Facilitating improvements in teaching and learning through self-directed professional development

In post-compulsory education settings opportunities for more appropriate interpersonal communication between a teacher and their students are required. However, reflective practice, proposed as a means of empowering teachers to enhance the process of teaching and learning, is neglected or ineffective and action research, suggested as a way of facilitating reflective practice, may not always be appropriate or possible. Thus, there is a need to better understand how to encourage teachers' participation in, and enable their accomplishment of, reflective practice aimed at self-directed improvements in teaching and learning. Volunteer teachers in post-compulsory education settings used a Communication Styles Questionnaire to identify the pattern of interaction between themselves and their students with a view to developing, where desired, a wider, more flexible style of communicating to enhance teaching and learning. Using an action research methodology and a case study method, these instances of reflective practice were examined to establish the process involved in, and the influences on. improving teaching and learning. In addition, previous experiences of selfdirected professional development engaged in by these teachers were Investigated, to illuminate ways in which desires and attempts to improve teaching and learning are generally facilitated and hindered. The findings indicate that a majority of teachers engage in self-directed professional development on at least an occasional basis and, therefore, in principle, may be favourably disposed towards reflective practice; reflective practice may be facilitated primarily by collaboration, time, teacher autonomy and cultural change within the institution; the process of accomplishing self-directed improvements in teaching and learning through reflective practice may be best guided by a revised action research model. Recommendations are put forward to enable reflective practice and the development of teaching and learning to be a natural and integral part of a teacher's experience and expectations

The SLIM (Social learning for the integrated management and sustainable use of water at catchment scale) Final Report

Background: SLIM stands for 'Socuak Learning for the Integrated Management and Sustainable Use of Water at Catchment Scale'. It is a multi-country research project funded by the European Commission (DG RESEARCH - 5th Framework Programme for research and technological development, 1998-2002). Its main theme is the investigation of the socio-economic aspects of the sustainable use of water. Within this theme, its main focus of interest lies in understanding the application of social learning as a conceptual framework, an operational principle, a policy instrument and a process of systemic change

Just picking it up? Young children learning with technology at home

We describe a two-year empirical investigation of three- and four-year-old children's uses of technology at home, based on a survey of 346 families and 24 case studies. Using a sociocultural approach, we discuss the range of technologies children encounter in the home, the different forms their learning takes, the roles of adults and other children, and how family practices support this learning. Many parents believed that they do not teach children how to use technology. We discuss parents' beliefs that their children 'pick up' their competences with technology and identify trial and error, copying and demonstration as typical modes of learning. Parents tend to consider that their children are mainly self-taught and underestimate their own role in supporting learning and the extent to which learning with technology is culturally transmitted within the family

Using Augmented Reality as a Medium to Assist Teaching in Higher Education

In this paper we describe the use of a high-level augmented reality (AR) interface for the construction of collaborative educational applications that can be used in practice to enhance current teaching methods. A combination of multimedia information including spatial three-dimensional models, images, textual information, video, animations and sound, can be superimposed in a student-friendly manner into the learning environment. In several case studies different learning scenarios have been carefully designed based on human-computer interaction principles so that meaningful virtual information is presented in an interactive and compelling way. Collaboration between the participants is achieved through use of a tangible AR interface that uses marker cards as well as an immersive AR environment which is based on software user interfaces (UIs) and hardware devices. The interactive AR interface has been piloted in the classroom at two UK universities in departments of Informatics and Information Science

How to study the mind: An introduction to embodied cognition

Embodied Cognition (EC) is a comprehensive approach to, and framework for, the study of the mind. EC treats cognition as a coordinated set of tools evolved by organisms for coping with their environments. Each of the key terms in this characterization-tool, evolved, organism, coping, and environment-has a special significance for understanding the mind that is discussed in this article

Developing downloadable TUIs for online pedagogic activities

The Web has changed how we interact with the World’s information and knowledge. As a result there have been several changes to the education sector, especially in online distance learning. Nevertheless, most of the e-Learning activities struggle to break the GUI paradigm. The HCI community has focused on the use of Tangible User Interfaces (TUI) for pedagogic purposes thus producing some evidence of the potential that embodied cognition might bring to constructivist learning. New education movements such as the Edupunk movement argue for an empowerment of independent learners, following the constructivist perspective where learners have to have a more active role by experimenting and discovering concepts on their own. However, we think that accessing TUI systems via Web can lead to pedagogic activities that break the GUI paradigm in education on the Web. This paper presents a case study: three prototypes of TUIs for online learning and exploration were developed and tested, investigating the usability and engagement provided by this kind of interactive tools. <br/