Shedding the content: semantics of teaching burdened by didactic formalisms

The paper argues that what is left behind in the current era of accountability is the educational content. The authors present shedding the content as the great challenge of teaching and learning in today’s schools. They turn to the tradition of Bildung and outline the theoretical background for the content-focused approach to (research on) teaching and learning. Their approach is based on analyses of authentic (real-life) teaching and learning situations. The paper highlights how didactic case studies can be used to generalize the findings across individual cases. Within the multiple case studies, 44 didactic case studies were reanalysed to identify didactic formalisms, i.e. problems in the semantic and logical structure of educational content, which corrupt the quality of instruction. Two specific types of didactic formalism are described in detail; stolen cognition and concealed cognition. Stolen cognition prevents cognitive activation of students when the teacher over-reduces the space allowed for the students’ cognitive work with the content, concealed cognition are instances of purposeless cognitive activation of students due to their being disconnected from the content.     

Recommendations for effective university study based on students’ point of view

This research examined what university students recommend for effective university study and whether their recommendations differ by gender, faculty or study programme degree. The research was based on 985 questionnaires. The following words were most commonly used in advice for freshmen: Go, Lectures, Learn, Continuously, Be, Prepare, Information, Have, Do, Materials. The fundamental advice seems to be: to go to lectures, to have needed materials and information and to learn and prepare continuously. Some stated recommendations react to the development of information and communication technologies and the massive usage of the Internet (such as obtaining a laptop and a cell phone or setting up a Facebook profile). Quite a lot of advice was connected with health, such as to sleep enough, to eat regularly, to not smoke, to relax and to restrict alcohol consumption. The recommendations gained in this survey were categorised by thematic similarities to characteristics, knowledge, skills, behaviour and background. The findings highlight the fact that given recommendations for effective study differ by the respondent’s gender and faculty. Women concentrated more on recommendations on how to behave and men mentioned more often what personality characteristics are important for effective university study. Students of the Faculty of Multimedia Communications highlighted the necessity of creativity and practical experience more often than others.     

Irreplaceable ISSN: From 2007 to the Future

International Organization for Standardization (ISO) standard 3297 governs the assignment of International Standard Serial Numbers (ISSNs) for continuing resources worldwide. It is subject to systematic review every five years and, in 2017, an ISO Working Group was set up to review the standard. This working group took the decision to survey the views of stakeholders including publishers, libraries, and others. This article reports on the global survey that was undertaken, describing the questions and answers about which the committee sought opinions. It also sought details on the respondents to provide context. The replies are summarised in chart form with conclusions and an appraisal of the key issues, which suggest that whilst respondents are supportive of expanding the ways in which the ISSN is deployed, they are less convinced of the need for more ISSNs for any given title. They are split on the need for the structure of the ISSN to be revised but there is strong support for the notion of a “Family ISSN” that would describe resources that are linked through, for example, title changes or geography or language. The article notes the next steps to be taken.     

Plants have a chance: outdoor educational programmes alter students' knowledge and attitudes towards plants

Outdoor educational programmes are generally believed to be a suitable alternative to conventional biology settings that improve participants' environmental attitudes and knowledge. Here we examine whether outdoor educational programmes focused solely on practical work with plants influence participants' knowledge of and attitudes towards plants. It was found that mean scores of participants' attitudes towards and knowledge of plants significantly increased after the outdoor programme. These effects remained significant even after three months' post‐testing. No similar patterns were found in the control group. Interestingly, the proportion of participants who liked biology as a school subject also significantly increased after the outdoor programme in the experimental group. Females showed better knowledge of plants than males, but attitudes towards plants were similar between genders. Having a garden at home was not associated with better knowledge or attitudes towards plants. Our results reveal that outdoor programmes significantly relieve ‘plant blindness’ and make biology more attractive to pupils.     

The Influence of Interactive Learning Materials on Solving Tasks That Require Different Types of Mathematical Reasoning

International Journal of Science and Mathematics Education - The purpose of this study is to analyse the effects of the Interactive Learning Materials Triangle (iLMT) on the learning and knowledge...     

Academic self-efficacy and learning strategies as mediators of the relation between personality and elementary school students’ achievement

European Journal of Psychology of Education - In this study, we examined the mediating role of academic self-efficacy and motivational learning strategies in the relationship between personality...     

Good and evil at school: Bullying and moral evaluation in early adolescence

We investigated how adolescents (sixth-graders, N = 357) morally evaluated hypothetical bullying and defending protagonists and whether these evaluations related to behavior in bullying as nominated by peers. Exploratory factor analysis (EFA) resulted in four factors for the evaluation of the hypothetical bullies: Evil soul, Contempt, Cowardice, and Deviance, and five factors for the evaluation of the hypothetical defender: General admiration, Courage, Cool, Empathic care, and Fair justice. Corresponding scales were constructed. The findings showed that bullying positively correlated with evaluating the hypothetical bullies using Cowardice while victimization positively correlated with evaluating the hypothetical defender in terms of General admiration, Empathic care, and Fair justice. MANOVA for each of the two sets of the evaluative scales indicated that behavioral status (bully, victim, defender, or uninvolved) had a significant effect on the moral evaluation of hypothetical bullies, and no significant effect on the moral evaluation of the hypothetical defender.     

That’s Not For Our Kids: The strange death of philosophy and ethics in a low socioeconomic secondary school

Abstract

This article reflects on the successes and failures of a new Philosophy and Ethics course in a low socioeconomic context in Perth, Western Australia, with the eventual demise of the subject in the school at the end of 2010. We frame this reflection within Deleuzian notions of geophilosophy to advocate for a Philosophy and Ethics that is informed by nomadic thought, as this offers a critical freedom for students to transform themselves and their society and suggests practical ways both of overcoming the prejudices which led to its demise and of student reluctance to engage in open discussion in class. We consider the demise of the course a ‘missed opportunity’ because it had so much potential to be transformative of student subjectivities in schools.     

The methodological illumination of a blind spot: information and communication technology and international research team dynamics in a higher education research program

This self-ethnography complements the other articles in this special issue by spotlighting a set of key challenges facing international research teams. The study is focused on the relationship between information and communication technology (ICT)-based collaboration and research team dynamics. Our diverse team, drawn from researchers in five countries and three projects, argues that an ironic casualty of the powerful, global phenomena we study, is a lack of insight into what happens to generic research team dynamics, when groups are ‘stretched’ in terms of geographical distance, generations, cultural beliefs, values and norms, as well as disciplinary/specialist traditions. Good intentions are not sufficient to cope with these challenges. This is because of the emerging complexity inherent in many types of international, interdisciplinary fields of study and the complexity of the career trajectories needed to make these studies a reality. Our study underlines that there are no beliefs, values, norms and practices linked to research team dynamics, that hold across the current territory, generations, disciplines, cultures, organizations and individuals leading and conducting comparative studies—and even less reflection on the implications of this fact. Compounding this lack of awareness is a less-than-perfect understanding of the way in which ICT-based collaboration bears on research team dynamics. We assert that a holistic, critical, long-term approach to emerging insights into the global division of academic labor, serves our field better than folk psychology or the methodological parochialism that sustains convention at the expense of creativity. Careful consideration of emergent processes, relationships and linkages that explain how short-term cooperation—within projects—begins to make sense—over careers—illuminates key focal points, which, in turn qualitatively illuminates the way forward concerning conceptualization and problematization of our practice; and novel methodological routes available for those interested in attaining better outcomes, over the long term.     

Freizeitgestaltung der Schüler Höherer Lehranstalten in Slowenien (Jugoslawien)

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