Parents' views on nursery education: Perceptions in context

The analysis describes the broad consensus which is currently emerging about the nature of the educational changes which are necessary for the creation of a 'learning society' and contrasts this vision with the contemporary reality of an education system which is every day more constrained by formal assessment. The implications of these tightening bonds for the development of universities in the third millennium are explored in terms of research evidence which documents the impact of conventional forms of assessment on student learning. The argument is made that this emphasis on 'categoric' assessment if fundamentally incompatible with aspirations towards the creation of a 'learning society'. This is partly because institutions must necessarily give their attention to obtaining high scores and cannot risk the substantial changes in the reorganisation of teaching and learning that an 'empowering' educational environment would arguably require and partly because of the power of the prevailing assessment discourse to define priorities. The article uses Lyotard's concept of 'performativity' to examine these contemporary tensions in higher education, their origins and potential significance for the creation of a 'learning society'.     

Seniors’ demographic correlates for motivations to enroll in degree-conferring programs in universities

ABSTRACT

Policies, practices, and studies have long been focused on nonformal learning for older adults as if this were the only learning context for grey populations. In fact, today more elderly adults participate in degree-conferring programs. It is important to explore why formal learning environments attract the elderly. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to explore relationships between demographic characteristics and motivations of older adults who enroll in degree-conferring programs in higher education including undergraduate, master’s, and doctoral programs in Taiwan. A total of 287 questionnaires filled out by students aged 60 and above were analyzed. The data showed that (a) The demographic characteristics of this group were dissimilar to those of elder learners in nonformal settings. Those who enrolled in degree-conferring higher education programs were predominantly male, young-old, and still employed. (b) The first five important motivations for elder adults enrolling in degree-conferring programs in universities were pursuing and updating knowledge and skills, fitting in with job-related needs and competitions, achieving a life goal, keeping abreast of social changes, and gaining a degree. (c) Retirement status and age predict enrollment motivations. This study enriches our understanding of heterogeneity of elderly learners and provides evidence to make more inclusive policies for elder education. More systematic learning with long-term and intensive requirements, such as enrolling in universities, is needed and desired by some older adults. The roles of higher education in promoting elder learning should be further discussed, addressed, and created.     

Vocational Learning Outside Institutions: Online pedagogy and deschooling

This analysis of current developments in online learning for vocational education and training uses Ivan Illich's book Deschooling Society as a frame. Illich argued that formal educational institutions are flawed; that a mix of compulsion, indoctrination, certification and education creates an authoritarian atmosphere. Key benefits of online learning include its flexibility and its capacity to support dialogue between learners. On the basis of the capabilities of online technologies, and current developments in education, the authors predict that vocational learning will be profoundly changed. Inevitably, these developments will also challenge established colleges and universities, including their current dominance in major areas of vocational education and training. Education will probably become more pluralistic and more international. This paper calls for an inclusive approach?which makes the elements of an online course available to informal learners and free to people who cannot afford course fees.     

Culturally responsive teaching in special education for ethnically diverse students: Setting the stage

Two major premises are developed in this discussion. One is that many students of color are disproportionately assigned to special education because educators lack knowledge about or appreciation for their cultural values and socialization, and how these affect learning behaviors. The other premise is that the educational quality of students of color in both special and regular education can be improved significantly by using instructional programs and practices that reflect their cultural heritages, experiences, and perspectives. Several components of this ''culturally responsive teaching'' are explained, along with some research findings about its effects on student achievement. These include critical cultural consciousness of teachers; culturally pluralistic classroom climates; diverse communities of learners; and multicultural curriculum and instruction. The author concludes that without culturally responsive teaching education can never be the best it should be for students who are not part of the majority and mainstream of schools and society.     

University-based initial teacher education: Institutional re-positioning and professional renewal

The emphasis on 'partnership' in initial teacher education is a matter not just of organisational structure but of professional practices and purposes. If universities are to remain key players in initial teacher education, they must support the occupational group that represents the sector's interests and values: university-based initial teacher educators. Currently, however, this occupational group is awkwardly positioned between competing sets of accountability demands and institutional requirements. This article argues that only by encouraging and sustaining the professional renewal of university-based initial teacher educators will the university earn itself a continuing place in the evolving story of initial teacher education. That renewal is dependent, in other words, not only on the institutional re-positioning of the university but also on its re-commitment to initial teacher education as a core activity; a re-commitment which, it is argued, must recognise professional learning as a major 'field' of study across professional domains.     

Self-assessment to incite learning in higher education: developing ontological awareness

Incorporating self-assessment tasks in higher education involves a conceptual shift of the function of assessment for both learners and teachers. Self-assessment is an innovative assessment initiative that foregrounds ontological knowledge and professional identity in higher education, especially where external professional bodies require additional competencies for learners to be work-ready. As a tool to develop learners’ metacognitive strategies, self-assessment challenges views around learning and assessment. The defined task that constitutes ‘self-assessment’ is considered for two key reasons. First, it is essentially a tool to reflect student-staff partnership in learning and assessment if students are positioned as agentic in the assessment process, and, second, it challenges the relationship between assessment and learning; no longer dichotomous, and more culturally relevant. This paper outlines the introduction of self-assessment over three years in a university postgraduate programme. Using cultural historical activity theory, a framework of analysis that recognises multiple networks of activity, the question ‘what constitutes a self-assessment task?’ is addressed. Results show that the development of self-assessment tasks needs to be considered in the learning-assessment nexus. While these forms of assessment initially unsettle students, they are designed to enable students to participate with an eye on their learning, not the grade.     

Teaching and learning through multiple intelligences in the outcomes-based education classroom

Abstract

As outcomes-based education forms the foundation of the new school curriculum in South Africa, educators are confronted with the challenge of not only meeting the different needs of individual learners, but also of helping learners (many of them previously disadvantaged) to achieve their maximum potential. One way of realising this ideal is by applying Howard Gardner's theory of multiple intelligences in the classroom. The article provides a discussion on both Gardner's multiple intelligences theory and outcomes-based education in South Africa, as it is believed that together they can contribute to solving some of the present problems in South African education. The article defines the use of MI theory in an OBE classroom and suggests specific ways in which educators worldwide could incorporate the different intelligences in their teaching and learning activities.     

The history of education in the 1980s

ABSTRACT

This paper uses Basil Bernstein’s work on pedagogic discourses to examine a largely neglected facet of the history of vocational education – the liberal studies movement in English further education colleges. Initially, the paper discusses some of the competing conceptions of education, work and society which underpinned the rise and fall of the liberal studies movement – if indeed it can be described as such. The paper then draws on data from interviews with former liberal and general studies lecturers to focus on the ways in which different variants of liberal studies were, over time, implicated in inculcating certain forms of knowledge in vocational learners. Whilst it is acknowledged that liberal and general studies always represented contested territory and that it was highly variable both in terms of content and quality, the paper argues that, at least under certain circumstances, liberal studies provided young working-class people with the opportunity to locate their experiences of vocational learning within a critical framework that is largely absent from further education today. This, it is argued, can be conceptualised as an engagement with what Bernstein described as ‘powerful knowledge’.     

Teacher education and its reform in contemporary Japan

This article aims to describe the general framework of the teacher training system and its recent reform in Japan. As elsewhere, Japanese society is moving into an era of mass higher education provision. Since initial teacher training is provided by universities, the reform of teacher training is a part of the higher education restructuring that is also under way. At the same time, Japan is facing educational problems in compulsory education. The Educational Personnel Training Council of Japan is recommending reforms, which attempt to create a new type of teacher to cope with these educational problems. This opens the way for the Japanese state to develop more direct control over the curriculum and assessment of teaching staff in universities. The Ministry of Education is attempting to develop new control methods of 'Evaluative State' strategies. The reform of teacher education system exemplifies this shift.     

Avoiding the industrialization of research universities: Big and little distance education

Abstract

The pressure to increase access to higher education while reducing costs raises serious questions with regard to the purpose and goals of the traditional research‐intensive university. Moreover, there is considerable rhetoric about reinventing universities based on adoption of communications and learning technologies without clearly defining or articulating educational goals. In contrast to the big industrial model of distance education, an approach to distance education is described that is consistent with the traditional goals and values of creating knowledge through a critical community of learners. This approach, or model, is labeled “little distance education,” and its characteristics are defined. Meeting the needs of a new market for continuing professional education available at a distance is also discussed.     

(Dis)ordering Teacher Education: From problem students to problem-based learning

This paper takes issue with the 'disabling' of students enrolled in teacher education courses, perpetrated by definitions of students' learning disorders and by the structures and pedagogies engaged by teacher educators. Focusing on one case, but with relevance for similarly affected systems, the paper begins by outlining the changed student entry credentials of Australian universities and their faculties of education. These are seen as induced by a shift from elite to mass provision of higher education and the particular effect on teacher education providers (especially those located in regional institutions) of the politics of government funding and the continuing demand for teachers by education systems. While these changed conditions are often used to argue an increased university population of students with learning disorders, the paper suggests that such arguments often have more to do with how student problems are defined by institutions and how these definitions serve to secure additional government funding. More pertinently, the paper argues that such definition tends to locate the problem in individual students, deferring considerations of teacher educators' pedagogy and the learning arrangements of their institutions. The paper concludes that the place to begin addressing these issues of difficulty would seem to be with a different conception of knowledge production.     

Towards a learning society in finland: information and communications technology in teacher education

Abstract

This article describes the recent development of Finland as a learning and information society. Education, training and research have been seen as core factors to accelerate development towards a society where all citizens have a high level of competence in using information and communications technology (ICT) in their lives. A short review is given of the present situation in schools and teacher education and of how governmental strategies have guided the development and use of ICT for a learning society in Finland. The strategies of teacher education departments in universities are then analysed with the main focus on how teachers learn to use ICT as a tool which opens up high-quality learning opportunities for pupils and challenges teachers' growth as professionals. Cases have been selected to describe good examples of teachers' pre-service and in-service education. These draw a picture of how ICT is applied in different fields of teacher education. At the end of the article some trends from the late 1990s to early 2002 will be summarised. These trends are: using ICT more as a mindtool, moving towards more collaboration, interactivity and active learning, more integration of ICT in curricula and a better technical and pedagogical infrastructure.     

Understanding innovative teaching practice in higher education: a framework for reflection

ABSTRACT

In recent years there has been a resurgence of interest in innovation in teaching and learning in higher education. Now more than ever, academics are advised that engaging in educational innovation for the purposes of improved student learning is supported, valued, and rewarded. However, embracing innovative teaching practice requires academics to develop new skills and understandings, take on extra work, risk failure and invite disapproval from staff and students. Ultimately, focusing upon educational innovation rather than discipline research can be a risky career move if it is not undertaken strategically. This paper provides insight into the characteristics of two innovative academics from the discipline of science and explores the dimensions of innovation as it pertains to teaching and learning. A framework emerged from an analysis of their experience which identifies different types of educational innovators in higher education, discriminating between three individuals with regards to the level at which they seek to influence practice.     

Changing lives: improving care leaver access to higher education

ABSTRACT

Australian and international research documents the limited access of young people transitioning from out-of-home care (OOHC) to further and higher education. This paper examines the processes, outcomes, and key findings of the Raising Expectations project, a collaborative university and industry approach to promote higher education among care leavers at two Australian universities. That approach was informed by the co-authors' previous research, including interviews with enrolled care-leaver students. The paper highlights the relevance of that research in the design and implementation of Raising Expectations. Our findings reiterate the importance of policy and practice reforms informed by rigorous research, particularly involving the voices and agency of care leavers. We outline strategies adopted by the participating universities resulting in a fourfold increase in enrolments, growth in school outreach activities, and significantly improved retention rates. The paper also highlights barriers to higher education access and success, through care-leaver student interviews and policy analysis. These interviews revealed the need for better university outreach and information to prospective care-leaver students, improved support for enrolled care-leaver students, and better capturing of data by universities and governments. The paper also highlights policy barriers to the greater expansion of care-leavers at university, especially in the absence of extended state care.     

Differentiating instruction for gifted students in regular education social studies classes

Educational reform movements are transforming the shape of schools. Classroom populations are becoming more diverse as the number of students with disparate learning needs increases. Revised standards and performance expectations in the area of social studies are requiring teachers to make major shifts in teaching practices and strategies. Differentiation of instruction is necessary to meet the varied learning needs of diverse learners in social studies classes, especially gifted students. Curriculum compacting provides time for enrichment and/or acceleration for gifted learners. Conceptual thematic units, questioning strategies, interest development centers, independent study programs, and mentor‐ships are enrichment opportunities which can be implemented in regular education social studies classes to meet the learning needs of gifted students.     

Promoting intergenerational learning in higher education: older adult perspectives on course auditing

ABSTRACT

As the population ages, colleges and universities have opportunities to promote intergenerational learning by inviting lifelong learners to engage with students in the classroom. This article outlines an initiative to enroll older adults as auditors and to describe their experiences. Thirty of 40 older adult auditors completed a hard-copy survey administered in 2017 (75% response rate). Results indicate that auditors were motivated to enroll in a college course due to the self-satisfaction of learning, subject of the course, and time of course offering. Over half described completing course assignments and a majority accessed content on Blackboard at least once per week. Older adults reported engaging with students in and out of the classroom and described the benefits of intergenerational engagement as learning about younger adults’ perspectives and the reciprocity of learning and mutual respect between generations. Suggestions for improvement relate to offering more courses for auditing and greater assistance with course technology. Implications for promoting this type of lifelong learning initiative are discussed.     

Making biodiversity meaningful through environmental education

Biodiversity is an emerging theme in science, society and, more recently, education. There is no one single definition of biodiversity that is adequate in all situations. Both the knowledge base and the value base of biodiversity are variable and questionable. Because of these characteristics, biodiversity makes for an interesting vehicle for linking science and society, and the investigation of the normative underpinnings of 'science-in-the making'. Based on a 3-year study, this paper explores the crossroads between science education and environmental education and presents a framework for tapping the environmental education potential of biodiversity. Outlined are a number stepping stones for making biodiversity meaningful to learners. It is argued that, from the perspective of environmental education, the illdefined nature of biodiversity is a useful feature. Biodiversity is renewing the discourse on nature conservation issues by bringing together different groups in society that are searching for a common language to discuss nature conservation issues in relation to sustainability issues. The resulting debate allows the socio-scientific dispute character of 'science-in-the-making' to surface. Participation in such a dispute is an excellent opportunity to learn about a highly relevant, controversial, emotionally charged and debatable topic at the crossroads of science, technology and society     

Student perceptions of learning environment: disciplinary program versus general education classrooms

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to examine student perceptions of the learning environment in their program major and general education classrooms. The participants were 870 undergraduate students majoring in engineering, fine arts, education, economics and nursing programs at a university in Thailand. We found significant differences in the perceptions of the classroom learning environment across various disciplines. Engineering and economics students perceived the learning environment in general education classrooms as more cooperative than the learning environment in program major classrooms. Fine arts and nursing students perceived greater involvement among students in the program major classrooms than in the general education classrooms. Our findings contribute to the body of research on inter-disciplinary differences in classroom learning environments in universities and the ways in which these differences may impact student learning outcomes.     

A social perspective on teaching and learning in the context of computer-mediated communication in teacher education

Abstract

In a context where ever greater emphasis is placed on the need to exploit the potential of information and communications technology, this article argues the need for a theoretical underpinning to such developments. In higher education, the emphasis is often placed on the assumed improved cost-effectiveness associated with ‘flexible’ and ‘independent’ student learning as one of the major benefits, although such notions as flexible and independent learning tend to be taken for granted. It is argued further that even where benefits to learning are emphasised, these are often founded on relatively impoverished views of learning. Often such views fit with a technocentric and positivist perspective on learning, emphasising as they do individualism, information delivery and a limited role for the tutor. This article outlines an alternative theoretical perspective based upon Vygotskian social psychology, activity theory and social practice. Such a perspective is characterised by an emphasis on interaction, communication and collaboration. Learning itself is seen as an aspect of participation in communities of practice, in which the human relationships between teachers and students are seen as fundamental. The theory is exemplified with reference to the use of computer-mediated communication in teacher education using FirstClass computer conferencing software.     

Learning to contribute: text connections in early childhood teacher education

ABSTRACT

Face-to-face time with students in the early childhood college setting is at a premium and often flies by before we begin to scratch the surface of active learning. Building a community of learners is one of our main goals as instructors; therefore, we strive to set up active learning environments optimal for all students. This reflection on practice highlights the text connections learning strategy, describes how four early childhood education instructors use it, and analyzes its theoretical underpinnings to investigate how it helps students learn to contribute to the learning of all. Student examples and reflections from the instructors are included.