Pedagogical Practices (pedagogical + practice)

Distribution by Scientific Domains


Selected Abstracts


Peer observation of teaching in the online environment: an action research approach

JOURNAL OF COMPUTER ASSISTED LEARNING, Issue 5 2008
D. Swinglehurst
Abstract This paper describes a collaborative action research approach used to explore peer observation of teaching (POT) within the online environment. Although POT has become familiar in face-to-face teaching contexts, little is understood of its potential role in online settings. We conducted ,virtual' focus groups to explore the experience and views of 28 teachers and subjected our data to a thematic analysis. This informed the implementation of an innovative programme of POT, ,Peer-to-peer Reflection on Pedagogical Practice' (PROPP) among tutors of a Web-based MSc in International Primary Health Care at University College London. Modeled on an action learning set, the programme encourages collaborative reflection on teaching practices, based on participants' specific examples of online teaching. The PROPP model is consistent with Quality Enhancement, which we distinguish from Quality Assurance. Here, we describe the implementation of the PROPP programme within an action research framework and identify the factors that we consider critical to the success of peer observation within online courses. We highlight examples of aspects of teaching that have been discussed within the PROPP programme and offer suggestions of the kinds of evidence that could be incorporated into a portfolio to demonstrate the effectiveness of such an initiative. [source]


Conceptualizing Teaching as Science: John Dewey in Dialogue with the National Research Council

EDUCATIONAL THEORY, Issue 1 2004
Greg Seals
John Dewey and the National Research Council (NRC) both discuss the problem of translating scientific research into contexts of schooling, but differ about the proper solution to the problem. The NRC would solve it by empirical investigation. Dewey finds value in that approach, but also wants educational theorists to construct general heuristics to guide scientists in creating research agendas of intrinsic interest to education practitioners. Dewey's plan faces an apparently insurmountable difficulty. General heuristics of the sort Dewey needs are not widely recognized to exist. In light of the presumed fact of education's inability to articulate a general framework to guide teaching practice, the NRC plan becomes preferred by default. I propose that Experience and Education provides a frame of reference from which pedagogical practice appears as a field of scientific endeavor in its own right. Conceptualizing teaching as a science suggests ways to rework the NRC plan. [source]


Navigating a Way through Plurality and Social Responsibility

INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF ART & DESIGN EDUCATION, Issue 1 2008
David A. GallArticle first published online: 21 JAN 200
Teachers need to have a clearer understanding of the dynamic process effecting change in culture and identity if they are to overcome fears about teaching diversity. This article draws on Eastern and Western insights on culture to clarify its dynamic process. In particular, teachers need to be aware of the two phases of culture: in one it appears as an organic integrity that suffers violence when any aspect of it is changed, removed or replaced; in the other it appears as a mechanical assemblage of parts momentarily caught in a particular relationship, comfortable with change. Each moment requires appropriate curriculum planning and pedagogical practice. Crucial to achieving that end is keeping the two phases distinct while exploring and exposing their relationship in culture and identity transformation. This will help a great deal to alleviate teachers'fears about teaching diversity or multiculturalism. [source]


Critical Pedagogy for the Present Moment: Learning from the Avant-Garde to Teach Globalization from Experiences

INTERNATIONAL STUDIES PERSPECTIVES, Issue 3 2003
André C. Drainville
Closer to us in what it integrates and in its consequences, global politics still gets conceptualized as if it belonged to a realm of its own, disembedded and abstracted beyond quotidian experiences of power. Still folded in a supernatural world that cannot be of their making, as far from experience as their cold war predecessors were, international studies (IS) students are as alienated and find it as hard to work with critical imagination. To teach students to be more than mere technicians of whatever new world order may be born of present circumstances, we have to unmake the political separation that still exists between the study and teaching of global politics and everyday life in the world economy. This article presents a record of a decade-long teaching experiment conducted in the department of political science at Laval University in Québec City. Borrowing techniques and inspiration from the "historical avant-garde," I have worked to reinvent my pedagogical practice to create "situations" in which students can be full, unalienated subjects in the learning process. [source]


Teaching critical psychology of ,race' issues: problems in promoting anti-racist practice

JOURNAL OF COMMUNITY & APPLIED SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY, Issue 1 2008
Bipasha Ahmed
Abstract The aim of this paper is to illustrate the difficulties faced by teachers of issues related to ,race' and racism in psychology when trying to develop anti-racist practice in their teaching. I argue that the promotion of anti-racist practice can be impeded by the institutionalised cultures of some psychology departments and that such cultures have developed out of an over-reliance on positivist ideas. Positivism obscures the fact that knowledge is constructed from positions of power and privilege, which in turn obscures the social and ideological construction of ,race'. This is clearly a problem when trying to develop anti-racist practice in teaching. It also leads to fixed ideas about what should be included in teaching content and what can be considered as good pedagogical practice, where notions of ,balance' and ,neutrality' are advocated, effectively overriding arguments for understanding the dynamics of knowledge production. It also obscures the power and privilege associated with workings of ,whiteness'. I illustrate this by presenting examples from my own experiences of teaching ,race' issues on undergraduate degree courses. I conclude with suggestions for developing anti-racist teaching by proposing a collective reflexive approach to changing institutional cultures that are currently at odds with anti-racist practice. I also invite further discussion and suggestions on how best to achieve such collective conscientisation. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source]


Repair Sequences in Spanish L2 Dyadic Discourse: A Descriptive Study

MODERN LANGUAGE JOURNAL, Issue 3 2001
Peggy Buckwalter
This article reports on a qualitative study of dyadic discourse between university students of Spanish as a foreign language (FL). In light of the common acceptance of pair work as an effective pedagogical practice in the FL classroom, the study was designed to explore the social and cognitive behavior of learners as they participated in second language speaking activities. The construct of repair as it is formulated in the ethnomethodological approach to conversation analysis provided the lens through which data were examined. Trouble sources were identified and repair sequences were classified in terms of which learner brought attention to the trouble source and which learner resolved it. A clear preference for self-repair and for self-initiated repair was found. Collaborative repair, as well as unsolicited other-repair, operated almost exclusively on the lexicon, whereas self-initiated self-repair included morphosyntax. The study supports the Vygotskian notion that talk is used for cognitive as well as for social purposes. [source]


Making White: Constructing Race in a South African High School

CURRICULUM INQUIRY, Issue 1 2002
Nadine Dolby
As a social and cultural phenomenon, race is continually remade within changing circumstances and is constructed and located, in part, in institutions' pedagogical practices and discourses. In this article I examine how the administration of a multiracial, working-class high school in Durban, South Africa produces "white" in an era of political and social transition. As the population of Fernwood High School (a pseudonym) shifts from majority white working class to black working class, the school administration strives to reposition the school as "white," despite its predominantly black student population. This whiteness is not only a carryover from the apartheid era, but is actively produced within a new set of circumstances. Using the discourses and practices of sports and standards, the school administration attempts to create a whiteness that separates the school from the newly democratic nation-state of South Africa. Despite students' and some staff's general complacency and outright resistance, rugby and athletics are heralded as critical nodes of the school's "white" identity, connecting the school to other, local white schools, and disconnecting it from black schools. Dress standards function in a similar manner, creating an imagined equivalence between Fernwood and other white schools in Durban (and elite schools around the world), and disassociating Fernwood from black schools in South Africa and the "third world" writ large. This pedagogy of whiteness forms the core of the administration's relationship with Fernwood students, and maps how race is remade within a changing national context. [source]


The Relationships Between and Among Teachers' Narrative Knowledge, Communities of Knowing, and School Reform: A Case of "The Monkey's Paw"

CURRICULUM INQUIRY, Issue 3 2001
Cheryl J. Craig
Centering on the monkey's paw metaphor, this narrative inquiry links teachers' pedagogical practices with their professional-development experiences associated with a national reform movement that, in this situation, acted in a top-down manner. The longitudinal study illuminates the short- and long-term influence that the state-directed national reform initiative had on the story of a diverse, U.S. middle school and on the stories its teachers subsequently lived and told. The work particularly focuses on the relationships between and among teachers' knowledge developments, their knowledge communities, and their attitudes toward school reform. [source]


Community psychology, millennium volunteers and UK higher education: a disruptive triptych?,

JOURNAL OF COMMUNITY & APPLIED SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY, Issue 2 2002
Paul S. Duckett
Abstract In this paper I critically explore the ideological underpinnings of pedagogical and political practices in UK Higher Education (HE). I first map out the political and pedagogical features of community psychology and then describe the Millennium Volunteers project at the University of Northumbria,a scheme that integrates voluntary placements into undergraduate degree programmes, reflecting on the political and pedagogical premises upon which it is based. I consider the political context and recent social policy trends in UK HE. Through exploring the ideological underbellies of community psychology and Millennium Volunteers I describe the tensions created once both are situated within a HE student's learning and a lecturer's teaching portfolio. I reflect on how each appears to share similar wish lists but conclude that a surface comparison of the pedagogical practices of each can leave unrecognized serious ideological, ethical and political differences that can cause disruption at the interfaces of staff, students and HE institutions. I recommend making the political and ideological assumptions behind pedagogical practices and education policy initiatives more transparent to both students and lecturers alike and outline the reasons for doing so. I conclude by reflecting on implications for the widening access agenda in the present political climate from the standpoint of a community psychologist. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source]


Qualitative case studies of innovative pedagogical practices using ICT

JOURNAL OF COMPUTER ASSISTED LEARNING, Issue 4 2002
R.B. Kozma
Abstract The Second Instructional Technology in Education Study: Module 2 (SITES M2) is a series of qualitative studies that identify and describe innovative pedagogical practices in 28 participating countries that use technology. The project resulted in 174 case study reports of innovative practice that are currently being analysed. This paper describes the goals, research questions, and methodology for this study and provides a context for the other papers that are published in this issue. Given the large number of case studies, a combined qualitative and quantitative approach to the research is described. [source]


The influence of IT: perspectives from five Australian schools

JOURNAL OF COMPUTER ASSISTED LEARNING, Issue 4 2002
J. Ainley
Abstract Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) are now widespread in Australian schools but with variation in how, where, when and how much they are used. Computers may be located in a computer laboratory, distributed throughout the school, or students may use their own laptop computers. IT may be a subject in its own right or ICT may be used across all areas of the curriculum. It is how ICT is used in the school setting that is important in providing students with the skills to be participate in a ,knowledge society'. This paper examines the ways in which information and communication technologies influence teaching and learning in five Australian schools. Data were gathered through observation, interviews and document analysis in schools operating at the elementary and secondary grades in relatively technology rich environments. Each of the schools participated in the Australian component of the Second Information Technology in Education Study, Module 2 (SITES-M2) of innovative pedagogical practices. Several of the studies were of specific projects where ICT was the key enabler of the learning programme. Others focused on an entire school's approach to ICT as an agent for changed approaches to learning. [source]


The literacy curriculum and use of an Integrated Learning System

JOURNAL OF RESEARCH IN READING, Issue 2 2000
Larry Miller
This article describes one aspect of a year-long study of primary level teachers' and children's (Grades 1-3; children aged 6-9 years) use of the language arts component of SuccessMaker, an Integrated Learning System (ILS). Using information gathered from teacher surveys and classroom observation, we documented areas where the curricula embedded in the ILS were congruent with teachers' normal curricula and pedagogical practices. However, we also found numerous instances of incongruity. To illustrate our findings we use the case of phonics instruction to reveal discrepancies between normal practice and computer-based learning. The differences in content, presentation sequence and instructional practices raise issues about the appropriate relationship between computer-based instruction and teachers' normal practices. [source]


Class in the Classroom: Engaging Hidden Identities

METAPHILOSOPHY, Issue 4 2001
Peter W. Wakefield
Using Marcuse's theory of the total mobilization of advanced technology society along the lines of what he calls "the performance principle," I attempt to describe the complex composition of class oppression in the classroom. Students conceive of themselves as economic units, customers pursuing neutral interests in a morally neutral, socio-economic system of capitalist competition. The classic, unreflective conception of the classroom responds to this by implicitly endorsing individualism and ideals of humanist citizenship. While racism and cultural diversity have come to count as elements of liberal intelligence in most college curricula, attempts to theorize these aspects of social and individual identity and place them in a broader content of class appear radical and inconsistent with the humanistic notion that we all have control over who we are and what we achieve. But tags such as "radical" and "unrealistic" mark a society based on the performance principle. Marcuse allows us to recognize a single author behind elements of psychology, metaphysics, and capitalism. The fact that bell hooks hits upon a similar notion suggests that we might use Marcuse's theory of the truly liberatory potential of imagination to transform and reconceive our classrooms so that the insidious effects of class, racism, and individualistic apathy might be subverted. Specifically, I outline and place into this theoretical context three concrete pedagogical practices: (a) the use of the physical space of the classroom; (b) the performance of community through group readings and short full-class ceremonies, and (c) the symbolic modeling represented by interdisciplinary approaches to teaching. All three of these practices engage students in ways that co-curricularly subvert class (and, incidentally, race divisions) and allow students to imagine, and so engage in, political action for justice as they see it. [source]


Engaging spirituality and an authentic self in the intercultural communication class

NEW DIRECTIONS FOR TEACHING & LEARNING, Issue 120 2009
Janice D. HamletArticle first published online: 4 DEC 200
In this chapter, Hamlet discusses the nature of her spirituality and how it informs and affects her teaching philosophy and pedagogical practices in the multicultural classroom, especially in teaching an intercultural communication course. [source]


Economics Teaching in Australian Universities: Rewards and Outcomes

THE ECONOMIC RECORD, Issue 241 2002
Ross Guest
This paper presents evidence from two surveys to help explain the poor ratings consistently given to the teaching of economics at Australian universities. The evidence suggests that the poor ratings of economics teaching can be attributed to two related factors: inappropriate pedagogical practices and lack of rewards for allocating additional time to teaching. The survey data on pedagogy in economics consist of 205 responses from graduates from two Queensland universities. The time elapsed since graduation ranges from 1 to 10 years. The survey data on academics' time allocation consist of 290 responses from academic economists across a wide range of Australian universities. [source]


A conceptual framework based on Activity Theory for mobile CSCL

BRITISH JOURNAL OF EDUCATIONAL TECHNOLOGY, Issue 2 2007
Gustavo Zurita
There is a need for collaborative group activities that promote student social interaction in the classroom. Handheld computers interconnected by a wireless network allow people who work on a common task to interact face to face while maintaining the mediation afforded by a technology-based system. Wirelessly interconnected handhelds open up new opportunities for introducing collaboration and thereby changing classroom pedagogical practices. We present a conceptual framework and a method for the design of a mobile computer-supported collaborative learning system based on Activity Theory. An instance of the framework for teaching basic mathematics skills was evaluated with 24 6- and 7-year-old children in a month-long study. Positive effects were observed on student social interaction, motivation and learning. [source]