Facilitating transfer of distance courses

‘Barriers to course sharing are rooted in traditions of institutional insularity and individual academic autonomy’, says Jocelyn Calvert of the Open Learning Institute in British Columbia, Canada. However, an analysis of the experience of course sharing between institutions in the US, UK, Canada and Australia, shows that ‐ despite the problems ‐success has been achieved, ‘setting models for exchange that others may follow’.     

Distance Education at the Crossroads

A number of issues in contemporary distance education are reviewed from the perspectives of distance education as practice and as a field of study. In the practice of distance education, government agendas are supplanted by institutional agendas, the clientele shifts from undergraduate second‐chance learners to fee‐paying postgraduates, and the models and methods are under challenge by the online revolution. As a soft–applied field of study, distance education research is susceptible to externally set agendas and prone to external criticism. Distance educators need to address these externally defined issues in terms that speak to its critics.     

Changes in coordination and its variability with an increase in running cadence

Alterations in joint mechanics have been associated with common overuse injuries. An increase in running cadence in healthy runners has been shown to improve several parameters that have been tied to injury, but the reorganisation of motion that produces these changes has not been examined. The purpose of this study was to determine if runners change their segment coordination and coordination variability with an acute increase in cadence. Data were collected as ten uninjured runners ran overground at their preferred cadence as well as a cadence 10% higher than preferred. Segment coordination and coordination variability were calculated for select thigh–shank and shank–foot couples and selected knee mechanics were also calculated. Paired t-tests were used to examine differences between the preferred and increased cadence conditions. With increased cadence, there was a decrease in peak knee flexion and a later occurrence of peak knee flexion and internal rotation and shank internal rotation. Segment coordination was altered with most changes occurring in mid-late stance. Coordination variability decreased with an increase in cadence across all couples and phases of gait. These results suggest examination of coordination and its variability could give insight into the risk of intervention-induced injury.     

The Elusive Search for Teacher Collaboration

Collaboration is a well-used term in the field of education, identified as promising practice for student learning and teaching learning alike. However, collaboration comes in different shapes and sizes, leading to radically different ends. The authors examine teachers’ own understandings and practices of collaboration with teacher colleagues within their school contexts and within a professional development model designed to allow for collaborative conversation between teachers. Implications for teacher education are then considered.     

Why social capital is important for mentoring capacity building of mentors: a case study in Hong Kong

Most studies of school-based mentoring practice have put their key focus on discussions of the professional growth of novice teachers rather than of their mentors. Mentoring practice, however, is also a platform from which mentors can build or enhance their professional competency and capitalize their leadership role as they interact with novice teachers and their colleagues. This is an area which deserves further research attention. Drawing on the concept of social capital, this small-scale qualitative study investigates how mentors can develop or revise their mentoring skills and knowledge while they engage in school-based mentoring practice. Semi-structured interviews and documents were collected from 31 mentors from primary and secondary schools in Hong Kong from 2014 to 2015. Findings of this study firstly show that both bonding social capital and bridging social capital can help mentors develop their mentoring knowledge in different ways. Secondly, bridging social capital can help mentors act as boundary brokers who develop transformative learning by interacting with outside experts. Providing more off-site or cluster-based mentor training programs and mentoring partnership schemes with outside experts could be the way forward to maximize the professional competency of mentors aiming at improving school capacity.     

The promise of experiential education in teacher education: transforming teacher beliefs and practices

Building from the theories of Dewey and Kolb and Fry, we sought to examine the impact of experiential education in teacher education on teacher beliefs and practices. The teacher education model described in this article sets out to challenge the seduction of the apprenticeship of observation and create an opportunity for in-service teachers to re-imagine their teaching in concrete and transformative ways. Immersed in a weeklong experiential residency in either the mountains or at a local environmental education farm, the teachers in the study were challenged physically, intellectually, socially, and emotionally in and through the experience. The experiential work ultimately led to changes in teacher participants’ beliefs and practices related to teacher and student roles and potentialities. Although challenges exist for this type of practice in K-12 classrooms and in teacher education, experiential education has a significant potential to change the way teachers think about and act in their practice.     

How do primary school teachers develop knowledge by crossing boundaries in the school–university partnership? A case study in China

University experts typically serve as knowledge sources for teacher learning. Experts in China are no exception. Nevertheless, minimal attention has been focused on knowledge flow between experts and teachers, and its contribution to teacher knowledge development. Drawing on the perspective of knowledge process across boundaries, this qualitative study investigates knowledge growth of primary school teachers involved in a small-scale school–university partnership in Northern China. In-depth interview was adapted as the main approach to collecting data. Nine participating teachers, two school administrators, and one university expert were interviewed. Findings show that expert-led knowledge transfer (knowledge-for-practice is directly delivered) and teacher-involved knowledge translation (knowledge-in-practice is reframed and situated) are the main focus of the partnership studied. However, collaboration-oriented knowledge transformation (altering existing knowledge and creating knowledge-of-practice) is insufficiently emphasised. Furthermore, this study discusses significant implications for advancing the transformation of knowledge and expert–teacher collaborative knowledge creation as well as for further study.     

Theories underlying perceived changes in teaching and learning after installing a computer network in a secondary school

This paper discusses the theoretical links between motivation and learning and the use of information technology that arose during the evaluation, by both teachers and pupils, of the effects upon teaching and learning of the installation of an extensive new computer network in their secondary school.
The school was visited throughout the 1996/7 academic year, and two questionnaire surveys were carried out during this time. The initial questionnaire was completed by 69 (73%) of the staff and a stratified, random sample comprising 161 (11%) of the pupils. Those originally surveyed were sent a follow up questionnaire at the end of the year. Responses to the questions were grouped by similarity into categories and these categories were related to theories of motivation and learning.
It is concluded that the installation of a computer network in a secondary school results in improved teaching and learning and increased enjoyment of learning in the school with both pupils and teachers viewing the use of IT as beneficial to learning.
Where such positive effects of using IT are noted they can be justified theoretically using Behaviourist, Cognitive and Social Constructivist theories of motivation and learning. The wide range of ways in which use of a computer can be both extrinsically and intrinsically motivating explains the increased motivation observed in the pupils.