Let’s Draw a Picture

In an undergraduate analysis course taught by one of the authors, three prompts are regularly given: (i) What do we know? (ii) What do we need to show? (iii) Let’s draw a picture. We focus on the third prompt and its role in helping students develop their confidence in learning how to construct proofs. Specific examples of visual models and their impact on student work are presented.     

Platform learning and on-demand labor: sociotechnical projections on the future of education and work

Platform learning harnesses the operating capabilities and logics of digital platforms such as Uber and Amazon to imagine synergies between on-demand labor and on-demand learning, transforming living into learning, and learning into labor. This paper seeks to make three original contributions to critical analysis of platform learning. First, as an analytical foundation, it brings together two distinct strands of scholarship on the evolving relationship between learning and late capitalism, and the digitalization of education policy and governance, synthesizing them in relation to questions concerning labor and work in the emergent on-demand economy. Second, it draws on these ideas to engage the learning and work projections of two strategic forecasting organizations, Institute for the Future and Knowledge Works, as case studies of platform learning. Third, the last section of the paper builds on the sociotechnical projections of these organizations as the basis for a critique of the political economy of platform learning, highlighting four areas requiring further inquiry: (1) value extraction; (2) exploitation of labor; (3) efficacy and inequality; (4) imagination.     

Beliefs About Academic Knowledge

Individuals' beliefs about knowledge (i.e., epistemological beliefs) have become the focus of inquiry in the educational and psychological literatures. Based on an analysis of those literatures, we first propose that epistemological beliefs are multidimensional and multilayered. That is, individuals possess general beliefs about knowledge, as well as beliefs about more specific forms of knowledge (e.g., academic knowledge). Second, we examine the relationship between epistemological beliefs and learning in order to understand why such beliefs are important to educators. Third, we question whether beliefs about academic knowledge are truly general (i.e., unwavering across academic domains) or have a character reflective of the domain to which they are associated (i.e., domain specific). Finally, we explore some of the common problems in the research and suggest topics for future study.     

Instructional practices in reformed undergraduate STEM learning environments: a study of instructor and student behaviors in biology courses

ABSTRACT

Theoretically, organisational culture, instructor training, and learning space design influence how faculty teach STEM courses. Previous studies have used classroom observation protocols to characterise the range of teaching practices in mostly teacher-centered, traditional STEM classrooms. In this study, we examined the classroom behaviour of 13 STEM faculty teaching biology courses in a reformed undergraduate STEM learning environment. Our findings indicate that instructors teaching in this reformed environment guided student learning (58.4?±?1.9%) almost three times more than they presented information (20.0?±?2.2%). Students worked individually or in groups and talked to the whole class (57.1?±?1.8%) 1.5 times more than they received information (35.5?±?1.9%). We found significant positive correlation between ‘instructor presenting’ and ‘students receiving’ information (r?=?0.743, p?=?1.4?×?10^?4) and ‘instructor guiding’ and ‘student working and talking’ in class (r?=?0.605, p?=?7.2?×?10^?5), suggesting that instructors can change their own classroom behaviours and expect concurrent change in their students’ behaviours. Finally, sequencing teaching practices in high active-engagement classrooms showed instructors move and guide student group work and lead whole class discussions before lecturing to students, which could lead to deeper learning of conceptual knowledge. We discuss insights from these findings that have implications for acculturating evidence-based teaching practices in STEM departments.     

Reading Into the Future: Competence for the 21st Century

In this theoretical contribution, our purpose is to examine the nature of reading competence as it unfolds at the present and to project that nature into the future. More specifically, we ask what it will mean to be a competent reader for the 21st century and what combination of knowledge, beliefs, abilities, and processes that competence will require. To address this question, we begin by presenting our view of reading as essentially multidimensional, developmental, and goal directed, and of the development of reading competence as framed by research on expertise development and on the role of epistemic beliefs. With that view in mind, we then identify salient features of the current context and how they might present challenges that will make the development of competent readers even more vital as we move into the future. Finally, we forward three suggestions for supporting readers in their growth toward competence for this century.     

Conversations with Five Highly Successful Female Educational Psychologists: Patricia Alexander,Carol Dweck,Jacquelynne Eccles,Mareike Kunter,and Tamara van Gog

Educational Psychology Review - Previous studies have investigated the characteristics, influencing factors, and working strategies of highly successful educational psychologists. These studies,...     

Understanding Student Attempts to Find a Line of Fit

The least squares method of fitting a line is not one that naturally occurs to students. We present three tasks to understand student views on how lines may be fit.     

Education and labor market risk: Understanding the role of data cleaning

This paper examines whether conclusions about the relationship between education and labor market risk depend on the use of commonly applied procedures to clean data of extreme values. The analysis uses fifteen years of data from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics to demonstrate that conclusions about the relationship between education and labor market risk are sensitive to how extreme values of labor income are treated. The untrimmed estimates imply that college graduates experience 75% less transitory labor market risk than high school dropouts. However, applying commonly used trimming procedures results in estimates of a one standard deviation transitory labor market shock for high school dropouts being reduced by between $2700 and $4500, or 14% and 24% of annual earnings. The results demonstrate that seemingly innocuous sample selection procedures can have substantive implications.