What English Language Teachers from the Peoples’ Republic of China find Surprising about Information Technology: Thoughts on How to Address the Need for Change

Recent educational reforms in China are placing increasing emphasis on the integration of new technologies in the English language curriculum. At the same time, a debate has begun concerning the effectiveness of Information Technology (IT) usage in transforming language pedagogy in the Chinese context. In response to points made in the discussions published to date, this paper describes an attempt to instill new ways of viewing the potential of IT with a group of practicing teachers studying for a Post‐graduate Diploma in English Language Teaching in Singapore. End‐of‐course survey data were used to identify what the trainees found surprising about the course. This method uncovered some of their hopes and fears about using IT in their future classes and provided clues as to how to bring about positive learning outcomes with IT. Discussion of the results shows that Chinese teachers share similar challenges as their counterparts in the West when it comes to using IT for the first time. The paper ends with a string of suggestions about how to begin the process of innovation with IT, both in and beyond China.     

Action Learning for Citizenship Education

The paper examines how the author has used what he calls action learning to encourage pupils to learn about citizenship in a secondary school. The paper argues that citizenship can be learnt by engaging young people in projects and other activities, which encourage them to develop an understanding of the responsibilities and skills needed to become citizens in society. The paper goes on to describe a small-scale research project which sought to assess the pupils' reactions to action learning. The young people's responses bring to life what they have learnt from their involvement in the action learning projects and how it has helped them to develop as citizens.     

How MOOC instructors view the pedagogy and purposes of massive open online courses

Massive open online courses (MOOCs) have proliferated in recent years despite disagreement about the role of MOOCs in higher education and whether student outcomes are satisfactory. Taking a mixed-methods approach, the current study surveys professors who have taught MOOCs (n = 162) in order to better understand how MOOCs are perceived by instructors. Professors’ backgrounds and beliefs about the role of MOOCs in higher education and their perceptions of the experiences of students are discussed. In addition, professors’ satisfaction in teaching MOOCs is reported. The study finds that most MOOC professors are experienced faculty members with relatively little prior experience teaching online, and that they are divided about the purpose of MOOCs in the institutional landscape of higher education.     

Critical place as a fluid margin in post-critical environmental education

Positive claims about place pedagogy in education are problematized through this small-scale interpretive study of internationally mobile students’ experiences of outdoor environmental education. Of specific interest in this empirical study of learners’ pedagogically constructed experiences of place are the fluid subjectivities, cultural dispositions, environmental consciences, and ecological assumptions they already bring ‘globally’ to the ‘place’ of the educational intervention, and the hybrid ‘splaces’ we conclude they then temporarily embody – at least, during and after the experience. The study empirically advances an ongoing need for post-critical inquiry in environmental research by incorporating a range of theoretical and conceptual resources that work the boundaries, ‘margins’, and tensions that lie somewhere ‘in-between’ the spatially projected place/local and planet/global discourses.     

Generic qualitative dissertations in counselor education: A content analysis

We conducted a content analysis of generic qualitative counseling dissertations (GQR; N = 70), examining their methodological justifications, coherence, and trustworthiness. Dissertations authors often presented vague methodological justifications. Findings have implications for constructing methodological justifications, integrating relevant literature, and awareness of how GQR compares to other qualitative methodologies.