Linda-Dianne Willis

Parents as coteachers of science and technology in a middle-school classroom

For almost four decades, attempts to enhance parental engagement in education have occupied governments, educators, and parent organizations globally (Desforges and Abouchaar 2003). Driving this trend has been the weight of research evidence that indicates a positive correlation between parental involvement in students’ learning and academic performance and school success (e.g., Henderson et al. 2007). In addition, a high level of parent and community involvement has been found to characterize very effective or “good” schools: ones that achieve high standards irrespective of students’ socio-economic class, ethnic/racial background, or their parents’ level of education (Masters 2004).

Exploring Cogenerativity in Initial Teacher Education School-University Partnerships Using the Methodology of Metalogue

This chapter explores the concept of ‘cogenerativity’ by providing three different examples of initial teacher education school-university partnership projects in Australia. The first of these professional experience projects drew on the use of participatory approaches in a new Master of Teaching program; the second involved a project of co-teaching triads; and the third concerned the development of university, school and system partnerships. The authors used the methodology of metalogue to engage in dialogical exchange about the notion of cogenerativity in relation to the literature and through the lens of each project to examine the nature of the concept for developing and sustaining professional experience partnerships. The chapter concludes that cogenerativity may be useful for conceptualising why and how initial teacher education school-university partnerships flourish. The knowledge developed may assist educators and researchers not only to create supportive conditions for the development of initial teacher education school-university partnerships but also to [re]imagine the possibilities of such partnerships to realise continual expansive transformative learning for all involved. The use of metalogue offered a unique research methodology for the authors who each explored their experience of school-university partnerships. At the same time, the use of metalogue illustrated cogenerativity in practice. The approach also enabled the authors to highlight possible challenges and limitations for creating and sustaining cogenerativity in the context of initial teacher education school-university partnerships.

Theorising the third space of professional experience partnerships

Across the international research literature, references to the problematic ‘theory-practice gap’ in initial teacher education abound. Essentially, this refers to the dialectical positioning of university-based learning about teaching as abstracted theory in opposition to situated school-based learning about teaching through practice. This perceived theory-practice gap is exacerbated by the fact that the distinction between university-based and school-based learning is not only figurative but also literal, resulting in confusion amongst preservice teachers who often perceive an irreconcilable tension between the theories learned at the university and the practices observed during their professional experience in schools.

Creating New Spaces for Pre-service Teachers to Engage with Parents: An Australian Coteaching and Cogenerative Dialoguing Project

This chapter examines how coteaching and cogenerative dialoguing between the parents of two students and a teacher at a low socio-educational advantaged secondary school in Australia created interrelational spaces beyond those traditionally available for engaging a pre-service teacher. Building on Pushor’s notion of parent engagement and using Bourdieu’s concepts of field, habitus, and capital, the chapter describes and analyzes how coteaching and cogenerative dialoguing created a culture of dialogic exchange. This ongoing exchange saw the parents’ and pre-service teacher’s capital assume new value, enabling their knowledge, ideas, and dispositions to meld with the teacher’s as they collaborated to teach a class of students which included each of the parent’s sons. The findings shine light on the positive unexpected ways the pre-service teacher learnt about parent-teacher engagement through coteaching and cogenerative dialoguing with the parents and teacher. The findings also signal the benefits and challenges of coteaching and cogenerative dialoguing for better preparing pre-service teachers for their future work with parents especially in low socio-educational advantaged schools.

Implications for Pedagogy: Flipping the Classroom to Engage Pre-service Teachers

As noted by authors in previous chapters of this volume, the idea of flipping the classroom is not new. But the view that flipping the classroom just means students doing work at home that they once did in classrooms is simplistic, overlooking the imperative of new technologies and how these are revolutionising conventional teaching and learning. I have been a tertiary educator in Australia for almost a decade and began flipping my classroom two years ago to better engage pre-service teachers in learning to teach English and literacy. I first heard about a flipped classroom approach through a university-wide promotion (see Chap. 1). Subsequently, I joined my university’s flipping the classroom community of practice to: learn more about what others were doing in their different settings and contexts; share experiences; gain practical ideas; discuss challenges; explore solutions; receive support; and contribute to ongoing research. In this chapter, I examine and reflect on my experiences of learning so far. In particular, I call on key concepts including community of practice, ethics of responsibility, and habitus as well as frameworks such as gateway, cornerstone, and capstone knowledge that have informed my teaching to highlight the pedagogical implications of the approach as well as the impact on student learning and achievement.

Children’s pedagogic rights in the web 2.0 era: A case study of a child’s open access interactive travel blog

This article examines the web 2.0 blogging experiences of one 8-year-old travel blogger. The research question is centred on ‘What does the interactive function of a web 2.0 blogging experience make available in terms of a child’s pedagogic rights?’ This instrumental case study is made up of 56 written and photographic travel blog posts covering some 11,411 words and 150 photos over 170 days, as well as the 187 replies from external blog participants. Background information about the child, his family and the context of the blogging project is provided via an informal interview with him and his mother. An analytical framework capable of rendering visible what the travel blog project made available in terms of the three pedagogic rights of individual enhancement, the right of social inclusion and the right to political participation is developed and activated. Two core findings emerge. First, in this blogging experience, the pedagogic rights of individual enhancement (80% of posts) and social inclusion (96% of posts) dominated the right to political participation (39% of posts). Second, despite claims that the interactive function of web 2.0 has the potential to boost individualism of meaning-making and action, in this case, the blogging experience did not always manifest itself to capitalise on the transformative potential of this experience for this young child travel blogger.