Feedback sessions as mediation spaces: empowering teacher candidates to deepen instructional knowledge and engage in the construction and transformation of theory in practice

ABSTRACT

The process of engaging in classroom research provides teacher candidates with opportunities to enter into the kind of deep, self-reflective work that we believe is an important capacity to build in teachers as they begin to engage in the construction and transformation of theory and knowledge within their own unique contexts. Our Action Research (AR) process involves multiple opportunities throughout their coursework, advising, and feedback sessions to try to promote the development of this capacity. These opportunities serve as a holding space where candidates are both supported and challenged through interactions with their research advisors, other faculty members, their peers, and panelists consisting of educators from the field. In this paper, we present what we believe to be important elements of AR that emerged from our final feedback sessions with 13 teacher candidates in our program as they prepared for the professional presentations. We found that considering these feedback sessions as mediation spaces (1) empowers teacher candidates to externalize and deepen personal understandings of their research through dialogical discourse with expert others, and (2) negotiate their power and emerging practitioner researcher identities.     

What is the key to academic success? An analysis of the relationship between time use and student performance / ¿Dónde está la clave del éxito académico? Un análisis de la relación entre el uso del tiempo y el rendimiento académico

University students’ use of time is one of the most relevant inputs to their education process. The aim of this work is therefore to explore the effect that the time spent on different academic and non-academic activities (collected using a diary) has on student performance, in order to determine which of these activities improve students’ marks. Moreover, we investigate the role of quality variables such as study skills. Using a sample of undergraduate business students, we find that academic activities such as doing assignments in teams, attending university lectures and self study have significant positive effects on students’ marks. It is thus concluded that to improve academic performance it is not only the quantity of time that matters but also quality aspects like the ability to schedule.     

Element discriminability as a determinant of serial-pattern learning

Hulse and Dorsky found that rats were better able to track (run slowly to) 0 food pellets in a strongly monotonic (decreasing) serial pattern (14-7-3-1-0 food pellets) than in either a weakly monotonic one (14-5-5-1-0) or a nonmonotonic one (14-1-3-7-0). These findings were seen as incompatible with associative approaches based on animal experiments. Instead, they were taken to be consistent with cognitive theories of human behavior that relate pattern difficulty to formally defined structural complexity. In Experiment 1, tracking was found to be poorer with a strongly monotonie series (15-10-5-0) than with either of two weakly monotonic series (15-15-0-0 or 14-14-2-0), and in Experiment 2 a nonmonotonic series (1-29-0) produced better tracking than a strongly monotonic one (20-10-0). Although these results are not necessarily incompatible with the structural complexity view, they do suggest that “element discriminability” is a factor in serial-pattern learning. They are, therefore, compatible with a memory approach that views tracking as a form of discrimination learning.     

The Role of Civility and Metacommunication in Facebook Discussions

Social media’s potential for political and social discussion provides great promise since deliberation is key for democracy. Unfortunately, there is a problematic presence of incivility in conversations on digital platforms. We conducted an experiment to examine the effects of this phenomenon, driven by the elaboration likelihood model. Each of our four conditions showed a media outlet’s Facebook post with a story about genetically modified organisms and a comment section beneath with one of the following: a civil discussion, an uncivil discussion, an uncivil conversation with metacommunication encouraging civility, and a control group. Results revealed a mediated relationship of exposure to civil and metacommunicative comments on willingness to engage in a discussion through mental elaboration. We also found evidence of modeling behavior for civility and metacommunication.     

El profesor como práctico reflexivo en una cultura de colaboración

The aim was the reconstruction of a school curriculum in reflective teaching situations within a co‐operative culture. Two working assumptions were considered: (a) teacher development was based on teacher thinking and (b) school organisation followed a co‐operative culture paradigm. The process features were: (a) university team consisted of external advisers; (b) school curriculum and classroom instruction were reviewed by school teachers; (c) case study as a research approach; (d) ethnographic techniques to collect data; (e) data analysis by a computer program; (f) teachers’ reflective cycle to reconstruct practice; and (g) teachers’ portfolios: narrative vignettes, etc. Findings showed: (a) a collaborative process school‐university; (b) teachers’ thinking and attitudinal change; (c) mobilisation of teachers’ talents and values to work together: (i) teacher dyads to reflect on teaching; (ii) advisers’ writing narrative vignettes; (Hi) collegial coaching; and (iv) curriculum materials designed by teachers. Two conclusions can be accepted: (a) teachers’ pedagogical practical knowledge showed diversity of their implicit theories to design action; and (b) teachers’ grounded theory confirmed that the educational action was based on a co‐operative and reflective culture.     

Communication in Online Learning – How Important is It?

Abstract

The purpose of this transcendental phenomenological study was to describe teacher experiences of teacher-to-student technology-mediated communication (TMC) in secondary virtual school (VS) environments in Alabama. The central research question for this study was: How do virtual school teachers in Alabama describe their experiences of teacher-to-student technology-mediated communication in secondary virtual school environments? Students educated in virtual environments use TMC, so teachers must know what kinds of TMC work best. The problem is that the teacher voice has been ignored in identifying teacher-to-student TMC that is effective in secondary VS environments. Using purposeful sampling of 12 VS teachers in Alabama, this research utilized semi-structured interviews, artifacts, and an asynchronous online focus group to uncover teacher experiences of teacher-to-student interactions in VS environments. In seeking meaning from their experiences, the predominant theme of whatever is best for the students became evident. Four themes developed pertaining to the participants’ experiences: Teacher mindset, teacher presence, integration of technology into instruction, and technology issues.     

Mexican-Origin Youth's Cultural Orientations and Adjustment: Changes From Early to Late Adolescence

Drawing from developmental and cultural adaptation perspectives and using a longitudinal design, this study examined: (a) mean‐level changes in Mexican‐origin adolescents’ cultural orientations and adjustment from early to late adolescence and (b) bidirectional associations between cultural orientations and adjustment using a cross‐lag panel model. Participants included 246 Mexican‐origin, predominantly immigrant families that participated in home interviews and a series of nightly phone calls when target adolescents were 12 and 18 years of age. Girls exhibited more pronounced declines in traditional gender role attitudes than did boys, and all youth declined in familism values, time spent with family, and involvement in Mexican culture. Bidirectional relations between cultural orientations and adjustment emerged, and some associations were moderated by adolescent nativity and gender.     

More than science: family learning in a Mexican science museum

Latin American audiences living in their countries of origin are poorly understood as museum learners due to the scarcity of research in this field. Through a case study approach, I investigate and report on the ways of learning of 20 Mexican family groups. In particular, I examine the influence of the Mexican sociocultural context on the participant family members’ learning outcomes from a Mexican science museum. Conducted in Universum Museo de las Ciencias, a science museum located in Mexico City, this research study is based on the premise that understanding the role of the sociocultural elements of learning is essential to understanding the nature of learning in museums. The cognitive and social outcomes of the participants are discussed in the light of the sociocultural elements that define Mexicans as museum learners.     

The eye of the hurricane: autoethnography in the southern Brazilian school context

The article systematizes the results of an autoethnography that aimed at understanding the difficulties of the collective work of teachers, their culture and their experience in the context of a municipal public school in Porto Alegre, Brazil. The autoreflexive exercise showed that urban violence leaves profound marks on the culture of the local community, and generates effects on the subjectivity and organization of the work of teachers in this school community.