Teachers as advocates for widening participation

In England and Australia, higher education institutions (HEIs) are expected to widen participation (WP) in higher education (HE) to enhance social justice and improve individual and national economic returns. Furthermore, HEIs are the major providers of initial and in-service teacher education. This article surveys international literature to explore ways in which teacher education programmes could and do contribute to preparing teachers to advocate for WP, including drawing on learning from WP research that demonstrates the value of current HE students engaging young people in schools and colleges to support them in seriously considering progressing to HE. We conclude that teachers and pre-service teachers are well placed to be advocates for WP. In the majority of higher education institutions, however, WP and teacher education functions are not working collaboratively to embed advocacy for WP into teacher education programmes.

The challenges of preparing pre-service teachers to embrace a digital pedagogy

The need for pre-service teachers to be proficient in the use of information and communication technologies (ICT) in the classroom once they graduate is essential, though this process is not a straightforward process (Zhang, 2008) and needs to go beyond pre-service teachers just being able to use ICT. Research suggests that for teachers to successfully use ICT in their classrooms they need to be specifically trained to do so (Markauskaite, 2007; Batane, 2004; Jacobsen, Clifford & Friesen, 2002). Pre-service teachers must also be able to embrace and use new and emerging ICT’s, often referred to as digital technologies, within their pedagogical approaches to teaching and learning. According to UNESCO, these “new technologies require new teacher roles, new pedagogies, and new approaches to teacher training” (2008, p.9). However, new approaches to teacher training have moved very slowly in many areas and preparing pre-service teachers to develop proficiency in embracing a digital pedagogy within their own classrooms can be a challenge for teacher training institutes. This paper reports on a case study of first year education students (N=667) and their experiences during their first semester of pre-service teacher education in a core ICT unit. It will report on the background ICT knowledge and skills that these students bring to the course as well as their expectations of the unit and ICT in their future teaching. The paper will then draw on the research results to identify challenges facing teacher training of pre-service teachers in using digital technologies in their future classrooms.

Grenada, Education and Revolution, 1979-83

Grenada’s New Jewel Movement, led by Maurice Bishop, was the first indigenous political grouping in the history of the English-speaking Caribbean to overthrow an existing government by armed force. Yet most of the four and a half years of the Revolution (1979-83) were characterized by considerable popular support for the new People’s Revolutionary Government before it came to it’s tragic, unexpected and shocking end in October 1983. Social, economic and political change seems possible in the 1970s and ‘80s. People in newly decolonizing countries were encouraged by the beginnings of the Non-Aligned Movement of Third World nations demanding new international economic order that would win them some economic justice after the ravages of colonialism. People also saw that some radical regimes, such as that led by Michael Manley in Jamaica and the Sandinistas in Nicaragua, were articulating and implementing basic rights that held the promise of countering the social and political oppression that they had endured throughout the centuries of colonial history. A majority of Grenadians committed themselves to fighting by the side of the People’s Revolutionary Government for such new goals. This chapter will analyse how the Grenada Revolution reconceptualised the education, planned new goals, and implemented bold new educational policies. It will discuss the extent to which the government and people were able to reshape education as a tool for national reconstruction and the raising of national consciousness.

Teachers’ perceptions of school connectedness and risk-taking in adolescence

School connectedness has been shown to be an important protective factor in adolescent development, which is associated with reduced risk-taking behaviour. Interventions to increase students’ connectedness to school commonly incorporate aspects of teacher training. To date, however, research on connectedness has largely been based on student survey data, with no reported research addressing teachers’ perceptions of students’ connectedness and its association with student behavior. This research attempted to address this gap in the literature through in depth interviews with 14 school teachers and staff from two Australian high schools. Findings showed that teachers perceived students’ connectedness to be important in regards to reducing problem behavior, and discussed aspects of connectedness, including fairness and discipline, feeling valued, belonging and having teacher support, and being successfully engaged in school, as being particularly important. This research enables the development of school-based intervention programs that are based on both student and teacher-focused research.

Desirable attributes and practices for mentees : mentor teachers' expectations

Research indicates attributes and practices for mentor teachers that can be used for effective mentoring. Universities provide guidelines for preservice teacher (mentee) engagement in schools generally from anecdotal evidence, however, what are desirable attributes and practices for mentees? This qualitative study gathers data from 25 mentor teachers through extended response questionnaire and audio-recorded focus group discussions about attributes and practices for mentees. Findings showed that desirable attributes for mentees included: enthusiasm, being personable, commitment to children, lifelong learning/love of learning, open/reflective to feedback, develop resilience, and taking responsibility for their learning, while desirable practices included: planned and preparation for teaching, reflective practices, understanding school and university policies, knowing students for differentiated learning, and building a teaching repertoire (e.g. teaching strategies, behaviour management, content knowledge, and questioning skills). Preservice teachers need to consider teachers’ suggestions on desirable attributes and practices that can help them achieve positive teaching experiences.

Children's understanding of sustainability in their home and kindergarten

This article presents an ongoing study within early childhood education for sustainability at the Department for Early Childhood Education in Stavanger, in collaboration with the School of Early Childhood, Queensland University of Technology, in Brisbane, Australia. The study commenced in 2014, and will compare the responses to interviews of young children (4-5 years) in Brisbane with those of children in Stavanger, in order to find out ways to enhance learning about sustainability topics, to identify which kind of environmental/sustainability activities are memorable for young children, and to obtain mutual inspiration about early childhood education for sustainability from the different countries.

Dance teaching and learning in context : activating the head, heart and hands

Traditionally, the art of teaching dance has largely been a skill transferred from teacher to student. This master-apprentice paradigm encourages the passing on of technical and artistic traditions associated with the various genres of dance. Whilst this approach supports the passing of the flame of the art form from generation to generation, it has, in part, limited the teaching pedagogy that informs dance as an art form. The future of dance teaching is reliant on teachers’ engagement with the further development of inquiry learning and reflective practice skills within the dance studio. This paper charts one component of a reflective pedagogy, Head, Heart, Hands (Pstalozzi as cited in Rud 2006), developed as a result of an action research project, within a suite of three units across a three-year undergraduate teacher-training course for school, community and studio dance teachers.

E-learning intervention for STEM education: Developing country case study

This paper reports an innovative and systemic approach to implementing ICT intervention to support enhancement of teaching and learning of STEM subjects in developing countries. The need for adopting ICT was 2 fold: a lack of availability of qualified STEM secondary teachers and a lack of quality teaching and learning resources to assist teachers and students. ICT was seen as being able to impact on both issues. The intervention involved developing sustainable network design including equipment choices, providing high quality e-learning resources and human resource development including teacher training. The intervention has gradually been accepted by teachers, students, and parents and institutionalized as a key feature of the secondary STEM education in the case study country.

Pedagoginen liveroolipelaaminen historian opetusmetodina

In this research pedagogical live action role playing is examined as a method of teaching history. The objective of this research is to present and define the concept of pedagogical live action role playing as a method of teaching history and examine its capability in teaching historical empathy. Pedagogical live action role playing is a teaching method under development which has elements from drama pedagogics and different learning theories. The theoretical part of this research consists of play theories and drama pedagogical theories which are relevant to live action role playing, and also the concepts of historical empathy and historical thinking. In drama pedagogics the main sources are the researches of Laakso (2004) and Heikkinen (2002, 2004). The historical part uses the researches of VanSledright (2002), Cooper (2000) and Ashby and Lee (1987) as its main sources. The research was carried out at the Viikki Teacher Training School in the class 6b during autumn 2007. The research material consists of three-phased interviews. During all phases three pupils were interviewed, and during two of the phases, also the teacher of the class was interviewed. The methods used in the interviews were thematic interview and stimulated recall -interview. The data gathered from the interviews was analyzed using content analysis. Pedagogical live action role playing has three phases when teaching history: pre-game (preparations), game (live action role play) and post-game (discussion after the game and in the classroom). The teacher's attention and carefulness is important during all phases. The mistakes made in the pre-game face e.g. in writing the characters seem to cause major problems in the pupils' game experiences. Pedagogical live action role playing is capable of teaching historical empathy, but according to my research this has some conditions, from which the most important is the pupil's historical knowledge before the game. Teaching historical empathy was based on esthetic dualition: the pupil made decions about the actions of his character as him/herself. The more background information the pupil had about the era they played, the more the pupil seemed to make decisions based on his historical empathy, aka his understanding of the era of the larp and of the people of the same era.

The performance in context model: A 21st century tertiary dance teaching pedagogy

Despite tertiary institutions acknowledging that reflective practice is an essential component of undergraduate dance teacher training, there is often a disparity between the tertiary students’ reflective skills and the more sophisticated reflective ability needed to navigate the 21st century workforce (Silva 2008). This paper charts the evolution of a dance teaching reflective pedagogy within a suite of three units across a three-year undergraduate dance teacher-training course for school, community and studio dance teachers. This reflective pedagogy based on exploration, collaboration, critical questioning and connections with community forms the basis of a model of tertiary dance teacher- training; the Performance in Context Model (PCM). Over the past four years, through four cycles of action research, the PCM pedagogy, context and engagement with community has developed into a successful model integrating practical dance teaching skills, artistry and community engagement. The PCM represents a holistic collaborative approach to dance teacher education: the marrying of ‘teacher-as-artist’, ‘teacher-as-performer’ and ‘teacher-as-researcher’. More specifically, it emphasises the need for mature, reflective, receptive and flexible approaches in response to dance teaching and learning. These are enacted in a variety of contexts, with tertiary dance teaching students identifying as teaching artists, as well as researchers of their own practice.

Kokonaisvaltainen fysiikanopetus peruskoulussa fysiikan valinnaiskurssilla

Holistic physics education in upper secondary level based on the optional course of physics Keywords: physics education, education, holistic, curriculum, world view, values A physics teacher s task is to put into practice all goals of the curriculum. Holistic physics education means in this research teaching, in which the school s common educational goals and the goals particular to the physics curriculum are taken into account. These involve knowledge, skills and personal value and attitude goals. Research task was to clarify how the educational goals involving student s values and attitudes can be carried out through the subject content of physics. How does the physics teacher communicate the modern world view through the content of the physics class? The goal of this research was to improve teaching, to find new points of view and to widen the perspective on how physics is taught. The teacher, who acted also as a researcher, planned and delivered an optional course where she could study the possibilities of holistic physics education. In 2001-2002 ten girls and two boys of the grade 9th class participated in that elective course. According to principles of action research the teacher-researcher reflected also on her own teaching action. Research method was content analysis that involved both analyzing student feedback, and relevant features of the teacher s knowledge, which are needed for planning and giving the physics lessons. In this research that means taking into account the subject matter knowledge, curriculum, didactic and the pedagogical content knowledge of the teacher. The didactic includes the knowledge of the learning process, students motivation, specific features of the physics didactics and the research of physics education. Among other things, the researcher constructed the contents of the curriculum and abstracted sentences as keywords, from which she drew a concept map. The concept maps, for instance, the map of educational goals and the mapping of the physics essence, were tools for studying contents which are included in the holistic physics education. Moreover, conclusions were reached concerning the contents of physics domains by which these can be achieved. According to this research, the contents employing the holistic physics education is as follows: perception, the essence of science, the development of science, new research topics and interactions in physics. The starting point of teaching should be connected with the student s life experiences and the approach to teaching should be broadly relevant to those experiences. The teacher-researcher observed and analyzed the effects of the experimental physics course, through the lens of a holistic physics education. The students reported that the goals of holistic physics education were achieved in the course. The discourses of the students indicated that in the experimental course they could express their opinions and feelings and make proposals and evaluations. The students had experiences about chances to affect the content of the course, and they considered the philosophical physics course interesting, it awakened questions, increased their self-esteem and helped them to become more aware of their world views. The students analytic skills developed in the interactive learning environment. The physics teacher needs broad knowledge for planning his or her teaching, which is evaluated in this research from contents maps made for the tools of the teaching. In the holistic physics education the teacher needs an open and curious mind and skills for interaction in teaching. This research indicates the importance of teaching physics in developing attitudes and values beside substance of the physics in class environment. The different points of view concerning human beings life make it possible to construct the modern world view of the students and to develop analytic skills and the self-esteem and thus help them in learning. Overall and wide points of view also help to transfer knowledge to practice. Since such contents is not employed by teaching the physics included in the standard curriculum, supplement relevant teaching material that includes such topics are needed.

Concepciones acerca de la evaluación pedagógica de profesores universitarios con y sin título docente

Este trabajo buscó conocer concepciones que los docentes de la Universidad Adventista del Plata tienen acerca de la evaluación en el nivel superior, y comparar las mismas con las de aquellos profesores cuya formación es docente y quienes se formaron en otras áreas profesionales. Ochenta y un profesores respondieron un cuestionario creado para tal propósito. Realizado el análisis de contenido necesario, se aplicaron análisis de frecuencia y porcentaje de las respuestas obtenidas, y coeficiente V de Cramer para comparar las respuestas de los grupos con y sin título docente. Las conclusiones que permiten los resultados se discuten en función de lo encontrado por otras investigaciones.

Enfoques de enseñanza presencial y de enseñanza mixta virtual-presencial de profesores universitarios de ambas modalidades

Resumen: El objetivo de este estudio fue analizar los enfoques de las concepciones de enseñanza en aula y de enseñanza mixta de profesores de estas modalidades educativas. El diseño fue no experimental, descriptivo, transversal y corte mixto. La muestra fue de 183 profesores, 129 de cursos cara a cara y 54 de cursos mixtos que respondieron a preguntas abiertas relacionadas con el significado de la enseñanza, del rol del profesor, del rol del estudiante y de estrategias de enseñanza de cursos cara a cara y mixtos. Los resultados mostraron que en la concepción de enseñanza cara a cara y sus dimensiones de rol del profesor y rol del estudiante en profesores de cursos cara a cara y mixtos la tendencia mayor fue hacia el enfoque en aprendizaje. La concepción de enseñanza de cursos mixtos en profesores de las dos modalidades educativas se ubicó fuertemente en un enfoque en enseñanza a diferencia de sus dimensiones que se focalizaron en el aprendizaje. A partir de este dato se sugiere continuar con la investigación en el tema y la inclusión de las concepciones de enseñanza en los cursos de formación docente

La investigación naturalista e interpretativa desde la actividad física y el deporte

[Es]Desde este artículo se revisan diversos estudios de investigación relativos a la sublínea de formación del profesorado de educación física y deportiva, así como a la intervención docente en esta área de conocimientos. Esta sublínea se enmarca en la línea de Actividad Física y Deportes en el área de Didáctica de la Expresión Corporal. En este caso, se incluyen estudios de carácter naturalista e interpretativo, con la intención de que las personas que investigan y sus protagonistas formen parte activa en el propio proceso investigador (Bodgan y Biklen, 1982; Colás y Buendía, 1992; Goetz y Lecompte, 1988; Vázquez y Angulo, 2003). La formación del profesorado de educación física y la actividad didáctica de dicha materia, se convierten en los contenidos que concretan el proceso de la investigación. Para ello, es preciso revisar las temáticas relacionadas con: la formación inicial y permanente, planes y programas de estudio, contenidos que se enseñan y aprenden en la actividad física escolar (dentro y fuera del horario lectivo), la presencia de los valores, los diferentes elementos que constituyen los diseños curriculares, así como todo, aquello que convierte a esta disciplina en una destacada propuesta formativa y de socialización.

Essex Adult Community Learning: PTLLS for distance and blended learning

Funded by the LSIS Excellence and Improvement Fund, Essex Adult Community Learning has produced a distance/blended learning resource on CD-Rom for tutors in the post-16 sector to achieve the City & Guilds PTLLS (7303 Preparing to Teach in the Lifelong Learning Sector) at Level 4. The aim of the resource is to improve teaching and learning by providing a flexible way to access initial teacher training where candidates may otherwise find it difficult or impossible to attend a taught course. It is also intended to increase tutors' own e-learning skills.