Extended analyses: Promoting mathematical inquiry with preservice mathematics teachers

This paper describes the implementation of extended analysis tasks (EATs) in a required mathematics course for prospective high school mathematics teachers, and investigates the mathematical discovery promoted through engagement with these tasks. Extended analysis tasks are designed to move students beyond the problem context to the underlying mathematical structure of the problem. The results of this study revealed that with careful implementation, these tasks were effective for generating powerful mathematical thinking in preservice mathematics teachers, improving their problem solving, and generally enhancing the habits-of-mind exhibited by successful mathematicians (Carlson & Bloom, 2005).     

Multidisciplinary Decision Making Through Experiential Learning: Perspectives from Practical Trials

Recently many business management programs in institutions of higher learning have undergone significant change in orientation, content, and delivery. In order to ensure that the graduates acquire the education and skills needed in the organizations of the future, these institutions have attempted to bridge theoretical underpinnings with practical content. In so doing, administrators and instructors have given more emphasis to deliberate integration of discipline-specific material. In this article we draw on previous research in both adult and experiential learning to develop an innovative approach for role-playing using case studies in management education. However, unlike the traditional use of cases, our approach builds an experience around the case study company by surrounding learners with additional props to use in the decision-making process. We describe an experiential learning process that provides an opportunity for integration while capitalizing on the characteristics of adult learners. We have used the approach successfully in MBA programs in both Canada and the United Kingdom to challenge students to resolve some of the complex, multi-dimensional issues facing today's organizations. We have also found this approach to be transferable to other learning situations.     

Object permanence in four species of psittacine birds: An African Grey parrot (Psittacus erithacus), an Illiger mini macaw (Ara maracana), a parakeet (Melopsittacus undulatus), and a cockatiel (Nymphicus hollandicus)

Four psittacids—an African Grey parrot, an Illiger macaw, a cockatiel, and a parakeet—were tested on object-permanence tasks that are commonly used to assess levels of understanding in human infants during their first 2 years. These birds showed Stage 6 competence, demonstrating that object permanence is not limited to mammals. The results for these birds were comparable to those of an African Grey parrot that had been trained in interspecies communication prior to object-permanence testing. Our findings thus suggest that although language-like behavior provides a communication channel that facilitates testing, such language training is unlikely to affect the outcome of the tests.     

Unpacking high and low efficacy teachers’ task analysis and competence assessment in teaching low-achieving students in secondary schools

This study adopted a pragmatic qualitative research design to unpack high and low efficacy teachers’ task analysis and competence assessment in the context of teaching low-achieving students. Nine secondary school English and Science teachers were recruited and interviewed. Results of thematic analysis show that helping students perform well in exams was identified by both the high efficacy teachers (HETs) and the low efficacy teachers (LETs) as the sacred task, but the HETs perceived more contextual support from school culture, school leaderships and collegiality than the LETs did. Although the HETs showed more confidence than the LETs in instructional strategies, classroom management and student engagement, both the HETs and LETs experienced struggles when their personality traits and beliefs were in conflict with required strategies or imposed regulations. Despite the LETs having a lower level of perceived competence, their hunger for learning reveals that their sense of efficacy could be enhanced if provided with courses that focus on coaching and mentoring experiences.     

Relationships between learning approach,procrastination and academic achievement amongst first-year university students

Individual differences in student learning influence academic performance, and two aspects influencing the learning process are the particular learning approach the students use and procrastination behaviour. We examined the relationships between learning approaches, procrastination and academic achievement (measured 1 year later as the grade point average (GPA)) amongst 428 first-year university students. Deep and strategic learning approaches positively predicted GPA, and a mediation analysis showed that the strategic learning approach also partly mediated the effect between deep learning approach and GPA. Less procrastination was associated with a strategic learning approach, but procrastination tendencies did not predict GPA. Recommendations are made for educating new students in cognitive and meta-cognitive strategies, helping reduce their procrastination and facilitating the use of deep and strategic learning approaches.     

Liminality in education: generating a creative space of encounter and dialogue between teachers and students within educational structures

ABSTRACT

The dominant results-driven/performance-oriented culture and the pressures of performativity in education have meant that the promotion of creativity has been narrow in scope and the translation into practice less apparent than the rhetoric would suggest. Creativity can survive even in times of standardisation, but it is more likely to be confined to interstitial zones. Interstitial zones are in-between social spaces outside the formal teaching zones in which creativity may give voice to those students whose voice is not always heard in the formal teaching context.

Often, creativity is equated exclusively to substantial creative outputs and, as a result, teachers who are not sensitised to creativity in a broader sense may underestimate their own creative ability and the positive impact this might have on the relationship with their students. A shift in teacher education that results in a more meaningful appreciation of both the nature of creativity and its benefits is therefore required. A developmental approach which starts with teacher cultivation of creative sensibility is essential to achieve greater infusion of creativity. The paper posits that teachers who resist rigid social structures and engage in critical pedagogy are also more likely to be receptive to creativity and its the pastoral potential in education.