Affinity spaces,literacies and classrooms: tensions and opportunities

Building communicative competence in textual and multimodal literacies has become a linchpin of learning, of engagement with the world, and of participation in online and blended spaces. Young creators now compose online and with digital tools, often in what we call “user‐generated content affinity spaces” – interest‐based spaces that focus on creating and sharing self‐made content. Such spaces focus on processes of developing users' creations and sharing the products with an audience. These spaces have been inspirations for teachers to reinvigorate classroom practices and expose students to learning opportunities for creation and critique. But questions remain about models of participation in such spaces, especially those that idealise youth who are the most highly engaged while ignoring those whose participation is less visible. Here, we share three experiences of bringing user‐generated content affinity spaces into more formal learning environments and reflect on the tensions emerging from these efforts. We end by outlining steps to develop theory and interventions to navigate tensions and propel the field forward.     

Qualified Pedagogical Reflection as a Way to Improve Mathematics Education

All changes of the character of education and improvement of its quality depend, in our view, particularly on the teacher. To be able to do their work efficiently, teachers have to be equipped with professional skills and dispositions, with “teachers’ competence”. For their professional growth, we consider indispensable competence in reflection, which is aimed at the teacher’s activities with regard to aspects of pedagogy and/or subject-didactics. From the point of view of the goals and content of their teaching and the methods of work (and their realisation), the development of teachers’ conscious self-reflection on their own teaching and systematic pursuance of joint reflection with other teachers and/or researchers can promote the teacher’s professional growth. In this paper, we show how a selected group of elementary school teachers reflected on their competence in the course of preparing, carrying out and analysing several instruction experiments. The paper is based on samples of teachers’ reflections and their gradual development from mere simple conversations based on intuitive perceptions, through searching for effective teaching approaches, to the deep assessment of mathematics teaching from the point of view of topics and their didactic elaboration and to suggestions for the teachers’ own experiments.     

Collaboration between a child telephone helpline and sexual and reproductive health and rights organisations in Senegal: lessons learned

This study identifies lessons learned from a collaboration between a child telephone helpline and sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR) organisations in Senegal established in the context of an SRHR programme for young people. We assessed how helpline operators are equipped to address sexual health and rights issues with young people, what the relevant skills of operators are, and to what extent referral to sexual and reproductive health (SRH) service providers took place. A documentary review, a vignette study and interviews with six key informants and all seven operators took place. The collaboration led to promising initiatives, such as the provision of SRH training, the exchange of staff, referral to SRH service providers. However, the counselling advice provided by operators was not always in line with the rights-based approach and responses were influenced by underlying norms concerning young people’s sexuality. Additionally, concerns about confidentiality were noted. The collaboration was an innovative attempt to respond to young people’s limited access to SRHR information and services but there is a need for more in-depth training of helpline operator’s skills and the development of a standardised rights-based counselling manual.     

Genuine conversation: the enabler in good mentoring of pre-service teachers

This study confirms the role of genuine conversation as the enabler in good mentoring of pre-service teachers. The practicum plays an essential role in moving the pre-service teacher beyond learning about teaching to the practice of teaching. Yet the benefit of the practicum is often constrained by relational tensions, disappointment and frustrations for both the pre-service teacher and the mentor. The authors report on the findings drawn from stories and experiences of pre-service teachers and mentors as they participated in a final practicum in a range of Australian secondary schools. This paper uses social learning theory as a framework for understanding the key aspects of pre-service teacher mentoring: specifically, Wenger’s three interrelated concepts of mutual engagement, joint enterprise and shared repertoire. Conversation plays a critical role in these areas and hence enables successful practicum experiences. Recommendations to enhance professional conversations focus on strengthening the relationship through considered pre-service teacher placement, close school/university partnerships, mentor programmes and the selection of appropriate mentors.     

Bilingualism and metaphor comprehension

A better understanding of the general processes involved in bilingual children's metaphorical reasoning was determined by conducting comparative research with children from bilingual and unilingual backgrounds. Two tests of metaphor as well as the Ravens Coloured Progressive Matrices Test (RCPMT) were administered to 30 bilingual Canadian-Greek children and to 30 unilingual Canadian children aged 8 and 11 years. The Proverbs Test (a verbal metaphorical test) and the Metaphoric Triads Task (MTT — a nonverbal pictorial test) were administered to both linguistic groups. There were no significant differences between the two linguistic groups on the RCPMT and the MTT. The only significant difference between the Canadian-Greek and the Canadian children was that the former correctly preferred the moral of the proverbs in the Proverbs Test to a greater extent than did the Canadian children. The results are discussed with respect to bilingualism and cross-cultural comparisons of cognitive constructs. The implications of the study for bilingual education are also discussed.     

Contemporary induction to teaching in Australian universities

Australia has 42 universities. In 2015/16, 30 of 40 universities reviewed provided one or more days of teaching induction for their staff, while 10 did not. Twenty-six of the 30 teaching induction program directors were surveyed and 24 of those were interviewed to provide a snapshot of professional development for new teaching staff in Australian universities. The key findings of that research showed that almost two thirds of universities did not pay sessional staff to attend a teaching induction program; just over half the programs included peer observation of teaching; only one in five programs offered mentoring opportunities; three quarters of programs included assessment; and approximately a third of programs provided credit towards an award course. We conclude that all universities need to provide new teaching staff with a longer teaching induction program, which will support them to develop student-centred, scholarly behaviours and attitudes.     

Achievement motivation and child rearing in different social contexts

This study explores the relationship between achievement motivation at school and child rearing practices. It aims is to discover what aspects of rearing practices differentiate higher and lower motivated pupils and whether these aspects vary with the specificity of life contexts (SES, area of residence) or with the subject gender. Six variables (family life structuring, autonomy, authoritarianism, child acceptance, expectation of success and locus of causality) were assessed through a questionnaire administered to 288 mothers of sixth graders selected from a population of about 4500 pupils. Results show that the more motivated children live in more rigidly structured families than the less motivated. They have less autonomy, with the exception of rural girls from a high SES and urban girls from a low SES who have more autonomy than the less motivated ones. Internal locus of causality is associated with higher motivation in pupils of both sexes from an average SES, in boys from high SES and in girls from a low SES; and with a lower motivation in boys from a low SES and girls from a high SES. No meaningful association was observed between motivation and child acceptance, authoritarianism or success expectation. These results point to the usefulness of research to explore the differential influences of social context and individual gender on the relationship between child rearing practices and pupil’s achievement motivation.     

A Distribution Free Interval Estimate for Coefficient Alpha

Scales are important tools for obtaining quantitative measures of theoretical constructs. Once a set of measures to be used in a scale is selected, reliability is commonly examined in order to assess their measurement quality. To date, Cronbach’s coefficient alpha is the most commonly reported index of measurement quality for assessing scale reliability. In this paper, an asymptotic distribution of the natural estimator of coefficient alpha is derived. A new interval estimate and a statistical test on the significance of the sample estimate of the coefficient are also presented. The proposed approach is compared to four popular methods commonly used to compute confidence intervals (CI) for alpha using a Monte Carlo simulation study. An R function for implementing the proposed CI approach is also provided.