Professional experience: learning from the past to build the future

The title of the 2014 Australian Teacher Education Association (ATEA) conference was Teacher Education, An Audit: Building a platform for future engagement. One of the conference themes was Professional Experience: What works? Why? I seized upon this theme and the title of the conference as it afforded me an opportunity to do an audit of my research in professional experience over the last 25 years. This article presents this evidence base and the messages I have taken from this evidence. I have done this in the hope that, by collating some of the insights gained from the past and the present, it will help to “build a platform for future engagement” in professional experience. In preparing this article I was asked by the Editors to reflect also on how I developed my distinctive line of inquiry and expertise in relation to the practicum across an extended period. These reflections are included. I hope they will support university-based teacher educators in enhancing their satisfaction and achievements from working in this stimulating and provocative field of study.     

A tentative return to experience in researching learning at work

This paper explores possibilities for more democratic approaches to researching learning in and through everyday workplace practices. This links with a concern with who is able to speak in representations of learning at work, what is able to be spoken about and how knowing, learning and experience are inscribed in theories of workplace learning. I propose that Rancière’s notion of ‘the distribution of the sensible’, which draws attention to an aesthetic dimension of experience, knowledge and politics, provides a useful way of exploring learning in and through everyday workplace practices. The approach points to the possibility of knowledge without hierarchies and a shift from a knowledge – ignorance binary. An understanding of experience as aesthetic enables accounts of learning which counter the story of destiny in literature on learning in and through everyday practice. It also points to a very different way of doing academic research. The presupposition of equality is the point of departure in this approach and the purpose of research is the verification of equality (rather than the verification of oppression). The paper makes a significant contribution to literature on learning in and through everyday workplace practices by disrupting a prevailing view that knowledge is necessarily tied to identity.     

The interrelationship between student learning experience and study behaviour

This study examined the interrelationship between student learning experiences and study behaviour in explaining academic achievement. The participants were 541 final year students from a university in Hong Kong. Students' learning experiences and study behaviour were measured using the Course Experience Questionnaire and the Learning and Study Strategies Inventory. Structural equation modelling demonstrated that different learning experience factors have differential influences on student study behaviour. Students' perception of teaching quality and generic skills development were found to be most influential in terms of motivation and attitude towards study, which were most predictive of academic performance. The implications for curriculum design and instructional practice on university student learning are discussed.     

成人经验学习及其教学策略

拥有丰富的经验是成人的一大特色,基于这些经验的成人学习在当今社会中扮演着重要的角色.成人只有凭借自身的有利经验,在学习过程中不断地回顾、理解、反思以及重构,才能提高学习效果.为此,成人教学要在分享经验、教学内容与经验相联系、消除经验的消极作用、指导建构新的经验、科学评价学习效果等方面做出相应的变革,推动成人经验学习.     

Independent learning crossing cultures: learning cultures and shifting meanings

This paper contrasts the notion of ‘independent learning’ as perceived by two informant groups at a UK institution of higher education: (1) teachers, educators and providers of education and (2) their students or ‘consumers’ of education. Both informant groups are staff and students studying in a culture different to that of their first education. They are identified in their receiving institution as ‘international’, or have identified themselves as such. The experience of transition into a UK University was explored with both informant groups, through interviews and focus groups, over a cycle of two years. ‘Independent learning’ as rhetoric and practice emerged for both groups as an issue in their transition from familiar to unfamiliar learning culture. Three key insights emerged. Firstly, a mismatch is identified between teacher perceptions and student interpretation of ‘independent learning’ expectations and practice. Secondly, it emerges that student experience of the learning culture is in a state of continuous flux, evolving between first arrival and end of programme through cycles of bafflement and empowerment. Finally, both students and teachers identify a number of strategies for dealing with this experience of ‘transitional’ independence. The paper concludes by recommending a notion of ‘phased scaffolding’ that might inform educational practice and by reflecting on the implications for the educator in revisiting received educational discourse from the perspective of participants negotiating a second learning culture.     

Between work and learning: on pedagogic practice and interstitial space

In this paper I develop a response to a continuing problem in work–learning research, the connections between education, learning and work. These connections are commonly conceived in terms of the concept of transfer, integration or boundary crossing. Thinking these connections in this way, I claim, serves to consolidate a unitary, stable and fixed idea of the relationship between learning in educational institutions and work and inadvertently reduce its complexity. Drawing on empirical data collected over the course of qualitatively exploring the links between a problem-based program of teacher education (‘learning’) and the practice of participants in this program upon initial employment in schools (‘work’), and deploying actor network theory, I trace new sorts of associations between work and learning and propose a relational conception of their connection. Challenging the common counter-positioning of work and learning, empirical analysis reveals their mutual constitution and partial connection in practices, here, of a predominantly pedagogic and spatial/material kind. Practices that occupy interstitial spaces have a particular resonance with regard to challenging this counter-positioning and unsettling the hierarchies of value which often arise from it.     

Re-imagining learning through art as experience: An aesthetic approach to education for life

Abstract

This paper investigates what it may mean to re-imagine learning through aesthetic experience with reference to John Dewey’s Art as Experience (1934). The discussion asks what learning might look like when aesthetic experience takes centre stage in the learning process. It investigates what Dewey meant by art as experience and aesthetic experience. Working with Dewey as a philosopher of reconstruction of experience, the discussion examines responses to poetic writings and communication in learning situations. In seeking to discover what poetic writing (as art) does within the experience of a reader and writer it considers three specific learning situations. Firstly there is an examination of a five-year old child’s experience of shared communication through the story of Horton the Elephant. Secondly there is an account of the responses of an 11-year-old child to poetry in a 1950s classroom setting, and later reconstructions of those experiences by the child as adult. Thirdly, the paper extends to intensive writing with 12 to 13-year-old children. The focus is on the process of learning via acts of expression as aesthetic experiences. Through art as experience the child develops perceptions that recover a coherence and continuity of aesthetic experience in art as in everyday life.     

学习体验的发生结构与教学策略

学习体验既是一种生命体验,又是建构知识意义、焕发生命活力、提升生命价值的手段和途径,因而是教学活动揭示、展现、提升生命意义的关键。学习体验的发生依承于历构层、预构层、临构层的相互作用与有机统一。教学目标向学习期望的转化、教学内容向学习内容的内化、教学授受向教学对话的转变能够有效引发学生的学习体验。     

Exploring connections between identity and learning

Abstract

Learning is situated in the practices of communities, such that children learn by participating in the communities they inhabit. Learning through participation in the practices of a community influences interpretation of and engagement with the social world, and has implications for the identity of the learner as a participant in a community. In this article, the connection between learning and identity will be explored from a sociocultural perspective. Children participate in many communities and must appropriately generalize learning across communities such as home and school. Research in the connection between identity and learning in schools will be reviewed because in many countries where schooling is mandatory it is an important context for this generalization. Then the paper will explore the choice of when and how to generalize across contexts and whether this choice is conscious. Lastly, the paper will propose some ways that the connection between learning and identity may complicate this generalization.     

The classroom group work for collaborative learning

This paper addresses the issues in the field of collaborative learning,and put its stress on the classroom group work for collaborative learning.The way to deal with group work and teacher's role in the process will also be discussed.     

Connections between learning experience,study behaviour and academic performance: a longitudinal study

Background:?Whilst past studies have established the joint influence of student learning experience and study behaviour on academic achievement, few attempts have been made to determine their causal ordering in a longitudinal framework.

Purpose:?This study explored the reciprocal relationship between learning experience and study behaviour, and examined their relative impact on university students' academic performance.

Sample:?Participants were 396 undergraduate students from a university in Hong Kong (191 men, 205 women).

Design and methods:?Students' learning experience and study behaviour were evaluated using the Course Experience Questionnaire (CEQ) and the Learning and Study Strategies Inventory (LASSI). A two-wave cross-lagged structural model was constructed to examine the reciprocal effects between learning experience and study behaviour measured over a 12-month period.

Results and conclusions:?The findings showed that after controlling for previous academic achievement, student learning experience measured at Time 1 exerted significant influence on study behaviour measured at Time 2, and study behaviour measured at Time 1 also exerted significant impact on learning experience at Time 2. Both constructs were significantly predictive of current academic performance.

Conclusions:?Results from this study outlined linkages between learning experience and study behaviour in influencing academic achievement. As the current study is based on students from a single university, further studies with different student populations are recommended. The implications of fostering motivation and enhancing university learning experience are discussed.     

Transforming the twenty-first-century campus to enhance the net-generation student learning experience: using evidence-based design to determine what works and why in virtual/physical teaching spaces

The twenty-first century has seen the rapid emergence of wireless broadband and mobile communications devices which are inexorably changing the way people communicate, collaborate, create and transfer knowledge. Yet many higher education campus learning environments were designed and built in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries prior to wireless broadband networks. Now, new learning environments are being re-engineered to meet these emerging technologies with significant challenges to existing pedagogical practices. However, these next generation learning environments (NGLEs) have not been evaluated thoroughly to see if they actually work as they are scaled up across the higher education system. Whilst there have been a range of NGLEs designed globally – with Australia leading in the past five years or so – it is timely that a more rigorous research methodology drawing from health facility evidence-based design is taken to evaluate their effectiveness in improving the student experience and learning outcomes.     

Serious games for learning: games-based child sexual abuse prevention in schools

In spite of research demonstrating conceptual weakness in many child sexual abuse (CSA) prevention programmes and outdated modes of delivery, students continue to participate in a diversity of initiatives. Referring to the development of a games-based approach to CSA prevention in Australia, this paper examines empirically based attributes of effective CSA prevention programmes for schools including contemporary pedagogies for learning. The paper draws on findings to inform the conceptual development phase of Orbit, an online, free and equal-access, games-based educational approach to CSA prevention for children aged 8–10 years. First, the paper provides a review of CSA prevention in schools and games-based approaches to key learnings in prevention. Second, an overview of Orbit (the Feeling Safe sexual abuse prevention project) is provided. Finally, implications for the development of games-based prevention programmes are offered and an argument is made for the advancement of games-based prevention resources.     

高校学生工作队伍的标杆学习流程

高校学生工作队伍依赖社会发展的资源结构的变迁必然会引发管理方式的变革。本文提出高校学生工作队伍标杆学习的内涵、作用,结合目前国内企业引进国外先进标杆学习的优秀实践模式,描述了高校学生工作队伍标杆学习流程,旨在提升高校学生工作队伍核心竞争力。     

Subjectivity, lifeworld, and work organization

The bases of the article are the results of an empirical study about traditional work places in industry. There were made group discussions and special qualitative interviews with workers and employees of a German factory. The article tries to interpret and to integrate these subjective concepts in the actual discussion of theoretical perspectives in sociology, social psychology, and adult education. The theoretical discussion refers to German, Austrian, French, and American social scientists. The result of this discourse is a theoretical construction of a hidden informal lifeworld, which is embedded in the concrete industrial working process. These informal lifeworlds influence the cooperation of the workers and the relationship between work and learning.     

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.     

Exploring the role of flow experience,learning performance and potential behavior clusters in elementary students' game-based learning

Well-designed game-based learning can provide students with an innovative environment that may enhance students' motivation and engagement in learning and thus improve their learning performance. The purpose of this study was to examine the relationships among elementary school students' flow experience and learning performances. We also investigated the gender and grade differences as well as the types of potential clusters of flow experiences and performance. Thirty-four elementary school students participated in this study. This study conducted correction analysis, difference analysis and a two-stage cluster analysis. The findings suggested that the students with higher flow experiences tended to have higher learning performances. The results of gender differences showed that female students had high performance scores and great flow experiences in the mini-educational game in this study. Moreover, the results revealed that the students of higher grade had significantly higher scores in both performance and flow experience than the students of lower grade. The result of cluster analysis fell into three categories: low performance/low flow experience students, high flow experience students and high performance/high flow experience students. On the basis of our findings, we also proposed suggestions for future game-based learning research.     

Individual differences in an English learning achievement system: gaming flow experience,gender differences and learning motivation

Despite the growing interest in digital game-based learning (DGBL), there has been a lack of attention paid to the effects of individual differences, such as gaming flow experience and gender differences, in a reward-based achievement system. To this end, this study developed an achievement system with a reward mechanism to facilitate English learning. This study investigated how individuals’ gaming flow experience levels affected their levels of learning motivation, and whether any gender differences existed in gaming flow experience and learning motivation while engaging in the achievement system. The results showed that gaming flow experience significantly predicted learning motivation, whereby the students with high gaming flow experience were six times more likely to have high learning motivation than those with low gaming flow experience. Subsequent analysis showed that the female students had significantly higher gaming flow than the male students, but the male and female students showed similar learning motivation. Furthermore, the results indicated that the male students achieved more interactive rewards than the female students, but no significant differences were found in the male and female students’ achievement of other types of rewards. Based on these findings, the authors contribute to the literature by developing a framework which can be applied to support designers to accommodate individual differences in DGBL.     

Connections teachers make between creativity and arts learning

Background: Creativity is often cited as one of the capacities that needs to be actively encouraged in all aspects of schooling. However, what creativity is and how it may be promoted through formal teaching and learning approaches remain contested. There are also differences between educators in terms of how they understand, discuss and conceptualise this complex concept.

Purpose: This paper focuses on the difficulties associated with talking about creativity in education. It considers the ways in which schoolteachers who are involved in the area of arts education understand, describe and discuss the concept of creativity and how it interacts with their classroom practice.

Sample: Twenty-three educators who taught Arts (either as generalist primary classroom teachers or as specialist teachers), and the leadership team from a Kindergarten to Year 9 (pupil ages 5–15) school in the suburbs of a city in the Australian state of Victoria participated in the project.

Design and methods: In this phenomenological study, data were gathered from participants through questionnaires, discussion groups, email prompts and reflective journals. The material was analysed qualitatively.

Findings: By examining the teachers’ dialogic and discursive responses about creativity, it was possible to capture some broad ways in which the participants spoke about creativity. Data were analysed thematically and grouped into categories that represented the connected ‘creative orientations’: thinking orientations, action orientations, emotion orientations and skill/outcome orientations.

Conclusion: There is a need for educators in and across a range of discipline areas to share, map and think about creativity. The approach adopted in this exploratory study offers a way that could be used to focus discussions and help facilitate educators’ talk about creativity.