Sighting horizons of teaching in higher education

This conceptual paper tackles the matter of teaching in higher education and proposes a concept of ‘horizons of teaching’. It firstly offers an overview of the considerable empirical literature around teaching—especially conceptions of teaching, approaches to teaching and teaching practices—and goes on to pose some philosophical and social theoretical considerations that open further the territory around teaching in university. Against this background, we propose the concept of ‘horizons of teaching’. Horizons of teaching provide a context in which it makes sense for teachers to give themselves to the teaching enterprise and to go on giving themselves to teaching. Horizons include diverse and intricate layers at both micro- and macro-levels that interact in a permanent and dynamic way; they involve persons and collectivities; and they concern structures and agency. The paper concludes by proposing that horizons of teaching configure and delineate curricula and the pedagogical relationship in a way that might contain a revolutionary potentiality in recasting teaching in higher education.     

Visual Literacy in Primary Science: Exploring Anatomy Cross-Section Production Skills

Are children competent producing anatomy cross-sections? To answer this question, we carried out a case study research aimed at testing graphic production skills in anatomy of nutrition. The graphics produced by 118 children in the final year of primary education were analysed. The children had to draw a diagram of a human cross section, integrating knowledge of anatomy acquired from longitudinal sections. The results show that they have very limited skills in producing these graphics judging by the dimensions (scale, shape, organs represented and its organization inside the section) and their conception of human anatomy at thoracic level (location of the organs, elements in the spaces between them and connections between organs). The results also indicate that the only exposure to cross-sections in daily life is not enough by itself to draw them correctly, so this type of graphic production should be addressed from the earliest stages of education, since it contributes to the development of visual literacy, and this is a crucial skill when it comes to learning science concepts and developing scientific literacy.     

Education of deaf students in Spain: legal and educational politics developments

This article examines the legal instruments and educational politics affecting deaf persons' educational rights in Spain. We present a historical view of deaf education in Spain before and after the Congress of Milan (1880) and then introduce educational legislation and practices in recent decades. At present, Spanish legislation is moving toward recognition of sign languages and the suitability of bilingual education for deaf students at all educational levels. This is a consequence of taking into account the low academic achievement of two generations of deaf students educated in a monolingual model. Bilingual projects are now run throughout Spain. We emphasize that efforts must be made in the legal sphere to regulate the way in which professionals who know sign language and Deaf culture-teachers, interpreters, deaf adult models-are incorporated in bilingual deaf schools.     

Experiments of two-level training in Hungarian higher education

An experiment designed to train engineering students to two levels of terminal achievement within single institutions is reported. The operative engineers (formerly high level technicians) qualify after three years whilst research and development engineers (fully qualified engineers) take five years. Organisational and curricular problems necessarily created by such integrated schemes are described and discussed. Social attitudes in society in general and in the student body in particular make the task of directing students towards the shorter form of training complex and difficult. From the experience gained so far it can confidently be asserted that the experiments in two-level training have been successful.Note by the Editor: This article is an abbreviated version prepared by the Editor of a 90-page UNESCO (copyright) report with the same title, Document ED. 75/WS/64, dated October 1975. We are grateful to the authors and to UNESCO for permission to print this summary of the report.     

Impact of peer mediation programmes to prevent bullying behaviours in secondary schools / El impacto de los programas de mediación entre iguales para prevenir conductas de acoso escolar en los centros de secundaria

The aim of the study was to determine the impact of peer mediation programmes at a secondary school, as compared to another centre that did not have any such programme. The impact would be evaluated by means of three levels of variables: pro-victim attitudes, the roles adopted by the youngsters and the school climate (this last item was analysed from two perspectives: that of the pupils and that of the teachers). In order to attain this goal, students from 12 to 14 years old (N = 323) and 17 teacher-tutors were administered different questionnaires in Time 1 (baseline, prior to intervention) and Time 2 (after programme intervention). Results highlight the validity of peer mediation programmes when it comes to fostering pro-victim attitudes, preventing the increase of negative roles and improving the school climate.     

Balance in Positive Emotional Expressivity Across School Contexts Relates to Kindergartners’ Adjustment

Positive emotional expressivity has been associated with increased social competence and decreased maladjustment in childhood. However, a few researchers have found null or even positive associations between positive emotional expressivity and maladjustment, which suggests that there may be nuanced associations of positive expressivity, perhaps as a function of the social context in which it is expressed. We examined whether observed positive emotional expressivity balance across peer-oriented/recreational and learning contexts predicted kindergarten children’s adjustment (N = 301). Research Findings: Higher positive expressivity during lunch/recess compared to positive expressivity in the classroom was associated with lower teacher–student conflict, externalizing behaviors, and depressive symptoms. In addition, overall positive emotional expressivity predicted lower externalizing behaviors as well as lower depressive and anxiety symptoms. Practice or Policy: The results suggest the importance of assessing observed positive emotional expressivity in context as a potential indicator of children’s maladjustment risk and the need for children to adapt their emotions to different contexts. Implications for assessing and supporting positive emotional expression balance and training emotional regulation in school are discussed.     

Transfer of control between causal predictive judgments and instrumental responding

Four experiments were conducted to explore outcome-specific transfer from causal predictive judgments to instrumental responding. A video game was designed in which participants had to defend Andalusia from navy and air force attacks. First, they learned the relationship between two instrumental responses (two keys on a standard keyboard) and two different outcomes (destruction of the ships or destruction of the planes). Then they learned to predict which of two different stimuli predicted which outcome. Finally, they had the opportunity of making either of the two instrumental responses in the presence of either stimulus. Transfer was shown as a preference for the response that shared an outcome with the current stimulus. The presentation of the stimulus during the test produced a decrease in the overall rate of response. Responding to a neutral stimulus in Experiments 2 and 3 suggested that this overall decrease in responding was due to a combination of the time needed to process the meaning of the stimulus and the activation of the representation of the outcome in the presence of the stimulus during the test. Transfer between predictive judgments and instrumental responding mirrors the outcome-specific Pavlovian instrumental transfer observed in conditioning studies with rats.     

An introduction to the special issue on wisdom and moral education

ABSTRACT

This essay introduces the present special issue on wisdom and moral education, which draws on a conference held in Oxford in 2017. Some of the seven contributions (by Sanderse; Ferkany; and Hatchimonji et al.) make use of the Aristotelian concept of phronesis, or practical wisdom, while others focus more on the wisdom concept as it has developed in contemporary psychology (Huynh and Grossman; Ardelt; and Brocato, Hix and Jayawickreme). One (by Swartwood) straddles the distinction between the two. All the contributions, however, address in different ways practical questions about how wisdom can be evaluated and how it relates to issues of moral development and education.     

Exploring temporal sequences of regulatory phases and associated interactions in low- and high-challenge collaborative learning sessions

Investigating the temporal order of regulatory processes can explain in more detail the mechanisms behind success or lack of success during collaborative learning. The aim of this study is to explore the differences between high- and low-challenge collaborative learning sessions. This is achieved through examining how the three phases of self-regulated learning occur in a collaborative setting and the types of interaction associated with these phases. The participants were teacher training students (N?=?44), who worked in groups on a complex task related to didactics of mathematics during 6 weeks. The participants were instructed to use an application that was designed to increase awareness of the cognitive, motivational and emotional challenges the group might face. Based on the application’s log files, the sessions were categorized into low- and high-challenge sessions. The video data from each session were coded based on the self-regulation phases and the types of interaction. The frequencies of the phases and the types of interaction were calculated for each session, and process discovery methods were applied using the heuristic miner algorithm. The results show no significant differences between the sessions in the frequency of phases. However, the process models of the two sessions were different: in the high-challenge sessions, the groups switched between the forethought and performance phases more. In conclusion, the regulation phases and types of interaction that contribute to successful collaboration differ in high- and low challenge sessions and support for regulated learning is needed especially at the middle of the learning process.