theories of linking play with learning in the classroom. The findings support the adoption of ‘play’ in young children's learning and reveal tactful ways in which a teacher can encourage the evolving ‘flow’ of children's play while simultaneously scaffolding their learning. The paper analyses the tact involved in the above process and suggests key dimensions for realizing ‘learning through play’ in the classroom.     

Sexuality education: how children of lesbian mothers ‘learn’ about sex/uality

Sexuality is something that children experience from an early age. It may be a cause of individual concern and anxiety, but is seldom, if ever, deconstructed at any stage of a child's education. Institutionalized fear and misunderstandings of Section 28 (1988) have effectively removed discussion of sexuality, homosexual or otherwise, from the English school curriculum. This structural silence on sexuality is all too frequently repeated at home. In this article I interrogate how children from lesbian parent households ‘learn’ about sexuality, looking at the effects of their parents' (homo)sexual orientation on their ‘sexuality education’. I consider how sex education is taught in schools; what children traditionally ‘learn’ about sexuality. I then look at whether sexuality education is any different for children from lesbian parent families; whether these children have greater sexuality knowledge, and, if so, how this has been ‘learnt’. I suggest that it may be the ambient presence of sexuality—as both a topic of conversation and mothers' unspoken sexual identity—that means lesbian parent families offer a distinctive form of sexuality education. This article draws on empirical research on sexuality and lesbian parent families with lesbian parent families who lived in the Yorkshire region, UK.     

透视高等教育评估“热”

高等教育评估机构不断出现,更多的对象与项目被纳入到评估中。通过对近些年我国高等教育评估“热”的分析,从理论上指出评估存在“工具理性驱逐价值理性”、“鉴定功能排斥其他功能”和“评估手段置换评估目的”的三大陷阱,提出跨越陷阱需要“重视高等教育评估的特殊性”、“正视不同评估的效用”和“回归评估是手段而不是目的”。