Students’ feedback in mid-term surveys: an explorative contribution in the Italian university context

This article focuses on the role of student feedback in the process of higher education quality assurance. The most recent reforms of the educational systems encourage teachers to enlarge their educational paradigm by experimenting with assessment practices that would go behind accountability and be more responsive to students’ learning needs. In Italy, despite the widespread acknowledgment of the role played by students’ feedback in providing information about the outputs of their education, the quality assurance process has remained, thus far, largely unchanged. Student compliance with rather traditional academic teaching practices and a diffused sense of uselessness of the results coming from end-course surveys represent increasing malpractices in the Italian quality assurance system. In view of the above, the article reports an explorative study aimed to develop a mid-term survey for student feedback. Implications for future research are discussed.     

Reconfiguring the optics of the critical gaze in science education (after the critique of critique): (re)thinking “what counts” through Foucaultian prismatics

The purpose of this article is to explore what Michel Foucault refers to as “the” critical attitude and its relationship to science education, drawing from Foucault’s (The politics of truth. Semiotext(e), New York, 1997) insight that the critical attitude is but a critical attitude. This article is a rejoinder to Anna Danielsonn, Maria Berge, and Malena Lidar’s paper, “Knowledge and power in the technology classroom: a framework for studying teachers and students in action”. Where Danielsonn and colleagues think with Foucaultian power/knowledge to examine and (re)consider teacher-student didactic relations in science and technology education, this article critically examines the power/knowledge relationship between science educators and science education to critically explore the modes of criticality produced and produceable. Particularly, I explore possibilities for and of critique that stem from and respond to what Bruno Latour (Politics of nature: How to bring the sciences into democracy. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, 1993) refers to as the crisis and critique of critique.     

Gender inequality in the primary classroom: will interactive whiteboards help?

This paper sets out to investigate (i) gender differences in whole class classroom interaction with a sample of teachers who were not using interactive whiteboards (IWBs) in their lessons; and (ii) the short‐term and longer term impact of IWB use upon gender differences in classroom interaction. The study focused upon teacher–student interaction at Key Stage 2 in the teaching of literacy and numeracy in English primary schools. As part of the National Literacy and Numeracy Strategies, IWBs have been made widely available as a pedagogic tool for promoting interactive whole class teaching. In order to investigate their impact, the project looked specifically at the interactive styles used by a national sample of primary teachers. Using a computerized observation schedule, 144 lessons were observed over a two‐year period. The findings concur with other research which has found that boys dominate classroom interaction in terms of the frequency of certain discourse moves. The average length of each move did not vary significantly between boys and girls. Frequency dominance was disproportionately stronger in classes with a high percentage of boys in class, and was also stronger in lessons where whiteboards were used. Understanding how interaction varies in the classroom, and how new technology might affect this interaction, has important implications for teachers, researchers and future research priorities.     

An analysis of intuitive and model-directed media-selection decisions

Media-selection decisions of 30 instructional development graduate students were studied under intuitive and model-directed decision-making conditions. Students were given three media-selection problems and were directed to select an appropriate medium for each problem and to write a rationale for the medium selected. The students used thier intuitions to select media for the first problem. They used a formal media selection process to select media for the other two problems. Results indicated that the proportion of students who made correct media selections when they used their intuition was not significantly different from the proportion who made correct selections the first time they used the formal selection process. The proportion of students who made correct selections the second time they used the formal process was significantly greater than the proportion who made correct selection decisions when using their intuition and when using the formal selection process the first time. Subsequent analysis, however, indicated that there was no correlation between the correct use of the formal selection process and making correct media-selection decisions. Implications for the design and use of formal media selection processes in instructional development are described. The authors appreciate the assistance provided by Gene Glass regarding the analysis and interpretation of the data reported in this study.     

The Relation between Teacher Specialization and Student Reading Achievement

This study investigates the relationship between teacher specialization and the reading achievement of fourth-grade students in Sweden. The empirical base is data from PIRLS 2011. The main method of analysis is a two-level regression. Results revealed a positive relationship between reading achievement and teacher education relevant for subject and grade level while there was no relationship between reading achievement and teaching experience. The relation between reading achievement and teacher specialization remained significant when the influence of parents’ educational levels and students’ early reading abilities were controlled for. A tendency of compensatory effects could be observed, with teacher specialization having a stronger effect in low-performing classrooms. The findings support the conclusion that relevant teacher education is of importance for teacher effectiveness.     

Perspectives on educational technology research and development

This is the introductory article for the first issue ofEducational Technology Research and Development (ETR&D). The authors review the issues and process that led to the decision by the AECT Executive Board to co-publishEducational Communication and Technology Journal (ECTJ) and theJournal of Instructional Development (JID) in a new journal. The results of analyses of ECTJ and JID by Schwen and Middendorf (1987) and Dick and Dick (1989) are briefly summarized. The authors then report their own survey of AECT members to determine the topics and types of articles the members would prefer to read in ETR&D. Member preferences are compared with the actual content of the last ten issues of ECTJ and JID. Finally, the authors briefly discuss their own perspectives on ETR&D.     

What Happens in Vegas Doesn’t Always Stay in Vegas: Negotiating the Curriculum Leads to Agency and Change

Through a self-study methodology, six doctoral students and a professor examine how our semester long doctoral level class became a transformative space for all participants. We investigate how each individual was able to participate in the construction of a powerful and meaningful learning community, which led to a re-visioning of ourselves as women and teacher educators. Feminist pedagogy and positioning theory provide a guiding framework for both the class and our own reflective research. Our findings include, but are not limited to, showing how negotiating the curriculum led to a doctoral class becoming a safe space and how this negotiation led to transferring democratic practices to our teaching and the tensions associated with that. This work contributes to the field of teacher education as it focuses on the importance of fostering classroom and school cultures where knowledge production is facilitated through democratized practices. Our study highlights the value of creating a learning community where all members, both students and teacher, share power, privilege, and voice. It is in these types of positive educational environments that true meaning making and change can occur.     

Conceptualising educational provision for unaccompanied asylum-seeking children in England

ABSTRACT

The right to education for all children, including asylum-seeking children, is enshrined in the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. However, there is little research available to describe the educational provision provided to unaccompanied asylum-seeking children (UASC) in England. Crucially, it is not known whether the educational needs are met by the provision available to UASC. In the most recent figures, the number of UASC in England has risen by 130% since 2013, to 4,480. Schools, ‘virtual schools’ responsible for children in care, social workers, and policymakers wish to know how this population is currently being served and how they might better serve them. This paper presents the findings from a mapping exercise on education available to UASC in England including 12 semi-structured interviews with virtual school heads, teachers, social workers, and charity education providers; document analysis; a workshop at the Department of Education with key stakeholders; and summary statistics. It highlights gaps in data and provision; conceptualises types of provision into bespoke, mainstream, and English language; and analyses how provision interacts with assessment and support needs. What emerges is a framing of provision through an integration lens and an agenda for future research and practice.