Some things we should forget

The way we work with students and plan curricula is driven by what we know and remember. But sometimes it's important to forget—especially when it comes to the fundamental challenge of ensuring students are prepared for the workplace of the future. Here's what we need to let go of to meet that challenge and create dynamic, seamless learning experiences for students.     

An analysis of flexible learning and flexibility over the last 40 years of Distance Education

ABSTRACT

In this paper, we report the major themes we identified in the literature surrounding flexible learning that has been published in Distance Education over the last 40 years. We identified six themes: the qualities of flexibility as affording “anytime, anyplace” learning; flexibility as pedagogy; liberatory or service-oriented aspects of flexibility; limitations of flexibility, especially in terms of technology, the constraints of time and space, as well as cultural differences; flexibility as a quality needed by instructors and instructional designers themselves; and critiques of flexibility as a concept. These themes suggest a complex understanding of flexibility, and one that could support future teaching and scholarly endeavours.     

Students teach students: Alternative teaching in Greek secondary education

The students of a Greek junior high school collaborated to prepare the teaching material of a theoretical Computer Science (CS) course and then shared their understanding with other students. This study investigates two alternative teaching methods (collaborative learning and peer tutoring) and compares the learning results to the traditional learning context. A test was used to measure all participating students’ learning results and a questionnaire was distributed to record participant student attitudes towards the alternative teaching conditions. The questionnaire was designed to evaluate each aspect in terms of perceived knowledge, experience, satisfaction, diversity, oddness and interest. The analysis explores potential differences of students’ learning results between alternative and traditional teaching and also differences in the two aspects in relation to students’ preferences. Results provide evidence that active-learning methods can promote positive attitudinal shifts and improve skills in creativity, teamwork, collaboration and communication. Students perceived higher levels of learning than with traditional teaching. Finally in terms of students’ preferences, the majority wanted to have more courses taught with active-learning methods.     

The Black Arts Movement and African American Young Adult Literature: An Evaluation of Narrative Style

In this article I question whether or not African American young adult literature serves as a primer for, and a version of, African American adult literature. Using the Black Aesthetic as my literary theory and the Coretta Scott King Award as the young adult canon, I note that while the content of adolescent literature is consistent with the tenets of the Black Aesthetic and African American adult literature, the literary elements and style are not. As such, young readers of African American young adult literature are not necessarily prepared for the literary elements and style of canonical African American adult literature. Further, I note that editors, publishers, and literary critics may contribute to the construction of young adult literature, in that editors may discourage authors from experimenting with form and style. Finally, I call for reorienting Black children’s and adolescent literature away from White literary elements and style and toward Black literary elements and style.     

‘Supportive’, ‘real’, and ‘low-cost’: implicit comparisons and universal assumptions in the construction of the prospective college-based HE student

This paper first argues for the importance of continued analysis of marketising discourses in Higher Education (HE), both despite and because of their ubiquity. Secondly, the paper looks specifically at college-based HE provision in English Further Education (FE). Using the ‘possible selves’ concept alongside critical discourse analysis, the paper analyses the representations of prospective students on marketing web pages for HE provision in FE colleges. Arguing that the web pages reveal more than just the limited language of HE marketing strategy, the paper highlights common representations of the college-based HE student across policy, research and marketing sources. By exploring both the celebratory and the limiting nature of these representations, the paper therefore asks what the pages’ projections of future or prospective students can tell us about current understandings of English college-based HE.     

Earnings and education in Argentina: an analysis of the 1985 Buenos Aires Household Survey

For some reason, Argentina has been absent from the rich literature on the relationship between earnings and education. The paper repairs this by using the 1985 Buenos Aires Household Survey containing 4500 employed individuals. Two types of analyses are performed: first, earnings differences are “explained” by a set of individual human capital characteristics. Second, returns to investment in education are estimated for different levels and types of schooling. The results obtained for Argentina are compared to those in other countries and are interpreted in terms of priority educational investments geared towards efficiency and social equity.     

An education for sustainable development self-efficacy scale for primary pre-service teachers: construction and validation

A scale was developed to assess primary school Teachers’ Self-Efficacy on Education for Sustainable Development (TSESESD). It includes four domains of competences: values and ethics, systems thinking, emotions and feelings, and actions. The scale development is consistent with key principles of educational and social psychology research. Nine hundred twenty-four (924) primary education student teachers and 88 in-service primary teachers participated in the study. Findings demonstrated that TSESESD has good psychometric properties, strong validity and reliability scores, adequate internal consistency (Cronbach α?=?0.97), and satisfactory mean inter-correlation of items within domains (M?=?0.78). TSESESD is considered a reliable instrument for teacher preparation programs aiming to develop primary school teachers’ self-efficacy in ESD.