Teachers’ Lives in Context: A Framework for Understanding Barriers to High-Quality Teaching Within Resource Deprived Settings

There is a profound for more effective schools, especially within resource-poor communities in low- and middle-income countries. A wide range of literature identifies teachers as the most critical component of schools in regards to student learning. Despite this, there is a dearth of literature on how teachers' experiences influence their ability to attend school, remain in the teaching profession, and provide high quality teaching within the classroom. This study presents a theoretical framework for understanding the role of teachers' lives in context (skills, knowledge, and attitudes; poverty and health; contextual supports/barriers to teaching) in influencing teacher effectiveness. This framework builds upon Tseng and Seidman's (2007) systems framework for understanding youth social settings in order to incorporate teachers' lives into a larger model of educational effectiveness. This synthesis reveals significant gaps in our understanding of teachers' experiences and how they affect teaching. At the teacher attendance, attrition, and pedagogical quality and a key moderator of educational interventions. Implications for research, practice, and policy are discussed.     

Educational polarisation in Brisbane: Rawls’s least advantaged and the myth of choice

A number of researchers have reported increasing socio-economic inequality within Australian society. This result has usually been met with public apathy and political indifference. However, the results of this research conducted in Brisbane shows that the increasing social polarisation occurring in Australian society is being reflected in an increasing educational divide or polarisation. In terms of access to private education, and use of information technology the least advantaged students are faring worse than any other students. Teachers who are committed to achieving a just society through their teaching cannot ignore this situation. This finding emphasises that teaching for social justice must not only focus on intercultural issues but also return to a position of prime importance the goal of achieving greater economic equality.     

No comparison: Distance education finds a new use for ‘No significant difference’

Media comparison studies have long been criticized as an inappropriate research design for measuring the effectiveness of instructional technology. However, a resurgence in their use has recently been noted in distance education for program evaluation purposes. An analysis of the research design will detail why such a methodology is an inappropriate approach to such an investigation. Increased access to such programming does not seem to serve as a satisfactory benefit for the implementation of distance education efforts. Stakeholders desire to prove that participants in distance-delivered courses receive the same quality of instruction off-campus as those involved in the traditional classroom setting. However, the desire to prove that the quality of such distributed offerings is equal to the quality of on-campus programming often results in comparisons of achievement between the two groups of student participants. Statistically, such a research design almost guarantees that the desired outcome will be attained—that indeed distance learners perform as well as campus-based students.     

Measuring experiences of interest-related pursuits in connected learning

This paper describes an effort to develop a survey instrument capable of measuring important aspects of adolescents’ experiences of interest-related pursuits that are supported by technology. The measure focuses on youths’ experiences of connected learning (Ito et al. in Connected learning: an agenda for research and design. Digital Media and Learning Research Hub, Irvine, 2013), an emerging model of learning across settings supported by digital media. Specifically, the instrument aims to measure the depth with which youth are able to engage in an interest-related pursuit, the level of support and encouragement they receive from peers, and the degree to which their pursuit involves performance or media production as an essential feature. The survey also elicits information regarding the connections between youths’ interest-related pursuits and academic goals, the involvement of adults as co-participants in pursuits, and youths’ access to technology tools they deem necessary for their pursuits. The paper reports on results from a pilot study and two rounds of field-testing, in which we evaluated the validity and reliability of the instrument and compared results with evidence from interviews with youth. Our aim was to investigate the feasibility of an approach to measuring youths’ interest-related pursuits to inform future research and evaluation of initiatives focused on digital media and learning.     

Social facilitation of drinking of a partially satiated duckling

Water-deprived and nondeprived ducklings were reintroduced to a flock companion which had been allowed to partially satiate itself after 3 h of water deprivation. The drinking and sieving behavior of the partially satiated “reactor” bird was immediately increased above that of similar birds left on their own. However, whether or not the introduced “actor” ducklings were deprived had no consequences for the drinking response of the reactor above that obtained by their introduction. The number of companions introduced also failed to have any effect other than that obtained by their introduction. The increase in sieving was greater when deprived, rather than nondeprived, actors were introduced. These results were discussed in relation to the motivational aspects of sieving behavior and the mechanism of social facilitation.