Innovation in education. Commentary:teaching statistics using dance and movement and a case for neuroscience in mathematics education

Review: A commentary on Teaching statistics using dance and movement by Irving, L.T. (2015). Front. Psychol. 6:50. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2015.00050 A case for neuroscience in mathematics education by Susac, A., and Braeutigam, S. (2014). Front. Hum. Neurosci. 8:314. doi: 10.3389/fnhum.2014.00314

Critical Race Theory and Adult Education: Critique of the Literature in Adult Education Quarterly

This paper examines the assumptions and paradigms used to discuss diversity and equity in adult education literature using critical race theory as a lens. Five themes emerged from the critique that may initiate an innovative dialogue about the realities and subjectivities singling out racial and ethnic minorities in the USA.

Pro-Literacy: A Historical Evaluation and Presentation of Strategies That Have Influenced the Development of the Volunteer Based Adult Education

This paper will present a brief history and work of Pro-Literacy and identify the aspects that serve as a model for other volunteer organizations. Pro- Literacy is an adult literacy program that has been successful in sustaining growth and promoting literacy nationally.

Adult Learners and AIDS Artwork: Suggestions for Adult Education Practice

The purpose of this paper is to explore the ways in which the creative and purposeful use of AIDS Artwork as an educational tool may reduce stigma about HIV/AIDS and help adult learners to regulate their own prejudices about the diseases.

Better Spanish, Better English: Native Language Literacy and Adult Education

Characteristics of the predominantly Hispanic community and native language usage in Miami are discussed in relation to poverty and common adult education programs. Native language literacy instruction is considered as an alternative offering to meet learners’ needs.

The New Information Ecosystem and Opportunities for Adult Education

This paper relates key elements of andragogy (Knowles, 1970, 1984) to the intellectual origins of the Internet. Common to both are the principles of access, voluntary participation, self-direction, and learning webs. New opportunities for adult learners and educators in the emergent information ecosystem are discussed.

Exploring Perceptions of Middle Class Urban Indian Women Regarding Socio-Cultural Deterrents Influencing Participation in Adult and Continuing Educational Programs

Unlike its childhood counterpart, adult and continuing education is a voluntary activity, where adult learners partake in educational programs for the sake of realizing some explicit or implicit goal. The purpose of this study was to explore the association between socio-cultural influences and deterrents to participation of middle class urban Indian women in adult and continuing educational programs. Darkenwald and Merriam’s (1982) theory of non-participation was selected as the theoretical lens used to guide this study. This study involved collecting qualitative data to analyze participant views and was collected through 16 semi-structured interviews to explore participants’ individual perceptions concerning socio-cultural deterrents influencing participation of middle class urban Indian women in adult and continuing educational programs. Qualitative data were analyzed to discover emerging themes and sub-themes. In the second phase of the study, a modified Deterrent to Participation Scale – General (DPS-G) was used to measure data collected from the surveys completed by participants, that included specific demographic questions. Descriptive statistics were used to examine the relationships between the demographic questions and the deterrent identified on the DPS-G. The interview and survey data were used convergently to understand the relationship between socio-cultural influences and deterrents impacting participant participation in adult and continuing educational programs. The findings of the study indicated that the biggest socio-cultural influence deterring participation among middle class urban Indian women in adult and continuing educational programs is marriage. It is an Indian social norm that comes with a set of pre-defined roles and expectations, and married women find themselves consumed by fulfilling the marital and familial expectations and responsibilities and participation in adult and continuing educational program is furthest from their mind. Middle class urban Indian women do realize the importance of educational pursuits, but do not feel that they can, after marriage. They are open, however, to pursuing adult educational programs in the form of short-term skill development programs leading to income generation, although they would lead primarily to home-based work enterprises.

Addressing the theory practice gap in nurse education: evaluating teaching through audit against NMC standards and final management placement

Introduction
This paper outlines an innovative approach to auditing and evaluating the content of a management and leadership module for undergraduate nursing students after their final management clinical placement. Normally evaluations of teaching in a module take place at the end of a teaching module and therefore do not properly reflect the value of the teaching in relation to practical clinical experience.
Aim
This audit and evaluation sought to explore both the practical value of the teaching and learning, and also the degree to which it the teaching reflected against the NMC Standards of Education and Learning (2010 domain 3).
Methods
Having piloted the evaluative tool with an earlier cohort of nursing students, this evaluation explored both a quantitative assessment employing a Personal Response System (n =172), together with a qualitative dimension (n=116), thus delivering paper-based comments and reflections from students on the value and practicality of the module teaching theory to their final clinical management experience. The quantitative audit data were analysed for frequencies and cross tabulation and the qualitative audit data were thematically analysed.
Results
Results suggest a significant proportion of the students, appreciated the quality of the standard of teaching, but more importantly, ‘valued or highly valued’ the teaching and learning in relation to how it helped to significantly inform their management placement experience. A smaller proportion of the students underlined limitations and areas in which further improvement can be made in teaching and learning to the module.
Conclusion
Significantly positive evaluation by the students of the practical value of teaching and learning, to the theoretical management module. This has proved a useful auditing approach in assessing the theoretical teaching to student’s Level 3 clinical experience, and facilitated significant recommendations as far as developing the teaching and learning to better reflect the practice needs of nursing students

When theories become practice - a metaphorical analysis of adult-education school-leaders’ talk

Marketization has changed the education system. If we say that education is a market, this transforms the understanding of education and influences how people act. In this paper, adult-education school-leaders’ talk is analysed and seven metaphors for education are found: education as administration, market, matching, democracy, policy work, integration and learning. Exploring empirical metaphors provides a rich illustration of coinciding meanings. In line with studies on policy texts, economic metaphors are found to dominate. This should be understood not only as representing liberal ideology, as is often discussed in analyses of policy papers, but also as representing economic theory. In other words, contemporary adult education can be understood as driven by economic theories. The difference and relation between ideology and theory should be further examined since they have an impact on our society and on our everyday lives. (DIPF/Orig.)

Editorial. Marketization and commodification of adult education

The editorial presents the articles of this issue on the topic of marketization and commodification of adult education of which some are conceptual and some empirical. (DIPF/Orig.)

A critical search for the ‘self’ in adult education: Bourdieuian insights into transformative possibilities

This study investigates the ‘self’ of six Irish working-class women, all parenting alone and all returned to the field of adult education. Bourdieu’s concepts of habitus, field and capital are the backdrop for the study of the ‘self’, which is viewed through his lens. This study commenced in September 2012 and concluded in August 2014, in a small urban educational setting in an Irish city. All of the women in the study are single parents, most of them did not complete second level education, and none of them had experienced adult or third level education. Their ages vary from 30 to 55 years. The study pursues the women’s motivations for returning to education, the challenges they faced throughout the journey, and their experiences, views and perspectives of Adult Education. The methodology chosen for this research is critical eethnography, and as an emerging ethnographer, I was able to view the phenomena from both an emic (inside) and an etic (outside) perspective. The critically oriented approach is a branch of qualitative research. It is a holistic and humanistic approach that is cyclical and reflective. The critical ethnographic case studies that developed are theoretically framed in critical theory and critical pedagogy. The data is collected from classroom observations (recorded in a journal) and interviews (both individual and group). The women's life experiences inform their sense of self and their capital reserves derive from their experience of habitus. It also attempts to understand the delivery of the programmes and how it can impact the journey of the adult learners. The analysis of the interviews, observations, field notes and reflective journals demonstrate what the women have to say about their new journey in adult education. This crucial information informs best practice for adult education programmes. This study also considers the complexity of habitus and the many forms of capital. The theme of adults returning to education and their disposition to this is one of the major themes of this study. Findings reflect this uncertainty but also underline how the women unshackled themselves of some of the constraints of a restricted view of self. Witnessing this new habitus forming was the core of their transformational possibility becoming real. The study provides a unique contribution to knowledge as it utilises Bourdieuian concepts and theories, not only as theoretical tools but as conceptual tools for analysis. The study examined transformative pedagogy in the field of adult education and it offers important recommendations for future policy and practice.

When theories become practice—a metaphorical analysis of adult-education school-leaders’ talk

Marketization has changed the education system. If we say that education is a market, this transforms the understanding of education and influences how people act. In this paper, adult-education school-leaders’ talk is analysed and seven metaphors for education are found: education as administration, market, matching, democracy, policy work, integration and learning. Exploring empirical metaphors provides a rich illustration of coinciding meanings. In line with studies on policy texts, economic metaphors are found to dominate. This should be understood not only as representing liberal ideology, as is often discussed in analyses of policy papers, but also as representing economic theory. In other words, contemporary adult education can be understood as driven by economic theories. The difference and relation between ideology and theory should be further examined since they have an impact on our society and on our everyday lives.

Practical assessment on the run – iPads as an effective mobile and paperless tool in physical education and teaching

This paper investigates the use of iPads in the assessment of predominantly second year Bachelor of Education (Primary/Early Childhood) pre-service teachers undertaking a physical education and health unit. Within this unit, practical assessment tasks are graded by tutors in a variety of indoor and outdoor settings. The main barriers for the lecturer or tutor for effective assessment in these contexts include limited time to assess and the provision of explicit feedback for large numbers of students, complex assessment procedures, overwhelming record-keeping and assessing students without distracting from the performance being presented. The purpose of this pilot study was to investigate whether incorporating mobile technologies such as iPads to access online rubrics within the Blackboard environment would enhance and simplify the assessment process. Results from the findings indicate that using iPads to access online rubrics was successful in streamlining the assessment process because it provided pre-service teachers with immediate and explicit feedback. In addition, tutors experienced a reduction in the amount of time required for the same workload by allowing quicker forms of feedback via the iPad dictation function. These outcomes have future implications and potential for mobile paperless assessment in other disciplines such as health, environmental science and engineering.

A cultura corporal na mídia: possibilidades pedagógicas para a educação física escolar

The Physical education has as objective the students integration in the body movement culture, forming citizens to reframe different cultural aspects of the physical activity, enabling a more critical look. Currently selecting how the body movement culture has been widely approached by Mass Media it is detected a new pedagogical possibility. The several media equipment massively bomb (images, sounds and information) interfering on how the students interpret the reality, since they are exposed to these multiple information and at the same time are absent of a more critical look about what they receive. In this way, the objective of this work was to perform a research in the news/articles from the Jornal A Folha de São Paulo, that allows the development of classes based on the elements of body movement culture and apply them in a public school from Rio Claro-SP city, to detect possibilities and difficulties in the work with the media in the school environment. It employed a qualitative research. The data obtained in this study indicate that the media shows up as a good teaching tool for teaching physical education classes, since students found the classes to enriching the learning process, highlighting topics such as innovation and the closeness they had with the worked information. However, it is necessary to develop further studies to raise other possibilities as well as alternatives to deal with this new reality of the school context

Os mass media como agentes educadores para a saúde

Dissertação de mestrado em Ciências da Comunicação (área de especialização em Informação e Jornalismo)