Personal inquiry learning trajectories in geography: technological support across contexts

Student engagement in the design and implementation of inquiries is an effective way for them to learn about the inquiry process and the domain being studied. However, inquiry learning in geography can be challenging for teachers and students due to the complexity of scientific inquiry and the diversity of pupils' and teachers' knowledge and abilities. To address this, the Personal Inquiry project has designed a tool kit that includes nQuire, a Web-based tool to support students through the inquiry process. Here, we identify when, across five lessons comprising an inquiry into microclimates, nQuire was used by a teacher and a case study group of her 12 to 13-year-old students, and the ways in which they adopted nQuire as a tool to facilitate the creation of a coherent and cumulative inquiry learning experience over time. We found that students' use of nQuire supported them in capturing and representing their evolving understanding of inquiry, in defining and supporting their progression through the process of inquiry and in resourcing their cognitive engagement in data interpretation and representation. nQuire supported the students in accumulating and integrating new understandings across contexts and over time. In this way, nQuire successfully resourced and supported the students' learning journeys or trajectories. We conclude that nQuire can be an effective tool for supporting teachers' and students' understanding of the nature of inquiry and how to design and implement inquiries of their own.     

The tortoise and the hare enigma in e-transformation in Japanese and Korean higher education

Japan and Korea have highly developed information and communications technology infrastructures and have recently reformed their higher education systems and encouraged e-transformation. However, Japanese universities have not embraced e-learning as wholeheartedly as their Korean counterparts. The paper concludes that this is due to governmental and institutional failure to develop a cogent vision and strategic plan for e-learning, to recognise the need for fundamental shifts in organisational cultures and structures and pedagogy and to provide training, funding, recognition and reward for such development. It attributes this to differences in the cultural perspectives, values and customs of the two countries' policy makers, managers and faculty members. The findings are seen to hold important lessons for other countries embarking on e-transformation.     

Activity frames and complexity thinking: Honoring both public and personal agendas in an emergent curriculum

This article which is largely conceptual in nature, explores the possibilities provided by embracing complexity thinking that are attentive to, but not confined by, externally imposed curriculum mandates while simultaneously honoring the interests and needs of individual students and the classroom collective. From this perspective, the ideas of negotiating authority, adopting a holistic view, engaging in participatory democratic practices, and using a project-based approach to learning are examined. In doing so, the concept of ‘activity frames’ is introduced and developed as a useful way of responding to curriculum mandates while being responsive to and respectful of individual and collective student learning agendas.     

The role of Action Learning in supporting cross-cultural adaptation of international students

ABSTRACT

We explore the reflections of a lecturer using Action Learning (AL) meetings for the dissertation module on a one-year Master’s programme with a predominantly international student cohort. We focus on two concerns: to what extent does AL mitigate against the negative experiences of cross-cultural adaptation? And can we surface and share the learning that occurs when (international) scholars become practitioners and practitioners become (international) scholars? In the AL groups, many students seem more at ease with themselves, others and content in AL meetings than in other sessions. We scrutinised AL and our AL meetings to explore what makes it different and perhaps a better learning experience for the international student. This paper emerged following discussions with David, an e-learning and pedagogic specialist. Before continuing, note that there are two terms discussed in the literature: ‘cross-cultural adjustment’ and ‘cross cultural adaptation’. ‘Adjustment’ refers to minor changes to cope with when facing a new situation, ‘adaptation’ to larger scale changes [Haslberger, Arno, and Chris Brewster. 2007. “Domains of Expatriate Adjustment with Special Emphasis on Work.” Presented at the Cadiz University’s VI International Workshop on Human Resource Management, Jerez, Spain]. We suggest that AL be used more often and earlier with international students.     

Anticipatory contrast as a function of access time and spatial location

Intake of a 0.15% saccharin solution was suppressed when it was followed by a 32% sucrose solution in brief daily pairings. With equal access durations to the two solutions, intervals of intermediate duration (2 or 3 min) produced a larger contrast than more extreme intervals (1 or 10 min). There was no evidence of inhibition of delay with the 10-min interval (Experiments 1A and 1B). When access times were asymmetrical, longer access time to the first solution reduced contrast, whereas longer access time to the second solution enhanced contrast (Experiment 2). Contrast was greater when the two solutions were presented at consistent and separate spatial locations than when location was changed randomly or when both solutions were presented in sequence at the same location. However, a degree of contrast occurred in all conditions (Experiment 3). Experiment 4, conducted with the solutions in opposite arms of a T-maze, showed that anticipatory approach to the location correlated with the 32% sucrose solution developed prior to lick suppression on the saccharin solution. However, within daily sessions, there was a reliable increase in contrast without correlated changes in anticipatory-approach behavior. Access-time effects were attributed to altered reward values, whereas spatial-separation effects suggest that goal-directed responses contribute to, but do not cause, anticipatory contrast.