Teaching strategy: reflections on professional practice

This paper explores how strategic management concepts, especially the notion of ‘wicked problems’, can be useful in analysing the professional practice of teachers in higher education. The keeping of a dialogical journal with a colleague helped illuminate that strategic management and education have much in common. Both are situated in unstable, unpredictable environments where contradictory demands and conditions exist. The keeping of the journal points to some of the difficulties in self-reflection illustrating the need for a more refined understanding and definition of reflective practice in education. The paper does not attempt to promote an agenda for efficient teaching, or suggests what teachers should do. However, clearly distinguishing between educational problems and technical or managerial problems will serve the educational interests of teachers, students and institutions.     

EXTENDING SELF‐MANAGEMENT STRATEGIES: THE USE OF A CLASSWIDE APPROACH

Notwithstanding the wealth of research that documents the effectiveness of self‐management programs in the classroom, few investigations have explored classwide use of self‐management procedures as a universal intervention. To extend existing research in this area, we examined the effectiveness of a classwide self‐management intervention for decreasing disruptive behaviors among three at‐risk second‐grade students. We used a multiple baseline across subjects design and evaluated the effects of the self‐management program at both the individual and classwide levels during academic instruction time. Results of the study showed a decrease in disruptive behaviors of the target students and a general decrease in classroom disruptive behavior. In addition, teachers and students provided positive ratings of intervention acceptability and feasibility. Limitations, implications, and future directions for research are discussed.     

What actually works to enhance graduate employability? The relative value of curricular,co-curricular,and extra-curricular learning and paid work

Higher Education - The focus on short-term graduate employment metrics has catalysed the employability agenda as a strategic directive in universities. A raft of embedded, co-curricular, and...     

Communication on a problem solving task in cooperative learning groups

Summary There is some evidence from this study that reflectivity within cooperative learning groups develops over time. Preliminary observations suggest that Slavin's third and fourth levels of skills, those of reflection and reasoning and reconception and reformulation and Kempa and Ayob's higher levels of explanation and insight appear more advanced in groups strategically managed by teachers for such outcomes. Later analyses will permit more detailed accounts of the relationships between the teacher's management strategies, and reflection within groups of different gender composition. Specializations: science teacher education. Specializations: studies in twentieth century science education in Australia, teacher education.     

Inklusion – Interdisziplinäre Kritik und Perspektiven von Begriff und Gegenstand

The term and schope ‘inclusion’ features prominently in public, political and pedagogical discussion. However, from an academic point in view there is neither a clear understanding of the term, nor it is clarified how the partially contradictory ideas of inclussion as a social principle and inclusion in its realisation in the field of education are related to one another. The article clarifies the term of inclusion by an interdisciplinary academic reflection of the normative settings and single patterns of logic. Therefore, the relationship between ideal and the reality is elaborated by referring to an ethical and philosophical body of thought. Then educational theory is used to reconsider how inclusive principle of the school system can be understood. Finally, implementation measures of the inclusive principle and the aporia linked with them are discussed, amongst others referring to discourses in sociology, school pedagogy and school psychology. Academic perspectives and profession-related implications are discussed using the example of teacher education.     

The Joint Influence of Intra- and Inter-Team Learning Processes on Team Performance: A Constructive or Destructive Combination?

In order for teams to build a shared conception of their task, team learning is crucial. Benefits of intra-team learning have been demonstrated in numerous studies. However, teams do not operate in a vacuum, and interact with their environment to execute their tasks. Our knowledge of the added value of inter-team learning (team learning with external parties) is limited. Do both types of team learning compete over limited resources, or do they form a synergistic combination? We aim to shed light on the interplay between intra- and inter-team learning in relation to team performance, by including adaptive and transformative sub-processes of intra-team learning. A quantitative field study was conducted among 108 university teacher teams. The joint influence of intra- and inter-team learning as well as structural (task interdependence) and cultural (team efficacy) team characteristics on self-perceived and externally rated team performance were explored in a path model. The results showed that adaptive intra-team learning positively influenced self-perceived team performance, while transformative intra-team learning positively influenced externally rated team performance. Moreover, intra-team and inter-team learning were found to be both a constructive and a destructive combination. Adaptive intra-team learning combined with inter-team learning led to increased team performance, while transformative intra-team learning combined with inter-team learning hurt team performance. The findings demonstrate the importance of distinguishing between both the scope (intra- vs. inter-team) and the level (adaptive vs. transformative) of team learning in understanding team performance.     

Klassenwiederholen in PISA-I-Plus: Was lernen Sitzenbleiber in Mathematik dazu?

This study analyses the effects which repeating a class has on ninth grade students’ development of mathematical competency. The following research questions were addressed: How many students repeat grades in the different types of schools? How do students who repeat a grade differ from those who do not in their performance and background characteristics? How much extra mathematics do students repeating a grade learn in one school year? What are the differences between various types of school? Can students with poor mathematics grades in particular profit from repeating a grade? The sample is a sub-sample of the PISA-I-Plus study and comprises N = 360 ninth grade students. The total sample of PISA-I-Plus is representative for all ninth/tenth grade students from the different school types in Germany. The data survey was carried out in the ninth grade and then repeated after the students had repeated a year. The results document differences in the amount of grade repeat quotas between types of school. Furthermore, compared to students not repeating, those repeating a grade had lower mathematics (d = 1.02) and german (d = 1.14) grades, a lower level of mathematical literacy (d = 0.51), and lower test results with regard to basic cognitive abilities (d = 0.32). In terms of the development of mathematical literacy, the students repeating a grade could improve by an average of 23 points (d = 0.27) on the PISA mathematics scale. However, the results identify 38 percent of students repeating a grade who do not make any significant improvement in mathematics or even get worse. A differentiation according to school types shows that students repeating a grade in integrated comprehensive secondary schools and in schools with several educational levels in particular do not, on average, show any noteworthy improvement in their mathematical literacy. The analysis of the school grades received in mathematics shows that students whose mathematics grades are unsatisfactory do not benefit more from repeating a grade than students whose mathematics performance has been rated as being “satisfactory” or better. The article concludes with a discussion of the possible consequences of changing the way in which repetitions of grades are dealt with.