Busting the myths about ESOL learners: integrating insights from teaching and research

Keynote plenary talk

Creating and implementing a biodiversity recording app for teaching and research in environmental studies

This case study reports on the development of a bespoke mobile recording app for collating records of biodiversity sightings on a University campus. This innovative project was achieved through a multi-disciplinary partnership of staff and students. It is hoped that the app itself will benefit lecturers by streamlining data collection during teaching and learning activities, whilst engaging students and highlighting the wealth of diversity available on campus

Teaching and learning Chinese: heritage language classroom discourse in Montreal

This paper explores issues of teaching and learning Chinese as a heritage language in a Chinese heritage language school, the Zhonguo Saturday School, in Montreal, Quebec. With a student population of more than 1000, this school is the largest of the eight Chinese Heritage Language schools in Montreal. Students participating in this study were from seven different classes (grade K, two, three, four, five, six, and special class), their ages ranging from 4 to 13 years. The study took place over a period of two years between 2000 and 2002. Focusing on primary level classroom discourse and drawing on the works of Vygotsky and Bakhtin, I examine how teachers and students use language to communicate, and how their communication mediates teaching, learning and heritage language acquisition. Data sources include classroom observations, interviews with students and their teachers, students’ writings, and video and audio taping of classroom activities. Implications for heritage language development and maintenance are discussed with reference to the findings of this study.

English language teaching and educational reform in Western China: a knowledge management perspective

This study examines the impact of a large-scale UK-based teacher development programme on innovation and change in English language education in Western China within a knowledge management (KM) framework. Questionnaire data were collected from 229 returnee teachers in 15 cohorts. Follow-up interviews and focus groups were conducted with former participants, middle and senior managers, and teachers who had not participated in the UK programme. The results showed evidence of knowledge creation and amplification at individual, group and inter-organizational levels. However, the present study also identified knowledge creation potential through the more effective organization of follow-up at the national level, particularly for the returnee teachers. It is argued that the KM framework might offer a promising alternative to existing models and metaphors of Continuing Professional Development (CPD).

The Masters in Teaching and Learning (MTL): a retrospective, intrinsic case study of the process of policy into practice and its impact on teacher participants

The research reported here is a retrospective case study of the recent (2010) introduction of the Masters in Teaching and Learning (MTL) as a post-graduate level programme of professional development for teachers. It contributes to the debate and research over the past two decades about the impact of post-graduate professional development and appropriate ways of delivering it. The study is located within an extensive body of literature dealing with the importance of the teaching profession with regard to the success of schools and pupils and the impact of professional development on teaching quality and of teaching quality on attainment. A further relevant context is the ongoing tension between the teaching profession and academics on the one hand and government and political actors on the other, in respect of the approaches to professional development and to the control of educational processes. The research questions which inform the study deal with the perspectives of various participants – policy makers, programme directors, coaches and teachers studying for the MTL – on the extent to which the MTL is likely to have an ameliorative effect on teaching and pupil attainment, their experiences of the process of policy development and their experiences as course participants. The study adopts a case study approach which involves elite interviews with those responsible for the development and implementation of the MTL, questionnaires completed by MTL course participants and a comparison group taking a conventional MA and in depth interviews with participants and coaches. The results revealed tensions and difficulties associated with the development of the MTL including uneasy relationships between HE institutions and government agencies, ideas about ‘producer capture’, the relevance of the MBA model and concern over the role of coaches. However, while acknowledging various difficulties and some misconceived expectations they viewed its potential to meet its expressed aims positively, given time. Course participants were positive about their experience of the MTL and felt that it had contributed to many aspects of their professional development. Most saw it as a positive experience despite the variable quality of support from their schools, particularly in the form of the school-based coach the concept of which had been heralded as the bellwether of the MTL. It was striking that the responses of the MTL participants were very similar to those of teachers taking a conventional MA. A finding which would repay further investigation is that while the great majority of course participants felt that the MTL (and the MA) had contributed to their becoming more effective teachers they were much less confident that it had contributed to increased pupil attainment.

Digital visualisation in Classics teaching and beyond

For the last few years, I have been working on an extensive digital model of ancient Rome as it appeared in the early 4th Century AD. This sort of visualisation lends itself to many applications in diverse fields: I am currently using it for research work into illumination and sightlines in the ancient city, have licensed it for broadcast in TV documentaries and publication in magazines, and am working with a computer games studio to turn it into an online game where players will be able to walk round the streets and buildings of the entire city (when not engaged in trading with or assassinating one another). Later this year I will be making a free online course, or MOOC, about the architecture of ancient Rome, which will largely be illustrated by this model.

The Evolution of Modularity in the Mammalian Skull I: Morphological Integration Patterns and Magnitudes

Morphological integration refers to the modular structuring of inter-trait relationships in an organism, which could bias the direction and rate of morphological change, either constraining or facilitating evolution along certain dimensions of the morphospace. Therefore, the description of patterns and magnitudes of morphological integration and the analysis of their evolutionary consequences are central to understand the evolution of complex traits. Here we analyze morphological integration in the skull of several mammalian orders, addressing the following questions: are there common patterns of inter-trait relationships? Are these patterns compatible with hypotheses based on shared development and function? Do morphological integration patterns and magnitudes vary in the same way across groups? We digitized more than 3,500 specimens spanning 15 mammalian orders, estimated the correspondent pooled within-group correlation and variance/covariance matrices for 35 skull traits and compared those matrices among the orders. We also compared observed patterns of integration to theoretical expectations based on common development and function. Our results point to a largely shared pattern of inter-trait correlations, implying that mammalian skull diversity has been produced upon a common covariance structure that remained similar for at least 65 million years. Comparisons with a rodent genetic variance/covariance matrix suggest that this broad similarity extends also to the genetic factors underlying phenotypic variation. In contrast to the relative constancy of inter-trait correlation/covariance patterns, magnitudes varied markedly across groups. Several morphological modules hypothesized from shared development and function were detected in the mammalian taxa studied. Our data provide evidence that mammalian skull evolution can be viewed as a history of inter-module parcellation, with the modules themselves being more clearly marked in those lineages with lower overall magnitude of integration. The implication of these findings is that the main evolutionary trend in the mammalian skull was one of decreasing the constraints to evolution by promoting a more modular architecture.

The SUMA Project: Integrating Observational Data Assessment into Space and Service Design

This presentation was offered as part of the CUNY Library Assessment Conference, Reinventing Libraries: Reinventing Assessment, held at the City University of New York in June 2014.

The evolution of online teaching and learning in engineering at Deakin University

This paper presents a brief history of the use of online technologies in the support of teaching and learning in the School of Engineering and Technology at Deakin University, Victoria, Australia. It addresses the following topics: flexible engineering programs at Deakin University; computer-based learning in the School of Engineering and Technology; progression from individual efforts to formal, centralized control of the World Wide Web (Web); the costs of information technology; experiences with grant funded development projects; managing the development of online material; student access and equity; and staff development and cultural change. A sustainable online content development model is proposed to carry the School’s online initiatives in support of teaching and learning activities into the future.

Describing and supporting effective science teaching and learning in Australian schools - validation issues

Constructivism is a wide school of thought and its view on learning has important implications to both teaching and learning. Taking a constructivist view of learning to explain interdisciplinary education may help teachers understand the process of building concepts and learning among students as well as the implementation of assessment tasks. Based on a constructivist view of learning, this paper illustrates the assessment aspect of interdisciplinary learning using concrete examples of students' work collected from the Schools Around the World (SAW) project. SAW is an international project which was established in order to set standards for students' work and to stimulate the sharing of teaching ideas among teachers from nine participating nations or regions, with an aim to promote professional development among teachers. This paper attempts to introduce the background of interdisciplinary learning and its assessment methods and hopes to stimulate professional discussion in this respect among teachers.

A review of strategic issues in using the internet for teaching and learning

In 1998 the author published a paper entitled ‘Current Issues and limitations in using the Internet for Teaching and Learning’ [1] that acknowledged the new educational possibilities provided by the Internet, while at the same time sought to identify the limitations and related issues of going on-line in education. As predicted, the passage of time and the advancement of technology have ameliorated many of the identified limitations, and, have brought new issues to the fore. This paper re-visits the area of important strategic issues in using the Internet for education, giving an overview of equity and access, infrastructure and costs, copyright and plagiarism, content development, libraries and on-line information access, and other strategic issues. As in the earlier paper, this paper draws on the experiences of the author in conventional and off-campus university teaching in engineering.