Living Here with Lessons From There: Cosmopolitan Conversations After an International Service-Learning Trip

This research looks at four participants’ identity formation 3 years after their international service-learning (ISL) trip to Kenya. It focuses on life after ISL and the challenges of translating lessons learned abroad into meaningful action upon return. In the process, it speaks to participants’ struggles in resisting social conformity, conflicts with opinions of friends and family, consequences of challenging the status quo, ambivalent and contradictory commitments, and cosmopolitan identity formation attaching them to multiple global locations beyond the local. Findings are threefold: 1) ISL trips provided experiences, stories, relationships, challenges, and opportunities that contribute to various identity narratives; 2) struggles and conflicts experienced upon return destabilized participants’ sense of identity leading to, 3) an embodied cosmopolitan identity. Implications of these findings suggest educators recognize both the challenges and opportunities students may face when confronting hegemonic norms post-ISL

Adapted Primary Literature (APL): An Effective Authentic Text Option for the Science Classroom

The intention of this literature review is to advocate for the incorporation of Adapted Primary Literature (APL) into secondary science classroom instruction in order to aid such science curriculum in achieving balanced authenticity. APL is a valuable instructional text option due to its novel design, an optimal compromise between authenticity and accessibility. APL is a superior reflection of authentic science as it is for professionals of science and in representation of the nature of science (NOS) than Secondary Literature (SL) and textbooks, the dominating scientific text genres of most secondary science classroom instruction. Yet, APL is more accessible in text sophistication and structure than arguably the most authentic genre, Primary Scientific Literature (PSL). In other words, due to such negotiated design, APL could prove invaluable at addressing a multitude of science education objectives associated with authenticity, such as those pertaining to the following common categorical headings: literacy, argumentation, inquiry, concept competence, and the nature of science, to name a few. In addition, APL may address the contemporary science education goals of increased student interest, motivation, and pursuit of scientific endeavors. After all, the current and likely future direction of the global economy, professional atmosphere, consumer decision-making, technological advancements, and environmental threats has required that science education be concerned with far more than just student memorization of content within an isolated, singular disciplinary year. Suggested remedies for potential incorporation challenges, areas in need of further research, and common contrary research positions will be included to provide a comprehensive and supportive examination of APL implementation. No instructive technique is without tradeoffs. Like any other educative method, the success of APL implementation is greatly influenced by the quality of surrounding instruction. Possessing scientific authenticity “in some defined way is never sufficient justification by itself for engaging in an educational practice. Authenticity is no guarantee of effectiveness” (Norris et al., 2009, p. 407)

Recognition of Prior Learning as an integral component of competence-based assessment in South Africa

The concept of recognising and accrediting - what people already know and can do - is having a significant impact on many of the education and training programmes currently being developed. This is irrespective of whether that learning has been acquired through unstructured learning, performance development, off-the-job assessment, or skills and knowledge that meet workplace needs but have been gained through various previous learning experiences. The concept Recognition of Prior Learning (RPL) is understood by most in the area of adult education as the method of assessing relevant competences gained by adults through work and life experiences, which can then be counted towards qualifications or for promotion in the workplace by using a systematic set of procedures. A practical elaboration of RPL policy and practice in the current South African education and training sector is urgently needed. Administered carefully, and supported by explicitly anti-discriminatory policies and practices, RPL can indeed contribute to movements for greater casual mobility, thus optimising South Africa's under-used skills and expertise. In doing so, this country can embark upon a realistic and attainable strategy towards becoming a winning nation. (South African Journal of Education: 2002 22(4): 293-296

Work based learning pedagogies and academic development

The research project team examined the pedagogical practices of tutors working on Work Based Learning (WBL) programmes in HE in England and Wales and carried out a series of interviews and an in depth review of the literature on related pedagogies. The findings specify essential knowledge and abilities a tutor should have who is engaged with WBL in HE and offers a practical and informed response to enhance the successful delivery of WBL by preparing staff to act as WBL advisers. It presents a curriculum guide and its findings contribute to the current debates and issues. Through asking and finding out what WBL pedagogies are and what the rationale underpinning work based learning strategies might be, it takes up the challenge of more traditional knowledge transmission pedagogies in HE and puts forward a reasoned argument for an approach to WBL’s academically sound pedagogies, such as the epistemology of practice, and its increasingly pivotal role in the future direction of HE. This is a direction which needs to manage growing complexity through the pursuit of new knowledge, widening participation and collaborating across disciplines and across different domains of professional practice. It requires being proactively engaged with the private and public sectors, professional bodies, communities and various institutions. Most importantly it has to be able to offer purposeful and relevant pedagogies, successful delivery (often on-line) and assessment that continue to raise standards, an emphasis on learner-centred learning and a developing tendency towards transdisciplinarity. The learning strategies of WBL include accreditation of prior learning, learning agreements, practitioner-led projects, critical reflection and research and development methodologies. The approach is based on reflexivity and relevance and on ensuring the availability of advisers who have the knowledge and characteristics to be experts in the epistemology of practice and in learning conversations. This report will support tutors and workplace advisers of WBL in the development and articulation of their practice through the shared insights, conceptual frameworks and ideas which are contained in this work

Institutional innovation: synthesis of programme outcomes

Report of the work of the Projects funded by the JISC Institutional change/innovation Programme 2008-2010. Report produced by the Synthesis and Benefits Realisation Team linked to the Programme

A Teacher\u27s Journey: Making Sense of How Reading Combined Text Genres Influenced Instructional Practices in a Sixth Grade Science Class

This investigation explored how the experience of literacy integration, defined as using combined text genres (traditional science textbooks, popular science articles, and Adapted Primary Literature), influenced the instructional practices of a middle school science teacher (Phillips & Norris, 2009). The combined texts were put in a hermeneutic circle within the classroom community and discussed (Eger, 1992). During the discussions the teacher monitored the students’ meaning construction processes and made metacognitive decisions about her instructional practices (Ruddell & Unrau, 2004). The participants were Melissa, a sixth grade science teacher, and ten (n=10) of her students at an academically rigorous, independent school in the southeastern United States. Classroom observations and interviews, both used as primary sources of data collection (DeWalt & DeWalt, 2002; Rubin & Rubin, 2005), were informed by other sources of data such as the collection of teacher and student artifacts and a questionnaire for the purpose of crystallization. The transcript data was transcribed, analyzed, and coded using performance/dialogic analysis. Categories from the codes were used to develop themes (Lichtman, 2013; Riessman, 2008) that were organized into a narrative that chronicled the teacher’s understanding of how the reading of combined text genres influenced her instructional practices. The findings are presented in the form of a case study (Yin, 2009). These assertions emerged from the data: (1) Melissa was able to make text visible (Lemke, 1990) and maintain an active learning environment while using minds-on instructional practices and (2) despite the tendency to compartmentalize each text genre, the teacher became metacognitive about her instructional practices. The implication is that literacy integration need not be a mystery or deterrent to science teachers (Shanahan, 1997). With the right resources, such as access to combined text genres, and through trial and error with a variety of instructional practices, teachers can successfully implement literacy integration into their classrooms

Studying the Performance of Cognitive Models in Time Series Forecasting

Cognitive models have been paramount for modeling phenomena for which empirical data are unavailable, scarce, or only partially relevant. These approaches are based on methods dedicated to preparing experts and then to elicit their opinions about the variables that describe the phenomena under study. In time series forecasting exercises, elicitation processes seek to obtain accurate estimates, overcoming human heuristic biases, while being less time consuming. This paper aims to compare the performance of cognitive and mathematical time series predictors, regarding accuracy. The results are based on the comparison of predictors of the cognitive and mathematical models for several time series from the M3-Competition. From the results, one can see that cognitive models are, at least, as accurate as ARIMA models predictions

Culturally Responsive Educational Leadership: A Qualitative Study of Indigenous Innovations

This qualitative study of culturally responsive educational leadership (CREL) explores noteworthy cases of system-wide innovation spanning decades through interviews with seven education professionals active within Indigenous movements and organizations driving Native Hawaiian education and the revitalization of Hawaiian language and culture. The research focus includes the Na Honua Mauli Ola Guidelines (and Pathways) for Culturally Healthy and Responsive Learning Environments, along with the preceding Kumu Honua Mauli Ola Philosophy Statement. Interviewees, all with direct connections to these innovations, illuminate their local and global significance through personal accounts of their development and implementation. The study’s uniquely situated methodology yields rich data for systems-level analysis of these innovative cases of CREL and related work addressing persistent inequities for historically underserved students in the singularly unique environment, education system and socio-cultural context of Hawai‘i. A transformative leadership centered theoretical framework guides data analyses striving for a more complete process-oriented understanding, organizationally and operationally, of effective system-wide CREL practice (across all levels of the P-20 continuum and among various organizational types) in an uncommonly diverse community, as demonstrated in these cases of Indigenous innovation exemplifying CREL in Hawai‘i