User-design in the creation of human learning systems

Systems theory and thinking are fundamental for the effective application of human performance technologies and instructional design to organizational and educational change efforts. One of the cornerstones of systemic change is the involvement of all stakeholders in what is termed participatory- or user-design. While the value of including the users in the creation of large systems of education and human performance (such as training, computer systems, and curriculum) is apparent, the reality of such inclusive efforts has a history of failure. Meeting the challenge of shifting power dynamics, empowering stakeholders and educating for design must, at some level, fall to the leaders of any dynamic organization. This paper describes systemic change as a context for user-design and defines user-design in that context. Approaches to user-design are explored, including ethnographic field methods, cooperative design, and action research-based user-design as applied to the creation and implementation of new technologies. A proposed research plan for the advancement of user-design practice concludes the work.     

Articulating identities and analyzing belonging: a multistep intervention that affirms and informs a diversity of students

This article describes a multistep intervention developed for an undergraduate course called ‘Advocating Diversity in Higher Education.’ The goal of the intervention was to affirm diversity and foster a sense of inclusion among students within and beyond the course. We contextualize the intervention in student protests during 2015 and 2016 regarding racial and other forms of discrimination on college and university campuses in the United States, and we describe how it is informed by several theoretical frames and associated practices: intersectionality, belonging, and radical pedagogical partnership. Co-authored by the faculty member who co-designed and co-taught the course, an undergraduate student who co-designed the course, and a recent graduate who co-created the course when she took it, the article embodies the inclusion and radical partnership it analyzes. It is intended to offer individuals working in higher education an intervention that can be adapted across contexts.     

Emotional Feeding and Emotional Eating: Reciprocal Processes and the Influence of Negative Affectivity

Emotional eating, that is, eating more in response to negative mood, is often seen in children. But the origins of emotional eating remain unclear. In a representative community sample of Norwegian 4‐year‐olds followed up at ages 6, 8, and 10 years (analysis sample: n = 801), one potential developmental pathway was examined: a reciprocal relation between parental emotional feeding and child emotional eating. The results revealed that higher levels of emotional feeding predicted higher levels of emotional eating and vice versa, adjusting for body mass index and initial levels of feeding and eating. Higher levels of temperamental negative affectivity (at age 4) increased the risk for future emotional eating and feeding.     

Students' Metacognitive Development in an Innovative Second Year Chemical Engineering Course

In this paper the metacognitive development of students in a second year chemical engineering course (which had such development as an explicit aim) is investigated. Journal data from the class were analysed and a framework comprising four different areas of metacognitive development was arrived at. Within each area, key shifts in approach were identified. The first area (category 1) concerns students' knowledge and awareness (conceptions) of learning, and the important development in this area was from a focus on solving problems towards a stronger valuing of conceptual understanding. The second and third areas deal with aspects of control. The second area (category 2a) is that of organising one's learning, and here students were seen to develop from an uninformed focus on discipline and time management, towards a more metacognitively informed use of resources. The third area (category 2b) is monitoring of learning, with the key shift here from naïvely accepting outside judgements, to using them strategically for purposes of self-assessment. The fourth area (category 3) involves students' sense of a purpose for learning beyond the subject. Important developments here were both in terms of a career goal, as well as personal growth. Data from interviews with five students largely confirmed the validity of these categories, as well as illustrating that different students showed development in different areas.     

Sex Education: Challenges and Choices

Noting public concern about sexual exploitation, abuse and sexualisation, we argue that sex education in the UK needs revision. Choice is a feature of current sex education policy and, acknowledging that choice can be problematic, we defend its place in an approach to sex education premised on informed deliberation, relational autonomy, a particular view of personhood and moral literacy. We argue, however, that choice and the approach outlined must be located in the realities of young people’s lives.     

Contents

Volume Contents

Contents     

Innovating for a cause: the work and learning required to create a new approach to healthcare for homeless people

Innovation occupies a pivotal place in our understanding of knowledge-based economies, and this is raising questions about sources of innovation, how it originates, and the role played by employees, work practices and learning. This paper explores these issues through case study research into a new approach to providing healthcare for homeless people in England, and by bringing together conceptual insights from the employee-driven innovation literature, and more broadly from social and practice-based learning theory and organisational theory. Applying these perspectives to our case enables illumination of the innovation as a process – not an event – and as an ongoing set of organisational practices that transcend their origins. Through our analysis we argue that the notion of ‘a cause’ is helpful in elucidating the impetus and the commitment to making the innovation happen (and go on happening). Our findings are presented under three themes: ‘establishing a cause’, ‘organising for innovation’, and ‘innovative capability in practice’. Building on these, we have identified five key inter-related dimensions which help conceptualise the work and learning that it took to create and (re-)enact the innovation and that we suggest may have relevance for understanding and characterising other employee-led innovations in and perhaps beyond healthcare.     

An analysis of English teachers’ self-efficacy in relation to SEN and disability and its implications in a changing SEN policy context

Policy and practice in relation to meeting the diverse needs of all children, including those with special educational needs (SEN) and disabilities, is in a state of change in the UK. As a result, there is growing interest in and understanding of the need to focus on factors which impact on teachers’ levels of self-efficacy in meeting the needs of learners with SEN, and the implications of this for further development and training. The research reported in this paper gathered data from teachers at a unique time in the transition of policy and practice in England. Through a quantitative analysis of a questionnaire completed by 213 teachers from a variety of teaching settings, data relating to the self-efficacy and confidence levels of teachers immediately prior to the statutory changes in SEN policy has been captured. The findings identify that the Key Stage that the teacher works in is directly related to self-efficacy, that self-efficacy in collaboration is generally lower than self-efficacy in instruction and behaviour management, and that knowledge of laws and policies pertaining to SEN and Disability and experience in teaching children with disabilities had a strong positive relationship on overall self-efficacy. Implications for the ongoing development of practice within the profession, including the development of appropriate initial and continuing professional development models to support teachers throughout their career, and avenues for further research are presented.     

Beginning Teachers�� Workplace Experiences: Perceptions of and Use of Support

This paper illuminates the experiences of beginning teachers using a participatory perspective approach and drawing on some of these teachers’ perceptions. We place the ‘subject’ of workplace learning research centrally in understanding the relatedness between workplaces and novice employees/trainees. This paper builds on previous work by the authors using semi-structured interviews with 17 beginning teachers in 19 schools that aim to better understand issues associated with beginning teacher retention. This study explores an application of a framework for evaluating workplaces as from expansive to restrictive learning environments, whilst examining individuals’ responses to and agency in these environments. In addition, these teachers’ personal networks were explored to idedntify how they shaped the teachers’ engagement with workplaces. This analysis revealed networks both internal and external to their schools, and hence a broader view of workplace than is often proposed. Together these analyses allowed an examination of the relatedness between individual beginning teachers and the schools they experienced. This paper identifies the significance of ontogeny and expectation that individuals bring to the workplace, along with individuals exhibiting different agency. These beginning teachers indicate how individuals can be proactive in creating more expansive learning environments for themselves through the utilisation of personal networks, even when these are not offered. This finding may have implications for beginning teachers to re-evaluate their potential to become empowered as they begin their careers.