Expanding “within context” to “across contexts” learning: a case study of informal and formal activities

Learning happens not only in schools, but also in every context that affords new experiences and opportunities for metacognition. We aim to maximize the different activity-milieux in which learners are engaged in developing their life-long learning dispositions to learn within and across contexts. This paper is a follow up of an earlier published paper in which a framework on interpreting learning as how the self interacts with phenomena and reifications was proposed. Grounded in this learning framework, our research seeks to expand the “within context” learning to “across contexts” learning with evidence from a case study examining a 10-year-old boy's learning process. Through the case study, we will describe the interplay between bowling and schooling and how strategies learned from one context is situated into another drawing upon Ito et al.'s (2010 Ito, M., Baumer, S., Bittanti, M, boyd, d., Cody, R., Herr-Stephenson, B., Horst, … Pascoe, C.J., Perkel, D., Robinson, L., Sims, C., Tripp, L. (2010). Hanging out, messing around, and geeking out: Kids living and learning with new media. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press [Google Scholar]) developmental trajectory of “hanging out-messing around-geeking out” perspectives. The findings show that for learning to be meaningful and authentic for the twenty-first century, it is essential for the learner(s) to be in constant dialectical interactions and relationship with oneself, others, and with the social-cultural artifacts that afford the learning. We conclude with practical implications derived from the study.     

An investigation of the effects of a graphic organizer in an online serious game on learning outcomes and attitudinal perceptions

A serious game, which is designed for learning purposes rather than recreational purposes, has been applied for digital game-based Learning. This study investigated the effects of graphic organizers in a serious game, “The Transistor”, on learning outcomes and attitudinal perceptions. A total of 99 participants were randomly assigned to three groups: non-organizer group, advance organizer group, and post organizer group. The results revealed that participants using a post organizer, which was presented after the game for review, outperformed those using a non-organizer and an advance organizer on both learning outcomes (recall test scores and recycling intention) and attitudinal perceptions (perceived enjoyment, perceived usefulness, and satisfaction). These findings implied that a post-graphic organizer could enhance the instructional value of a serious game. More detailed implications, limitations, and suggestions for future research are discussed.     

Discourse Patterns During Children's Collaborative Online Discussions

This article examines the discourse of 10 groups of children during text-based online discussions. Analysis of the discourse in the discussions showed that 8 different rhetorical moves, or argument stratagems, were used by most groups of children, whereas 3 other stratagems were used by 1 group. The use of argument stratagems snowballed; that is, once an argument stratagem emerged in a discussion, it tended to spread to other children in the Web group, and the likelihood that it would occur again remained high over the course of the discussion. Most stratagems began to spread when initiated by other children but not when introduced by the adult moderator. Children were eager to participate and displayed a high rate of participation in discussions with Webmates from distant classrooms. These findings suggest that collaborative online discussions may provide an effective instructional medium for promoting children's learning of reasoning strategies and thinking skills.     

To Disagree,We Must Also Agree: How Intersubjectivity Structures and Perpetuates Discourse in a Mathematics Classroom

Learning in a socially mediated context like a classroom places emphasis on the ability of learners to communicate their ideas to others, and for members of a class to achieve shared meaning or intersubjectivity (IS). We take a participatory view of IS, where both consensual agreement and disagreement are regarded as aspects of a common set of processes that mediate collective activity. Interlocutors need not demonstrate convergence toward a common idea or solution to exhibit IS and, indeed, they appear to need a shared understanding to express substantive disagreement through divergent views. Multilevel, multimodal analyses of videotape of a middle school mathematics classroom, including speech, gestures, drawing, and object use, reveal a discourse that is organized into recurrent sequences of event triads. The dynamics toward and away from convergent ideas appears to be instrumental in fostering sustained and engaging discourse and influencing the representations that students propose during problem solving. Participants frequently exhibited IS, but, as allowed for in the participatory view, the interactions did not seem to convert many students from their initial interpretations. Instead, disagreements and a desire to establish common understanding appeared to lead participants to express their divergent views in more refined and accessible ways. Advancement of our understanding of the role that IS serves in socially mediated learning has the potential to inform both educational theory and emerging areas in embodied cognition and cognitive neuroscience that addresses imitation and empathy, and thus help to bridge research between brain function and social cognition.     

Curriculum Implications of Anti-Gay Attitudes Among Undergraduate Criminal Justice Majors

To examine attitudes towards gays and lesbians in an undergraduate criminal justice sample and to test previous research suggesting that law enforcement students hold higher levels of homophobia, we surveyed 453 undergraduates. Results indicated higher levels of anti-gay attitudes in criminal justice majors compared to a small sample of non-criminal justice majors and similar levels of anti-gay attitudes between law enforcement and other criminal justice students. Gender, race, religion, gay/lesbian friends, patriarchal attitudes, and completing a social science minor outside of criminal justice were found to be significant predictors of attitudes toward gays and lesbians; while the number of courses in which homosexuality issues were included in discussion was not. These findings are discussed and we offer suggestions for criminal justice curriculum that may assist our students in maintaining and upholding a fair and just criminal justice system.     

Challenging Performative Fabrication: Seeking authenticity in academic development practice

While extensive discussion has been devoted to internationalising the curriculum in a response to the presence of international students, little is known about how academic staff members perceive the presence of this student cohort. Using data collected through semi‐structured interviews with 80 academic staff from four different faculties in one higher education institution, this study investigates staff understanding regarding international students, with particular attention given to how disciplinary differences shape their responses. Findings indicate that staff from ‘soft’ and ‘hard’ disciplines hold different instructional beliefs, which then affect their teaching and learning practice. Discussions are provided on how these differing conceptions of teaching fit into the context of academic development with respect to international education.     

Finding common ground: enhancing interaction between domestic and international students in higher education

A feature of Australian Higher Education over the last 10 years has been the increased numbers of international students. This feature has been perceived to have great potential for enhanced learning for all students – both international and domestic. Yet, student surveys and research clearly indicate that there is very little interaction occurring between domestic and international students. This article reports on a study that investigated the extent to which university teaching can promote interaction between students from diverse cultural and linguistic background. Using an innovative video-analysis methodology, the research found that academics engage in a variety of activities to encourage interaction between student groups. In order to assist academics in planning interaction, one of the main findings of the study was the development of ‘The Interaction for Learning Framework (ILF)’, that identifies key dimensions for curriculum design that can be used by academics to inform ways that they can enhance interaction between diverse student groups within teaching and learning contexts.     

New Labour and higher education

This paper is the second part of an edited version of a Keynote Presentation delivered at the 2006 AUA Annual Conference at Queen’s University Belfast on 11 April. The first part was published in perspectives 10.3 in July 2006.

In the Presentation Sir David commented on three areas of unfinished business with which New Labour has struggled; in the first paper he considered the funding and organisation of the sector, and concluded with the question: ‘What will this mean for expansion and fairness?’; this paper concentrates on participation and social justice, and higher education and the public interest.     

Mentoring Needs of Female,Minority, and International Graduate Students: A content analysis of academic research guides and related print material

A content analysis was conducted of 22 top-selling academic research guides and other print material about writing dissertations and supervising doctoral students to determine the extent to which they identified needs unique to female, minority, and international students and what types of advice were given regarding those needs. Literature review guided construction of the coding protocol. Results indicated that the works examined in this content analysis rarely identified those unique needs. All but two of those that did were published in Great Britain, where institutional and financial pressures have been applied to improving doctoral study. Findings reveal a possible training deficit for faculty as well as for students.     

A Model for Assessing Higher Order Thinking in Statistics

ABSTRACT

As in other areas of the school curriculum, the teaching, learning and assessment of higher order thinking in statistics has become an issue for educators following the appearance of recent curriculum documents in many countries. These documents have included probability and statistics across all years of schooling and have stressed the importance of higher order thinking across all areas of the mathematics curriculum. This paper reports on a pilot project which applied the theoretical framework for cognitive development devised by Biggs and Collis to a higher order task in data handling in order to provide a model of student levels of response. The model will assist teachers, curriculum planners and other researchers interested in increasing levels of performance on more complex tasks. An interview protocol based on a set of 16 data cards was developed, trialed with Grade 6 and 9 students, and adapted for group work with two classes of Grade 6 students. The levels and types of cognitive functioning associated with the outcomes achieved by students completing the task in the two contexts will be discussed, as will the implications for classroom teaching and for further research.