Teacher in a problem-based learning environment – Jack of all trades?

Problem-based learning (PBL) is one among several approaches to active learning. Being a teacher in a PBL environment can, however, be a challenge because of the need to support students’ learning within a broad ‘landscape of learning’. In this article we will analyse the landscape of learning by use of the study activity model (SAM) developed by the Danish University Colleges, with the aim of investigating to which extent this may lead to explication and clarification concerning the challenges faced by teachers in a PBL environment. In the case study, the SAM is applied to the first semester of an engineering programme at Aalborg University, a university setting where the PBL approach to teaching and learning is dominant. The results of the analysis are presented and discussed, and the conclusion is that the model, in spite of some shortcomings, is useful in clarifying the role of the teacher in a PBL environment.     

Potential of one-to-one technologies in the classroom: teachers and students weigh in

Increased efforts to promote 21st century learning emphasize the central role of technology in instructional delivery in order to advance the multifaceted abilities and skills required for student success in an increasingly technology-rich learning and work environment. A qualitative study was conducted in a large, economically diverse, mid-Atlantic school district to examine the implementation of six technology devices in 18 elementary, middle, and high school classrooms. The purpose was to understand teachers’ and students’ experiences related to the instructional implications of each device to inform long term, one-to-one implementation of an appropriate technology device to meet the district’s strategic goals for a 21st century learning environment. Teacher interviews and student focus groups revealed several themes related to technology integration, factors influencing implementation, impact on instruction, and impact on student motivation and engagement. Findings are discussed in relation to the district infrastructure and other considerations to support a one-to-one teaching and learning environment and how each of the six devices support the establishment of 21st century learning environments.     

Wearable Technologies for Anxious Adolescents

Abstract

Nearly one in three adolescents in our country experience stress or anxiety to the extent that it negatively effects their ability to cope with daily life demands. However, educators are not well prepared to support students who have anxiety-related issues. One approach for supporting adolescents with anxiety-related issues involves the use of wearable technologies. These devices support self-regulation by providing real-time physiological marker information. Wearers can then become more mindful of their stress at that moment and implement positive stress or anxiety-reducing interventions. This article provides an overview of wearable technologies and related research and describes steps that support adolescents who have wearables for addressing their anxiety.     

Discursive constructions of equity in Australian higher education: Imagined worlds and the case of people seeking asylum

There is a strong rationale for people seeking asylum and refugees given temporary protection to be key beneficiaries of Australian higher education equity practices. However, despite the extreme precarity they face, this group remains among the most educationally disadvantaged populations in Australia. Here, we use critical discourse analysis to examine the publicly available statements of 38 Australian universities to identify discursive representations of equity practices and connections, with our analytic gaze focused through the lens of people seeking asylum. Using a three-part analytic heuristic examining ‘statements’, ‘practices’ and ‘connections’, we offer a critical discourse analysis of how each public university expresses its commitment to the equity agenda in powerful stakeholder-facing documents—such as annual reports, strategic plans and media releases—and we compare this analysis against institutional stated practices with regard to people seeking asylum. In identifying misalignments between equity statements and stated practices, we suggest that institutional equity narratives articulate ‘imagined worlds’, in which all marginalised groups can access higher education. We argue that now is the time to move beyond these ‘imagined worlds’, to enact stated commitments to universal education, by instituting real and effective practices to facilitate equitable access to Australian higher education for people seeking asylum.     

Hold my calls: an activity for introducing the statistical process

Working with practicing teachers, this article demonstrates, through the facilitation of a statistical activity, how to introduce and investigate the unique qualities of the statistical process including: formulate a question, collect data, analyze data, and interpret data.     

Challenging the tyranny of the five‐paragraph essay: teachers and students as semiotic boundary workers in classroom and digital space

This article addresses several challenges faced by educators and students in English classrooms in the US–Mexico borderlands region that will resonate with educators more broadly. I present how Ms Smith, the predominately Latino students in her high school writing class and I moved beyond what Ms Smith called the “tyranny of the five‐paragraph essay” used for standardised tests so that students were able to make personally and academically meaningful arguments in their writing. I examine how we collaboratively mobilised interests, motivations and diverse semiotic resources across out‐of‐school and in‐school contexts in the process of developing multimodal and hybrid genres and texts. First, I describe how Ms Smith and I crafted hybrid, digitally mediated classroom spaces and essay assignments informed by students' identity and literacy practices within digital networks. Next, I examine how three Latina students used semiotic resources and issues circulating in the different spaces of their lives to confidently argue their perspectives within the hybrid genres we created. From this collaborative work, I suggest that thinking of students and teachers as “semiotic boundary workers” provides a useful framework for practitioners who want to enable young people to draw on their practices and digital tools and engage their expansive, networked and creative affordances in academic contexts.     

An investigation of factors impacting on mainstream teachers’ beliefs about teaching students with learning difficulties

The relationship between teacher experience, further professional development training, and beliefs and attributions about teaching students with additional learning support needs was studied in a sample of 199 mainstream general class primary school teachers. Using multiple regression, it was found that none of the teacher experience or professional training variables were significant predictors of locus of causality, stability, or controllability attributions, or of teacher self‐efficacy with students with difficulties in learning. Self‐efficacy, however, was a positive predictor of attributions, and sympathy a negative predictor. Multivariate analysis of variance found no relationship between teacher experience, further professional development training, and dependent outcome variables: self‐efficacy with learning difficulties, coping with learning difficulties, interactions with people with disabilities, or general optimism. Implications for continued professional development are discussed.     

Teaching aquatic science as inquiry through professional development: Teacher characteristics and student outcomes

We present an inquiry‐based, aquatic science professional development (PD) for upper‐elementary, middle, and high school teachers and examine changes in student outcomes in light of participating teachers’ characteristics and the grade band of the students. Our study lends support to the assertion that inquiry‐ and content‐focused PD, paired with classroom implementation, can effectively improve student learning. Our findings indicate that students improved in their nature of science (NOS) and aquatic science content knowledge and that these changes depended in some ways on the participating teachers’ characteristics and adherence to the program. The students’ improvements were amplified when their teachers adhered more closely to the PD activities during their classroom implementation. The teachers’ previous science PD experience and pre‐PD understanding of inquiry‐based teaching also explained some of the variability in student growth. In both NOS and content, students of teachers with less prior science‐PD experience benefited more. Grade band also explained variation in student outcomes through interactions with teacher‐characteristic variables. In high school, students of teachers with lower pre‐PD inquiry knowledge appeared to learn more about NOS. Our results suggest that inquiry and content training through PD may minimize disparities in teaching due to inexperience and lack of expertise. Our study also demonstrates the value of PD that teaches a flexible approach to inquiry and focuses on underrepresented, interdisciplinary content areas, like aquatic science. © 2017 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Res Sci Teach 54:1219–1245, 2017     

Coming to Voice: Preparing Bilingual-Bicultural Teachers for Social Justice

This study examined the development of bicultural voice in Latina/o preservice teachers. Researchers used survey, interview, and observational data to probe students' knowledge, beliefs, and orientations related to teaching culturally and linguistically diverse students. The researchers found that the bilingual cohort courses afforded students with opportunities to juxtapose personal narratives with broader social contexts, thereby allowing students to examine and critique the ideology and curricula of schools. The authors assert that cultivating social justice orientations in bilingual-bicultural preservice teachers is crucial to the empowerment of bilingual-bicultural teachers and their students.     

Digital Griots: African American Rhetoric in a Multimedia Age

AMERICAN PHILOSOPHIC ADDRESSES, 1700–1900. Edited by Joseph L. Blau. New York; Columbia University Press, 1946; pp. xii+762. $6.75.

THE EPIGRAM IN THE ENGLISH RENAISSANCE. By Hoyt Hopewell Hudson. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1947; pp. viii+178. $2.50.

HUGH BLAIR. By Robert Morell Schmitz. New York: King's Crown Press, 1948; pp. xii+ 162. $2.75.

ADVENTURE IN THE THEATRE. By Gertrude R. Jasper. New Brunswick, New Jersey: Rutgers University Press, 1947; pp. xiii+370.. §4.50.

PHONEMICS. By Kenneth L. Pike, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1947; pp. xvi+ 254. §3.00.

WORLD WORD. By W. Cabell Greet. (Second edition, revised and enlarged). New York: Columbia University Press, 1948; pp. liii+608. $6.75.

THE AMERICAN LANGUAGE: SUPPLEMENT II. By H. L. Mencken. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, Inc., 1948; pp. xiii+890+ xliii. 57.50.

THE MEANING OF WORDS. By Alexander Bryan Johnson. Milwaukee: John Windsor Chamberlin, 1948; pp. xii+256.

THE GREAT REHEARSAL. By Carl Van Doren. New York: The Viking Press, 1948; pp. xii+336. $3.75.

POLITICAL FORGIVENESS IN OLD ATHENS. The Amnesty of 403 B.C. By Alfred P. Dorjahn. Northwestern University Studies in the Humanities, No. 13. Evanston, 1946; pp. 56. $1.50.

IT PAYS TO TALK IT OVER. Edited by Julius Schreiber, M.D. 1224 Twentieth St. N.W., Washington, D.C.: National Institute of Social Relations, 1947; pp. 48. $.40.

SPEECH CORRECTION METHODS. By Stanley Ainsworth. New York: Prentice‐Hall, Inc., 1948; pp. xi+149. $3.65.

HELP THEM HELP THEMSELVES. By Juliette McIntosh Gratke. Dallas: Texas Society for Crippled Children, 1947; pp. 184. $2.50.

PLAY PRODUCTION FOR LITTLE THEATRES, SCHOOLS, AND COLLEGES. By Milton Smith. New York: D. Appleton‐Century Company, 1948; pp. xii+482. $4.50.

RADIO NEWS WRITING. By William F. Brooks. New York: McGraw‐Hill Company, 1948; pp. vii+200. $2.75.

RADIO NEWS WRITING AND EDITING. By Carl Warren. New York: Harper and Brothers, 1947; pp. xix+439. $4.00.

THE RADIO ANNOUNCER'S HANDBOOK. By Ben G. Henneke. New York: Rinehart and Company, 1948; pp. xi+308. $4.00.

RADIO IN ELEMENTARY EDUCATION. By Roy De Verl Willey and Helen Ann Young. Boston: D. C. Heath and Company, 1918; pp. x+450. $3.50.

FACTUAL COMMUNICATION. A Handbook of American English. By L. O. Guthrie. New York: The Macmillan Company, 1948; pp. x+448. $3.50.

USE OF LANGUAGE. By Henry F. Pommer and William M. Sale, Jr. New York: F. S. Crofts and Company, 1947; pp. v+258. $1.50.

SPEAKING EFFECTIVELY. By Lee Norvelle and Raymond G. Smith. New York: Longmans, Green and Company, 1948; pp. xvii+238. $2.75.

USING WORDS EFFECTIVELY. By Charles Chandler Parkhurst, Assisted by Alice Blais. New York: Harper and Brothers, 1948; Series A, pp. x+156; Series B, pp. x+156. $1.50 per volume.

HOW TO TALK EFFECTIVELY. By Lawrence W. Rogers. New York: Joseph F. Wagner, 1947; pp. 216. $2.50.

EXTEMPORE SPEAKING. A Handbook for the Student, the Coach, and the Judge. By Donald L. Holley. New York: The H. W. Wilson Company, 1947; pp. 115. $1.50.

ORAL COMMUNICATION. A Short Course in Speaking. By Donald C. Bryant and Karl R. Wallace. New York: D. Appleton‐Century Company, 1948; pp. xi‐f‐320. $2.50.