Teachers’ and principals’ reflections on student participation in a school science and technology competition

Background The European Union asks for renewed pedagogies in schools according to teaching strategies and necessary competences for the twenty-first century, instead of the often-used transmissive pedagogies. The national Swedish competition in science and technology for grade eight, The Technology Eight, provides an opportunity for teachers to work with instructional strategies in line with suggested pedagogies.

Purpose To investigate teachers’ and principals’ reflections on the competition in schools.

Sample Seventeen secondary school teachers and three principals from districts in the south-western part of Sweden participated in the study. All teachers had long experience of the competition, and their classes had reached at least the regional finals during the last year.

Design and methods Semi-structured interviews were recorded, transcribed verbatim, and then analysed using content analysis. Focus was put on why the teachers decided to participate, how the teachers integrated the competition in their education and roles of the principals.

Results There were various reasons for participating in the competition. Teachers reported development of twenty-first-century skills such as better cooperation between the students. They also noticed an increased interest in science and technology and how learning in the subjects was stimulated. Furthermore, the teachers found participation in the competition to be positive for them too. They integrated the competition in ordinary education and gained teaching ideas as well as found connections to the curriculum. Participating in the competition seemed to be a tradition in most of the schools. The principals’ role was to facilitate the organisation around the competition and to provide social support.

Conclusions Participation in a school competition was considered as an instructional strategy with several positive outcomes. Use of this strategy can be supported by earlier suggestions to use pedagogies that are opposite to transmissive methods, enhancing students’ development of important skills for the future.     

Understanding Student Evaluations of Teaching Quality: The Contributions of Class Attendance

Institutions of higher learning employ compulsory attendance policies with the expectation that these mandates enhance students' academic performance and perceptions of course quality. However, numerous empirical investigations demonstrate equivocal and often contradictory findings regarding the relationship between attendance and various markers of student achievement. The present investigation extends this research by exploring the utility of student ratings of the need to attend class in predicting their perceptions of teaching excellence after controlling for class size, instructor availability, and small-group interactions. As hypothesized, ratings of the need to attend predicted excellence while accounting for a significant 5.3% of the variance. Discussion and conclusions highlight the utility of class attendance in understanding students' evaluations of teaching and course quality.     

Curriculum development for quantitative skills in degree programs: a cross-institutional study situated in the life sciences

Higher education policies are increasingly focused on graduate learning outcomes, which infer an emphasis on, and deep understanding of, curriculum development across degree programs. As disciplinary influences are known to shape teaching and learning activities, research situated in disciplinary contexts is useful to further an understanding of curriculum development. In the life sciences, several graduate learning outcomes are underpinned by quantitative skills or an ability to apply mathematical and statistical thinking and reasoning. Drawing on data from a national teaching project in Australia that explored quantitative skills in the implemented curricula of 13 life sciences degree programs, this article presents four program-level curricular models that emerged from the analysis. The findings are interpreted through the lens of discipline-specific research and general curriculum design theories to further our understanding of curriculum development for graduate learning outcomes. Implications for future research and to guide curriculum development practices in higher education are discussed.     

Rethinking inequalities between deindustrialisation,schools and educational research in Geelong

Inequalities have historically been conceptualised and empirically explored with primary reference to the human. Both measurements of educational inequalities through the production of data about students, teachers and schools, and ethnographic explorations of inequalities in the spoken accounts of human actors in schools can elide affective histories and material geologies of the earth that entwine with societal inequalities, and political questions of the relation between particular human bodies and the earth. In this article, we question: What might it do to rethink the concept of educational inequalities beyond human relations, from within a specific geographical territory? We seek to rethink inequalities including but exceeding these human relations; we argue that inequalities between humans, and between humans and the more-than-human, are materially generated and perpetuated. We offer three theoretical trajectories that consider the affective, spatial and material dimensions of inequality to rethink the relations between inequality, deindustrialisation and schooling. Educational research is implicated in the (re)production of inequalities, as well as having the potential to be part of the production of more equitable relations.     

Enhancing primary science: an exploration of teachers’ own ideas of solutions to challenges in inquiry- and context-based teaching

ABSTRACT

Studies of inquiry- and context-based science education (IC-BaSE) have shown that teachers find these approaches problematic. In this study, 12 primary school teachers’ reflections on challenges related to IC-BaSE are explored. The aim of the study was to investigate which challenges primary teachers experience when working with IC-BaSE and how these may be solved. Group discussions and individual portfolios were used for data collection. Content analysis showed that the challenges teachers experienced were mainly practical relating to: how to find contexts, lack of time, handling big classes, students working at different paces, handling materials, and the teachers' need of control. The teachers also presented their own ideas of solutions to the challenges.     

The instinct fallacy: the metacognition of answering and revising during college exams

Students often gauge their performance before and after an exam, usually in the form of rough grade estimates or general feelings. Are these estimates accurate? Should they form the basis for decisions about study time, test-taking strategies, revisions, subject mastery, or even general competence? In two studies, undergraduates took a real multiple-choice exam, described their general beliefs and feelings, tracked their performance for each question, and noted any revisions or possible revisions. Beliefs formed after the exams were poor predictors of performance. In contrast, real-time metacognitive monitoring – measured by confidence ratings for each individual question – accurately predicted performance and were a much better decisional guide. Measuring metacognitive monitoring also allowed us to examine the process of revising an answer. Should a test-taker rely on their first choice or revise in the face of uncertainty? Experience seems to show that first instincts are correct. The decision-making literature calls this the first-instinct fallacy, based on extensive analysis of revisions, and recommends revising more. However, whereas revisions have been analyzed in great detail, previous studies did not analyze the efficacy of sticking with an original choice. We found that both revising and sticking resulted in significantly more correct than incorrect outcomes, with real-time metacognition predicting when each was most appropriate.     

Promoting interdisciplinarity in engineering teaching

With funding from the UK' Royal Academy of Engineering, the University of Edinburgh has developed a series of truly interdisciplinary design courses aimed at improving penultimate-year students' ability to operate across disciplines and improve their preparation for industry. Led by a Visiting Industrial Professor, the course on hydropower design requires students to provide a full feasibility study of a small scheme in western Scotland tackling issues from hydrology through to grid connection. The course has had several very successful outcomes which include: appreciation of other engineering disciplines; experience of teams where different skills and expertise are available; demonstration of the links between engineering design and economic viability; introduction to non-technical areas essential to the UK Standard for Professional Engineering Competence; and enhancing interest in the hydropower sector in technological and career terms. The key message from this project is the need to ensure balance across tasks, within groups and staff support across disciplines.     

Through the looking glass: Ethnic and generational patterns of immigrant identity

Traditional theories of the “looking glass self” and “social mirroring” assume that people's views of their own group reflect the societal view. Crocker and colleagues (Crocker, J., Luhtanen, R., Blaine, B., & Brodnax, S. (1994). Collective self-esteem and psychological well-being among white, black, and Asian college students. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 20, 503–513), however, found ethnic group differences in the extent to which private and public views correspond. We report data from two studies that further examine this correspondence in (a) a sample of first- and second-generation Black immigrants and (b) samples of first- and second-generation Asian/Pacific Islander, Black, Latino, and White immigrants. Study 1 shows significant shifts for Black immigrants, from a high correlation between public and private regard in the first generation to a non-significant relationship in the second generation. Study 2 replicates the findings for the Black sample and shows different patterns of association for the other three groups. It also shows that endorsement of multiculturalism moderates the relationship between public and private regard among first generation Black and Latino immigrants. We discuss these results in terms of managing the negative value associated with one's group in society and consider immigration as a site for studying social change.