Contradictions in theorizing and implementing communities in education

Past educational improvement endeavors were fundamentally centered on the learner as an individual. This changed by the early 1990s after an increasing number of educators and researchers embraced sociocultural learning concepts such as “communities of practice,” “communities of learners,” and “knowledge-building communities.” These ideas are originally grounded in a dialectical materialist, cultural-historical theory of activity, or, as Lev Vygotsky called it, in a “concrete human [social] psychology.” However, as these concepts filtered into Western scholarship, some of their defining characteristics have been lost or downplayed. The intention of this article is thus to offer a more complete theorization of the educational notion of community that is centered on collective activity or practice mediated by history and culture/society. Two case studies, which exemplify learning communities using this lens, conclude the paper.     

The literature of educational psychology and the literature used by writers in educational psychology

Using Psychological Abstracts as the source of the original sample (“first-level”), various characteristics of the literature of educational psychology are compared with the characteristics of a “second-level” literature (defined as the literature that the first level cites). In particular, the scatter (dispersion) of periodical articles over periodical titles is looked at for both levels. The journals most cited within the literature of educational psychology are identified.     

Models of “The Heavens and the Earth”: An Investigation of German and Taiwanese Students’ Alternative Conceptions of the Universe

The paper reports a cross-cultural investigation conducted in 2001–2002 that seeks to reveal students’ alternative ideas in two countries, Taiwan and Germany. It was carried out by means of semi-structured interviews in a story form. The targeted students were arbitrarily selected from grades 3 to 6 in both countries and amounted to 64. The questions in the interview were centered around “the heavens” (space, heavenly bodies, and familiar astronomical events) and “the earth” (the appearance, shape, movement, and, in some cases, gravity). The results indicated that, first, the students presented their ideas in a consistent manner, regardless of their cultural backgrounds, if we take into account the scope of questions and phenomena which were in their concern or of their interest. The comments from the student can be patterned into a structure-like whole, which we term “model” in the study. Second, the alternative models of “the heavens and the earth” elicited in the interviews appear to have various strengths of explaining familiar astronomical events. Interestingly, the more advanced a model is (in regard with the present-day cosmological model), the higher explanatory power it contains. As for the difference between the sample of two countries, the German students show more intention (or are more aware of the need) to explain astronomical phenomena than their Taiwanese counterparts, and thereby presented more precise models with stronger explanatory power. On the other hand, the Taiwanese students appeared to have more imagination and conceptual flexibility that should also be valued.     

What teachers need to know about the struggle for self-determination (conscientization) and self-regulation: adults with disabilities speak about their education experiences

The purpose of this paper is to help teachers better understand the struggles that people with disabilities experience in attaining their educational goals and to encourage the development of teaching and learning strategies that help to respect and facilitate the struggle itself. The authors share the generative themes that emerged using a critical pedagogy approach (dialogic interviews) to elicit the voices of adults with disabilities speaking about their public school experiences. In discussing the implications for teachers, the authors show the intersections of educational psychology's concept self-regulation and critical pedagogy's concept conscientization and special education’ s concept self-determination. Why the ‘struggle’ itself is important (from the perspectives provided by conscientization, self-regulation, and self determination) is discussed.The major question is whether or not teachers can structure the awareness process that results in learners becoming aware enough to verbalize, “I have difficulties”. What do teachers do to stimulate the metacognitive thinking processes that makes it possible for students with disabilities to think, “I can monitor myself!”? How can teachers capture the power of the conscientization experience that leads students with disabilities to experience the generative will power “to use the powers that I have to make a difference in my life's situation?” How do adults with disabilities come to these kinds of awareness and how can teachers help facilitate the awareness?     

Socializing the knowledge transfer problem

A central issue in acquiring knowledge is its appropriate transfer beyond the contexts and contents of first acquisition. In contrast to dominant “common elements” transfer theory, an interpretive perspective is developed, according to which “appropriate transfer” is a concept socioculturally rather than objectively defined. “Elements” perceived by the thinker as common between the current and a prior situation are not given in the nature of things but “read” in terms of the thinker's culturally-influenced categorization system, of problem types. A synthesis of cognitive research findings identifies specific features of thinking-skills instruction effective for promoting transfer. These include learning about and practicing knowledge application in multiple contexts of use, constructively participating in bridging instruction across school and nonschool problem situations, thinking and self-management skills taught within domains, and synergistic integration of the learning of different subjects. Recommendations are made for developing new learning technologies that build upon these conditions for enhancing knowledge transfer.     

Educational goals and the assessment of what everybody should know: Where to stop?

Recently, the term “basic education” was given legal status in The Netherlands; it substituted the previously used term “primary education.” In speaking about primary or lower education, we as educators indicate a sequence in time; the term “basic education” is preferable because it refers to the content of education. Consequently, we cannot escape defining the content of the term “basic.” It is especially important to ask what criteria have to be applied in the process.     

The influence of achievement goal orientation on plagiarism

This investigation considered how undergraduate students with different achievement goal orientation profiles view plagiarism. Thai student volunteers (N = 867) completed an achievement goal survey [Niemivirta, M. (1998). Individual differences in motivational and cognitive factors affecting self-regulated learning — A pattern-oriented approach. In P. Nenninger, R. S. Jäger, A. Frey, & M. Woznitza (Eds.), Advances in motivation (pp. 23–42). Landau, DE: Verlad Empirische Pädagogik] and a “Dimensions of Plagiarism” survey [Koul, R. (2007). Dimensions of Plagiarism. Downloaded April 8, 2008 from http://dimensions-of-plagiarism.wikispaces.com/]. Mixed analysis of variance of attitudes towards plagiarism with goal orientation and gender showed several significant findings: high performance oriented students were substantially stricter than low performance orientated students in evaluating all Dimensions of Plagiarism. Low mastery oriented students were stricter regarding the “motive” dimension of plagiarism while high mastery oriented students were stricter regarding the “source” dimension of plagiarism. Significant differences between females and males were observed across the six factors of the Dimensions of Plagiarism survey. These results are interpreted within the framework of social comparison theory in respect to competitive learning environments.     

Searching the Web: New Tools-New Dilemmas

Drawing on their experiences as researchers and teacher educators, the authors discuss issues concerning student research that uses web-based references. This article describes ways the authors: 1) structure the inquiry process for student research, 2) help students manage the quantity of information, and 3) provide a model for analyzing the quality of information that students find on web sites. The web-site analysis form provided to students requires them to evaluate information provided about the “who, what, when, how, and where” of a web site. The authors conclude with a discussion of the ways this model helps students engage, organize, and publish information in ways that share the knowledge that the students have constructed and the process of their inquiry.     

Learning to teach at the elbows: The tao of teaching

The metaphor learning to teach at the elbows is put forward in this article to highlight claims about learning to teach that focus on the development of “teaching manner.” My particular interest is in characterizing and understanding aspects of teaching that seem to be acquired, shared, mediated, and changed through teachers' work together—a shaping which I believe occurs initially through mimicry in the practice setting, and which in many cases appears to take place independent of rational deliberation. I ask “How do I understand this kind of learning?” and “How, then, do I then represent my work as a teacher educator?” These questions are explored in light of contemporary Western ideas about situated cognition, activity, and identity—ideas which are extended further in this paper by pointing out similar problems related to integrating knowing and action that are found in early Chinese philosophy. In particular, the dialogical relationship between Confucianism and Taoism provides a useful framework for understanding the studio interplay between learning as socio-culturally mediated activity and critical reflection in the initial preparation of teachers.     

The use of the internet in university teacher training

Education students often complain about the style of learning practiced at universities. In addition to theoretical knowledge, they want to gain more experience with “real” students. We are investigating new ways of combining theoretical learning and practical teaching by using digital communication techniques. We design courses for the study of German in primary and secondary schools, where our students cooperate with high school students via E-mail, messageboard, and chat. We aim to interest future teachers of German language and literature in media literacy and to prepare them for their future tasks in German classrooms against the background of the new information society. We developed the coursework over the last 5 years in the light of the experience we have gained, research performed, and the changes in hardware and software. Our program can also be transferred to other fields of teacher education.     

Towards collective work and responsibility: Sources of support within a Freedom School teacher community

Alternative and parallel schooling contexts such as the Children's Defense Fund Freedom Schools^® provide educational experiences for U.S. K–12 students grounded in notions of social justice and culturally responsive teaching. College-aged young adults known as “servant-leader interns” are the teachers in this context. In this article, the author examines the nature of the various ways in which servant-leader interns were supported in their development as teachers both at the national training institute and at their local site. This discussion gives explicit attention to the kinds of deliberate support intended by the Freedom Schools program and the kinds of support that the servant-leader interns created or initiated on their own. Implications for teacher support that occur in alternative and parallel schooling contexts are discussed.     

“This test makes no freaking sense”: Criticism, confusion, and frustration in timed writing

Large-scale writing programs can add value to the traditional timed writing assessment by using aspects of the essays to assess the effectiveness of institutional goals, programs, and curriculums. The “six learning goals” prompt in this study represents an attempt to provide an accurate writing assessment that moves beyond scores. This paper focuses on student challenges to the prompt and testing situation to reveal that many students successfully challenge the task as a deliberate strategy, while less savvy test-takers clearly resist in response to anger, confusion or frustration. While only a small minority of test-takers openly protest the prompt or testing situation, the paper suggests that all students could be better prepared to reflect upon their university experience in timed essays through more coaching and experience with reflective impromptu questions. This finding offers both encouragement and caution for writing programs seeking a single test that can generate both placement scores and valuable feedback.     

Windows into the mind

As faculty, our goals for students are often tacit, hidden not only from students but from ourselves as well. We present a conceptual framework for considering teaching goals – what we want our students to achieve – that encourages us to think more broadly about what we mean by achieving in our knowledge domains. This framework includes declarative knowledge (“knowing that”), procedural knowledge (“knowing how”), schematic knowledge (“knowing why”) and strategic knowledge (“knowing when, where and how our knowledge applies”). We link the framework to a variety of assessment methods and focus on assessing the structure of declarative knowledge – knowledge structure. From prior research, we know that experts and knowledgeable students have extensive, well-structured, declarative knowledge; not so novices. We then present two different techniques for assessing knowledge structure – cognitive and concept maps, and a combination of the two – and provide evidence on their technical quality. We show that these maps provide a window into the structure of students declarative knowledge not otherwise tapped by typical pencil-and-paper tests. These maps provide us with new teaching goals and new evidence on student learning.Based on an invited address, Facoltá di Ingegneria dell’Universitá degli Studi di Ancona, June 27, 2000. This research was supported, in part, by the Center for Research on Evaluation, Standards, and Student Testing (Grant R117G10027), and by the National Science Foundation (Nos. ESI 95-96080). The opinions expressed here represent those of the authors and not necessarily those of the funding agency.     

Attention to semantic versus phonetic verbal attributes as a function of individual differences in arousal and learning strategy

It has been argued that deep processing of semantic information helps students to learn faster and perform better on classroom tests. Using paired associates tasks, it has been found that high arousal subjects make more errors when the response terms are phonetically similar. Subjects low on arousal make more errors when response words are semantically similar. If the encodings of semantic features are assumed to be “deeper” and more durable than the encodings of “shallow,” phonetic features, then studies have suggested that anxious students process shallowly and are thus at a disadvantage when learning information. The present study treats deep processing as a learning style and used the Synthesis—Analysis scale of the Inventory of Learning Processes to assess it. It is hypothesized that arousal would be negatively related to the learning style of deep processing. It is also hypothesized that the interaction obtained in earlier studies, i.e., greater susceptibility to semantic interference with low arousal and phonetic interference with high arousal, would occur only when Synthesis—Analysis scores are low. It is assumed that the habitual use of a deep processing strategy by students high on Synthesis—Analysis could counteract the limiting effect of arousal on cue utilization. The study provides support for both hypotheses.     

Separated at birth: the shared lineage of research on conceptual change and persuasion

Among the aims of education is the endeavor to bring students closer to an understanding of the world-at-large. Although pedagogical methods vary, educators would certainly agree that changing students’ knowledge and beliefs is among the end-goals of successful education (Murphy, 1998, Unpublished Doctoral Dissertation. University of Maryland, College of Education, College Park, MD). In the educational research literature, this “coming to know” has been referred to as conceptual change, and more recently there has been a resurgence of interest in “coming to believe” most often referred to as persuasion. Given that many researchers have defined belief as a form of knowledge, the delineating features of these two constructs are somewhat opaque. This present work closely examines these two constructs by identifying theoretical forbears of conceptual change and persuasion theory in the domains of philosophy and psychology with the intent of tracing their influence on educational research and practice.     

Patterns of interaction between teachers' and students' classroom thinking, and their implications for the provision of learning opportunities

This paper reports on a study of teachers' and pupils' perceptions of effective teaching and learning. A total of 13 teachers and 325 pupils (aged between 11 and 12) were observed and interviewed. The central focus of the paper is the interaction that was detected between teachers' and pupils' ways of thinking. A grounded analysis of the interactional data yields support for a transactional theory of learning (the works of Bruner and Haste and Vygotsky are cited in particular). The paper also introduces the idea of a continuum of teaching strategies, and shows how percieved teacher effectiveness can be associated with the teacher's ability and willingness to move freely between different points of the continuum, thereby implicitly rejecting crude dichotomies between teacher-centred and pupil-centred learning. It is shown that pupils claim to benefit from both teacher-centred and pupil-centred strategies when the strategies are selected in order to cater for pupils' specific learning requirements. The greatest coherence in teacher pupil accounts of effective teaching and learning, however, seems to focus on the mid-point of the continuum, described here in terms of “interactive” and “reactive” strategies.     

‘Scaffolding’ through talk in groupwork learning

In the present study, we develop and deploy a conceptual framework of “scaffolding” in groupwork learning, through the analysis of the pursuit of a learning goal over time. The analysis follows individuals’ different experiences of an interaction as well as collective experiences, considering individual attainment as a result of a bi-directional contextualized conversation and action. We detect, describe and evaluate two (2) types of interaction that can be characterized as “scaffolding process”: the first concerns “Scaffolding individual thinking” and the second “Scaffolding collective thinking”. The latter, apart from presenting the educational advantages of collective thinking through peer discussion (D) and curriculum-focused evaluation context of Teacher Initiation – Student Response – Teacher Follow up (IRF), also presents the advantage of ‘spiral’ verbal exchanges in which the teacher “tunes in” to the students’ present state of ability or understanding (spiral IDRF).     

When is student teaching teacher education?

This paper presents a conceptual framework that relates empirical aspects of student teaching (facts about the experience) to considerations of value (what student teachers ought to learn). First, the authors explain what they mean by calling student teaching an “occasion for teacher learning.” Next based on their observational and interview data, the authors present two cases of student teaching to illustrate how the relative influence of program, setting, and participants interact to shape opportunities for teacher learning. One teaching episode that elicited considerable pride in each student teacher is presented to highlight how and what the students teachers learned. The conclusion appraises the lessons learned in student teaching in terms of the framework and suggests how teacher educators can increase the educative power of the student teaching experience.     

Teaching thinking on a national scale: Israel's pedagogical horizons

Like other countries, Israel had its share of projects that see the implementation of inquiry and higher order thinking in schools as their main goal. However, although many of these projects were quite successful, they did not succeed in changing the bulk of teaching and learning in Israeli schools. This article describes a new national educational policy called “Pedagogical Horizons for Learning”. The goal of this policy is to move the whole educational system towards a focus on higher order thinking and deep understanding. Such a move must consider the knowledge gained from previous projects but it must also lean on strategies for implementing systemic educational change. Implementing the goals of the “Pedagogical Horizons for Learning” on a national scale requires simultaneous work on three-dimensions: (a) curriculum, learning materials and standards; (b) professional development; and (c) assessment. The article outlines the plan for each of these three-dimensions and provides some accounts of the first stages of the implementation process.