Acceptable Use: Morality and Credibility Struggles in Swedish 1960s Alcohol and Illicit Drug (Ab)use Research and Policy

Minerva - This article explores morality and credibility struggles in connection to two officially sanctioned public Swedish experiments launched in the late 1960s to investigate the (ab)use of...     

Adapting to Adaptive Learning

ABSTRACT

Unfamiliarity with adaptive courseware and its uses may be a barrier to implementation. This article provides insights from a qualitative case study that was conducted to illuminate experiences and perceptions of faculty and staff involved in an adaptive learning technology pilot at a nonprofit university in the United States. Findings revealed that team dynamics, including diversity and persistence, were critical for the success of the project and overcoming the challenges of working with a vendor in terms of process, timeline, and role clarity. Finally, the study helps to underscore the importance of using adaptive courseware to support and train faculty.     

Digital Citizenship in K-12: It Takes a Village

Digital citizenship encompasses a wide range of behaviors with varying degrees of risk and possible negative consequences. Lack of digital citizenship awareness and education can, and has, led to problematic, even dangerous student conduct. If our educational village does not address these issues, the digital culture establishes its own direction, potentially pushing a productive, long-term solution further out of reach. By tapping into the experience of various practitioners and experts in the field this article provides the reader with a number of suggestions that can help the professional to help their students become better digital citizens.     

Norwegian teachers’ safety strategies for Friluftsliv excursions: implications for inclusive education

The purpose of this study was to explore how teachers in friluftsliv (the Scandinavian equivalent of outdoor education and outdoor recreation) reflect upon their safety strategies in relation to pupils’ friluftsliv abilities in the upper secondary school ‘Sport and Physical Education programme’. This article is based on six focus group interviews of friluftsliv teachers. The analysis of the empirical material is inspired by John Evans’s understanding of the concept of abilities as dynamic sociocultural constructs and processes. In the findings, different challenges related to teachers’ experiences of a general decline in pupils’ winter friluftsliv abilities are identified. Furthermore, the article identifies and discusses challenges related to teachers’ safety strategies, which led to both inclusion and exclusion of pupils. The findings in this study reveal a tension between important winter outdoor skills and inclusive friluftsliv.     

On Becoming a Qualitative Researcher: A View Through the Lens of Transformative Learning

This article describes a graduate-level qualitative research course informed by transformational learning theory. It presents strategies an interdisciplinary team of instructors used to engage and support students as they entered and moved through the course. The strategies focused on creating a safe, supportive, learner-centered environment, fostering critical reflection, engaging in ongoing discourse, and focusing on the centrality of experience by situating cognition in the personal context of students' lives and the research process itself.     

'Raising the bar': views on play and training in the Move & Walk pedagogy

In this study 20 beginning special education teachers were asked to describe their experiences in general education settings. To provide data, each teacher completed approximately three electronic reflective journals during a school year and also participated in a phone interview, which was aimed to give in-depth information regarding the participants’ comments in the journals. The participants described their experiences in regard to collaboration with mainstream teachers, the delivery of the curriculum and the understanding of their role with reference to identity. They reported some good experiences but also many difficulties in their attempts to support pupils with special educational needs (SEN) and enhance their learning and participation in mainstream schools. Challenges in collaboration, the delivery of the curriculum and the development of teachers’ identity at the beginning of a career in special education are discussed. We argue that the teachers’ experiences are associated with the legislative educational system and the school culture which does not encourage collaborative practices but rather promotes individualism and leads to exclusive practices.