Examining the Impact of Pedagogy on Student Application of Learning: Acquiring,Sharing, and Using Knowledge for Organizational Decision Making

In this pilot research we examine the impact of two leadership development training programs on the ability of students to acquire knowledge, share knowledge, and apply knowledge for organizational decision making. One program emphasized concepts and case‐based application based on a technical learning paradigm. The other program used a game‐based computer simulation, Virtual Leader, grounded in an experiential or situated learning paradigm. After training, students from both programs engaged in a complex in‐basket exercise to examine the quality of their leadership and managerial abilities. In this exercise, participants from each training intervention worked with their trained cohort to accomplish a day of managerial work. Participants were observed and their individual and collective actions and decisions on behalf of the organization were evaluated. Using qualitative research we compared the organizational decisions associated with each group to determine which pedagogical technique resulted in the most effective application of student learning. While technical learning pedagogy was associated with greater information acquisition, the game‐based computer simulation (an experiential, social‐interaction oriented pedagogy) was associated with better decision quality and more shared cognition. Evidence suggests that students taught with the game‐based computer simulation collectively demonstrated a greater ability to apply what they learned.     

The psychology of writing development—And its implications for assessment

This article reviews key developmental theories that have been adopted by writing development researchers over the last fifty years. It describes how researchers have translated these theories into definitions of writing development capable of influencing curricular design and interpretations of student writing and explores the implications for assessment extended by each theory. This piece examines both the variations in assessment practices/emphases suggested by different developmental theories as well as the shared assumptions about growth to which they lead, arguing that these commonalities should guide efforts to foreground development in the assessment of writing.     

New teachers of color and culturally responsive teaching in an era of educational accountability: Caught in a double bind

The purpose of this article is to examine how and to what extent schools’ responses to accountability policies in the United States influence the ability of new teachers of color to draw on their own and their students’ cultural resources to engage in culturally responsive teaching. A 5-year study of 17 new teachers of color reveals that these teachers identified three principal tensions which correspond to the three dimensions of culturally responsive teaching: (a) cultural and linguistic relevance versus standardization, (b) community of learners versus teacher transmission, and (c) social justice versus enhanced test scores. The teachers also described two mechanisms by which accountability-based programs and policies were enforced: fear of monitoring and internalizing the link between testing and educational opportunity. We applied the metaphor of “double bind” to explain the tensions and enforcement mechanisms encountered by these teachers. The “double bind” forced the new teachers of color to enact contradictory systemic demands promoted by government policy and the teaching profession and exacted an individual toll. We conclude with implications for policy, practice, and research.     

E-learning by design

Teachers in higher education throughout the world are making use of course-management systems (CMS) to support their courses. None of these teachers grew up with using a CMS; they must themselves learn how to use them effectively at the same time that they are using them with their students. While institutions commonly provide some sort of introductory workshop for CMS use, these workshops have limitations in terms of their transfer value into practice. In this paper we discuss an example of embedded justin-time support within the CMS itself to help teachers learn how to use a CMS efficiently but also so that both they and their students can take on new roles in the learning process. A new form of computer-based support for teaching and learning has emerged since the late 1990s. It is a system of integrated tools that makes use of both database and web functionalities in order to make a web environment available to support a course or learning event. One name for such a system is a course-management system (CMS). Course-management systems are new tools for teachers and thus teachers must learn how to use them in a technical sense as well as in a meaningful sense. By meaningful, we mean not only to increase the efficiency of participating in a course but also to enrich and extend learning processes.     

Views of South African Chemistry Students in University Bridging Programs on the Reliability of Experimental Data

This paper reports an investigation of the status of procedural knowledge in chemistry amongst students entering into bridging programs at two South African universities. The students answered a questionnaire which investigated their perceived reasons for repeating readings and their ideas about handling data. Students also answered a question on laboratory apparatus which was used to assess their laboratory experience. The overall responses were analysed, as well as their relationship to laboratory experience and home language. The findings show that students overall tend to repeat in order to get a recurring reading. Very few students were able to use a line of best fit for a set of graphical data. There is some relationship between their responses and previous laboratory experiences, but little fundamental difference between the responses of the two main language groups. Some implications for tertiary education in chemistry are discussed.     

Sustaining Reform-Based Science Teaching of Preservice and Inservice Elementary School Teachers

This study examined the influence of a professional development program based around commercially available inquiry science curricula on the teaching practices of 27 beginning elementary school teachers and their teacher mentors over a 2 year period. A quantitative rubric used to score inquiry elements and use of data in videotaped lessons indicated that education students assigned to inquiry-based classrooms during their methods course or student teaching year outperformed students without this experience. There was also a significant positive effect of multi-year access to the kit-based program on mentor teaching practice. Recent inclusion of a “writing in science” program in both preservice and inservice training has been used to address the lesson element that received lowest scores—evaluation of data and its use in scientific explanation.