Michelle Searle

Authentic arts‐based learning in teacher education: a musical theatre experience

There is increasing concern over disengagement of teacher candidates during on‐campus periods of pre‐service programs due to the perceived disconnect between educational theory and practice. In response, teacher education has been called to engage candidates in praxis through authentic learning. In this paper, we bring together the fields of teacher education, authentic learning, and arts‐based learning to articulate a means of enhancing pre‐service programs. Specifically, this paper documents and analyzes the process of engaging teacher candidates in an authentic learning experience of a musical theatre production. Data collected from 30 teacher candidates through rehearsal observations, a post‐production questionnaire, and focus group interviews indicated that participation created a sense of community and belonging, as well as developed skills necessary to carry forward art‐based learning activities into their teaching careers.

Conceptions of doctoral education: the PhD as pathmaking

Our paper is a conversation with the implicit and explicit expectations of the academy, namely that as doctoral students we must achieve a high degree of intellectual autonomy and generate new knowledge. We contest the implications of this view of learners and learning – that learners are autonomous intellectual agents, that knowledge is a private possession, that cognition is an individual process, and that learning is a static and singular path. We propose instead an understanding of learning as pathmaking, which suggests a creative, richly textured, open‐ended, collaborative and passionate process through which new possibilities emerge. This paper comes out of our shared experiences of doctoral studies in Education. We began with initial conversations about our learning in an Ontario Faculty of Education, which then unfolded into a decision to write a paper together. Our process oscillated between individual writing, shared discussion, and analysis. After jointly identifying six keywords, each of us wrote a reflection about a different one – then we merged our individual reflections into a larger whole. The authorial voices in the paper vary between ‘I’ (representing individual reflections of six authors) and ‘we’ (representing the collective voice).

Impact of a One-to-One iPad Initiative on Grade 7 Students' Achievement in Language Arts, Mathematics, and Learning Skills

Abstract The goal of this study was to add to the existing literature by examining the effect of 1:1 iPad integration on the achievement of Canadian Grade 7 students. The school board we worked with provided an iPad to each Grade 7 student in the district to keep for the remainder of their time in the district. We examined the impact of the iPads on achievement with three cohorts of Grade 7 students, totaling 1,400 students. Achievement was assessed using students’ report cards in language arts, mathematics, and learning skills. In language and mathematics, most of the analyses demonstrated statistically significant but small effects of iPad status on achievement. The effects were mixed in that the impact was sometimes positive, sometimes negative, sometimes negative and then positive, and sometimes neutral. There were no significant effects on students’ learning skills, as reported on report cards. The implications of these findings are discussed in the manuscript.