Working with children in college: an evaluation of an exploratory it module with undergraduate primary student teachers

Abstract

Since 1991 all undergraduate primary student teachers at Chester have followed a Technology course. The distinctive pattern of our approach to Design & Technology has been acknowledged to be successful, but classroom use of Information Technology (IT) has not been as evident. This paper describes a small scale project which set out to replicate the essential elements of our approaches to Design & Technology and to apply them to Information Technology elements of the course. The outcome of the qualitative and quantitative research methods to monitor the effectiveness of the approaches are evaluated and discussed. Our tentative findings highlight the importance of students working with children using computers. Until the students had gained first hand experience of working with children in the classroom with IT, their concerns were more equipment-related than pedagogical. It would appear that students perceive issues of teaching and learning to be more important than concerns with their own IT capability after working with children. The integration of IT into students' professional coursework is identified as being influential in the development of their appreciation of the contribution IT can make to children's learning.     

Inhibitory associations between neutral stimuli in flavor-aversion conditioning

In Experiments 1 and 2, rats were exposed to two compound flavors, AX and BX, containing one flavor in common (X). Following this exposure phase, an aversion was conditioned to A in the experimental group by pairing its consumption with an injection of lithium, while a control group drank A without being poisoned. The effect of this treatment was to establish B as a conditioned inhibitor. In Experiment 1, experimental animals were slower than controls to condition an aversion to B when its consumption was paired with lithium (a retardation test of conditioned inhibition). In Experiment 2, B alleviated the suppression of intake of another flavor previously paired with lithium (a summation test). Experiments 3 and 4 established that these effects depended upon prolonged prior exposure to AX and BX.     

Responsible action research for the pursuit of justice

The pursuit of justice has concerned human beings for centuries and, despite its importance, often remains outside the boundaries of our educational systems. This article reports on a study of an action research seminar for a group of teacher leaders in a position to instigate positive change within their educational context, and make their actions occasions for justice. In order to better understand the textual data generated by the teacher leaders, we devised an analytical lens that draws from modern rabbinical scholarship, eco-political (socio-political) studies, and existentialism. We found at this intersection that, despite the teacher leaders recognizing injustice, and at times protesting against it, their ability to act, formulate solutions, and conduct action research – and even their very concept of justice – was heavily influenced and constrained by the dominant political regime of the US educational system. An explanatory framework emerged that sheds light on the dynamic interplay among justice, politics, and beliefs, while also revealing the constraints to pursuing justice from within a leadership structure. We conclude that for action research to be a means for teachers and teacher leaders to begin to modify their practice so they are sensitive to the voices of the marginalized, to see their actions as opportunities for justice, and to provide collaborative experiences that help other teachers develop their ways of thinking, acting, and interacting in pursuit of justice, those who teach action research must be willing to do the very same.     

The New Style Boards of Governors – Are They Working?

In the 1980s, the Government believed that the extra demand for new graduates would need to be met by making higher education institutions more 'business–like'. This change was aimed at making these institutions more responsive to the country's economic needs by improving access, quality and efficiency. One consequence of the move to more 'business–like' organisations was the imposition, under The Education Reform Act (1988) and The Further and Higher Education Act (1992), of newly constituted boards of governors upon the new universities and colleges of higher education.
These new boards were structured so that the majority of their membership consisted of 'independent members', defined in the 1988 Act as 'persons appearing to the appointing authority to have experience of, and to have shown capacity in industrial, commercial, or employment matters or the practice of any profession'. These boards were expected to lead, or at least to act as catalysts for, the necessary change process. The paper argues that boards of governors could be said to be very efficient but not necessarily very effective and suggests that more needs to be known about the corporate governance process in the new universities and colleges of higher education.     

Reaching beyond an online/offline divide: invoking the rhizome in higher education course design

In the rush to digitise aspects of higher education to cater to an increasingly diverse and wide-ranging university market, there is a concern that best-practice teaching and learning based on sound pedagogy may be left behind. This article addresses this concern by offering a conceptual reimagining of the learning space that reaches beyond a digital/non-digital divide. The authors’ argument posits that imagining online and offline as different learning spaces confuses a necessary pedagogical correlation between learning delivery and learning objective that allows questions of digital (or non-digital) delivery primacy over questions of pedagogical quality. To reassert the significance of pedagogically driven course structure and design, the authors invoke Deleuze and Guattari’s image of the non-hierarchical rhizome to deconstruct binary thinking and to recognise online and offline as elements of the same pedagogical space. They then use Wenger, White, and Smith’s Digital Habitat metaphor to reimagine course design as the creation of context-sensitive learning habitats that cater to the differing needs of blended and online-only students, within a single pedagogical ecosystem.     

An Australian study of graduate outcomes for disadvantaged students

Whether or not disadvantaged students are realising the same benefits from higher education as their peers is of fundamental importance to equity practitioners and policymakers. Despite this, equity policy has focused on access to higher education and little attention has been paid to graduate outcomes. The Australian study reported here used national data to investigate relationships between disadvantage and graduate outcomes. The study provides critical insights into how access to higher education does, or does not, lead to improvements in post-graduation equity. The study reveals that outcomes are not equal for all students and that higher education disadvantage persists for many students after they have completed their studies. Whilst the specific findings relate to the Australian university sector the broader discussion of the article is relevant to higher education policy more generally, especially in terms of how governments align institutional processes to measure and scrutinise achievement in relation to public policy objectives.