Reconciliation of natural and social: Rethinking Rousseau’s educational theory

This article intends to re-examine Rousseau’s educational theory in the context of the nature/culture opposition. In contemporary discussions on the nature/culture dualism, it has been often stated that his educational theory is based on the assumption that a child is a natural being. However, the author demonstrates that Rousseau was instead committed to a duality of human nature; this influences his educational theory. In his model, human nature consists of a natural and a social side; these two parts are in conflict which seems unsolvable due to the present state of society. A child is regarded as a figure which is open to the future reconciliation of nature and culture. Thus, Rousseau’s model of education is presented not from the standpoint of the present state of society, but from the standpoint of an ideal state which might be built in the future. In addition, the examination of human duality allows one to show that Rousseau’s ideas on civil and private education are closely interrelated.     

“Gymnasts Are Like Wine,They Get Better With Age”: Becoming and Developing Adult Women’s Artistic Gymnasts

Women’s artistic gymnastics is commonly understood to require early entrance and intense training during childhood. Most gymnasts retire before reaching adulthood. In recent years, the gymnast population at the highest level has “aged.” In this article, we adopt a socio-pedagogical perspective to explore the training contexts, pubertal development, and associated learning 10 older elite gymnasts reported. We develop a cultural perspective of gymnast development and show that transitioning through puberty allowed the gymnasts to extend their careers. Support from their coaches and parents, self-reflective time, and genetic predispositions facilitated the transitioning. Through this, gymnasts gained control over self, body, relationships, and performance. In conclusion, we provide implications for gymnast development practice.     

How can a clinical research approach contribute to knowledge-building for the teaching profession?

This article explains what clinical research is and why it is necessary. The term ‘clinical’ refers to an academic way of solving practical problems. Clinical research starts from a view of science that not only acknowledges the value of rational analysis and empirical research, but also acknowledges the need for human skills and connoisseurship. In education, skills and connoisseurship can be developed by being responsibly engaged in classrooms. The (tacit) knowledge acquired in classrooms enables researchers to perceive more relevant factors in practice and enables them to understand the problems of teaching better. Clinical research is a type of action research in the sense that it acknowledges the epistemic function of doing, thus emphasizing the need for integrating scholarship and craftsmanship.     

Learning through engaging in retrospective reflection on a change process in an English course on workplace communication

This study describes a change process of implementing role-plays in a course on workplace communication in English, and of engaging in retrospective reflection. Considering that English education for nursing students in Taiwan has focused on the development of medical terminology and that students’ communicative competence is the main deficiency, the author conducted the change process in a medium-scale district hospital where she worked as a clinical nurse and in a nursing college where she taught English as a part-time teacher. The results show that engaging in retrospective reflection allows a teacher to construct knowledge from experience for professional growth.     

Assessment for learning: a catalyst for student self-regulation

The development of students as lifelong, self-regulating learners is a valued outcome of higher education. To this end, the current project investigated how students in an undergraduate course experienced and responded to a teaching–learning environment where they were expected to take responsibility for their learning. The pedagogic environment of this course was grounded in strategies and activities associated with assessment for learning (AfL). As such, students were expected to participate in activities that provided them with opportunities to exercise control over their learning. Data gathering comprised individual semi-structured interviews and the collection of artefacts. Findings indicated goals helped students know where they were going; exemplars provided insights into what was expected and what constituted quality work; course activities elicited evidence of learning; dialogic interactions around these generated feedback about understandings and progress; the evaluation of exemplars developed evaluative knowledge, skill and expertise; peer review and feedback provided an authentic context for evaluation and monitoring of works-in-progress. It was concluded that, while each of the AfL strategies contributed to student self-regulation, the full impact of AfL as a catalyst for self-regulated learning was realised in the cumulative and recursive effect these strategies had on students’ thinking, actions and feelings.     

Learning from direct instruction: Best prepared by several self-regulated or guided invention activities?

Learning from direct instruction can be enhanced by preparatory invention tasks: students invent an index that allows to differentiate a set of cases regarding important aspects (self-regulated). However, contradictory results have been found. As self-regulated activities often need practice, we tested whether the contradictory findings persist when students can practice inventing. We randomly assigned 99 eighth-grade students to two conditions (independent variable): they either invented twice (self-regulated; n = 49) or worked through worked solutions of the two tasks (guided; n = 50) before learning about ratios in physics from a lecture. Extraneous load, deep-structure recall, knowledge-gap perception, and self-efficacy were potential mediators. Transfer was the dependent measure. Guidance led to less extraneous load. However, self-regulation led to higher transfer because the students devoted more attention to the deep structure of the preparation tasks. Our findings suggest that—given some practice—self-regulated outperforms guided preparation for learning from direct instruction.     

Government research evaluations and academic freedom: a UK and Australian comparison

Performance management systems have been an inevitable consequence of the development of government research evaluations (GREs) of university research, and have also inevitably affected the working life of academics. The aim of this paper is to track the development of GREs over the past 25 years, by critically evaluating their adoption in the UK and Australian higher education sector and their contribution to the commodification of academic labour, and to highlight the resultant tensions between GREs and academic freedom. The paper employs a literature-based analysis, relying on publicly available policy documents and academic studies over the period 1985–2010. GREs are a global phenomenon emanating from new public management reforms and while assessments of university research have been welcomed, they have attracted critique based on their design, the manner in which they have been applied, and the unintended consequences of their implementation on academic freedom in particular. Consistent with international research on the impact of GREs, Australian research assessments appear to be undoing the academic freedom that is central to successful research. Further empirical research on the impact of GREs on academics is urgently needed.     

Pre-service teachers’ attitudes toward education for sustainability and its relevance to their learning: implications for pedagogical practice

The education for sustainability (EfS) literature espouses participatory, praxis-orientated, place-based and holistic approaches to teaching and learning. The introduction of a first-year EfS unit for pre-service teachers at James Cook University provided an opportunity to explore their attitudes toward EfS and their perceptions of the relevant aspects of the unit to their learning. In this mixed-methods study, pre-service teachers (N = 100) completed a Likert-style survey at the beginning and end of the unit that examined their attitudes toward EfS. Three pre-service teachers were also interviewed to explore further their perceptions and experiences, one semester after completing the unit. Significant improvements were found in pre-service teachers’ EfS self-efficacy, and familiarity with and interest in sustainability issues. Participants also perceived EfS to be relevant to their learning, particularly the praxis-orientated pedagogies in which they engaged, as they believed it developed their knowledge, skills and confidence to teach sustainability in schools. For one pre-service teacher, her experiences of EfS during her practicum enhanced its relevance, as she was able to link theory and practice. The implications of these findings for both teacher education and pedagogical practice for EfS in higher education are also discussed.     

Agenda setting in multilateral contexts: the example of the Decade of Education for Sustainable Development

A number of papers have focused on UN policy formulation processes, but little is known about how particular issues come to policy-makers’ attention in the first place. This very early stage of policy formulation, called agenda setting, remains under-researched and more so in multilateral contexts. Applying Kingdon’s multiple streams model to the example of the Decade of Education for Sustainable Development (DESD), this study analyses the trajectory of the policy from being just an idea to the point of being placed on the UN agenda. This paper goes on to argue that there are three conditions that supported the successful trajectory of DESD: a funding-backed policy entrepreneur, policy oligopoly, and a highly predictable policy window. Its theoretical contribution is to fill the gap between current studies and theories by presenting an analysis of one policy in a multilateral context.