Computer mediated communication: a study of student interaction with the resources

This paper examines the student use of resources placed on the CMC system for them by the academics in a foundation Management unit of a Bachelor of Commerce degree at one of Australia's largest providers of off campus university education. The findings of this pilot study highlight that the students may not necessarily have the same appreciation of the value of the material that the academics perceive it to have. Also, it would appear that students are choosing to interact with the material at a sub-optimal rate, that in itself may be hampering their own learning experiences.

Questions of (re)production and legitimation : a second screening of 3 films on teacher-student relations

This study considers three Hollywood films that take, as their subject, a teacher-hero confronted with a 'problem' group of students and, as their narrative, the rehabilitation of these students and the resolution of their problems. Employing a Bourdieuian analysis, we attempt a second screening of these films on two levels: first, by stepping inside these celluloid classrooms, so to speak, and narrating a different text, one that is spoken from the position of students and which challenges each film's portrayal of good people achieving fine things; and secondly, by screening for gaps in their accounts of schooling, exposing their limited frames of reference and their legitimacy to speak on behalf of authentic classrooms. The first of these projects is undertaken as a way of challenging teachers and interested others to be wary of uncritical readings of popular images of teaching, whereas the second provides a beginning from which to consider how teachers' pedagogy and school curricula can be informed by a radical democratic view of education - how teachers might embrace the foreign.

Teacher-student relationships

An updated edition of the comprehensive introduction to the rapidly growing area of middle schooling, for teachers, teacher education students and school administrators.The middle years of schooling are increasingly recognised as a crucial stage in students' lives, one that has significant consequences for ongoing educational success. International research indicates that young adolescents benefit from programs designed especially for their needs. Teaching Middle Years offers a systematic overview of the philosophy, principles and issues in middle schooling. It includes contributions from academics and school-based practitioners on intellectual and emotional development in early adolescence, pedagogy, curriculum and assessment of middle years students. This second edition is fully revised to reflect the latest research findings. It includes new chapters on students with diverse needs, school partnerships with families and community, and effective team teaching. Also new to this edition is a chapter that brings middle schooling concepts to life by providing real examples of reform in action.Written for teachers, student teachers, education leaders and policy makers, Teaching Middle Years is an essential resource for anyone involved in educating young adolescents.

Student voice and teacher accountability: possibilities and problematics

The focus in this paper is on a student voice initiative at an English secondary school designed to improve the quality of teaching and learning. The initiative invites Year 8 students to train and work as ‘lesson observers’ who provide feedback to teachers about their practice. The possibilities of this initiative to reflect a rich and intelligent form of teacher accountability are explored in relation to its capacity to (1) enhance students’ understanding and appreciation of teachers, teaching and the learning process; (2) support students to work in partnership with teachers to improve pedagogy and relationships; and (3) develop students’ positive self-image as learners. In its exploration of this initiative the paper also considers matters of authenticity, inclusion and power and highlights ways in which student voice initiatives can be undermined when these matters are not adequately engaged with. Such engagement, it is argued, is imperative in guarding against a misappropriation or undermining of student voice to align with traditional teacher–student power relations or to fit with the dictates of school improvement as framed by narrow and reductive measures.

Managing student expectations online

In contrast to other studies of students in online environments, which examine the skills and attitudes that students bring to an online university learning environment, we are interested in the expectations with which students come to online university study. Four expectational barriers, which arise from students’ background and cultural history, are identified as being: who is responsible for learning, who is responsible for student interaction with content, who is responsible for the use of appropriate learning strategies and who is responsible for required ancillary skills. There is a discussion of how these barriers arise and how one might attempt to manage the students’ expectations and ameliorate their effects.

Student's perceptions of compulsory asynchronous online discussion

Online discussion boards are increasingly being used by tertiary educators as tools for encouraging student interaction and for developing learning networks. In particular, educators who have adopted a socio-constructivist approach to teaching are keen to facilitate collaborative learning in which students share their experiences and perspectives, and construct knowledge together through shared meanings. In this paper, the findings from an electronic survey of 72 distance education students’ perceptions of an online discussion assessment item (ODAI) are presented. The study revealed that the majority of the respondents enjoyed the ODAI, and agreed that the online discussions had allowed them to achieve a range of cognitive and social learning outcomes, and to develop some important graduate skills.

Virtual worlds to enhance student engagement

Both the School of Education and the discipline of Criminology at Deakin University have been using the 3-dimensional environment Second Life to deliver curriculum content and to engage students with each other and with teaching staff. The nature of this platform is facilitating more proactive student engagement with technology, including increased student competence in sharing artwork, problem solving and general discussion of complex criminological issues. In this paper, we provide some examples of how we are using Second Life in our curriculum offerings in Education and Criminology as a tool to promote greater engagement, particularly for students undertaking their courses by distance. We outine how the immersive nature of this platform can enhance the level of student interaction to produce a deeper form of engagement with our Unit material than is possible through conventional text and web-based document repositories.

Discovering the value that the library can contribute to quality teaching and learning through student evaluation data

Large surveys of library user service quality perception are common. However, student evaluation of teaching (SET) data often show a disparity between ratings of library service quality and library resource quality. In this situation, perhaps SET data can also provide insights into what contributes to the perception of library resource quality, and hence identify leverage points for quality improvement interventions. This paper documents an analysis of available Deakin University SET data relating to student interaction with, and evaluation of, library resources. It highlights significant correlations associated with library-related SET items, and from them infers actions that the library could undertake to improve the value and perception of the quality of library resources. The following results were observed. High ratings for library resources were likely to be associated with high general ratings of teaching and unit quality. Postgraduate coursework students rated library resources significantly higher than students in the first three years of undergraduate programs. Students in one faculty (Health) rated library resources significantly higher than students in all other faculties. There was a strong correlation observed in Australasian Survey of Student Engagement data for both 2009 and 2010 between the two items “Used library resources on campus or online” and “Worked on an essay or assignment that required integrating ideas or information from various sources”. These findings suggest the following conclusions. Well-planned learning environments are likely to integrate meaningful student interaction with the library. Initiatives to improve the value and perception of the quality of library resources should be focussed on the specific characteristics and needs of particular student cohorts to have maximum impact. More sophisticated assessment tasks that require students to interact with the library have the potential to result in higher student ratings of the value of library resources.

Evaluation of the intercultural understanding field trial

In 2011, the Innovation and Next Practice Division (INP) of the Department of Education and Early Childhood Development (DEECD) conducted a field trial on intercultural understanding in partnership with a research and evaluation team from the University of Melbourne and La Trobe University. The field trial was sponsored by the Languages, English as another Language (EAL) and Multicultural Education Division of DEECD.

Distinguishing between mathematics classrooms in Australia, China, Japan, Korea and the USA through the lens of the distribution of responsibility for knowledge generation : public oral interactivity and mathematical orality

The research reported in this paper examined spoken mathematics in particular well-taught classrooms in Australia, China (both Shanghai and Hong Kong), Japan, Korea and the USA from the perspective of the distribution of responsibility for knowledge generation in order to identify similarities and differences in classroom practice and the implicit pedagogical principles that underlie those practices. The methodology of the Learner’s Perspective Study (LPS) documented the voicing of mathematical ideas in public discussion and in teacher-student conversations and the relative priority accorded by different teachers to student oral contributions to classroom activity. Significant differences were identified among the classrooms studied, challenging simplistic characterisations of ‘the Asian classroom’ as enacting a single pedagogy, and suggesting that, irrespective of cultural similarities, local pedagogies reflect very different assumptions about learning and instruction. We have employed spoken mathematical terms as a form of surrogate variable, possibly indicative of the location of the agency for knowledge generation in the various classrooms studied (but also of interest in itself). The analysis distinguished one classroom from another on the basis of “public oral interactivity” (the number of utterances in whole class and teacher-student interactions in each lesson) and “mathematical orality” (the frequency of occurrence of key mathematical terms in each lesson). Classrooms characterized by high public oral interactivity were not necessarily sites of high mathematical orality. In particular, the results suggest that one characteristic that might be identified with a national norm of practice could be the level of mathematical orality: relatively high mathematical orality characterising the mathematics classes in Shanghai with some consistency, while lessons in Seoul and Hong Kong consistently involved much less frequent spoken mathematical terms. The relative contributions of teacher and students to this spoken mathematics provided an indication of how the responsibility for knowledge generation was shared between teacher and student in those classrooms. Specific analysis of the patterns of interaction by which key mathematical terms were introduced or solicited revealed significant differences. It is suggested that the empirical investigation of mathematical orality and its likely connection to the distribution of the responsibility for knowledge generation are central to the development of any theory of mathematics instruction.

Developing teacher competencies through videos for facilitation of mathematical modelling in Singapore primary schools

Mathematical modelling tasks which are situated in real-world contexts encourage students to draw connections between school-based mathematics and the real-world, enhancing their engagement in learning. Such tasks often require varied interpretations of the real-world problem context resulting in multiple pathways of solutions. Although mathematical modelling has been introduced in the Singapore mathematics curriculum since 2007, its incorporation in schools has been limited. One reason for this could be that teachers are challenged by how best to facilitate for rich student mathematisation processes during such tasks. This chapter reports how a multi-tiered teaching experiment using design research methodology was conducted to build teachers’ capacity in designing, facilitating, and evaluating student mathematisation during mathematical modelling tasks with an intact class of Primary 5 students (aged 10-11). The use of videos was critical because grounded images helped capture the dynamics and complexity of authentic classroom interactions. This chapter highlights how video recordings of teacher-student interactions during a modelling task were harnessed during design methodology cycles, particularly during the Retrospective Analysis phase, to activate critical moments of learning for the teacher towards developing her competencies in facilitating students’ mathematisation processes.

Beyond the habits of punishing, criticising and nagging : fostering respectful and socially just student relations using critical pedagogies

This chapter presents a pedagogical approach to fostering respectful and inclusive student relations. Rather than a narrow focus on managing or controlling students, this approach enables a broad and located view of student behaviour that seeks to develop and extend students' understandings of themselves and others. A key premise here is that many 'misbehaviours' in classrooms are associated with issues of identity and power and, in particular, the ways in which conventional classrooms and teacher-student relations tend to render students with little power or agency. Acting out or against this positioning as a means of asserting a sense of power or legitimacy is often at the root of disruptive or harmful behaviours. Thus, it is contended here that beginning to transform such behaviours necessitates an environment where students are accorded a voice and where they are supported to reflect critically on issues of power and identity in connected and meaningful ways. The chapter explores these issues with reference to the practices of 'Rachel', the deputy principal of a working-class secondary school in Queensland. Her practice is theorised drawing on the Productive Pedagogies model - a model designed as a meta-language for teachers to reflect on ways that they can integrate social justice issues within, rather than separate to, the pedagogical process. Given that boys continue to perpetuate the lion's share of disciplinary transgressions in schools, the focus in this chapter is on issues of masculinity.