Craig Deed

Unrestricted Student Blogging: Implications for Active Learning in a Virtual Text-Based Environment.

Realizing the potential for web-based communication provides a challenge for educators. The purpose here is to report students’ behavioural and cognitive strategies for active learning when using an unrestricted blog in an academic context. This provides insight into how students are making sense of the incorporation of Web 2.0 technology into higher education. An analytical framework was created to investigate the willingness and competence of students to engage in the social and virtual construction of knowledge. The analysis indicated that, while the students appear to have wanted to complete the task efficiently, the process of critically constructing knowledge was not pursued with vigour. The main implication is therefore that students need to either prepare themselves or be prepared by educators to combine their informal experience of communication technology with academic requirements for actively constructing knowledge in virtual environments.

Enablers and Constraints in Achieving Integration in a Teacher Preparation Program

There is broad consensus that effective teacher preparation programs should enable pre-service teachers to integrate learning experiences at university and school. However, as noted in many reviews and studies, achieving this integration remains a significant challenge. In this study we aimed to identify factors that influence developmental coherence in pre-service teachers’ learning in the first eight weeks of a one-year preparation program, entailing university-based and school-based experiences. The pre-service teachers were expected to integrate learning in both contexts as preparation for their first five-week practicum. Our study aimed to identify their judgements of the value of various components of the course in preparing for this teaching experience, as well as factors affecting their sense of learning integration. We found that their responses, while mainly positive about their program in terms of practicum preparation, reflected diverse needs and expectations. We conclude by outlining various implications for further effective integration of learning across both contexts.

Personalised learning: lessons to be learnt

Personalised learning is now broadly endorsed as a key strategy to improve student curricular engagement and academic attainment, but there is also strong critique of this construct. We review claims made for this approach, as well as concerns about its conceptual coherence and effects on different learner cohorts. Drawing on literature around differentiation of the curriculum, self-regulated learning, and ‘relational agency’ we propose a framework for conceptualising and enacting this construct. We then report on an attempt to introduce personalised learning as one strategy, among several, to improve student academic performance and wellbeing in four low SES regional secondary schools in Australia. We report on a survey of 2407 students’ perceptions of the extent to which their school provided a personalised learning environment, and a case study of a programme within one school that aimed to apply a personalised approach to the mathematics curriculum. We found that while there were ongoing challenges in this approach, there was also evidence of success in the mathematics case.

Using Social Networks in Learning and Teaching in Higher Education: An Australian Case Study

Realising the potential for web-based communication in learning and teaching is challenging for educators. In this paper, the authors examine students’ attitudes toward active learning when using an unrestricted blog in an academic context and whether this can be used to support reflective and critical discussion, leading to knowledge construction. The authors collected data using an online survey with questions on student perceptions of the type, frequency and effectiveness of their strategy. Analysis of the data was conducted using Bloom’s revised taxonomy. The research indicates that students must have prior familiarity with this form of communication technology to construct knowledge in an academic context. The authors conclude that effective learning will only emerge if informed by the student experience and perspective.

Teacher adaptation to personalized learning spaces

Personalized learning spaces are emerging in schools as a critical reaction to ‘industrial-era’ school models. As the form and function of schools and pedagogy change, this places pressure on teachers to adapt their conventional practice. This paper addresses the question of how teachers can adapt their classroom practice to create personalized learning spaces. Personalized learning spaces draw conceptually from several decades of attempts to personalize learning and open up classrooms, both physically and virtually. They are characterized by deliberate and active interactions between the context, teacher and students. Two case studies are presented of teachers in Australian regional schools reacting to new open plan school buildings by adapting their practice. Key findings discussed are the influence of context on teacher reasoning, and teacher agency when establishing alternative learning environments.

Disengaged boys' perspectives about learning

This article examines the perspective of disengaged Grade 6 male students about learning. Nine students were observed and interviewed to identify their views on good learning and on being in control of learning. The boys perceived good learners as quick, smart workers who could achieve high grades; and that being in control was about knowing how to do set tasks. Teachers can use knowledge of student perspectives as a basis for refining pedagogical strategies to reengage disaffected students.

The Potential of Humor as a Trigger for Emotional Engagement in Outdoor Education.

This article examines the relevance of humor to student engagement in outdoor education. A sociocultural framework is applied to this examination, based on a view of learning as constructed, cognitive, embodied, and affective. A set of affordances of outdoor education as a contextually situated learning activity is identified along with related abilities of adolescent students to interact with these characteristics. The argument, advanced through an examination of the literature, is that outdoor education provides teaching and learning affordances that are different from traditional school-based education, and the ability of students to engage with these affordances is influenced by a range of affective factors. Furthermore, humor acts as an influential variable in learning environments, thus providing a trigger for increasing students’ emotional engagement with the immediate task or topic. The primary proposition is that a capacity to knowingly perceive and productively engage with humorous moments can provide a pedagogical trigger for the emotional engagement of participants. In particular, we outline how humor is likely to influence student–student, student–teacher, and individual–context learning-related interactions.

The Role of Outside Affordances in Developing Expertise in Online Collaborative Learning

Web 2.0 tools have introduced a dynamic aspect to learning in contemporary classrooms. Pre-service teachers require expertise in the use of these spaces. The metaphor of outsideness—engaging with distant peers using Web 2.0 tools—has affordances that support the development of this expertise. In this paper, a conceptual framework is outlined that links a model of developing expertise with the affordances of outsideness and a case study of pre-service teacher education is used to demonstrate the framework’s possibilities and limitations. Implications are drawn for the use of online collaborative spaces in higher education.

Bending the school rules to re-engage students: implications for improving teaching practice

What scope is there for teachers to purposefully deviate from their routine classroom practice in order to respond to disengaging students? A case study of a small provincial school in Australia shows an example of alternative pedagogy used in response to a disengaged group of young adolescents. The students temporarily engaged with a different version of school although they continued to resist and even sabotage established school routines. The main implication drawn from the case study is that school staff members need to consider the purpose of alternative pedagogy in terms of school engagement.

Personalised learning in the open classroom: The mutuality of teacher and student agency

Abstract In this paper we examine how agency is characterised by teachers and students when personalised learning is enacted in the contemporary open classroom. A case study is outlined that identifies teacher reasoning for practice, the use of physical and virtual learning spaces, and student reaction to teacher facilitation of personalised learning. Agency is conceptualized as a multi-faceted set of behavioural, affective and cognitive choices, as realised by both teachers and students, drawing upon the action possibilities of contemporary educational contexts. A model of the mutuality of teacher and student agency is outlined. The model shows how a shared understanding of the affordances of flexible learning spaces and personalised learning interact to both produce teacher and student expectations and perceptions of their own and other’s choices and actions. Specific student choices and actions are examined in relation to problem-solving and open access of resources to achieve the task requirements. Implications are noted for teaching and learning in modern school contexts.