‘Becoming our own experts’: lessons from the past

This article reports on a local curriculum development project from the 1970s that shared many of the features of action research, though it was not thought of as such. Teacher control, the bridging of the theory–practice divide, the centrality of practitioner classroom research, and the quality of pupils' learning were all features of the project. The article also discusses the problematics of outsider involvement, of contributions to knowledge, and of authenticity.     

Stage fright

Gender identifies the social roles deemed appropriate for both sexes. Rhetorical genres are also social constructions, but given prohibitions against women speaking, historically, virtually all rhetorical action was gendered masculine. Accordingly, the earliest women speakers faced a double bind that not only spurred them to heights of inventional creativity but also generated contradictions that limited their ability to produce rhetorical masterpieces. At the same time, their challenges emboldened other women, and their arguments became resources for subsequent women speakers. These claims are developed and illustrated through analysis of texts of two of the earliest known speeches by U.S. women, Priscilla Mason's 1793 salutatory oration and Deborah Sampson Gannett's 1802 lecture tour.     

A Complex Case: Using the case study method to explore uncertainty and ambiguity in undergraduate business education

The case method is a definitive and foundational technology in business education. It was first developed as a vocational training tool equipping students for future employment. In this conception, the organisation was seen as a machine, and managers as the engineers who would maintain it through planned interventions. The case method allowed aspiring managers to practise intervention skills in a safe environment. Since the origins of the case method in US business schools before the First World War, conceptions of organisations have moved on. They are no longer seen as machine-like, but as complex, ambiguous, and protean. The 'wicked' problems that potential managers will face in an uncertain world require the development of critical thinking and sensemaking abilities. While the traditional approach to the case continues, its use as a vehicle to explore and manage complexity and ambiguity is emerging, although this is facing resistance from some students and staff.     

Rites of Passage: Does adaptation to university mean severing connections?

Many factors go into the decision of selecting a university, ranging from the overall costs and the programme of study to the institute’s reputation; however, accommodation while at university and proximity of the university to one’s permanent abode also play important roles in this decision-making process. Thus, first-year students experience different stages of separation from their prior networks depending on their individual situations. The results of this Ontario (Canada) 2012 study add to prior research by indicating that separation of students’ living arrangements and distance from home impact on transition and incorporation variables, which influenced students’ adaptation to university.     

Reasoning about data in middle school science

This case study illustrates instruction in an urban 6th‐grade classroom in which students were learning about mass, volume, and density by attempting to layer (stack) three miscible solutions with differing densities atop one another. The study examines classroom discourse and interaction on the basis of four teaching goals: (a) reaching consensus about which stacks were possible, (b) developing persuasive arguments that separated data from noise, (c) establishing social norms for collective inquiry, and (d) appreciating the epistemological status of scientific knowledge. The study traces the fate of three stacks that students claimed were possible after initial investigations with the solutions. These claims underwent a process of collective validation in which consensus without coercion was the goal, which illustrates emergent standards for backing claims with evidence, as well as for replicability, among the students. Students were successful in achieving three of the four goals, with some qualifications. In relation to Goal 3, which required generalization to other situations, somewhat less success is reported. Limitations in the current standards, difficulties of time allotment in current curricula, and establishing classroom cultures of inquiry are discussed. © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. J Res Sci Teach 36: 179–199, 1999     

The elaboration theory of instruction: A model for sequencing and synthesizing instruction

This paper describes a novel instructional model for sequencing, syntheizing, and summarizing subject-matter content. The importance of such models is discussed, along with the need for a significant change in the role of subject-matter structure in instruction. A zoom-lens analogy is presented to facilitate an understanding of the elaboration model of instruction. Some basic concepts and principles upon which the model is based are described. The basic unvarying components of the elaboration model are described. And finally, some variations in the model for different kinds of goals are described. The elaboration model follows a general-to-detailed pattern of sequencing, as opposed to the hierarchically based sequences derived from Gagné-type task analyses.Many of the ideas described in this paper were developed under two projeets, one funded by Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah, and the other by the Navy Personnel Research and Development Center in San Diego, California; however, the ideas expressed do not necessarily constitute the opinions of the funding institutions.     

Acquisition of Complex Systemic Thinking: Mental Models of Evolution

We investigated the impact of introducing college students to complex adaptive systems on their subsequent mental models of evolution compared to those of students taught in the same manner but with no reference to complex systems. The students' mental models (derived from similarity ratings of 12 evolutionary terms using the pathfinder algorithm) were significantly similar to their teachers' mental models and were correlated to their performance on an essay on evolution. Introducing students to complex systems facilitated their understanding of the mechanism of inheritance, the mechanism of evolution, and the role of chance in evolution.     

Conversing with pedagogical agents: A phenomenological exploration of interacting with digital entities

In this paper, we examine the meaning of conversing with pedagogical agents. Previous research has focused on examining cause and effect relationships, failing to take into account the meaning of the experiences individuals have when holding a dialogue with conversational agents for educational purposes. To understand these experiences, we have conducted a phenomenological examination of what it means to converse with a pedagogical agent. In phenomenological terms, findings suggest the experience is complex, engrossing, virtual yet real, human‐like, and social. Implications for the future design, implementation, and research of conversational agents in educational and other settings are discussed.     

Going Deep into Mechanisms for Moral Reasoning Growth: How Deep Learning Approaches Affect Moral Reasoning Development for First-year Students

The purpose of this paper was to determine the effects of deep approaches to learning on the moral reasoning development of 1,457 first-year students across 19 institutions. Results showed a modest positive relationship between our measures of deep approaches to learning and moral reasoning at the end of the first year of college even after controlling for precollege moral reasoning. After accounting for a host of demographic and relevant student characteristics and for the natural clustering of students, we found that the integrative learning subscale, which captures students’ participation in activities designed to integrate information from varied sources and diverse perspectives, positively affected moral reasoning among first-year students. Implications for researchers and practitioners are discussed.