Why change to active learning? Pre-service and in-service science teachers’ perceptions

This article explores pre-service and in-service science teachers’ perceptions on active learning, and examines the effectiveness of active learning by pre-service science teachers in the Irish second level classroom through a two-phase study. In the first phase, data on perceptions were gathered from final year pre-service teachers and in-service teachers in Irish post-primary schools. In the second phase, pre-service science teachers, working with teacher educators, designed a comparative test for students in lower secondary science classrooms. This tested achievement differences for students taught in traditional ways and students taught using active learning approaches. While the test results show a significant difference between traditional teaching and active learning, overall analysis indicates that the majority of teachers in the study were not convinced of the value of this way of teaching. The findings have implications for science teaching and the enactment of curriculum reform measures in compulsory education.     

‘Nature’ and the ‘environment’ in Jamaica’s primary school curriculum guides

In cases where environmental education is institutionalised within schools, the curriculum can affect what and how students learn about ‘nature’ and the ‘environment’. In Jamaica, schools are considered important settings for environmental education; the curriculum therefore includes environmental issues. Using content analysis, representations of ‘nature’ and the ‘environment’ in the nation’s primary level Curriculum Guides were examined. Findings indicate that although many units emphasise an anthropocentric view of nature, this is tempered by depictions of nature’s fragility and, in some instances, nature’s ‘divine’ dimensions. Several curricular units also facilitate student’s creative engagement with nature, allowing for multiple views of the natural world.     

On the supranational spell of PISA in policy

Abstract

Background: PISA results appear to have a large impact upon government policy. The phenomenon is growing, with more countries taking part in PISA testing and politicians pointing to PISA results as reasons for their reforms.

Purpose: The aims of this research were to depict the policy reactions to PISA across a number of jurisdictions, to see whether they exhibited similar patterns and whether the same reforms were evident.

Sources of evidence: We investigated policy and media reactions to the 2009 and 2012 PISA results in six cases: Canada, China (Shanghai), England, France, Norway and Switzerland. Cases were selected to contrast high-performing jurisdictions (Canada, China) with average performers (England, France, Norway and Switzerland). Countries that had already been well reported on in the literature were excluded (Finland, Germany).

Design and methods: Policy documents, media reports and academic articles in English, French, Mandarin and Norwegian relating to each of the cases were critically evaluated.

Results: A policy reaction of ‘scandalisation’ was evident in four of the six cases; a technique used to motivate change. Five of the six cases showed ‘standards-based reforms’ and two had reforms in line with the ‘ideal-governance’ model. However, these are categorisations: the actual reforms had significant differences across countries. There are chronological problems with the notion that PISA results were causal with regard to policy in some instances. Countries with similar PISA results responded with different policies, reflecting their differing cultural and historical education system trajectories.

Conclusions: The connection between PISA results and policy is not always obvious. The supranational spell of PISA in policy is in the way that PISA results are used as a magic wand in political rhetoric, as though they conjure particular policy choices. This serves as a distraction from the ideological basis for reforms. The same PISA results could motivate a range of different policy solutions.     

Lessons Learned from PISA: A Systematic Review of Peer-Reviewed Articles on the Programme for International Student Assessment

International large-scale assessments are on the rise, with the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) seen by many as having strategic prominence in education policy debates. The present article reviews PISA-related English-language peer-reviewed articles from the programme’s first cycle in 2000 to its most current in 2015. Five literature bases were searched, and results were analysed with SPSS. Results map the frequency of publications according to journal, country, and scientific discipline. They also summarise major themes within three identified categories: secondary analysis, policy impact, and critiques. Findings indicated that studies based on the PISA dataset has led to progress in educational research while simultaneously pointing to the need for caution when using this research to inform educational policy.     

Beyond traditional literacy: Learning and transformative practices using ICT

Educators, government bodies and employers have acknowledged the need for modern learners to acquire 21st century skills using information and communication technologies, to personalise student learning. Students need broader skills than the 3Rs (reading, writing and arithmetic) to operate in the 21st century. These broader skills known as the 4Cs include: creativity, communication, collaboration and critical thinking. The use of information and communication technologies is crucial in developing the 4Cs in conjunction with understanding how learning takes place. However, simply using technology does not guarantee that deep learning will occur. The use of technology needs to align and adapt with our knowledge of learning to be able to operate in a transformative space. This paper is designed to link the understandings of deep learning, 21st century skills and appropriate use of information and communication technologies to provide direction to educators who wish to lead in a technological environment of change.     

Before the Sunshine: Organising and Promoting the Olympic Games in Stockholm 1912

In 1910, two years before the Olympics in Stockholm, The General Secretary of the Swedish Games Mr Kristian Hellström assured that the competitors should expect the most exciting time of their lives. As long as they lived, they would remember the sport event. To make the competitors feeling welcomed, it required a successful organisation. The present article examines the promotional work behind the Stockholm Olympics. The event was the first Olympic Games with a professional advertising campaign and an official poster. Initially, the intention was to establish a solid organisation consisting of a specific Advertising and Reception Section. The General Secretariat was in charge of advertising, for instance contacts with the media in Sweden and worldwide. They also organised a specific ‘Advertising and Information Committee’ that worked with advertisement. Finally, the promotional work did not only focus on the sport event. The tourism of Sweden was also the object of marketing. This article argues that promotional work on different levels made it possible to modernise and internationalise the event. By analysing Hellström's work as General Secretary, it is possible to understand the intensity of promotional activity, which resulted in an innovative campaign.     

Olympic Engagement and the Use of Olympic Solidarity Programmes by Gulf Cooperation Council States

This paper seeks to address the extent to which Olympic Solidarity (OS) funding patterns are consistent with the organisation's explicit mission, namely to serve the interests of National Olympic Committees (NOCs) and in particular those in greatest need. In addition, the paper reviews the extent to which Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) states have been able to avail themselves of such resources. While OS funding has tended at the level of the World Programme, to reflect a tendency to favour NOCs from less affluent economies, this tendency towards progressive funding has been weakening and to some extent reversed, since the mid-2000s. Funding of GCC states has tended to be well below that of other NOCs of comparable dimensions, reflecting the fact that Gulf States have not followed a ‘linear’ path to ‘modernity’ in sport. Such a linear path might be characterised as in an initial concern with growing participation, improving governance (through issues such as women's role in sport) and enhancing performance, but GCC states have instead focused on elements of a what might be characterised as a post-modern approach in the form of hosting of major events and the celebration of spectacle, and thus drawing relatively modestly on OS resources.