Critical Democratic Teacher Preparation and the Practice of Council

“If democracy is to become a way of life in contemporary North American life, we certainly need to have schools with strong democratic commitments... if we are going to have democratic schools, we need teachers with the knowledge, skills, and attitudes necessary for developing sustained democratic ways of educating... if we are going to seek and sustain democratic teachers, we will also need... democratic teacher educators...” (Novak, 1994, p. ix)     

Personal inquiry learning trajectories in geography: technological support across contexts

Student engagement in the design and implementation of inquiries is an effective way for them to learn about the inquiry process and the domain being studied. However, inquiry learning in geography can be challenging for teachers and students due to the complexity of scientific inquiry and the diversity of pupils' and teachers' knowledge and abilities. To address this, the Personal Inquiry project has designed a tool kit that includes nQuire, a Web-based tool to support students through the inquiry process. Here, we identify when, across five lessons comprising an inquiry into microclimates, nQuire was used by a teacher and a case study group of her 12 to 13-year-old students, and the ways in which they adopted nQuire as a tool to facilitate the creation of a coherent and cumulative inquiry learning experience over time. We found that students' use of nQuire supported them in capturing and representing their evolving understanding of inquiry, in defining and supporting their progression through the process of inquiry and in resourcing their cognitive engagement in data interpretation and representation. nQuire supported the students in accumulating and integrating new understandings across contexts and over time. In this way, nQuire successfully resourced and supported the students' learning journeys or trajectories. We conclude that nQuire can be an effective tool for supporting teachers' and students' understanding of the nature of inquiry and how to design and implement inquiries of their own.     

All caught up in the kayfabe: understanding and appreciating pro-wrestling

ABSTRACT

Professional wrestling is a popular, global, performance phenomenon that is in many respects sport-like, but tends to be shunned by serious sports fans for its alleged ‘fakeness’. Yet its own fans often behave exactly like regular sports fans: getting caught up in the action, responding emotionally to the performances, and engaging in critical analysis of the competitive strategies and the turns of events. How does this alleged ‘fake sport’ engender such complex and deeply emotional appreciation? Here I provide an analysis of pro-wrestling that explains and emphasises its narrative, dramatic and fictional aspects, showing it to be a complex representational work that can be appreciated aesthetically and emotionally on a number of levels.     

Data in Motion: Sports as a site for expansive learning

ABSTRACT

Background and Context

Sports and technology are often pitted as being at odds with one another. While there are several educational activities that make reference to sports we seldom see sports used as an authentic context for learning computing.     

A professional development model to facilitate teacher adoption of interactive,immersive digital games for classroom learning

The benefits of using digital games in the curriculum are well documented in literature. Most teachers who use digital games use short-form drill-and-practice learning games rather than the kinds of games most students would choose to play in their free time. The use of more interactive, immersive digital games (IDGs) in classrooms tends to be sporadic, dependent upon the enthusiasm and ingenuity of individual teachers. Previous studies have indicated that many teachers have concerns about using digital games in classrooms and have difficulties knowing how to best use digital games. This qualitative study presents a professional development model for teachers that was inductively derived through analysing in-depth, semi-structured interviews with 13 educators who have used digital games in the classroom. Implementing this model can help teachers develop attitudes and skills necessary to meaningfully use interactive, IDGs in their classrooms. Evidence suggests that a mentor should have a strong understanding of how to use digital games effectively in classrooms, work with small cohorts of teachers to collegially plan the use of digital games within a unit of class work, trial the unit of work with a small number of enthusiastic teachers, and then implement it with the remaining teachers. This approach is based on interviews with educators who have successfully mentored teachers in their schools to use interactive, IDGs in their classrooms. These educators encountered little resistance from their teaching colleagues. Their approach further supported teachers who were open to the possibilities of using digital games in their classrooms.     

准备好应用网络教育的明日教师（上）

全球网（www.World Wide Wde)对教育系统的潜在冲击几乎是无限的。然而，如果我们的教师不具备适当的应用网络的知识和技能，实现的冲击会比可能的要小。证据表明，我们的教师需要培训，以便能够有效利用强大的在线资源，培养我们的孩子在数字社会中自我发展的能力。本文的目的在于探讨基于网络的教学对教师教育计划的冲击。     

Elusive mandate: UNICEF and educational development

The United Nations Children's Fund has rapidly gained prominence as a UN agency promoting educational development. Detailed analysis is presented of UNICEF's transition from being a supplier of emergency goods and services, to a humanitarian role that has diversified to embrace development assistance and promoting the rights of children and women. How these have impacted on the development of UNICEF education is examined. Despite many institutional strengths, it is argued that the need for increased policy clarity in UNICEF education and for greater operational effectiveness remain central to any contemporary understanding of UNICEF's contribution to educational development.     

The Use of Student Consulting Projects as an Active Learning Pedagogy: A Case Study in a Production/Operations Management Course

Active learning has attracted considerable attention in higher education in response to concerns about how and what students are learning. There are many different forms of active learning, yet most of them are classroom based. We propose an alternative to active learning in the classroom through active learning outside of the classroom in the form of student consulting projects. While the literature on student consulting has largely focused on projects to assist small business owners, this research demonstrates the potential for using student-consulting projects in the Production/Operations Management course. We use a case study to describe the use of a student-consulting project as an alternative to the other types of active learning described in the Operations Management education literature.     

The perceived value of work placements and part-time work and its diminution with time

This paper explores the perceptions of degree students at two UK universities regarding their work placement and part-time working activities, to assess if the two activities converge. The research comprises three stages: interviews for preliminary exploration of students’ perceptions towards work placement and part-time work; interviews to examine how placement opportunities link with career aspirations; a survey of students who had completed a placement, and those currently on placement. Students acknowledged part-time working helped their placement activity, providing transferable skills beneficial to both study and career aspirations. A significant finding was with respect to time: the closer to the placement activity the data was collected, the stronger the impact of appreciating the value of placement. The paper therefore highlights the value of timing in the assessment of work placement. It also offers value for universities’ by providing insight into students’ perceptions regarding embedded external work activities that can enhance graduate employability and career prospects.