Transitions and re-engagement through second chance education

The issue of school non-completion continues to be a matter of concern for policy makers and practitioners in Australia today. Despite the efforts of governments and school systems to improve participation and retention rates, often one in three students drop out of school before completing Year 12. Major factors influence non-completion and militate against young people remaining at school. Findings from recent research indicate that some non-completers choose to re-enter education through second chance programs outside the school environment. The argument for second chance education presented in this paper is developed within the context of the ‘risk’ society and in relation to recent theories of youth transitions.     

Time Management in the Work Economy of A Class, A Case Study: Integration of Cabri in Primary School Mathematics Teaching

Time is a constraint but also a condition of operating within a didactic system. Don’t we need to distinguish several kinds of times? Our study will focus on teachers’ time management strategies. We will identify these strategies by taking into account two temporal dimensions – didactic time and time capital – and the rate at which the former advances relative to the latter, called the pace of an activity, a lesson or a teaching sequence. Those strategies have been identified in the specific context of the integration of the Cabri-geometry dynamic geometry software in the daily work of a French primary school.     

Defining the future: an interrogation of education and time

This paper examines notions of ‘educational time’ with particular reference to the work of Basil Bernstein. It focuses closely on the 1967 Plowden report as a particularly appropriate policy case study to demonstrate how different constructions of time can exist within the same document. It then develops educational models originally mapped out by Bernstein, arguing that a full understanding of the areas of consensus and conflict among these models is vital if we are to understand how teaching professionals think about the future. The paper addresses the following questions: How does time affects education? What influence does this have on educational outcomes? How does this relate to public policy initiatives? Assuming a tacit, collective understanding of time and the future can undermine the very policy intentions a government might be seeking to promulgate.     

Cross-cultural “distance”, “friction” and “flow”: exploring the experiences of pre-service teachers on international practicum

The focus of this paper is to illustrate Australian regional pre-service teachers' perceptions of an international practicum: their cross-cultural understanding, notions of privilege and teacher/professional identity development. Findings indicate that there were three overlapping dimensions of cross-cultural understanding for pre-service teachers: distance, friction and flow. At times students acknowledged the value of their placement, yet indicated a lack of empathy and engagement with the culture visited. At other times there was clear frustration at the cultural differences, alongside a growth in awareness. The fullest dimension was where pre-service teachers and their students learnt from each other, signalling a sharing towards cross-cultural understanding. Implications of these findings aim to inform how international practicums are designed in the future, as well as signalling directions for further research relating to these border crossings.     

Pedagogy and possibility thinking in the early years

Connecting to current work in the area of creative pedagogies, this paper reports findings of an exploratory study that sought to identify what characterises possibility thinking in young children's learning experiences and how teachers’ pedagogical practice fosters this critical aspect of creativity. It focuses in particular on pedagogy, seeking to demonstrate how approaches adopted facilitated children's possibility thinking. Possibility thinking has been conceptualised as being central to creative learning although its role, as manifest in the learning engagement of children and the pedagogical strategies of practitioners has not been fully illuminated. The co-participative research team involved in this study comprised staff in an early childhood centre, in an infant and a primary school, working collaboratively with three university-based researchers. The 12-month long segment of a longer study employed various data collection methods including video-stimulated review (VSR) to facilitate reflection, critical conversations, classroom observation, interviews and examination of planning documents. The paper illuminates the perspectives and embedded values that the teachers expressed whilst reflecting upon their practice, and highlights common pedagogical themes, including the practice of ‘standing back’, profiling learner agency and creating time and space. Particular strategies were employed by each of the teachers. These approaches appeared to foster possibility thinking in young learners. In addition, the paper considers the development of the teachers’ thinking through the phases of the research process and presents a model for conceptualising a pedagogy of possibility thinking.     

CILT2000: Community Tools

Community tools are technologies designed to foster social processes of learning through active inquiry, project-based learning, and related collaborative pedagogical approaches. Current research and development in this field are moving from generic tool design towards the development of sociotechnical systems that address learning in relation to specific domains of knowledge or activity and social issues such as equitable access to learning opportunities.     

Immediate and long-term effects of a cognitive intervention on intelligence,self-regulation,and academic achievement

The main purpose of this study was to evaluate the effects of a package of activities, knows as “Portfolio”, on cognitive functioning, self-regulation, and academic achievement. The study was carried out with a group of 40 students from Compulsory Secondary Education (mean age 13 years old) during 12 hours distributed over two school years. A quasi-experimental pretest-posttest-1 and posttest-2 design was employed. Treatment consisted of the administration of specifically selected tasks, assessed in previous studies, from the psycho-pedagogical Instrumental Enrichment Program, the Philosophy for Children Program, and Project Intelligence. The students were evaluated in the criteria variables at the beginning and at the end of treatment, and once again two years later. The results indicate that the procedure was effective in all the variables studied and that gains observed at posttest-1 were maintained for at least two years after the intervention. Some relevant conclusions and suggestions at the educational and scientific level are commented upon.     

Tennessee Promise: A Response to Organizational Change

Community colleges in Tennessee, either directly or indirectly, experienced unprecedented change as a result of Tennessee Promise. The present study explored how student support service administrators at three community colleges responded to organizational change as a result of the Tennessee Promise legislation. Investigators selected community colleges for the multi-site case study because the legislative impact would be actualized by the preparations made to serve incoming Promise recipients. The delivery of orientation services framed organizational change because the service staff facilitate connections and provide information to incoming students. Challenges like a shifting population, ill-equipped infrastructure, inadequate remediation support, heightened interest for social engagement opportunities, misinformation, and unmet fiscal needs left administrators seeking coherence through the change process. Investigators found community college administrators react to change similarly. Administrators acknowledged change as continuous, created a culture of innovation among stakeholders, and were not afraid to fail as responses to the organizational change phenomenon.