Walking backwards into the future: Indigenous wisdom within design education

This research parallels Tongan academic Hūfanga ‘Okusitino Māhina’s assertions in the 1994 Contemporary Pacific article Our Sea of Islands, that ‘People are thought to walk forward into the past and walk backward into the future, both taking place in the present, where the past and the future are constantly mediated in the ever-transforming present’ alongside those of Professor Terry Irwin and fellow Transition Designers in which they discuss the use of Indigenous Wisdom to enable designing for the Long Now as defined by Brand in his 1999 book The Clock for the Long Now: Time and Responsibility. In the 2015 Transition Design Monograph Irwin asserts that, ‘Transition Design draws on knowledge and wisdom from the past to conceive solutions in the present with future generations in mind’. This paper draws on the pre-industrial wisdom of indigenous knowledge, specifically that of the Pacific regions, Moana, who have lived and designed sustainably in-place for generations to illustrate the value it holds for the formulation of sustainable and sustaining futures.     

Emotions involved in encountering classroom diversity: Beginning teachers’ stories

This article addresses emotions involved in encountering classroom diversity as appearing in beginning teachers’ stories. Previous research has pointed out that teachers’ emotions related to growing classroom diversity are seldom addressed, although increasing classroom diversity has been distinguished as a significant emotional challenge for teachers. In this article, teachers’ work is viewed as relational and moral work, in which emotions are inherently present. We conceptualise emotions as simultaneously social and individual. Instead of predefining the term ‘diversity’, we are interested in what kind of classroom diversity seems to become meaningful in teachers’ stories. The data consists of narrative interviews with seven Finnish beginning teachers. The findings illustrate how, in beginning teachers’ stories, students are both categorised and approached as unique individuals. Furthermore, the findings show diverse ways that emotions are present in teachers’ stories about classroom diversity, and how the working community also affects teachers’ emotions. We argue that teachers’ stories related to emotions and classroom diversity can be interpreted as moral negotiations, in which teachers’ own values and ideas of teaching are challenged. The findings of this article may add understanding of teacher–student relationships in diverse classrooms, and are also significant for teacher educators and teacher education programmes.     

Time for inclusion?

This article examines the constraints of modern temporality which are antithetical to the careful consideration that working with diverse learners requires for the development of inclusive, democratic education. We take up the conceptual construct of time to explore how it mediates systemic practices that impact policy positions of inclusion in initial teacher education and schooling. Our analysis demonstrates that temporality shapes the possibilities of inclusive practice within which a dominant agenda of compliance frames classroom complexities – both in schooling and higher education environments – into fragmented and preconceived responses to challenging situations. Education systems position educators in risk discourses concentrated on compliance and performance, in part through an emphasis that is placed on the diagnosis of learner differences and subsequent compartmentalised responses. Through schisms in modern time, we demonstrate the ways in which inclusion, like other educational demands, may be supported through a diffraction in time rather than subjugated to it.     

工学结合实践课堂的设计与实施

工学结合人才培养模式是高等职业教育探索的方向,通过课堂学习和实际工作相结合,工学结合实践活动,使学生在实践中学习,在学习中实践,使学生既掌握了理论知识,又锻炼了实际操作能力,有利于学生职业能力的培养。     

信息概念对课堂教学的启示

教学过程是一个师生间的信息传递过程,信息论的原理贯穿了整个教学过程,运用信息论的理论和方法研究教学过程,指导教学实践,对于改变教学思维,改进教学方法和手段,提高教学质量,具有重要而深远的意义。本文应用信息论的观点,从信息概念着手分析课堂教学,重点探讨了消息和信息熵概念对课堂教学的启示。     

课堂教学中良好师生关系的构建策略

良好的师生关系是课堂教学活动有效进行的必要条件,它影响着学生的道德发展和学习动机,也促使教师自身的不断进步。师生的相互了解是建立良好师生关系的基础。在新时代．我们需要不断研究二者的关系,积极努力地构建良好的师生关系,从而进一步提高课堂有效教学。     

Exploring and evaluating differentiated assessment practices of in-service teachers for components of differentiation

Classroom assessment is central to effective teaching and learning, making assessment literacy a core component for teacher education. The present study explores self-reported, differentiated assessment practices of Malaysian in-service teachers. The practices were evaluated using an analytic framework that was developed based upon the existing literature on components of differentiation. Data were collected from 32 in-service teachers using open-ended survey questionnaires. Twelve of the teachers also participated in in-depth interviews. Documents provided by the teachers were also analyzed. Data from the open-ended survey were analyzed using NVivo11 to develop codes for the analytic framework. The findings offer insights into teachers’ knowledge, application, and interpretation of differentiated assessment practices. The discussion explores teachers’ explanations of their own practices and, further, recommends ways to improve knowledge and application of differentiated assessment. The implications of the findings are discussed for assessment literacy-related professional development for teachers, school management and policies to facilitate implementation of differentiated assessment.     

Skirting the Sketch: An Analysis of Sketch Inhibition within Contemporary Design Higher Education

Sketch inhibition is regularly alluded to by educators within design higher education and one with increasingly marked effects on industry. Over the past thirty years, students have been observed to engage less with the manual processes of design development process in favour of other activities perceived as more attractive, to the detriment of their development as effective designers. This article offers an evaluation of literature which supports the importance of sketching to the design process across a variety of disciplines, its anatomy and functions and demonstrates its role in cognitive support, as a language, a means of reflection, communication and storage of information and the micro‐processes it embodies. Initial findings regarding the symptoms of sketch inhibition are presented: from avoidance of studio sessions and minimal design development, to an overreliance on digital tools. It considers causes, ranging from lacking skill‐sets, psycho‐social, to technological, and although further investigation is recommended to establish depth and enable development of an appropriate pedagogical framework for its management within HE, various methods are offered at this stage for use by educators: these include fine art exercises, a rigorous pursuit of quantity and even paper type.     

Effects of flipping the classroom on learning outcomes and satisfaction: A meta-analysis

In a flipped classroom, students study instructional material before class and apply this material during class. To provide a statistical synthesis of current research on effects of flipped classrooms, we conducted meta-analyses that included 114 studies which compared flipped and non-flipped classrooms in secondary and postsecondary education. We found a small positive effect on learning outcomes, but no effect was found on student satisfaction regarding the learning environment. In addition, we found considerable heterogeneity between studies. Moderator analyses showed that students in flipped classrooms achieve higher learning outcomes when the face-to-face class time was not reduced compared to non-flipped classrooms, or when quizzes were added in the flipped classrooms. We conclude that a flipping the classroom (FTC) approach is a promising pedagogical approach when appropriately designed. Our results provide insights into effective instructional FTC design characteristics that support an evidence-informed application of FTC.     

Defying the dominant discourse: why contesting neoliberalism needs critical pedagogy in economics education

Both the dominant narrative in the economics discipline and the predominant mode of delivery of an economics education in colleges and universities mutually reinforce the authority of neoliberalism. This paper argues that a counterhegemonic pedagogy in addition to a pluralist curriculum equips students with the knowledge they need to exercise their own judgment as future economists, business leaders and policy makers. Beyond opening discussions of alternative theoretical and methodological approaches or separately, diversifying modes of delivery to promote critical thinking, an economics education engaging critical pedagogy can create the space students need to discuss not only the different assumptions about material relations and individual behavior intrinsic to various economic models, but also the assumed social relations in both the models studied and the construction of which knowledge defines economics as a field of study.