Leadership and Pedagogical Interaction as Predictors of Learning Outcomes in Physical Education

This research aims to understand the relative contribution of leadership styles and teacher-student and student-student pedagogical interaction concerning learning performance and academic achievement in Physical Education. A quantitative methodology was implemented, comprising a sample of 447 students attending a school grouping located in the coastal region of central Portugal. In order to verify the nature, the strength and the direction of the relations among the variables, correlation and multiple regression analyses were used. For this, scales already validated and used in other researches were applied. The results show that the learning performance and the academic achievement are significantly associated with teacher leadership styles and teacher-student and student-student pedagogical interaction. A stronger association was obtained with leadership styles, especially the democratic one. It should be mentioned that these factors provide a higher relative contribution to the learning performance than to the academic achievement. The analysis conducted highlights the importance of the democratic teacher leadership style and of the pedagogical interaction established within the classroom towards the improvement of students’ ability to understand the gains and the effort made in learning.

Leadership and Pedagogical Interaction as Predictors of Learning Outcomes in Physical Education

Problem Statement: This research aims to understand the relative contribution of leadership styles and teacher-student and student-student pedagogical interaction concerning the learning performance and academic achievement in physical education. Research Questions: Are the teacher leadership style and the teacher-student and student-student pedagogical interaction related to the learning performance and academic achievement in physical education in basic schooling? Purpose of Study: There are several factors that contribute for the explanation of learning outcomes, namely teacher leadership styles in the classroom, as well as teacher-student and student-student pedagogical interactions. These factors are considered to be essential in the teaching-learning process and in the subsequent improvement of educational outcomes. Research Methods: A quantitative methodology was implemented, comprising a sample of 447 students attending a School Grouping located in the Central Region of Portugal. In order to verify the nature, the strength and the direction of the relations among the variables, correlation and multiple regression analyses were used. For this, scales already validated and used in other researches were applied. Findings: The results show that the learning performance and the academic achievement are significantly associated with teacher leadership styles and teacher-student and student-student pedagogical interaction. A stronger association was obtained with leadership styles, especially the democratic one. It should be mentioned that these factors provide a higher relative contribution to the learning performance than to the academic achievement. Conclusions: This study sought to deepen the understanding of the explanatory factors of academic success concerning the teaching-learning process in physical education. The analysis conducted highlights the importance of the democratic teacher leadership style and of the pedagogical interaction established within the classroom towards the improvement of students' ability to understand the gains and the effort made in learning.

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.

What student attributes affect experience of PBL in Virtual Space?

Some Engineering Faculties are turning to the problem-based learning (PBL)paradigm to engender necessary skills and competence in their graduates. Since, at the same time, some Faculties are moving towards distance education, questions are being asked about the effectiveness of PBL for technical fields such as Engineering when delivered in virtual space. This paper outlines an investigation of how student attributes affect their learning experience in PBL courses offered in virtual space. A frequency distribution was superimposed on the outcome space of a phenomenographical study on a suitable PBL course to investigate the effect of different student attributes on the learning experience. It was discovered that the quality, quantity, and style of facilitator interaction had the greatest impact on the student learning experience. This highlights the need to establish consistent student interaction plans and to set, and ensure compliance with, minimum standards with respect to facilitation and student interactions.

A pilot test on the differences between domestic and international students’ perceptions towards online learning in a Malaysian institution (Part I)

Teaching to an international audience online can be significantly different as compared to a traditional classroom setting. In a traditional classroom setting, the students are usually removed from their own cultural context and required to operate in the lecturer’s context. International students coming to Malaysia to study are implicitly expected to, and often do, become familiar with the Malaysian culture and style of education. The use of educational technologies as a blended strategy in higher education programs offers challenges and opportunities for all students but this may be different for international students who come from varied backgrounds. With an increasingly competitive global demand for higher education, Malaysian institutions strive to be the hub of educational excellence and a preferred option for international students in coping with the challenges of studying abroad in a different culture. This research will evaluate how undergraduate students perceive their online learning experiences in a Malaysian university. The OLES (Online Learning Environment Survey) will be used to explore the international and domestic students’ perception on e-learning and the findings of the first six OLES scales varying from (Computer Usage, Teacher Support, Student Interaction & Collaboration, Personal Relevance, Authentic Learning, and Student Autonomy) will be reported in this research. An in-depth study will be conducted to compare and contrast the challenges of international students with domestic students. Major difficulties encountered and how these students actually cope with e-learning, as well as the strategies and tools used to overcome the challenges will be investigated.

Inventing future schools

A group of Australian researchers and designers have been working on ways to imagine, demonstrate and accelerate the use of ICT that extend learning relationships and environments to include the classroom, home and local community. These learning projects aim to transform how students identify and interact with learning, subject areas, teachers, other students, family, organisations and more broadly how learning tools can create connections that permeate students' life worlds now and in the future.---------- It is our intention that such demonstrators must - Be simple, flexible, scalable and adaptive - Result in increased confidence in the use of ICT for both students and teachers - Offer opportunities for personalized learning - Promote new and effective learning partnerships between students, teachers and families. - Extend the learning experience to include other environments both local and virtual. - Inspire further innovation - Provide solutions to current limitations---------- Presenting Innovation in Practice - Innovative ICT projects currently being used by students in schools, at home and in the community - Stories of use from teacher, student, and other stakeholder perspectives - Lessons learnt so far: a design perspective - Surprising and inspiring opportunities

Teaching English : some remarks on the emergence of the sympathetic teacher in the English classroom

The chapter explores the concept of the teacher-student relationship within the English classroom and proposes that this relationship has a specific purpose in building a civil society by inculcating practices of self-reflection, empathy and ethics. The topic is explored through the example of teaching Australian literature, specifically, Tim Winton’s Lockie Leonard, Human Torpedo to secondary school students. Ian Hunter’s work on literature education and the construction of socio-ethical practices provides a conceptual framework for the chapter.

Social networks applied to training

In this article, we address the importance and relevance that social networks exhibit in their use as an educational resource.  This relevance relies in the possibility of implementing new learning resources or increasing the level of the participant's connectivity, as well as developing learning communities.  Also, the risk entailed from their use is discussed, especially for the students that have a low technological education or those having excessive confidence on the media.  It is important to highlight that the educational use of social networks is not a simple extension or translation of the student's habitual, recreational use, but that it implies an important change in the roles given to teachers as well as learners; from accommodative learning environments that only encourage memorization to other environments that demand an active, reflective, collaborative and proactive attitude, that require the development/acquisition of technological as well as social abilities, aptitudes and values.  It is also important to highlight that a correct implementation and adequate use will not only foment formal learning, but also informal and non-formal learning.

Estímulo à participação dos alunos - práticas de ensino auto reflexivas

Um dos objetivos centrais da escola atual é o de desenvolver nos alunos competências que lhes permitam adaptar-se à sociedade em constante transformação e não apenas a veiculação de conteúdos académicos. No entanto, vários estudos mostram que existem dificuldades na transferência das aprendizagens da sala de aula para o mundo real. Uma das razões apontadas é o facto de os conhecimentos de sala de aula não serem bem integrados com os conhecimentos anteriores do aluno. Para que ocorram aprendizagens significativas, torna-se, portanto, necessário que o professor leve em consideração, no planeamento de estratégias de ensino, os conhecimentos anteriores e expectativas dos alunos, as suas questões e ideias. Para que tal aconteça, é essencial que os alunos interajam com o professor, agindo como parceiros no processo de ensino e de aprendizagem, exprimindo as suas ideias, dúvidas e expectativas. Assim sendo, nesta investigação procurou-se aumentar a participação dos alunos através da criação de momentos que lhes permitissem explorar as suas ideias e escrever as suas questões. As ‘produções’ orais e escritas dos alunos foram objeto de reflexão e análise pela professora-investigadora, e levadas em consideração no planeamento das aulas subsequentes. Os dados foram recolhidos através de observação participante e não-participante, de anotações do investigador, de questões e respostas escritas pelos alunos, e da gravação áudio das interações orais das aulas. O método de investigação adotado foi o estudo de caso, sendo a investigação de carácter qualitativo. Pese as limitações do estudo no que diz respeito à dimensão da amostra, os resultados apontam no sentido de que as estratégias aplicadas estimularam a participação dos alunos. A comparação entre o número de questões escritas pelos alunos e o número de intervenções orais em algumas das aulas lecionadas revelou que o número de alunos que escreveram questões foi superior ao número de alunos que intervieram oralmente. Constatou-se, ainda, que nas aulas em que não existiu um momento exclusivamente dedicado a esta atividade, o número de questões escritas pelos alunos foi menor do que o obtido nas aulas em que aquele tempo foi disponibilizado. Estes dados sugerem que a criação de momentos de escrita de questões permite aumentar a participação dos alunos, o que foi já anteriormente defendido por vários autores. Também os momentos de trabalho em grupo constituíram um espaço importante para a exploração das ideias dos alunos, o que se tornou visível pela grande atividade dentro dos grupos, com apresentação de argumentos, construção conjunta de conhecimentos e, sobretudo, pela variedade de propostas que surgiram como forma de dar resposta a questões idênticas das fichas de trabalho. De facto, constatou-se que um maior número de alunos participava nas discussões em turma, quando estas se seguiam aos momentos de trabalho em grupo, do que quando eram realizadas após a exposição dos temas programáticos. Em suma, o que estas constatações sugerem é que a inclusão de momentos de trabalho autónomo, com a possibilidade de trocar ideias com os colegas, pode contribuir para aumentar a motivação dos alunos para intervir na aula. A recolha de questões forneceu informação acerca de falhas no conhecimento e dúvidas implícitas e explicitas na expressão escrita dos alunos, o que corrobora os resultados encontrados por outros estudos. Da mesma forma, a análise do discurso oral dos alunos e das suas respostas escritas constituiu uma fonte de informação importante relativamente àqueles aspetos. A reflexão sobre estas permitiu à professora-investigadora fazer ajustes e planear estratégias adequadas à melhoraria dos aspetos em que foram identificados problemas. O uso das ‘produções’ escritas e orais dos alunos para discussão em aulas posteriores constituiu uma forma de promover interações aluno-aluno, permitiu aceder às dúvidas de outros alunos, que se identificaram com as ideias expressas nas questões escritas, respostas escritas e manifestações orais dos seus colegas, e ajudou a integrar os alunos na gestão do processo de ensino e aprendizagem. No que diz respeito à tentativa de estimular os alunos a reformularem as suas respostas, o pedido explícito de reformulação parece aumentar a predisposição dos alunos para fazerem alterações, quando comparado com os casos em que esse pedido não existiu. Estes resultados sugerem que esta estratégia tem a potencialidade de favorecer a reflexão dos alunos sobre as suas próprias ideias. No final da dissertação, apresentam-se as limitações deste estudo e propõem-se sugestões para melhorar e aprofundar as estratégias implementadas.

Diversifying medical imaging of breast lesions

Dissertação de mestrado, Engenharia Informática, Faculdade de Ciências e Tecnologia, Universidade do Algarve, 2015

'It's Almost Like Talking to a Person': Student Discolsure to Pedagogical Agents in Sensitive Setting

Online chatbots (also known as pedagogical agents or virtual assistants) are becoming embedded into the fabric of technology, both in educational and commercial settings. Yet understanding of these technologies is inchoate and often untheorised, influenced by individuals’ willingness to trust technologies, aesthetic appearance of the chatbot and technical literacy, among other factors. This paper draws upon data from two research studies that evaluated students’ experiences of using pedagogical agents in education using responsive evaluation. The findings suggest that emotional connections with pedagogical agents were intrinsic to the user’s sense of trust and therefore likely to affect levels of truthfulness and engagement. They also indicate that the topic of the pedagogical agent-student interaction is key to the student’s experience. The implications of these studies are that truthfulness, personalisation and emotional engagement are all vital components in using pedagogical agents to enhance online learning.

A safe place /

This study is an effort to give voice to an experience. The experience in question is the decision of a student to trust a practitioner. The study also describes the features which led the student to believe that the practitioner would provide a "safe place" for interaction around matters of a delicate or personal nature. This study is the gift oftwo coauthors, each with a unique story which offers description of critical incidents, and what made these events meaningful. At the heart of the study is the potential for education and its professionals to provide safe places for students. Analysis of the data determines that a safe place involves two parties, one seeking a safe place and another who provides the safe place-in this study, the student and the practitioner. The student, with urgency, seeks a safe place to disclose personal information. In this urgency the student is confronted with features of control, comfort, respect, felt sense, and nonjudgemental listening. These features are the constitutive elements of a Safe Place. Capacity to recognize and construct safe places is a competency which the existing school lifeworld demands of today's practitioners. Understanding what are deemed to be safe places and how practitioners might work to create them are the extended outcomes of this study.

What Matters? : the full-time graduate students' perceptions of teacher effectiveness

The purpose of this qualitative study was to explore the full-time graduate students' perceptions of teacher effectiveness at the graduate school level, to identify how graduate students perceive effective and ineffective teachers, and specifically to discover the main dimensions of teacher effectiveness that graduate students perceive as most significant. This topic was investigated because, although the teacher has been deemed as a crucial component in the teaching process, there is no common agreement on the definition and measure of teacher effectiveness. Graduate students' perceptions of teacher effectiveness have not been given much attention. The research design was based on a ground theory approach. It utilized qualitative data through interviews, field notes, andjournals. The findings ofthis study revealed that teacher effectiveness is markedly influential to graduate students. There is no universally consented definition or measure of teacher effectiveness due to the multidimensionality of teaching and learning. Nevertheless, several major dimensions ofteacher effectiveness were discovered and highlighted in this study. Such dimensions include good command of subject matter, presentation skills, challenging and motivating students, rapport with students, learning environment, course demands, as well as assessment and feedback. It was hoped that the study would move towards developing a theory that contributes to the knowledge base of graduate students' perceptions of teacher effectiveness. It was anticipated that the results would provide first-hand information for the instructor to improve teaching; for the administrator to promote the effective educational experiences and student achievements. It was intended that the findings would lay a theoretical and empirical groundwork for future research.

The relationship between working alliance and treatment outcomes in remedial instruction for older dyslexic children

Research in psychotherapy has demonstrated that a positive working alliance between therapist and client leads to positive treatment outcomes. Though its focus is in the area of psychotherapy, the concept of working alliance holds significant value to the area of education. Current applications of the theory in educational settings have looked at relationships between teacher and students in the broad context of classroom interaction and found significant promise. The present study investigates the application of the theory of working alliance in a sample of older reading disabled children. The study examined the psychometric properties of the Reading Alliance Scale for Children (RASC) and for Teachers (RAST) in relation to student reading ability and motivation. A sample of 254 (66.1 % male, 33.9% female) grade 6-8 students (mean age 12.7 years) were enrolled in a remedial reading program for reading disabled children. The average standard score across multiple reading measures was more than 1 SD below age-level expectations. Students responded to measures of reading achievement and motivation at pretest, after 70 hours (post 70) of remediation and at the end of the program (post 125). All participants completed measures on the working alliance relationship at post 70 and post 125. Results showed that teacher reports were most predictive of outcome compared to student reports of the working alliance relationship. Working alliance was correlated with posttest reading ability and motivation. Male students and Black students obtained the weakest working alliance reports from their teacher. Overall, findings support the view that students' relationships with teachers provide an important component of success in the classroom.

Beyond the Books: Understanding Connections Between Teachers and Pupils From the Perspective of the Student

Using a narrative inquiry approach from the perspective of the researcher’s own experiences, this paper explores the connections that developed with several teachers that facilitated and impacted his own academic and cognitive, affective, and behavioural personal development. Viewed through the analytical lens of Erikson’s theory of psychosocial development, this narrative investigates the potential effectiveness of this model in understanding the lasting and life- altering changes that may be experienced by a student through his or her interactions with memorable teachers. Last, in educational environments today, character and value based curricula are experiencing a resurgence in popularity due to their theoretical applicability for helping students to optimally develop academically, socially, and culturally. With this in mind, a student-based perspective of memorable student–teacher connections may provide a framework for developing more effective means of effectively implementing a character development curriculum.