Bob Moon

Extract from new understandings of teachers' pedagogic knowledge 1

How significant is content or subject knowledge for creative and effective teaching? What links can be made between a teachers knowledge and the associated pedagogic strategies and practices to en...

School-based teacher development in Sub-Saharan Africa: building a new research agenda

This article explores and analyses the context of school-based teacher development in Sub-Saharan Africa. The argument is made that many aspects of the teacher problem in these regions mirror those in the rest of the world, but the size and scale of the need makes the challenge of providing schools and teachers to achieve ‘Education for All’ (EFA) one of the worlds biggest educational problems. As such, a response from the global community, parallel to similar initiatives in health, is required. The context of the problem is set out, particularly the inevitability of creating new school-based modes of teacher development. The analysis draws extensively on the work of the Teacher Education in Sub-Saharan Africa (TESSA) research programme. The article then goes on to suggest: (1) the revolution in communication technologies provides an opportunity radically to reassess the forms and modes of teacher development, particularly in rural areas; and (2) there is a need for research and development activity to provide the foundation upon which such potential can be realized. In this context a new ‘architecture for teacher development’ needs putting in place, a process that should be a mainstream concern for the worlds education research community.

Stimulating professional development through CMC - A case study of networked learning and initial teacher education

This chapter explores the use of networked learning, and especially asynchronous text-based computer conferencing, in stimulating teacher professional development. The study is located within the broader context of sociocultural theory and in particular the work of Lave and Wenger (1991), which locates learning in forms of co-participation. The results of the study indicate that the form of networked learning within educational contexts is crucially influenced by three key factors. (a) The way in which computer conferencing is organized within the context of a formal course influences the form of professional discourse within the conferences. (b) The contrasting character of subject domains can be related to differences in the form and the style of discourse within the conferences. (c) The length of engagement of participants in computer conferencing influences their transition from novices to more experienced participants in networked learning processes. Within successful conferences, teachers’ professional development can be stimulated in new ways, in particular through promoting reflection and enhancing learner autonomy. It is suggested that the role of the moderator is crucial in stimulating effective conferences through the structuring of the learning resources inherent in the conferences. In sum, this study develops a grounded understanding of teacher professional development as a socially situated process enabled through networked learning.

Regenerating curriculum and pedagogy: the English experience

ABSTRACT This article identifies two traditions in the development of curriculum theory and practice in England. The first, it is suggested, grew from the Nuffield tradition of investigative subject‐based enquiry and has evolved in a broadly social constructivist and child‐focused way. The second, with origins in the Humanities Curriculum Project, has developed through action research and professional, reflective practice and is teacher focused. The paper argues for the integration of these interrelated perspectives to embrace the emergent field of study around pedagogic content knowledge (in the USA) and didactic transposition (in France).

Teacher Education and the University: The Global Reform Imperative

This chapter looks globally at the role of the university in teacher education. Over the last hundred years, it is suggested, universities have become the main provider and accreditor of teacher education programmes. This has significantly improved the professional standing of teachers. Yet, paradoxically, the analysis suggests, in many countries, public and political opinion has become highly critical of the quality of the education and training provided. The reasons for this are discussed, and it is suggested that this is a consequence of underlying social pressures that need to be understood if confidence in teacher education is to be regained. Five directions for change are proposed: making the research role of the university stronger and more explicit in teacher education, giving increased emphasis to the social mission of teaching, ensuring that the teacher educator is to the fore in monitoring the impact of social and economic change, radically reforming the content of teacher education and positioning the university to act as a hub around which a regenerated network model of teacher development can prosper.

Rethinking the design approach to digitally enhanced curriculum development: a postscript

In this postscript, we want to share a few ideas that have arisen from our joint reading of the papers in this special issue. We do this in the sense of keeping the debate open to further interpretations. The ideas, therefore, are tentative and we would welcome further communication with scholars across the world. Our first observation relates to the ‘ubiquity’ of digital processes now available in the classrooms of the richer parts of the world (and increasingly in low-income countries as well). We appear to have moved beyond the question of ‘does investment in digital technologies represent value for money?’ towards a situation that takes for granted digital affordances in the formulation of curriculum and the practice of pedagogy. There might be discussion about the particular systems to be used in schools and colleges but few seriously question whether the technological changes and opportunities that exist generally across society should not be available for educational purposes. Rather, the focus of technology integration in classroom has shifted to figure out which combination of technologies and teaching strategies would maximise their effect on student learning outcomes. To those involved in teaching and learning on a daily basis, this might seem self-evident but in the wider policy environment this transition is important. For the last few decades, the debate about ‘digital’ has been dominated by the value for money agenda. The pressure on digital advocates was to prove that ‘digital made a difference’ and digital in that sense was often equated with kit and high costs. In order to ‘leapfrog’, for example, low-income countries used ‘digital’ interventions to catch up with richer countries. Much energy was expended trying to establish causal links between provisions of equipment and learning outcomes. This often proved disappointing to those providing the investment as the literature analyses in some of the papers demonstrate. Digital was not, and is not, a magic bullet and it was and is na€ıve to suggest it could be.

Out of Africa: a typology for analysing open educational resources initiatives

This paper describes how a typology was developed and used between 2008 and 2010 to investigate three different open educational resources (OER) initiatives in Sub Saharan Africa (SSA). The typology was first developed by careful scrutiny of the many OER and OER-related initiatives both globally and in Sub Saharan Africa. The typology was then both tested and further developed and refined by applying it to the TESSA, Thutong Portal and Rip-Mix-Learn initiatives. The typology uses four main categories - creation, organisation, dissemination and utilisation - and 18 sub categories to examine and analyse each initiative, with each sub category having a number of properties and possible dimensions. This typology was used to distinguish one type of OER initiative from another while grounding each in a wider context. As there are different levels of categorisation the typology is simple at the highest level, with just four elements, for use by practitioners; but is detailed enough at other levels to enable researchers to generate research questions. Furthermore the typology is flexible enough to evolve over time as it is applied to more and more OER initiatives both within and outside Africa and also as existing initiatives change and develop over time and while new initiatives emerge. Keywords: Open educational resources, Sub Saharan Africa, typology, HEIs, OER initiatives

BOOK AND RESOURCE REVIEWS

Taylor and Francis COPL_A_305367.sgm 10.1080/02680510802051996 Open Learning 0268-0513 (pri t)/1469-9958 (online) Book R views 2 0 & Francis 3 000Jun 2 08 Professor BobMoon r.e moon@o e .ac.uk International case studies of teacher education at a distance, by H. Perraton, B. Robinson and C. Creed, Oldenberg, Bis-Verlag der Carl van Ossietzky Universitat, 2007, 311 pp., €28:00, ISBN 978-3-8142-2037-6

Contrasting Traditions: The English Experience of Curriculum Change 1960–2000

The school curriculum has been the focus of educational and political debate in England2 for many decades. The reformist years of the 1970s, the sense of retrenchment, even disappointment, in the 1970s, and the period of government intervention in the 1980s and 1990s, have given a particular flavour and emotion to the forms these debates have taken. It is a fascinating period, vividly illustrating the complex interplay of social, political and economic forces and movements that shape contemporary ideas about schooling and the forms and processes through which curriculum can be understood. In this chapter I want to suggest that over this period two interrelated but distinct approaches to curriculum reform have evolved. The first, I suggest, grew out of the Nuffield tradition and has evolved into that broad church of social constructivist thinking that has been so influential in the curricular domains of science, mathematics and technology. This tradition I see as focussed on pupil learning. The second approach, I suggest, has origins in the work of the Humanities Curriculum Project (HCP) and has evolved into the equally wide ranging concerns for action research and reflective practice in curriculum development. This tradition I see as focussed on teacher development. The need to find ways of providing a more grounded articulation between these strands of thought and action, whilst acknowledging a wider and legitimate public interest, represents, as I set out in the conclusion, a major challenge for curriculum specialists.

A child's curriculum for the 1990s

This paper was first presented to the Curriculum Associations annual conference at the University of York in April 1990. In June 1990 it was revised for presentation as the ‘Kerr Lecture’ sponsored jointly by the University of Leicester School of Education and the Leicestershire group of the Curriculum Association.