Re/assembling ‘innovative’ learning environments: Affective practice and its politics

Abstract

In this article, we argue that the interest being taken by governments in establishing innovative learning environments (ILEs) in schools relies on a conception of space as a largely neutral arena. In consequence, relations of space and power inherent in the infrastructural shift to ILEs tend to drop from view. Adopting an assemblage approach to investigating learning environments, and exploring ILEs as they are playing out in Australian schools, we strive to surface what drops from view. Taking ILEs to be sociomaterial assemblages, we work with empirical material and trace how they assemble and reassemble. The account is less concerned with what works in ILEs; rather, its focus is on their ‘workings’ as assemblages of relations and most particularly, affective relations. Thus, we explore two affective encounters involving school leaders, teachers and students showing the ways in which they position and are positioned within ILEs. The argument is made that the assemblage approach which is non-deterministic and relational affords new ways of understanding what ILEs are and how they work and who they work for. And, that attending to affective practice brings into view the micropolitics through which infrastructural shifts and infrastructural policy-making are made.     

Body matters in vocational education: the case of the competently trained

Over the last decade, a competency-based approach to education and training has become widely used in a broad range of education and training contexts, most particularly, vocational education and training (VET). Among other things, this approach emphasizes the importance of knowledge and skill that is portable, visible and expressible. Various products have been developed (e.g. competencies, competency standards, Training Packages) to enable access to this knowledge and skill and secure its foundational role. Other knowledge and skill - that is, knowledge and skill that is situated and not easily visible and expressible - is seemingly rendered redundant. This paper discusses the role and significance of situated practises in competency-based training (CBT), most particularly embodied knowledge and tacit skills. Using empirical material collected in the course of a recent research project on CBT, the argument is made that the body, as currently constituted in VET products, is understood more as a symbolic/informational than material/physical entity. This understanding gives rise to a ‘thin’ conception of vocational competence and, sometimes, a thin practise of developing this competence. More broadly, the body is a critical site of contestation between radically different goals (e.g. industrial/educational, global/local). Bodily specificity (e.g. tacit skills, experienced judgement) can be mobilized to challenge the universalizing impulses of CBT. Indeed, this specificity completes or is necessary to these impulses. It plays a constitutive role in the practice of vocational education and training and could, with profit, be more fully recognized and supported in its policy.     

Quality Improvement in University Counseling Centers

University Counseling Centers (UCCs) experience high clinical demands and severe client presentations leaving counselors with limited time and resources to evaluate delivery of services. In this article, we present clinician-friendly quality improvement (QI) strategies used at a large Midwestern university and provide recommendations for implementing QI programs at other UCCs even as their resources may vary. With counselor-led efforts examining and evaluating services, UCCs can use QI programs to inform and improve counseling practices as well as advise university administrators about the positive outcomes of the center’s work.     

Technologies in the education of children and teenagers with autism: evaluation and classification of apps by work areas

Education and Information Technologies - Mobile apps represent a resource with great potential for encouraging the development of many skills, given the high number of apps available and the quick...     

The Innovative Educational Thought of Jane Roland Martin: A Review Essay

D. G. Mulcahy highlights some of Jane Roland Martin's major contributions to the field of philosophy of education in this review essay. He focuses on several of Martin's better‐known works — including Reclaiming a Conversation, The Schoolhome, Changing the Educational Landscape, Coming of Age in Academe, Educational Metamorphoses, and School Was Our Life — tracing through them the development of her reconceptualization of the idea of a liberal education from the early1980s to the present day. Viewing Martin's contribution from the perspective of liberal education, he contends, underscores the optimistic spirit of her work as well as its originality and significance for the theory of education as a whole. Mulcahy gives particular attention to these elements of Martin's thought: the importance she attributes to educating the young for active participation in the world and not mere observation of it; her analysis of the range and complexity of our cultural wealth; her concept of a gender‐sensitive education; and her emphasis on the unique contribution of the experience of women to education. Martin's substantial body of work, Mulcahy concludes, stands as a compelling alternative to mainstream educational theorizing, one that offers hope for the potential of educational renewal.     

Social contexts of development in natural outdoor environments: children’s motor activities,personal challenges and peer interactions at the river and the creek

This study examined the influence of spending time outdoors on young children’s physical and socioemotional development. We observed preschoolers’ activities in two naturally provisioned outdoor environments over the course of one year. Eleven preschoolers were videotaped continuously for 16 days at a local river and 9 days at a creek adjacent to the school. In addition to the quantitative analyses of children’s behaviors, a case study of three children’s experiences over the course of the year was conducted. Both the river and the creek settings encouraged a multitude of physical and play behaviors with similar types of affordances, including flat surfaces for running, rocks for climbing and jumping off, and water for exploration and play, but the wilder environment (river) afforded more risk and personal challenges. Observations of children’s motor activities, play and responses to challenging environmental features supported the importance of accumulated experience and social context for the development of confidence in the face of risk, individual exploration and positive social support and engagement with peers.     

“Students Get What Flows Downward”: District Leaders’ Rationalizations of the Standardized Testing of Children

What do students stand to gain from high-stakes, standardized testing? We consider answers to this question from the perspective of urban district leaders tasked with designing and overseeing the implementation of standardized testing policies. Results revealed variation in leaders’ framing of and rationale for standardized testing with respect to benefits for students and whether/why students should strive for high test scores. Implications for both approaches to standardized testing and broader improvement initiatives are discussed.     

Common Assessment Framework (CAF) – early views and issues

This study explores the profile of Common Assessment Framework (CAF) assessments and the perceptions of assessors during the early phase of its implementation. Whilst there was diversity in who completed CAFs, schools undertook the most. Headteachers and other school staff completing the assessment felt that the questions tended to be intrusive and they feared this might damage their relationship with parents. Assessments proved time consuming and completers tended to go on to become the Lead Professional. Comments suggested some people were avoiding the completion of CAFs because of fears about the increased workload. There were, however, positive views about the rigour of the process and it had tended to serve to prompt positive dialogue between agencies. There were genuine attempts to involve children in the process.