Teacher-education students’ views about knowledge building theory and practice

This study investigated the effects of engaging students to collectively learn and work with knowledge in a computer-supported collaborative learning environment called Knowledge Forum on their views about knowledge building theory and practice. Participants were 24 teacher-education students who took a required course titled “Integrating Theory and Practice in Teaching.” Data mainly came from (1) student discourse recorded in a Knowledge Forum database, (2) a survey that examined students’ views about knowledge building, and (3) interviews with regard to students’ perceived barriers to implementing knowledge building theory in teaching. Findings suggest that with sustained discourse to construct their collective understanding of the relationships between theory and practice in teaching for a semester, the participants were able to attain more informed and practical views about knowledge building theory. In addition, students’ perceived barriers to implementing knowledge building in teaching were identified and strategies to help overcome these barriers discussed.     

Fostering a collaborative and creative climate in a college class through idea-centered knowledge-building

This study explored the effects of student engagement in a knowledge-building (KB) environment on their collaborative learning process and the perceived creative climate of that environment. The participants were 30 college students who undertook a living technology course in which KB were employed. The main data sources include students’ online discourse and a creative climate questionnaire. The findings indicate that the students became progressively more collaborative and productive over time, and they also tended to perceive the climate of the learning environment as highly supportive of knowledge creation. Implications for designing creative learning environments are discussed.     

A survey to examine teachers’ perceptions of design dispositions,lesson design practices,and their relationships with technological pedagogical content knowledge (TPACK)

This study investigates 201 Singaporean teachers’ perceptions of their technological pedagogical content knowledge (TPACK), lesson design practices, and design dispositions through a survey instrument. Investigation of these constructs reveal important variables influencing teachers’ perceptions of TPACK which have not yet been explored. The confirmatory factor analysis and reliability analysis confirm the validity and reliability of the instrument. The structural equation model shows that the teachers’ perceptions of design dispositions (orientations towards design) and lesson design practices (approaches used for lesson design) have direct relationships with the teachers’ perceptions of TPACK. The results of this study show that to enhance teachers’ TPACK perceptions, teacher educators need to help teachers develop lesson design practices that support ideation and iteration. They also need to develop teachers’ design dispositions that are amenable to exploring and resolving conflicting lesson design ideas. Going beyond TPACK, understandings of teachers’ lesson design practices and design dispositions are important for teacher educators to better design professional development for integration of information and communications technology.     

Teaching large classes in an increasingly internationalising higher education environment: pedagogical,quality and equity issues

Marketisation, increased student mobility, the massification of Higher Education (HE) and stagnating staff numbers in universities have combined to cause a ripple effect of change both in the demography and size of university classes across the world. This has implications for the quality and equity of learning and the need to examine and to transform pedagogical practices. Despite the growing attention of literature on teaching large classes, there is a scarcity of research addressing the twin issues of large classes in an increasingly internationalised context. This paper seeks to contribute towards filling this gap. The paper provides a theoretical exploration of the causes of such classes in HE, reviews the empirical evidence against large class teaching and examines the difficulties associated with teaching demographically diverse classes in HE. The paper identifies eight pedagogical strategies to address the issues of class size and diversity, which relate to increasing student participation and engagement; increasing curricula access and the language of instruction; increasing staff intercultural understanding; increasing opportunities for deep learning for all; on-going monitoring of student satisfaction; increasing opportunities to achieve; diversification of assessment; and the merit of Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCS). It calls for new research on global learning cultures; reviews of global assessment and promising pedagogical practices and processes.     

Adoption of flipped learning in social humanities education: the FIBER experience in secondary schools

ABSTRACT

FIBER (Flipped Issue-Based Enquiry Ride) is a teacher-facilitated interactive pedagogic framework that the authors propose to integrate flipped learning into social humanities education. This paper reports a quasi-experimental study (with mixed methods) which examined the pedagogic effectiveness of FIBER in the authentic setting of formal curriculum learning and teaching. The study involved totally 611 Secondary-4 students from academically top, middle and bottom schools in Hong Kong. In comparison with the conventional issue-based enquiry learning approach, FIBER had different intensity of positive effects on the high, moderate, and low academic-achieving student participants. This paper provides researchers and educational practitioners with empirical evidence for supporting wider adoption of FIBER in social humanities education, as well as harnessing flipped learning in formal schooling. Apart from discussing the benefits, the authors also underline the challenges of FIBER and suggest future work.     

Nonlinear H∞ feedback control with integrator for polynomial discrete-time systems

This paper investigates the problem of designing a nonlinear _H∞$H_{\infty }$ feedback controller for polynomial discrete-time systems with and without polytopic uncertainties. The objective is to design a controller such that the ratio between the energy of the regulated outputs and the energy of the exogenous disturbance/inputs is minimized or guaranteed to be less or equal to a prescribed value. It is well known that the state dependant or parameter dependant Lyapunov function is always chosen for synthesizing polynomial discrete-time systems. This leads the solution to be nonconvex because the Lyapunov function and the controller matrix are coupled and therefore cannot be solved by semidefinite programming (SDP). Hence, in this paper, an integrator is proposed to be incorporated into the controller structure. In doing so, the coupling of Lyapunov function and controller matrix can be eliminated effectively. This somehow simplifies the numerical solution of the problem. Then, by using SOS decomposition approach, sufficient conditions for the existence of the proposed controller are provided in terms of solvability of the state-dependent linear matrix inequalities (SDLMIs) which can be solved by SDP. A tunnel diode circuit is used to demonstrate the effectiveness of this integrator approach.     

The change in epistemological beliefs and beliefs about teaching and learning: a study among pre-service teachers

This study investigated the change in Singaporean pre-service teachers' epistemological beliefs and beliefs about learning and teaching over the course of a teacher preparation program. An online survey was administered during the first week of a nine-month program and the same survey was administered after the 413 participants had completed all their course work and teaching practice. Participants exhibited significant changes in epistemological beliefs and beliefs about learning and teaching – participants indicated more relativistic epistemological outlooks and less constructivism in beliefs about teaching. At the end of the teacher preparation program, they seemed to less value effort in learning and believed more in innate ability.     

Breakthrough Kinesis

Relying primarily on the writings of the French philosopher M. Merleau-Ponty and Swiss psychiatrist Carl Jung, this paper addresses a unique issue of performance change and presents the following theory regarding something I call “breakthrough kinesis.” Breakthrough kinesis occurs when a performance barrier, usually of mythic proportions, is overcome. A breakthrough occurs when one athlete accomplishes the heroic act and other athletes are somehow enabled and rush through the previously impenetrable gates. Further, this paper explores a collective body wisdom, inherited from all human movement and transmitted in the collective unconscious as described by Jung, which represents a collective kinetic intelligence greater than the single self-embodiment knowledge of any individual. This kinesthetic intelligence contributes to breakthrough kinesis.     

College Students Constructing Collective Knowledge of Natural Science History in a Collaborative Knowledge Building Community

Journal of Science Education and Technology - This study investigates whether engaging college students (n = 42) in a knowledge building environment would help them work as a...