Preservice teachers’ articulated noticing through pedagogies of practice

Elementary preservice teachers at six universities engaged in a task that provided them opportunities to articulate their professional noticing within video representations, written decompositions, and animated approximations of practice. The preservice teachers’ written accounts indicated that a majority attended to students or student thinking; however, when asked to illustrate their noticing through animation, focus shifted to the classroom teacher. Findings indicate the extent to which preservice teachers articulated specific mathematics concepts within and across pedagogies of practice and highlight the critical importance for selecting and utilizing multiple types of tasks to better understand preservice teacher noticing. Implications for eliciting and supporting preservice teacher noticing are discussed.     

Building strong parent–teacher relationships in primary education: the challenge of two-way communication

This study investigates which subjects teachers talk about with parents in parent–teacher conferences and other contact moments, and how they communicate with regard to these subjects. Fifty-five in-depth interviews were carried out with teachers from special education schools, at-risk schools serving low socio-economic status children and mainstream primary education schools in the southern part of the Netherlands. The results illustrate that (1) two-way communication is used the most in at-risk schools, (2) teachers find it difficult to involve parents in the decision-making process concerning special care for the child, and (3) the teachers’ attitude towards parents is best when it comes to difficult discussion topics. When situations are really difficult, teachers stand alongside the parents instead of addressing them from their expert role, asking them ‘How can we solve this together?’. Teachers should be more aware of this quality, and not be afraid to address difficult subjects or conflicts.     

What is (good) practitioner research?

This special issue recognizes EAPRIL as being a platform for practitioner and practice-based research and by organizing the 10th annual conference for practitioner research on improving learning in education and professional practice. Papers in this conference and in this special issue are rooted in practice-based research or practitioner research. They reflect the popularity of practitioner research in vocational teacher education and in universities of applied sciences. Reason enough for the authors of the current paper to reflect on the question: “What is practitioner research?” And, more importantly what makes good practitioner research? Reviews show that people use broad interpretations of the concept, which requires that to clarify the epistemological basis of the relation between research and practice the reflections goes back to Aristotle philosophy. The latter, aiming at discovering what kind of knowledge is obtained, what purpose it serve, and how it differs. This yields a theoretical, and two practical kinds of knowledge. Although all three are relevant, the so called ‘practitioner knowledge’ (the prhonesis and the techne), need more attention in judging the ‘goodness’ of practitioner research. Five principles of validation are mentioned, e.g. the process of meaning making and negotiation, differing from the correspondence between knowledge and the outside world, e.g. validity. These principles provide a possible angle and sometimes researcher follow them implicitly and unconsciously. The articles in this special issue reflects the realisation of many of these principles within the individual studies. The current paper does not intent to give final answers, but rather to trigger a further conversation on the fundamental question of: What is good practitioner research?     

“When I’m drawing,I see pictures in my head.”: secondary school students constructing an image of the past by means of a drawing task and a writing task

The past is not in the classroom to observe and study. Thus, creating a lively and understandable image of a past period or situation is an achievement to be learned. A variety of tasks can be used to stimulate students to create an image of the past. In this experimental study, 151 grade 9 students (14–16 years old) participated by completing a drawing task or a writing task on the Roman Forum in Ancient Rome. Their products were compared. Additionally, the students’ perceptions of the tasks were explored by means of a questionnaire and an interview. The findings show that the written products contained more information elements than the drawings. However, in terms of the historical plausibility of the product, the drawn products and written products were comparable. Students who made a drawing reported higher situational interest than students who wrote a text.

     

Examining the use of e-assessment in higher education: teachers and students’ viewpoints

The combination of teaching and information technologies is at the origin of a more embracing, flexible and accessible approach to learning. Assessment is considered an integral part of the learning process, but it has always been considered challenging for teachers. Through the adoption of information technologies, it is possible to create new opportunities to improve assessment. Despite its numerous advantages, e-assessment remains a topic of much discussion for many, due to doubts that arise about its efficiency and effectiveness. In order to understand this issue, this study aims to explore e-assessment in higher education, from the viewpoint of teachers and students. Four online surveys were distributed among teachers and students in Portugal and other countries. While the results show that Portugal is slightly behind in terms of adoption, there is a strong awareness of the importance of e-assessment. Internationally, e-assessment has higher adoption rates, and both teachers and students believe that this method of assessment is advantageous.     

Programming MOOCs – different learners and different motivation

ABSTRACT

MOOCs for learning the basics of programming have become popular among people with a diverse range of backgrounds, interests and learning contexts. Studies show that learners who enrol in MOOCs tend to have different motivation from learners in traditional courses, but it is not known how motivation differs for people with different backgrounds. This study aims to describe how the motivational factors behind enrolment in programming MOOCs relate to learners’ characteristics. The data were gathered in the spring of 2017 with a motivation scale (FIEM) from 1,536 participants of the MOOC ‘About Programming’. Using comparative analysis, differences in motivational factors between groups by gender, employment status and previous experiences in programming were found. Correlational analysis revealed that educational level, age and self-evaluated probability of completing the MOOC were also related to motivational factors. Different people are motivated by different factors, indicating that this knowledge could be used to design interesting and motivating programming MOOCs, which are relevant to learners with various backgrounds.     

“李约瑟之谜”的新制度经济学解析——兼谈西部大开发的产权制度建设

“李约瑟之谜”提出了工业革命为什么没有在中国发生的问题,新罐经济学的解释是由于没有建立有效的产权及其保护制度。西部大开发要获得成功,最基础的工作就是建立与市场经济相适应的产权制度。     

Active Learning in Engineering Education: a (re)introduction

ABSTRACT

The informal network ‘Active Learning in Engineering Education’ (ALE) has been promoting Active Learning since 2001. ALE creates opportunity for practitioners and researchers of engineering education to collaboratively learn how to foster learning of engineering students. The activities in ALE are centred on the vision that learners construct their knowledge based on meaningful activities and knowledge. In 2014, the steering committee of the ALE network reinforced the need to discuss the meaning of Active Learning and that was the base for this proposal for a special issue. More than 40 submissions were reviewed by the European Journal of Engineering Education community and this theme issue ended up with eight contributions, which are different both in their research and Active Learning approaches. These different Active Learning approaches are aligned with the different approaches that can be increasingly found in indexed journals.     

Using Portfolios for External Assessment: An Experiment in Portugal

This article describes some of the conclusions reached from an experiment using portfolios for art external assessment at the end of secondary education (age 17+) conducted in five Portuguese schools in 2001–2003. Several positive outcomes were found. Students found portfolios to be motivating and fostering constructive learning, dialogue and co‐operation between students and teachers. The new assessment procedures developed communities of assessors enabling some increased consistency of examination results and positive professional development opportunities. However some weaknesses were detected such as potential bias related to the degree of teacher aid and practical problems as, for example, time‐consuming in‐service teacher training.     

'Horrors of Holland': Explaining Attitude Change Towards Euthanasia and Homosexuals in The Netherlands, 1970 1998

In this article, we investigate changes in public opinion inthe Netherlands toward two controversial issues: homosexualsand euthanasia. We find that a rapid decrease in oppositionto both issues in the seventies and early eighties was followedby a period of a stable minority opposition. We identify relevantperiod and cohort indicators to test which characteristics areassociated with the changes in the attitudes. We collected periodand cohort characteristics that are applicable to both of theattitudes, but specific attitude-related circumstantial conditionsas well. For both attitudes, it turns out that the changingcomposition of Dutch society with regard to religiousness accountsfor the largest changes in public opinion. Furthermore, we findthat the influence of religion on both the attitude towardseuthanasia and the attitude towards homosexuals became strongerover time, whereas the influence of educational attainment weakenedover time. Received for publication April 13, 2006. Accepted for publication April 23, 2007.