‘We are more than EFL teachers – we are educators’: emancipating EFL student-teachers through photovoice

The prevailing pedagogical orientations of English as a foreign language (EFL) education in Spain oppress learners intellectually in ways that are counterproductive to their learning. As a reaction to this, 129 EFL student-teachers (STs) took part during the 2013/14, 2014/15, and 2015/16 academic years in a workshop which drew on the methodology of participatory action research and on photovoice as a data-creating strategy, in order to emancipate these STs intellectually, boost their EFL development, and offer an alternative critical model for their future EFL teaching. The research was assessed collectively through a variety of qualitative strategies. Results showed that the photovoice workshop created a rich and meaningful context for EFL learning, one which enabled the STs to fully actualize their intellectual potential by producing knowledge collectively, thereby setting a memorable educational example for their own future teaching.     

What lies beneath: exploring the deeper purposes of feedback on student writing through considering disciplinary knowledge and knowers

Feedback plays an integral role in students’ learning and development, as it is often the only personal communication that students have with tutors or lecturers about their own work. Yet, in spite of its integral role in student learning, there is disagreement between how students and tutors or lecturers perceive the pedagogic purpose of feedback. Central to this disagreement is the role that feedback has to play in ensuring that students produce the ‘right’ kinds of knowledge, and become the ‘right’ kinds of knowers within their disciplines. This paper argues that, in order to find common ground between students and tutors or lecturers on what feedback is for, and how to both give and use it effectively, we need to conceptualise disciplinary knowledge and knowers anew. We offer, as a useful starting point, the Specialisation dimension of Legitimation Code Theory as both practical theory and methodological tool for exploring knowledge and knowers in English Studies and Law as two illustrative cases. The paper concludes that this analysis offers lecturers and tutors a fresh understanding of the disciplinary knowledge and knower structures they work within and, relatedly, a clearer view of the work their feedback needs to do within these.     

The postmodern perfectionist,the pragmatic hedonist and the materialist maximalist: understanding high school students’ profile choices towards or away from mathematics,science and technology (MST) fields in the Netherlands

This study focuses on high school students’ profile choices and the choice for or against the Nature and Technology (NT) profile in the Netherlands. A mixed-methods approach is used to study cultural values that affect this choice. The quantitative part of the study shows that being female is negatively correlated with the choice for the NT-profile, irrespective of the grade average for mathematics, chemistry and physics. It further shows that students’ ethnic background does not have a significant effect on this choice. The qualitative part of the study reveals that students’ choice processes towards or away from NT can be categorised in three ideal types: the postmodern perfectionist, the pragmatic hedonist and the materialist maximalist. Gender differences appear to be more pervasive across these types than differences in ethnic background.     

Content integration as a factor in math-game effectiveness

In this study we focus on the integration of mathematical learning content (i.e., proportional reasoning) in game-based learning environments (GBLE). More specifically, two kinds of GBLEs are set up: an extrinsically integrated GBLE and an intrinsically integrated GBLE. In the former environment, the mathematical content is not part of the core mechanics and structure of the gaming world. In the latter environment, the mathematical content is delivered through the parts of the game that are the most fun to play and embodied within the structure of the gaming world and the players’ interactions with it. Sixty-four vocational track students participated in the study, all of them working in either version of the self-developed GBLE “Zeldenrust”. The results of this study suggest that the way the content is integrated in a GBLE (i.e., intrinsically or extrinsically) matters: contrary to our expectations, students who played the extrinsically integrated game showed higher learning gains, motivational gains and perceived usefulness than students who played the game in which the content was intrinsically integrated.     

Identifying pathways of teachers’ PCK development

This paper describes a method of analysing teacher growth in the context of science education. It focuses on the identification of pathways in the development of secondary school teachers’ pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) by the use of the interconnected model of teachers’ professional growth (IMTPG).The teachers (n = 12) participated in a one-year action research project focused on their individual concerns related to teaching science. The use of the IMTPG revealed that teachers use different pathways of learning to develop different aspects of their PCK. For each PCK component, three distinct pathways could be identified, two of which clearly were associated with professional growth. When examining these two pathways in detail, it was found that (1) teachers learned about new instructional strategies and assessment methods mostly through literature reviews and discussions with peers and (2) teachers who analyzed and reflected on student learning as it happened in their classrooms developed understandings that helped them to select and apply instructional strategies to further promote student learning. Both the analytical method as well as the identification of the different developmental pathways help to better understand teacher development in the context of classroom practices.     

Attitudes Toward Spanish and Code-Switching in Belize: Stigmatization and Innovation in the Spanish Classroom

Through the analysis of survey and interview data, we investigated the attitudes and perceptions of 32 multilingual teachers of Spanish in Belize, a code-switching (CS) context where Spanish is in intense contact with English and Belizean Kriol. More specifically, we examined teachers’ and students’ attitudes toward Spanish and CS and teachers’ perceptions vis-à-vis students’ attitudes toward Spanish instruction. The study revealed that whereas some teachers held negative views of Northern Belizean Spanish, they did not markedly perceive standard Spanish as “better” than the local variety of Belizean Spanish. The analysis also showed that most teachers had a positive predisposition to the use of CS as a pedagogical tool in their classrooms, a finding that suggests that ultra-normative attitudes toward Spanish varieties are not prevalent among these educators. In view of students’ attitudes, teachers concurred that students had overwhelmingly negative attitudes toward standard Spanish, in line with previous findings. We argue that educational reforms and status-planning efforts are vital to destigmatize Spanish and to promote its maintenance alongside Belizean Kriol and English.     

Career plans of final-year South African student teachers: migration to ‘greener pastures’?

Teacher loss due to migration is a global phenomenon that impacts both developed and developing nations the world over. The aim of this study was to find out about the career plans of final-year South African student teachers. A group of final-year Bachelor of Education student teachers from a South African university responded to a questionnaire on intra- and intercontinental migration. The responses were analysed quantitatively and/or qualitatively. The findings showed that 79% of the students indicated that they would be teaching in South Africa, 8% were planning to teach in another country, while 8% were undecided. More than a third of the students (38%) said that they would like to teach in another country in five years’ time. Just more than a quarter of the students (27%) preferred Australia as a destination country. The student teachers’ most important motive to teach in a foreign country was the opportunity to travel, followed by earning a higher salary, and professional development. The student teachers indicated that their most important migration needs before leaving South Africa were information about health care, accommodation, and banking assistance.     

Electrical lysis of cells for detergent-free droplet assays

Efficient lysis is critical when analyzing single cells in microfluidic droplets, but existing methods utilize detergents that can interfere with the assays to be performed. We demonstrate robust cell lysis without the use of detergents or other chemicals. In our method, cells are exposed to electric field immediately before encapsulation in droplets, resulting in cell lysis. We characterize lysis efficiency as a function of control parameters and demonstrate compatibility with enzymatic assays by measuring the catalysis of β-glucosidase, an important cellulase used in the conversion of biomass to biofuel. Our method enables assays in microfluidic droplets that are incompatible with detergents.