Using information and communications technology as a pedagogical tool: a survey of initial teacher education in Scotland

Abstract

In common with other parts of the United Kingdom, teacher education in Scotland is facing a period of rapidly changing demands with respect to the use of information and communications technology (ICT), together with high levels of investment, rising expectations, and increased scrutiny and accountability. In this article, we present an account of a national survey of the ICT skills and attitudes of students entering and exiting from the teacher education institutions in Scotland in the session 1996-97. The students are extremely positive in their attitudes, their enthusiasm for ICT use in education is high and their aspirations clear – they expect ICT to permeate their professional work now and in the future. Their experiences during their period of training fall considerably short of their expectations. We discuss the reasons for some of the difficulties and consider the challenges faced by tutors in initial teacher education courses who must now ‘model the message’ of a learner-centred approach to the education of their students.     

Connecting to the Good Life through outdoor adventure leadership experiences designed for Indigenous youth

Indigenous voices are largely silent in the outdoor education and adventure therapy literature. The purpose of this research collaboration was to understand how a 10-day outdoor adventure leadership experience (OALE) may promote resilience and well-being for Indigenous youth through their participation in the program. The process was examined through a community-based participatory research project that sought insight from the perspectives of one First Nations community in Canada. The OALE was implemented with six different groups for a total of 43 youth participants (ages 11.9–18.7 years) from Wikwemikong Unceded Indian Reserve in northeastern Ontario. Field data were collected from multiple sources including participant interviews, journals, focus groups, and talking circles. Using a critical ethnographic lens, we analyzed the data inductively to understand how the OALE promoted resilience and well-being. We listened to Indigenous voices, adhered to principles of Indigenous coding for thematic content and respected Indigenous ways of knowing for interpreting results. The process of connecting to the Good Life (Anishinaabe Bimaadziwin) or waking up (nsidwaaswok) to the Good Life emerged as the dominant theme. Connecting to the Good Life may offer a simple yet compelling way to understand the net impact of the OALE.     

Roles,practices and contexts for acting as agents of social justice – student teachers’ perspectives

ABSTRACT

Student teachers are oftentimes encouraged to apply theoretical principles of social justice to their professional practice. However, this can be problematic when theoretical knowledge is contested or if it is inconsistent with the practices in their future workplaces. Studies in this area often examine student teachers’ beliefs and understanding of their roles without taking account of how concrete working contexts shape what they see as possible in their practice. This study explored how students in two teacher education programmes based at the University of Edinburgh perceived their roles, practices and contexts for acting as agents of social justice. Mixed methods were used for data generation and triangulation including a questionnaire survey (n = 299) and scenario-based interviews (n = 9) to explore how students think about social justice issues in context. Student teachers generally saw agency for social justice as part of their role. Their understanding of the ways of addressing context-embedded issues of social justice focused on classroom practices while they raised concerns about how their practice depends on others in the system. We discuss the implications of these findings for teacher education.     

Strategic Facilitation of Problem-Based Discussion for Teacher Professional Development

Engaging teachers in discussing and analyzing problems of practice has great potential for teacher professional development, yet little is known about how to facilitate such discussion. This study examined the strategies that experienced facilitators used to promote productive discussion among science teachers. Participants were 6 facilitators and 35 in-service teachers who participated in a professional development program that adopted a problem-based learning approach for teacher learning. Data analysis showed that experienced facilitators used a variety of strategies in their facilitation, including questioning, revoicing, making connections, clarifying, reframing, summarizing, role playing, meta-talk, and modeling. In particular, questioning and revoicing were the most important strategies in all sessions studied, accounting for about half of the facilitators' talk. Analysis further revealed both productive and disruptive characteristics of questioning and revoicing. In addition, analysis found that teachers were able to make progress in participating in the problem-based learning discourse in different ways. This study has implications for research on teacher professional development, problem-based learning, and learner-centered instruction.     

“The Coat Traps All Your Body Heat”: Heterogeneity as Fundamental to Learning

This article explores heterogeneity as fundamental to learning. Inspired by Bakhtin's notion of heteroglossia, a design team consisting of an experienced classroom teacher and 2 researchers investigated how a class of 3rd and 4th graders came to understand disciplinary points of view on heat, heat transfer, and the particulate nature of matter. Through a series of planned and unplanned encounters, official versions of the Second Law of Thermodynamics and the particulate view of matter were juxtaposed with varied domains of experience of heat transfer and phase change in water. We analyze the children's discourse to examine how they populated these phenomena with meaning and what they learned in the process. We conclude by describing key principles and a conundrum that emerged from this research.     

Recruitment of Minorities into Natural Resources Educational Programs

A look at programs aimed at making affirmative action work, at promoting some other form of equity, or at achieving equity and excellence.     

Social Justice Through Service Learning: Community Colleges as Ground Zero

Community colleges educate students from both oppressed and marginalized groups, yet there is almost no literature on community colleges and issues of social justice. Student participation in service learning has been tentatively linked to development of a social justice lens. In this study, I analyze community college students' post-course civic engagement surveys to investigate the effect of service learning experiences on the emergence of any of three types of citizenship: personally responsible citizenship, participatory citizenship, or justice-oriented citizenship. Findings were mixed for personally responsible citizenship, but there were significant data supporting the development of participatory citizenship and justice-oriented citizenship in students who had taken between two and five previous courses that had included service learning. These encouraging findings support the idea that service learning plays a role in helping community college students transform inequitable structures in their communities.     

Adult Students at Two-Year Colleges: A Longitudinal Study

Abstract

Adults constitute a continually increasing proportion of students at two-year colleges. While adult students presumably have special needs, little is known about them. This study focused on the characteristics and needs of 17,137 students enrolled in 100 randomly selected two-year colleges across the country, separately for different age levels. Using a wide variety of variables collected at entrance, after one term, at graduation, and three years after graduation, differences by sex among the following four age groups were ascertained: age 19 or younger, 20–24, 25–39, and 40 or older. Major trends with age, differences among age groups, and interactions between age and sex were found for a number of variables: abilities, grades, attrition, self-perceptions, aspirations and goals, competencies, job values and preferences, satisfaction with and rating of various aspects of the college, expressed needs for help, extracurricular participation, outside work during school, postgraduate jobs obtained and how obtained, job satisfaction, percent going to and graduating from four-year programs, and preference for entering a two-year program if they had to do it all over again. Adult students do have many special needs that vary with age level. We think a repeat of the study but comparing across other groupings of adults would be desirable, even though extreme diversity also exists within such groups. Another consideration is that many new kinds of adult students will in the future be entering postsecondary education in large numbers.