Play as the Leading Activity of the Preschool Period: Insights from Vygotsky,Leont'ev,and Bakhtin

Cultural-historical psychology identifies play as the leading activity in preschool development. Vygotsky's (1967, 1978) seminal work outlined two categories of leading influences: play makes a foundational contribution to the development of semiotic mediation, and it involves active appropriation of social roles and rules and other integral aspects of social organization. Leont'ev's (1981) concept of appropriation and Bakhtin's (1981) concepts of heteroglossia and ideological becoming are used to elaborate and extend Vygotsky's original work, particularly with regard to creativity in preschool play. The paper concludes with a consideration of the pedagogical implications of the cultural-historical view on play, including the use of play to cultivate understanding of the arbitrary nature of signs and the appropriation of the social roles and organizational patterns of society.     

A review of pedagogy related to information and communications technology

Abstract

This article reviews research on pedagogies associated with the use of information and communications technology (ICT) in primary and secondary schools. We propose a framework for examining pedagogical practices based on an analysis of the nature of pedagogy as revealed in the literature. In the light of this framework we discuss empirical evidence of the use of different types of ICT in different subjects and phases of education. We identify pedagogical issues associated with ICT use and their implications for teachers' pedagogical reasoning and practices. The evidence suggests that new affordances provided by ICT-based learning environments require teachers to undertake more complex pedagogical reasoning than before in their planning and teaching that incorporates knowledge of specific affordances and how these relate to their subject-based teaching objectives as well as the knowledge they have always needed to plan for their students' learning. In addition the research shows that teachers' beliefs about the value of ICT for learning and the nature of successful learning environments are important in teachers' pedagogical reasoning     

Doubt,Despair and Hope in Western Thought: Unamuno and the promise of education

Abstract

This article examines the importance of doubt in Western philosophy, with particular attention to the work of Søren Kierkegaard and Miguel de Unamuno. Kierkegaard’s pseudonymous author Johannes Climacus ventures down the pathway of doubt, finds it perplexing and difficult and discovers that he is unable to return to his pre-doubting self. In despair, the meaningfulness of his life is called into question. Unamuno, a great admirer of Kierkegaard, acknowledges the suffering that accompanies doubt while affirming the pivotal role of uncertainty, despair and struggle in realising our humanity. From Unamuno, we can acquire a keener sense of the part education has to play in both forming us as doubting beings and allowing us to work constructively with the despair engendered by this formation.     

The conceptualisation and impact of a post-graduate course in lesson and learning study

ABSTRACT

This paper tells a story about the design, development and impact of a post-graduate Masters-level module aimed at (1) enabling groups of teachers within schools to develop innovative approaches to teaching and learning on the basis of their own Lesson Studies and (2) creating a school network of excellence for Lesson Study in the area as a context for building a cumulative evidence-base, which focuses on identifying and resolving enduring problems of teaching and learning in schools.

The first part of the paper outlines the curriculum for the module and sets the innovative conceptual framework that underpins its design . This framework is innovative because it connects and unifies a number of distinct pedagogical perspectives. It links the methodology of Japanese Lesson Study with Stenhouse’s idea of ‘the teacher as a researcher’ and his ‘process model’ of curriculum development as an alternative to the globally dominant ‘objectives model’. Then in turn, the framework incorporates Marton and Booth’s pedagogical theory of ‘variation’.

The paper argues that linking and fusing Lesson Study methodology with this wider context of pedagogical ideas unambiguously renders teacher research as learning study.     

Pedagogical Thinking in a Student's Mind: A conceptual clarification on the basis of self‐determination and volition theories

This article suggests that educational psychology should pay more attention to the role of the curriculum when the optimal motivation to learn in school is considered. The curriculum frames the teaching‐studying‐learning process in school. This fact has several implications on the motivation to learn in school. After the child starts school, his or her motivation to learn seems to change from an intrinsic motivation to an extrinsic motivation. To develop pedagogical thinking in a student's mind means that the student must become acquainted with the aims and goals of the curriculum, assimilate them into his or her integrated sense of self and, thus, fully accept them as their own. If this succeeds, it will have positive effects on the student's motivation at school and especially on the motivation to study and learn. The concept of pedagogical thinking in a student's mind is analogous to the concept of teacher's pedagogical thinking. Based on previous studies, this article provides an example of how joint‐planning can offer a learning environment that promotes students' pedagogical thinking and the internalisation of the aims and goals of the curriculum in school. This article calls for new theoretical syntheses and research programmes that better take into account the normative nature of learning and teaching in school.     

Just4Me: pedagogical and functional design of a PLE for self-managed learning in different contexts / Just4Me: diseño pedagógico y funcional de un PLE para la autogestión del aprendizaje en distintos contextos

Abstract

This article provides the foundation and describes the pedagogical and functional design of a PLE within the Just4Me project. This environment integrates tools and functionalities to support learning across and throughout life.

The main goal of the pedagogical design is to encourage self-managed learning, regardless of whether it occurs in formal or informal settings. It aims to integrate learning experiences developed within different contexts.     

Some Cultural and Moral Implications of Inclusive Education in India—a personal view

This article provides a personal viewpoint on and outline of the author's contribution to learning disability in India. It refers to her doctoral research on policy and the status of people with disability in India. It puts forth the view that although India addresses diversity in many ways it tends to exclude people with disability from national programmes. It argues that inclusive education should be context- and culture-specific and that inclusive programmes can develop, albeit incrementally, despite the fact that systemic change has not taken place. The article ends with the suggestion that moral and ethical considerations demand that people engaged with inclusion need to work towards inclusion of all children wherever necessary and that each individual first of all needs to internalise the change within themselves.     

Reading and Teaching Literature as Writing

Christer Ekholm's point of departure in this article is Gert J. J. Biesta's call for a new pedagogical attitude that takes a stand against the current trend in education. At present, the dominant approach is to make what we do in school into something wholly predictable, measurable, and assessable, which (as Biesta argues) misses important aspects of what education actually is or should be. One such aspect has to do with “subjectification,” that is, events where someone makes an appeal to me, singles me out in my uniqueness, and makes me ethically responsible to the other one before me. What role can literary education play in facilitating such events? What kind of reading strategies should be promoted with the aim of such an ambition? On the basis of a critical analysis of the discursive construction of an opposition between reading as engagement and reading as distance, Ekholm argues that the answer to these questions is to be found in an alternative literature didactics, where the work of fiction is understood not as text, but as utterance; not as something written, but as writing; perhaps even, not in terms of object(ification), but of subject(ification)?     

Portraits of Mujeres Desjuiciadas: Womanist pedagogies of the everyday,the mundane and the ordinary

In this article, Ruth Trinidad Galvan describes her ethnographic study with rural women and their communities in Central Mexico, as well as her affiliation with a grassroots popular education organization. The organizing mechanism of the small savings groups and the women's work and participation in them inspired a reconceptualization of ''pedagogy'' situated in the multiple subject positions and conditions of campesinas. The reconceptualization of ''pedagogy,'' thus stems from a womanist perspective as it is based on the socio-cultural and economic conditions affecting campesinas, and situated in a complex web of interpersonal relationships of the everyday. Trinidad Galvan, then, describes the organic pedagogical forms of spirituality, well-being and convivencia as interrelated modes of teaching and learning, knowledge creation and identity production. Her work with campesinas and exploration of womanist pedagogies further expand US knowledge of immigrant peoples' values and experiences, as well as the ways they live, learn and teach each other in the everyday.     

Improving the Research Climate in Social Work Curricula

Abstract

Research courses are associated with performance anxiety and educational insecurity for many social work students. This paper makes the case that student anxiety associated with research courses is rooted in the history of the social work profession, and this history sheds light on the present day climate of research in social work education. The authors suggest that improvement to the research climate in social work education requires an “institutional” response. To that end, this paper describes a committee process that resulted in changes to one school's curriculum policy by revamping student learning objectives for a sequence of five research courses that spanned BSW and MSW programs. The committee produced a continuum of student learning expectations based on Bloom's taxonomy, which represents a logical progression of knowledge and skill competencies as students advance through their course work.     

Social Learning Theory and Web-Based Learning Environments: A Review of Research and Discussion of Implications

Abstract

Since the 1970s, cognitive psychological perspectives have dominated pedagogical frameworks and models for designing technology-mediated teaching and learning environments. More recently, social learning perspectives have received attention as viable or even desirable frames for research and practice related to teaching and learning, particularly in Web-based learning environments (WBLEs). In this article, the authors analyze these social learning perspectives and how they can be used in the design and implementation of online learning. This review and analysis of the research related to social learning perspectives on WBLEs provides several implications for future research and practice: (1) examining learners' individual characteristics in WBLEs, (2) identifying strategies for promoting social interaction in WBLEs, and (3) developing effective design principles for WBLEs.     

Families’ perceptions of early childhood educators’ fostering conversations and connections by sharing children's learning through pedagogical documentation

ABSTRACT

Belonging, Being and Becoming: The Early Years Learning Framework for Australia emphasises that families have an important role in their children's learning and it recognises that their earliest development is influenced through these relationships and adds that partnerships can be fostered with families by early childhood educators sharing the children's documented experiences. The research discussed employed an in-depth structured questionnaire. It involved 37 families with children aged from three to five years who attended an early learning centre in Northern Tasmania, Australia. The aim of this research was to determine these families’ perceptions, beliefs and experiences of educators sharing children's learning through pedagogical documentation. The documentation included hard copy and digital formats of the children's learning, capturing their voices and explorations. The findings show that families consider the sharing of documentation fosters family conversations about the children's learning experiences and helps to create stronger connections between the centre, home and extended family. Another recurring theme from the families’ responses was that children gain pride and a positive sense of identity when their documented work is shared with families.     

INFUSING TECHNOLOGY: TRANSFORMING EARLY CHILDHOOD TEACHER EDUCATION

Beginning teachers of young children often express concern that their professional preparation has not adequately prepared them to work effectively with families. This remains the case in spite of literature documenting the importance of involving parents in their children's early education. This article describes a service learning project designed to give students early in their professional preparation an authentic opportunity be a resource for the families of the children with whom they have worked. Service learning is a particularly appropriate pedagogical approach to enhance students' confidence and competence working with families because it provides authentic and hands-on opportunities to apply course content. This project effectively provided students an opportunity to assume a professional voice when working with families. It enhanced our program's success ensuring that our students take the requisite skills and dispositions to their work with families, while building their confidence and honing their communication skills.     

Learning to teach: enhancing pre‐service teachers’ awareness of the complexity of teaching–learning processes

Abstract

Interest in story in teaching has been linked to teacher research (Carter, 1993; Elbaz, 1991), to teacher education (Connelly &; Clandinin, 1994), to curriculum (Britz‐man, 1989; Gudmundsdottir, 1991c), and to school change (Giltin, 1990). I wish to argue here for a link between story and one form of teacher reflection, for portfolio construction, unlike more conventional forms of teacher development, encourages teachers to tell the story of their classrooms and to frame that story in particular ways. I wish to argue here for a view that constructing a portfolio shifts the ownership of learning to the portfolio‐maker and that in this constructing, we can trace a teacher's developing understanding of pedagogy. Specifically, my aim is to illustrate the narrative dimensions of a self‐generated portfolio question — its interpretations, the reflections upon its meaning, and its transformations of pedagogical understanding — as this text becomes pedagogy and pedagogy becomes text. This interpretive process is illustrated through a case study of Ellen Nicol, a secondary English as a Second Language teacher, in her graduate teacher education year and her first 2 years of classroom teaching. Ellen's pedagogical text, her question, is reinterpreted with major changes each time she comes to understand more completely the richness and complexity of her classroom. Each new transformation and reinterpretation serve as guide for selection of materials, for selection of pedagogy, and for assessment of success. Each new collection of pedagogical information serves as impetus for possible reframing and transformation of the text.     

Fictions of work-related learning: how a hit television show portrays internship,and how medical students relate to those portrayals

This article proceeds from three main premises. First, we assert that popular culture functions pedagogically and helps cultural consumers learn about work, even before they enter educational programs or workplaces. Second, we argue that exploring portrayals of internship is useful in understanding the ‘attributes of formality and informality’ that are present in any learning context. Third, we view internship not as a singular pedagogical strategy, but rather as a complex of pedagogical and learning approaches. We use the American television show Grey's Anatomy, set in a teaching hospital and focused on surgical residents, as a case of cultural representation of the internship process. We identify six approaches that are portrayed in the show: question-and-answer, experiential learning, mentoring, networking, peer learning and learning/teaching. These approaches illustrate how multiple strategies are developed and adopted by learner-workers and teacher-supervisors. We then explore how undergraduate medical students who participated in our study anticipated their own internship experiences and made sense of portrayals of it in the show.     

Teachers’ learning in school-based development

Background and purpose: Many researchers agree that teachers’ learning processes are social and that teachers need to be brought together to learn from each other. Researchers have also stated that intellectual and pedagogical change requires professional development activities that take place over a period of time in school. The purpose of the study presented in the article was to develop knowledge about the teachers’ learning when taking part in a school-based development project. Main argument: The study shows that it takes some time before the teachers identify with the work in school-based development. Even though the national authorities decided what to focus on during the development work, the participating teachers felt that they had autonomy in the work. The study presented in the article shows that it is important for the teachers’ learning culture that they are listened to and taken into consideration and that the leaders have competence in leading school-based development to support the teachers’ learning. Sources of evidence and method: The article is based on a study connected with school-based development in three lower secondary schools. Qualitative interviews were used as the data-collection strategy to capture the teachers’ and school leaders’ experiences and reflections. Conclusion: The article presents new knowledge connected with teachers’ learning in school-based development. The study presented in the article shows that schools’ learning culture can make a difference for the teachers’ learning and their job satisfaction and wellbeing.     

Secondary School Mathematics Teacher's Professional Knowledge: A case from the teaching of the concept of function

This study examines the relationships between a secondary Mathematics teacher's pedagogical content knowledge and the dilemmas posed when teaching the concept of function. Alternative tools and procedures for analysing these relationships are used. The results illustrate the flexibility of her knowledge use in Mathematics teaching and how it is related to her knowledge of the pupils as Mathematics learners. In addition, it highlights the central role played by the teacher's knowledge about pupil comprehension in the content and organisation of her teaching agenda. The difference that the teacher establishes between exercise and problem shows her struggle with the two-fold understanding-memorisation of procedures as the content of a teaching dilemma. The results obtained suggest the need for secondary Mathematics teacher education programmes to adopt approaches that take into account the central role played by teacher knowledge about Mathematics learning, and the dilemmas generated when teachers have to reconcile objectives that are apparently contradictory during their teaching practice.     

Lecturers’ perceptions: The value of assessment rubrics for informing teaching practice and curriculum review and development

ABSTRACT

The assessment rubric is increasingly gaining recognition as a valuable tool in teaching and learning in higher education. While many studies have examined the value of rubrics for students, research into the lecturers’ usage of rubrics is limited. This article explores the lecturers’ perceptions of rubrics, in particular, its use and design, the role it can play in informing one's teaching practice and in curriculum review and development. The data shows that many lecturers use the rubric in a very mechanical and unconscious manner and view it mostly as a grading tool with limited instructional value. While acknowledging the rubric as a reflective tool for students, lecturers do not perceive it as having the same benefits for them. The findings, therefore suggest more conversations around the role that rubrics can play in informing one's teaching practice and course design. It also suggests further research into this area.     

Case studies in history education: thinking action research through an epistemological framework

ABSTRACT

Key studies in history education (from France and the USA) are discussed and compared in order to explore their methodological issues in terms of the types of knowledge they can generate about teaching and learning. An epistemological framework that relates the history of historians as an inquiry to that of the classroom provides the criteria for this comparative analysis, which is inscribed in Abbott’s epistemologico-institutional social sciences analysis through the identification of two basic debates that structure history education research, namely subject-matter knowledge vs pedagogical practices, and teaching and learning rules of methods vs habits of thinking. This analysis points out the conditions for the development of a formative school history inquiry (to have students work on their own explanations, to put into play their set of beliefs about history), which determine the modalities of a specific action research. These modalities are detailed by the example of an action research on the case of the teaching of the French Revolution in the last grade of primary school: the sharing of pedagogical (by the professor) and academic (by the researchers) decisions, the collective production of data throughout the process.