An orientation to early childhood education for sustainability and research : framing the text

This publication arose from the interests of the chapter authors, ‘a small group of thoughtful people’ almost all of whom participated in one or both Transnational Dialogues in Research in Early Childhood Education for Sustainability, held in Stavanger, Norway in 2010 and Brisbane, Australia in 2011 (Refer Appendix 1 for list of participants). These meetings were the first time that a critical mass of researchers from vastly different parts of the globe - Norway, Sweden, Australia and New Zealand at the inaugural meeting, with additional participants from Korea, Japan and Singapore attending the second - had come together to debate, discuss and share ideas about research and theory in the emerging field of Early Childhood Education for Sustainability (ECEfS. Some of the researchers who joined these Transnational Dialogues, had met serendipitously at earlier conferences and meetings, or corresponded via email, but many had never met face-to-face. Now a significant number are contributing authors in this text. It is a testament to these researchers’ interest in this agenda that they mostly self-funded their travel and other costs to attend the Transnational Dialogues research meetings. While most chapter authors come from the field of early childhood education, a few are more aligned with education for sustainability/environmental education, while a much smaller number are already working at the intersection of early childhood education and education for sustainability. What we share as a group is a range of perspectives and orientations to research and to the research focus at the heart of this book - young children and their actual and potential capabilities as agents of change for sustainability. As researchers, regardless of experience and perspectives, participants knew they had something extra to offer - their expertise as researchers - providing scholarly insights into the work of practitioners, applying critically reflective lenses to curricula, pedagogies and assumptions, testing of ideas and theories, and presenting a sense for where ECEfS might fit or, indeed, go beyond norms and orthodoxies. This is a text, then, for both researchers and those whose primary interests lie in daily interactions with children, families and communities.

Heathcote’s practice-led teaching: Pioneering research as well as pioneering pedagogy

It is widely recognized that Dorothy Heathcote was a dynamic and radical teacher who transformed and continually reinvented drama teaching. She did this by allowing her emerging thinking and understandings to flow from, and be tested by, regular and intensive ‘practicing’ in the classroom. In this way theoretical claims were grounded and evidenced in authentic classroom practice. And yet, for all her impact, it is rare to hear the claim that Heathcote’s pedagogic breakthroughs resulted from a legitimate research methodology. Clever and charismatic teaching yes; research no. One of the world’s best teachers certainly, but not a researcher; even though every lesson was experimental and every classroom was a site for discovery. This paper investigates that conundrum firstly by acknowledging that Heathcote’s practice-led teaching approach to discovery did not map comfortably on to the established educational research traditions of the day. It argues that traditional research methodologies, with their well-established protocols and methods, could not understand or embrace a research process which does its work by creating ‘fictional realities’ of openness, allegory and uncertainty. In recent years however it can be seen that Heathcote’s practice led-teaching, so essential for advancing the field, closely aligns with what many contemporary researchers are now calling practice-led research or practice as research or, in many Nordic countries, artistic research. A form of performative research, practice-led research has not emerged from the field of education but rather from the creative arts. Seeking to develop ways of researching creative practice which is deeply sympathetic and respectful of that practice, artist-researchers have developed practice-led research “which is initiated in practice, where questions, problems, challenges are identified and formed by the needs of practice and practitioners” (Grey, 1996). This sits comfortably with Heathcote’s classroom priority of “discovering by trial, error and testing; using available materials with respect for their nature, and being guided by this appreciation of their potential” (Heathcote, 1967). The paper will conclude by testing the dynamics of Heathcote’s practice-led teaching against the six conditions of practice-led research (Haseman&Mafe, 2011), a testing which will allow for a re-interpretation and re-housing of Dorothy Heathcote’s classroom-based teaching methodology as a form of performative research in its own right.

Handbook of International Research in Mathematics Education [3rd Ed.]

"This third edition ofthe Handbook of International Research in Mathematics Education provides a comprehensive overview of the most recent theoretical and practical developments in the field of mathematics education. Authored by an array of internationally recognized scholars and edited by Lyn English and David Kirshner, this collection brings together overviews and advances in mathematics education research spanning established and emerging topics, diverse workplace and school environments, and globally representative research priorities. New perspectives are presented on a range of critical topics including embodied learning, the theory-practice divide, new developments in the early years, educating future mathematics education professors, problem solving in a 21st century curriculum, culture and mathematics learning, complex systems, critical analysis of design-based research, multimodal technologies, and e-textbooks. Comprised of 12 revised and 17 new chapters, this edition extends the Handbook’s original themes for international research in mathematics education and remains in the process a definitive resource for the field."--Publisher website

Systematic literature review: Research on Supported Playgroups

Overview This review of research conducted with supported playgroups was prepared for the Queensland Department of Education, Training and Employment (DETE). The report provides a synthesis of the research on the effectiveness of supported playgroups to improve child, parent, and community outcomes and to identify key features of supported playgroups that support effective outcomes. Supported playgroups are community-based services that provide a low intensity parenting intervention, through regular group sessions for parent-child dyads. Supported playgroups target vulnerable families who may benefit from parenting support. Supported playgroups have common goals to enhance children’s early learning and parental wellbeing. Method A search strategy was devised to identify research studies, nationally and internationally, that involved parent-child group programs for families with young children, delivered under the leadership of an employed facilitator. Academic databases and other data sources were explored for studies conducted in the period from 2004 to 2014. Summary descriptions of the research studies were developed; assessment of research methodologies was made; research evidence on the effectiveness of supported playgroups to improve child, parent, and community outcomes was identified; and comparative analyses of the implementation features of supported playgroups were completed. Findings The search strategy identified 34 research publications, reporting on 29 different programs. Twenty-six of the studies report on research conducted in Australia and eight reported on research conducted in other countries, including the United Kingdom, Canada, and the United States. Three clusters of playgroups were identified: Category 1 - Standard supported playgroups; Category 2 - Mobile playgroups; Category 3 – Supported playgroups with specific interventions. The research studies identified encompassed experimental and non-experimental research designs. The studies of standard supported playgroups and mobile playgroups were most often qualitative studies and modest in scale, in terms of the number of research participants. Experimental and quasi-experimental research designs characterised the studies identified in the category of supported playgroups with specific interventions. Overall, the research studies that were categorised as supported playgroups with specific interventions provided stronger evidence for effectiveness to improve parental behaviour in ways that are known to support children’s early developmental competence. Qualitative studies, including case studies and ethnographic research, documented important features of program delivery, such as the importance of facilitators’ interpersonal skills to positive experiences for families in the playgroups; as well as the important opportunities that the playgroups afforded to vulnerable families to reduce social isolation. Conclusions The potential for supported playgroups to improve a broad range of learning and psychosocial outcomes for children and parents was suggested by many of the research studies. However, the nature of the research designs employed means that it is not possible to conclude that there is strong evidence of the impact of supported playgroups on child, parent, and community outcomes. The qualitative studies did provide rich descriptions about the implementation processes of playgroups and also captured the variability in the delivery of the playgroups in terms of who participated, local contextual factors that impacted on the playgroup experiences, and the nature of the experiences of parents within the playgroups. Research methodologies need to be employed that address the limitations of the studies to date. This would provide more defensible evidence that supported playgroups have an impact over time on outcomes for children, families, and communities. Overall, this area of research remains relatively under-evaluated in terms of rigorous research designs. The identified research studies point to some promising research directions but do not yet enable strong claims to be made about the effectiveness of the standard playgroup or mobile playgroup models to impact on parenting outcomes. Data collected from interview and survey methodologies clearly identifies that supported playgroups are highly acceptable to families. Given the popularity of supported playgroups to engage families across diverse communities, and the reported high levels of satisfaction and benefits identified within many of the research studies, it is clear that the provision of supported playgroups is fulfilling an important community need by providing support to parents with young children. However, there is a need to strengthen the evidence base that supported playgroups are an effective early parenting intervention that improves outcomes for children, parents, and communities.

Enhancing Physics Education in the National Defence University : A design based research approach in the production of learning material

This research is connected with an education development project for the four-year-long officer education program at the National Defence University. In this curriculum physics was studied in two alternative course plans namely scientific and general. Observations connected to the later one e.g. student feedback and learning outcome gave indications that action was needed to support the course. The reform work was focused on the production of aligned course related instructional material. The learning material project produced a customized textbook set for the students of the general basic physics course. The research adapts phases that are typical in Design Based Research (DBR). The research analyses the feature requirements for physics textbook aimed at a specific sector and frames supporting instructional material development, and summarizes the experiences gained in the learning material project when the selected frames have been applied. The quality of instructional material is an essential part of qualified teaching. The goal of instructional material customization is to increase the product's customer centric nature and to enhance its function as a support media for the learning process. Textbooks are still one of the core elements in physics teaching. The idea of a textbook will remain but the form and appearance may change according to the prevailing technology. The work deals with substance connected frames (demands of a physics textbook according to the PER-viewpoint, quality thinking in educational material development), frames of university pedagogy and instructional material production processes. A wide knowledge and understanding of different frames are useful in development work, if they are to be utilized to aid inspiration without limiting new reasoning and new kinds of models. Applying customization even in the frame utilization supports creative and situation aware design and diminishes the gap between theory and practice. Generally, physics teachers produce their own supplementary instructional material. Even though customization thinking is not unknown the threshold to produce an entire textbook might be high. Even though the observations here are from the general physics course at the NDU, the research gives tools also for development in other discipline related educational contexts. This research is an example of an instructional material development work together the questions it uncovers, and presents thoughts when textbook customization is rewarding. At the same time, the research aims to further creative customization thinking in instruction and development. Key words: Physics textbook, PER (Physics Education Research), Instructional quality, Customization, Creativity

The Computer Input/Output Subsystem Education in an undergraduate introductory course: a Multiperspective Study

240 p.

Research in statistical education — planning of an international survey

As announced in the November 2000 issue of MathStats&OR [1], one of the projects supported by the Maths, Stats & OR Network funds is an international survey of research into pedagogic issues in statistics and OR. I am taking the lead on this and report here on the progress that has been made during the first year. A paper giving some background to the project and describing initial thinking on how it might be implemented was presented at the 53rd session of the International Statistical Institute in Seoul, Korea, in August 2001 in a session on The future of statistics education research [2]. It sounded easy. I considered that I was something of an expert on surveys having lectured on the topic for many years and having helped students and others who were doing surveys, particularly with the design of their questionnaires. Surely all I had to do was to draft a few questions, send them electronically to colleagues in statistical education who would be only to happy to respond, and summarise their responses? I should have learnt from my experience of advising all those students who thought that doing a survey was easy and to whom I had to explain that their ideas were too ambitious. There are several inter-related stages in survey research and it is important to think about these before rushing into the collection of data. In the case of the survey in question, this planning stage revealed several challenges. Surveys are usually done for a purpose so even before planning how to do them, it is advisable to think about the final product and the dissemination of results. This is the route I followed.

The Changing Context for Planning Education in the UK and the Prospects for Research-Led, Practice-Engaged Teaching

The UK’s Royal Town Planning Institute (RTPI) celebrates its centenary in 2014, marking 100 years of close relationships between university-based Planning Schools and a professional body focussed on planning practice. During this period, the context for university education and the very idea of planning has changed dramatically contributing to a continual renegotiation of the relationships between the planning profession and the educational institutions it accredits. These changes have been particularly acute in the last ten years where a number of factors have forced a rapid change in the nature of planning education in the UK. This has included a boom and then slump in the number of planning students linked to the national economic situation, a reorganisation of many planning schools and their merger with cognate disciplines such as geography and an increased focus of research output, rather than professional engagement the key institutional indicator of success. This last factor adds a particularly new dimension to the profession-university relationship, which could potentially lead to either a straining of tensions or a synergy through research-led teaching that could significantly benefit both.

This paper will briefly review the evolution of UK planning schools and the co-evolution of the main ideas informing planning education. It will then describe the current profile of UK planning schools, based on an extensive national survey conducted on behalf of the Royal Town Planning Institute. The paper will then critically review the main challenges and opportunities facing UK Planning Schools in the context of changes in both planning practice and higher education. It will then move on to the concept of research-led teaching, drawing on current practice in the UK and review how well this concept serves students and the idea of developing reflective planning practitioners. Finally, the paper will seek to draw broad lessons from the experience of the UK and reflect on the type of planning education that can best serve planning professions in a variety of international contexts in the future.

The development of a Flanders Interaction Analysis style instrument for use in educational computer mediated communication research

Please consult the paper edition of this thesis to read. It is available on the 5th Floor of the Library at Call Number: Z 9999 E38 D56 1992

Mindfulness: An Ancient Wisdom for the Reconceptualisation of Modern Education in the Complex World

Exploring the new science of emergence allows us to create a very different classroom than how the modern classroom has been conceptualised under the mentality of efficiency and output. Working on the whole person, and not just the mind, we see a shift from the epistemic pillars of truth to more ontological concerns as regards student achievement in our post-Modern and critical discourses. It is important to understand these shifts and how we are to transition our own perception and mentality not only in our research methodologies but also our approach to conceptualisations of issues in education and sustainability. We can no longer think linearly to approach complex problems or advocate for education and disregard our interconnectedness insofar as it enhances our children’s education. We must, therefore, contemplate and transition to a world that is ecological and not mechanical, complex and not complicated—in essence, we must work to link mind-body with self-environment and transcend these in order to bring about an integration toward a sustainable future. A fundamental shift in consciousness and perception may implicate our nature of creating dichotomous entities in our own microcosms, yet postmodern theorists assume, a priori, that these dualities can be bridged in naturalism alone. I, on the other hand, embrace metaphysics to understand the implicated modern classroom in a hierarchical context and ask: is not the very omission of metaphysics in postmodern discourse a symptom from an education whose foundation was built in its absence? The very dereliction of ancient wisdom in education is very peculiar indeed. Western mindfulness may play a vital component in consummating pragmatic idealism, but only under circumstances admitting metaphysics can we truly transcend our limitations, thereby placing Eastern Mindfulness not as an ecological component, but as an ecological and metaphysical foundation.

A Case Study of Doctoral Research Assistantships: Access and Experiences of Full-Time and Part-Time Education Students

Graduate students’ development as researchers is a key objective in higher education. Research assistantships provide distinctive spaces where graduate students can be nurtured and shaped as novice researchers as they develop theoretical and methodological knowledge. However, few scholars have investigated graduate student research assistants’ experiences and the ways these experiences are influenced by institutional regulations, informal practices, and social relations. The purpose of this case-within-a-case study was to explore the research assistantship experiences of full-time and part-time doctoral students in Education at an Ontario university. I present separate subcases for full-time and part-time students, and an overarching case of research assistantships in one program at a specific period of time. The main question was how do institutional regulations, informal practices, and social relations influence full-time and part-time doctoral students’ access to and experiences within research assistantships. My objective was to draw from interviews and documents to acquire a thorough understanding of the organizational characteristics of research assistantships (i.e., structures of access, distribution, and coordination of participation) to explore the ways institutional regulations, informal practices, and social relations promote, prevent, or limit full-time and part-time students’ legitimate peripheral participation in research assistantships. Although I devoted particular attention to the ways students’ full-time and part-time status shaped their decisions, relationships, and experiences, I was conscious that other factors such as gender, age, and cultural background may have also influenced doctoral research assistant experiences.