Teaching and Learning IT in Secondary Schools: Towards a New Pedagogy?

New Technologies, particularly Information and Communications Technologies (ICTs), have caused profound changes throughout society. A generation of children is emerging already immersed in a multimedia 'data storm' (Moshell, 1995). Their understandings and expectations of the world are mediated through their experiences of multimedia and ICTs and these differ from those of preceding generations nourished on linear technologies. Educating these children using models of teaching and learning that are grounded in concepts of knowing and understanding that are linear and finite will not help them succeed in a technological, global future where multi-disciplinary, holistic approaches predominate. The conflict between the traditional and the new in English secondary schools is particularly intense in the teaching and learning of Information Technology (IT). Teaching and learning IT are inherently constructivist activities, and IT teachers who attempt to implement learning programmes designed from predominantly behaviourist perspectives quickly find that these are less effective. A new pedagogy is needed that is theoretically sound, that goes beyond a cookbook approach, and that guides teachers in using constructivist approaches within an education system grounded in an inimical behaviourist paradigm. This paper takes some tentative steps in this direction. © 1999 IFIP, published by Kluwer Academic Publishers     

Interaction of efficacy,commitment, and expectations in the formation of faculty attitudes toward collective bargaining

A model of the formation of faculty attitudes toward collective bargaining is developed which reflects recent developments in theory and research in organizational behavior. The model is an alternative to those grounded in need-satisfaction theories and takes into account interaction effects among variables. Hypotheses are formulated which explore how faculty members develop: (1) beliefs about, and effective responses toward, their work environment; and (2) propensities to wish to change that environment by implementating collective bargaining. Empirical data are analyzed to assess the main effects of, and interactions among, organizational commitment, perceived personal efficacy, and expectations with respect to the impact of bargaining.An earlier draft of this article was presented before the Association for the Study of Higher Education, Chicago, March 1978.     

Differential adoption of study approaches within individual students

It has been claimed that the study approach adopted by a student will vary dependent, in part, upon the nature of the learning task at hand. The same student will change approaches from one task to another. The prime evidence for this claim seems to derive from two sources; reports from interview studies, and questionnaire studies comparing separate groups of students enrolled in different courses. In the present study questionnaire responses were collected from students asked to report comparatively on their learning approaches in two course units taken concurrently, and on their perceptions of how those same two units had been presented. The general support which was indeed found for the approach versus learning context claim was thus qualitatively different to, and genuinely strengthened, that from interview studies and that from between-groups studies. Moreover, relationships found between marks and both approach and learning context, within each compared course unit, provided support for a context to approach to performance model of influence.The research reported in this paper was supported from the recurrent funds of the Higher Education Advisory and Research Unit, Monash University.     

The organisation of academic knowledge: A comparative perspective

How is academic knowledge organized? Does thisvary from country to country, and, if so, how?This paper explores these questions through anexamination of some of the data included in theCommonwealth Universities Yearbook 2001.In particular, an analysis is presented of thedifferent names given to basic academic units(departments, schools and/or faculties) inAustralia, Nigeria and the United Kingdom.Evidence is provided regarding forms ofinstitutional organization, and of the varyingstrength of different disciplines or fields ofstudy.     

When and why do initially high-achieving poor children fall behind?

In this paper, we examine the trajectories of initially higher- and lower-achieving children from lower and higher socio-economic status families from primary school through to university in England for the first time. We also explore what explains these trajectories. This enables us to provide new insights into when and why the performance of children with similar initial achievement diverges on the basis of their socio-economic background. Our results indicate that pupils from poor backgrounds who are higher achievers in primary school fall behind their better-off but lower-achieving peers during secondary school. This suggests that secondary school may be a critical period to intervene to prevent poor children from falling behind their richer peers. Our analysis suggests that there is less divergence in performance between pupils from different socio-economic backgrounds who attend the same schools. This result is particularly strong for children with low initial achievement. While we remain cautious about the implications of these findings, they provide suggestive evidence that schools (or the sorting of pupils into schools) play an important role in explaining why the test scores of richer and poorer children diverge over time.     

A perplexed story

This piece of life‐story—or, to give it its grand title, auto‐ethnographic research—owes its initial impetus in becoming a written project to a photograph someone took of me in a London secondary school staffroom early on in my teaching career. The young man in the photograph peers out at me from my office wall. Sometime last year, he began to compel me to dig around in filing cabinets for the journals, occasional poems and other dusty relics of a teaching life; it seems he has helped me to recollect the social and historical experiences that have affected my development.