Multimodal texts in Higher Education and the implications for writing pedagogy

Although studies on writing pedagogy and academic literacies have examined changing genres in tertiary education, there has not necessarily been an emphasis on how a range of modes and media have influenced texts in various disciplines. This paper explores the influence and incorporation of the visual into student texts in Higher Education, looking at the semiotic weighting of modes, conventions and functions of images, visual / verbal linkages and visual composition. These aspects of multimodal texts have implications for the ways in which we teach ‘academic literacies’ practices and writing as multimodal composition to students.     

Engaging students emotionally: the role of emotional intelligence in predicting cognitive and affective engagement in higher education

Student engagement is a key predictor of academic performance, persistence and retention in higher education. While many studies have identified how aspects of the college environment influence engagement, fewer have specifically focused on emotional intelligence (EI). In this study, we sought to explore whether EI could predict cognitive and/or affective engagement in a sample of undergraduate psychology students in Ireland. Ninety-one students completed two forms of the student engagement instrument, rating current engagement and retrospective secondary school engagement, along with the trait EI (TEI) questionnaire. After controlling for academic ability, gender and school engagement, multiple regression analyses found TEI to be a positive predictor of both cognitive and affective engagement. Previous academic performance acted as an additional predictor of cognitive engagement, while retrospective affective school engagement predicted current affective engagement. These results suggest that interventions aimed at increasing EI may have positive implications for many aspects of student engagement, and hence performance at third level.     

Facilitating Professional Development during International Practicum: Understanding our Work as Teacher Educators through Critical Incidents

This collaborative self-study details the experiences of an Australian teacher educator and a Canadian teacher educator, who led teacher candidates on international practicum placements to the Cook Islands and Kenya respectively. Focusing on critical incidents, they collaboratively analyzed dilemmas that occurred when providing professional development sessions for local teachers during these placements. These dilemmas required the teacher educators to think deeply about their beliefs and practices in these contexts. Findings from the study included the teacher educator’s tendency to make assumptions about good teaching and learning practices that were reflective of their personal pedagogical values and beliefs; their discomfort with their perceptions of some neo‐colonial practices within these international practicum sites and uncertainty about how to navigate the resultant tensions; and, the need to view the work of teacher educators though a new cultural lens when working in transnational contexts. Implications for teacher educators working with local hosting teachers during international placements include the need to understand and acknowledge the complexity of this dimension of teacher educators’ work, and for teacher educators to engage in parallel learning journeys with the teacher candidates they accompany. This involves critically reflecting on the experiences, assumptions, and beliefs that they bring to their new contexts, as well as adopting a global perspective and a deep consciousness of how one is perceived by others who are culturally, racially, or linguistically different.     

Creative block play

Blocks should be part of the daily free choice activity in early childhood settings for children between the ages of two and six. Large enough segments of time need to be allotted for blockbuilding activities, so that children can build various structures and also have enough time to use blocks for social and dramatic play. Eugene F. Provenzo, Jr. is Associate Professor of Education at the University of Miami. Arlene Brett is Associate Professor of Elementary Education at the University of Miami. This article is excerpted from The Complete Block Book, ©1983 Syracuse University Press, 1600 Jamesville Avenue, Syracuse, New York 13210. Photographs © 1983 by Michael Carlebach. The book is available from the publisher in paperback edition for $12.95 (plus $1.25 for postage and handling).     

Bridging the implementation gap: a teacher‐as‐learner approach to teaching and learning policy

A major dilemma facing higher educational institutions around the world is how to achieve quality outcomes for students in an increasingly internationalised and competitive environment. To effect change in teaching and learning, we advocate a teacher‐as‐learner approach to the implementation of teaching and learning policy. Our approach has been influenced by approaches to change management as well as contemporary educational theories, such as constructive alignment and deep and surface approaches to learning. In this paper we use these approaches to evaluate the success of a policy initiative designed to encourage subject coordinators to use a faculty‐endorsed template to embed graduate attributes into their subject outlines. The difficulties experienced by teachers at the disciplinary level in using the subject outline template illustrate how a seemingly positive and well‐intentioned initiative can have a potentially minimal effect on teaching and learning practice and, as a consequence, student learning. We suggest that the Course Experience Questionnaire provides a useful model for evaluating not only teaching but also the management of teaching. As teachers responsible for the implementation of teaching and learning policies, we hope our views will provide a more integrated approach to teaching and learning changes in the higher educational context.     

Decolonising the curriculum: using graduate qualities to embed Indigenous knowledges at the academic cultural interface

The context of this paper is a strategy at a large Australian university that involves embedding a new graduate quality ‘cultural competence’ and lifting the profile of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultures, experiences and histories. It has been argued that the inclusion of Indigenous knowledges is essential for the decolonisation of our higher education institutions. Decolonisation involves removing the barriers that have silenced non-Western voices in our ‘multi-cultural’ higher education system and combatting the epistemic injustices of a system dominated by Western thought. In this paper, we suggest that our university’s suite of graduate qualities can provide a locus for work at the cultural interface between Indigenous and non-Indigenous knowledges. While these qualities may be firmly embedded within Western ways of knowing, being and doing, they can nonetheless be used to interrogate and revisit Western disciplinary knowledge construction and pedagogy so as to help bring about institutional change.     

Comparison of interrater reliability on the torrance tests of creative thinking for gifted and nongifted students

Despite their widespread use in identifying and evaluating programs for gifted and talented students, the Torrance Tests of Creative Thinking were standardized on samples that excluded gifted children. The interrater reliability of measures like the TTCT has been questioned repeatedly, yet studies with average students have demonstrated high interrater reliability. This study compares the interrater reliability of the TTCT for groups of gifted and nongifted elementary-school-aged students. Results indicated most interrater reliability coefficients exceeding .90 for both gifted and nongifted groups. However, multivariate analysis of variance indicated significant mean differences across the three self-trained raters for both gifted and nongifted groups. Consequently, use of a single scorer to evaluate TTCT protocols is recommended, especially where specific cutoff scores are used to select students.     

CONSTRUCT VALIDITY EVIDENCE FOR BRACKEN SCHOOL READINESS ASSESSMENT,THIRD EDITION,SPANISH FORM SCORES

Convergent and discriminant validity evidence was examined for scores on the Spanish Record Form of the Bracken School Readiness Assessment, Third Edition (BSRA‐3). Participants included a sample of 68 Hispanic, Spanish‐speaking children ages 4 to 5 years enrolled in preschool programs in Puerto Rico. Scores obtained from the BSRA‐3 Spanish Record Form were compared with scores from the Nonverbal Index of the Kaufman Assessment Battery for Children, Second Edition, and the Preschool and Kindergarten Behavior Scales, Second Edition. As expected, the correlation between school readiness scores and nonverbal intelligence was significant and moderate in the positive direction and the correlations between school readiness scores and behaviors were low. Discriminant validity evidence for BSRA‐3 scores was demonstrated using Steiger's Z test to compare correlations of similar and dissimilar constructs. As hypothesized, significant results emerged.     

Metaphors and Sense of Teaching: How these constructs influence novice teachers

The purpose of this study was to identify the root metaphors of secondary classroom teachers and to observe ways in which these constructs influence teachers’ work with their students and their environments. Specifically, five case studies of novice teachers were presented. Results indicated that the metaphor of life as a tree was the most common view and that all five participants held a similar childhood metaphor in which they tended to idealize childhood. Overall, the data showed the persistence of ideas that beginning teachers bring to their university preparation and those beliefs extend into actual classroom practice. Teacher development seemed to be more influenced by the schooling environment rather than the pre‐service preparation the teachers received. Furthermore, these novice teachers felt conflict between their held beliefs and the reality of teaching and schooling. Implications for teacher educators and future research are included.