Are You A Leader? How We Learned to Stop Asking

Smith College initiated an ePortfolio pilot project to guide students in documenting key learning experiences and in linking those experiences to Smith's institutional mission of “developing leaders for society's challenges” (Smith College, 2011 Smith College. 2011. Mission of Smith College. Retrieved from http://www.smith.edu/about_mission.php. [Google Scholar]). Twenty-one college students volunteered to participate in the pilot, based on the integrative knowledge portfolio process and informed by research in the fields of narrative psychology, integrative learning theory and ePortfolio theory. This article discusses the process of guiding students in integrative learning through the development of ePortfolios and through a curriculum, which engaged them in understanding and articulating their own learning, as well as in connecting it to the college mission.     

Graduate teaching assistants’ perceptions of teaching competencies required for work in undergraduate science labs

ABSTRACT

Many post-secondary institutions provide training and resources to help GTAs fulfil their teaching roles. However, few programmes focus specifically on the teaching competencies required by GTAs who work with undergraduate students in laboratory settings where learning tends to be more active and inquiry based than in classroom settings. From a review of 8 GTA manuals, we identified 20 competencies and then surveyed faculty and lab coordinators (FIS) and GTAs from a Faculty of Science at a comprehensive Canadian university to identify which of those competencies are required of GTAs who work in undergraduate science labs. GTAs and FIS did not significantly differ in the competencies they view as required for GTAs to work effectively in undergraduate labs. But, when comparing the responses of GTAs and FIS to TA manuals, ‘Clearly and effectively communicates ideas and information with students’ was the only competency for which there was agreement on the level of requirement. We also examined GTAs’ self-efficacy for each of the identified competencies and found no overall relationship between self-efficacy and demographic characteristics, including experience and training. Our results can be used to inform the design of training programmes specifically for GTAs who work in undergraduate science labs, for example, programmes should provide strategies for GTAs to obtain feedback which they can use to enhance their teaching skills. The goal of this study is to improve undergraduate lab instruction in faculties of science and to enhance the teaching experience of GTAs by better preparing them for their role.     

Still on the Margins: Migration,English Language Learning,and Mental Health in Immigrant Psychiatric Patients

This qualitative study explores the reflexive relationships among mental illness, acculturation, and progress toward English proficiency in five adult immigrants being treated at a Canadian psychiatric hospital. The research explores the additional challenges faced by mentally ill individuals when learning a new language and the extent to which English language acquisition may be impeded by factors related to mental illness. Semistructured ethnographic interviews are conducted with the patients. Data analysis is accomplished through grounded theory methods, specifically data-driven and theory-driven coding. The English language acquisition experiences of these five individuals are contrasted with second-language acquisition theory to suggest that the effects of the theoretical language learning advantages possessed by this group may have been diminished by factors related to mental illness. Policy recommendations are made to address this additional set of challenges for immigrants with psychiatric disorders.     

Encoding Effects on First-Graders' Use of Manipulatives

The effects of prior encodings of manipulatives (red and blue plastic chips) on children's ability to use them as representations of quantity were tested. First graders (N = 73) were assigned to four conditions in which the encoding of plastic chips was experimentally manipulated. All children then participated in an addition activity that relied on the chips' quantitative representations. Children who were given quantitative encodings were better able to use the chips with meaning relative to those who played with them during the encoding phase. Children who perceived the chips as toys after encoding were similarly hindered on their ability to use them as quantities. The findings suggest that prior encodings are predictive of children's quantitative representations of manipulatives.     

Technology enhanced learning as transformative innovation: a note on the enduring myth of TEL

ABSTRACT

The purpose of this paper is to offer a critical insight into the ubiquity of technology enhanced learning. The use of technology in higher education is underpinned by a promise that technology will enhance teaching and learning despite an apparent lack of systematic evidence. This raises questions of how this enhancement agenda persists, and of how technology has established a position of dominance within higher education. This orthodoxy is evident across a range of relevant actors, from commercial interests, universities, government, academics, and technologists. This paper utilises a critical logics approach, which problematises the competing interests of these different actors, exploring ways in which the social, political and fantasmatic practices between these actors contribute to the ubiquity and dominance of technology enhanced learning. This paper argues that the technology enhanced project resists in-depth critique, with the repeated failure of technology to transform education attributed towards academics, students and institutions.     

CoNoteS2: A Software Tool for Promoting Self-Regulation

Integrating state-of-the-art computer technologies with pedagogically sound practice provides interesting challenges and potentially significant opportunities to simultaneously promote and examine learning in context. This paper unfolds in 3 parts. We begin by introducing the reader to contemporary theories of self-regulation. We present a 4-phase model of self-regulating and a sparse literature on instructional design for SRL. Second, we build on this theory to describe features of CoNoteS2 (a prototype electronic notebook) that support self-regulation through tacit and explicit scaffolding. And finally, we describe the role of CoNoteS2 in researching about how students self-regulate their own learning. Our intent is to illustrate how contemporary learning theory can be used to drive instructional innovation and technological enhancement for the classroom.