Policies and People: A Review of Neoliberalism and Educational Technologies in P-12 Education Research

Accountability regimes, value added, vouchers—it is difficult to ignore the evidence of market-based rationalities in global discourses around education. Such rationalities rely heavily on Information and Communications Technologies (ICTs) for their propagation and maintenance under the guise of educational technologies, or ed-tech. The purpose of this literature review is to examine educational research focused on the role ICTs have played in the neoliberalization of education across the globe. The author contends that future inquiry needs to substantiate the broad claims about the pernicious effects of neoliberalized educational technologies by engaging more directly with those most affected: teachers and students

Trialing project-based learning in a new EAP ESP course: A collaborative reflective practice of three college English teachers

Currently in many Chinese universities, the traditional College English course is facing the risk of being ‘marginalized’, replaced or even removed, and many hours previously allocated to the course are now being taken by EAP or ESP. At X University in northern China, a curriculum reform as such is taking place, as a result of which a new course has been created called ‘xue ke’ English. Despite the fact that ‘xue ke’ means subject literally, the course designer has made it clear that subject content is not the target, nor is the course the same as EAP or ESP. This curriculum initiative, while possibly having been justified with a rationale of some kind (e.g. to meet with changing social and/or academic needs of students and/or institutions), this is posing a great challenge for, as well as considerable pressure on, a number of College English teachers who have taught this single course for almost their entire teaching career. In such a context, three teachers formed a peer support group in Semester One this year, to work collaboratively co-tackling the challenge, and they chose Project-Based Learning (PBL) for the new course. This presentation will report on the implementation of this project, including the overall designing, operational procedure, and the teachers’ reflections. Based on discussion, pre-agreement was reached on the purpose and manner of collaboration as offering peer support for more effective teaching and learning and fulfilling and pleasant professional development. A WeChat group was set up as the chief platform for messaging, idea-sharing, and resource-exchanging. Physical meetings were supplementary, with sound agenda but flexible time, and venues. Mosoteach cloud class (lan mo yun ban ke) was established as a tool for virtual learning, employed both in and after class. Discussions were held at the beginning of the semester which determined only brief outlines for PBL implementation and allowed space for everyone to autonomously explore in their own way. Constant further discussions followed, which generated a great deal of opportunities for peer learning and lesson plan modifications. A reflective journal, in a greater or lesser detailed manner, was also kept by each teacher to record the journey of the collaboration. At the end of the semester, it was commonly recognized that, although challenges existed, the collaboration was overall a success and they were all willing to continue with it and endeavor to refine it to be a more professional and productive approach

Analyzing Students\u27 Historical Thinking Skills at Different Grade Levels

The purpose of this research study is to compare and contrast the historical thinking abilities of students in distinct age-groups through their use of disciplinary literacy skills. This was accomplished by having eight total subjects from four distinct student age-groups participate in a guided inquiry activity about the beginning of the Korean War. As they engaged in the inquiry activity, the participants’ cognitive process and responses to the researcher’s questions were recorded and transcribed and later analyzed. These transcriptions were juxtaposed with one another in search of any major patterns that emerged during the inquiries. Several patterns were identified including the use, or lack thereof, of important disciplinary literacy skills, logical fallacies, and differences in the information extracted from visual sources by the participants. Students’ training for and experience with history appear as the key variable shaping efficiency. These patterns have implications for both current history and social studies teachers as well as educational researchers

SFL in L2 Writing Teacher Education: A Case Study of an EFL Pre-service Teacher in Conceptualizing Grammar

Abstract SFL in L2 Writing Teacher Education: A Case STUDY of an EFL PRE-SERVICE Teacher IN CONCEPTUALIZING GRAMMAR English education globally has been challenged by an increasing need for academic English practices to support access to content area knowledge and scholarly exchanges. However, EFL (English as a Foreign Language) teachers often lack the linguistic and pedagogical knowledge of how academic texts work to construct meanings in specific disciplines and how to design effective academic literacy instruction accessible to all students. This study, therefore, is aimed at responding to the intensifying demand for academic literacy instruction in international contexts by investigating an EFL teacher’s participation in MATESOL program in North America informed in part by Halliday’s SFL (Systemic Functional Linguistics) and Martin’s genre theory. The study focuses on exploring how this teacher’s conceptions of grammar shifted, if at all, over the courses in the teacher education program and how the teacher’s classroom practice during the first year in her career reflect, if at all, the perspective of language learning. This study is informed by two main conceptions as the theoretical frameworks. First, Halliday and Martin’s social conception of language and language learning serves as the theoretical basis informing the pedagogical knowledge that the teacher develops. Second, a sociocultural approach to teachers’ knowledge development serves as a framework to understand how the teacher conceptualizes a more functional conception of language and language learning for academic literacy instruction in a sustained process of teacher learning with respect to the teacher’s whole lived experiences. This study uses an ethnographic method of data collection and analysis. The data were collected from multiple sources including field notes, instructional materials, audio tapes, email exchanges, interviews, textbooks, and course assignments. Data collection focused on documenting this teacher in conceptualizing of grammar over her participation in the teacher education program and over one year of teaching experience upon completion of her MATESOL program. In analyzing these data, this study involved coding and categorizing processes to generate patterns of themes with reference to the research questions. This study is expected to contribute to an effort of preparing teachers with the expertise of teaching academic literacy and development in international contexts by considering how local contexts shape their pedagogical knowledge development

Reconstruct the Class Assessment Strategy: Promoting the 21st-Century Learning

The purpose of this research is to reconstruct the class assessment to promote 21st-century learning. The meaning of reconstructing class assessment is the advanced assessment that can realize the purpose of 21st-century learning which is the ability of argumentation, critical, and creative thinking skills. The advanced assessment in this research used the model of Argument-Driven Inquiry (ADI). This research is a quasi-experimental study that uses a pre-test post-test non-equivalent control group design. The research population is 12th-grade students of senior high school on Bandar Lampung. Based on data analysis, it was revealed that the classroom assessment strategy with continuous assessment using the ADI model can be used as a reference to be able to practice 21st-century life skills including argumentation, critical thinking, and creative skills

An Exploratory Study of the Research on Instructional Practices in Taiwanese, Finnish and American Secondary Science Classrooms

In the past decade, students from the United States have continued to underperform on science assessments relative to their consistently high performing counterparts, including Taiwan and Finland. Theoretically, countries should be able to improve their own education systems by analyzing those of high performing countries. The present study specifically explores the research surrounding instructional practices in Taiwanese, Finnish, and American secondary science education; it aimed to discover what pedagogical strategies each country most regularly implemented and their effectiveness. The research studies included in this review of literature were peer-reviewed research articles published in reputable scholarly journals in the past two years. Although it was difficult to define what instructional practices each country most regularly implements, this study did determine that five specific instructional practices were found to be most effective internationally, in terms of increased student conceptual knowledge or performance. These practices were: engineering design, modeling, argumentation, technology integration, and efficacy-enhancing teaching. In addition, various trends throughout the literature emerged, including a necessity for teachers to make science content relevant and applicable and to mimic the way science is enacted in the field. The results from this study provide obvious meaningful implications for pre-service and current secondary science educators.Bachelor of Art

Exploring the Assessment Aspect of Differentiated Instruction: College EFL Learners\u27 Perspectives on Tiered Performance Tasks

If human beings are believed to be individually unique, why are students evaluated with standardized tests? Differentiated instruction, honoring individual differences of each learner, provides an alternative answer to the question by employing tiered performance tasks to address personal needs in assessment situations. To explore the applicability of differentiated instruction in an English as a Foreign Language (EFL) environment, this case study explored Taiwanese college students’ perspectives on tiered performance tasks and educational implications of the perspectives with regard to EFL learning and teaching at the tertiary level. Grounded in the humanistic stance of education and sociocultural view of learning, the study’s premise is that culturally responsive learner-centered instruction will promote English learning experience in a Chinese context. Data gathering techniques employed included observations, interviews, videotaping, and artifact collection, while data analysis procedures followed a three-step process: data reduction, data display, and conclusion drawing and verification. A total of 12 participants demonstrated generally positive responses to tiered performance tasks offered in a final examination for a freshmen English listening and speaking class. An overall acceptance of the assessment strategy was generated through recognition and appreciation of choices of leveled tasks, heightened motivation, increased efforts, improved English skills, and greater confidence. Concerns caused by the challenging tasks included complexity level, time required to complete the task, partnership, and score. Affirmative results were particularly evident in low-ranking students. The acceptance of tiered performance tasks indicated that differentiated instruction is promising in supporting English language learning of college EFL learners in Taiwan. Implications pointed to the needs of an authentic assessment to link teaching and learning, as well as an equitable relationship between the educator and the learner. Suggestions for future research were offered

Teachers’ understanding and implementation of a whole language approach to literacy in Taiwan: A study of early years’ teachers’ beliefs and practices

In recent years, state and national governments have introduced major programmes to reform literacy teaching, e.g. textbook programmes in the United States; the Literacy Block in Victoria, Australia (DEET, 1997, 1998); the National Literacy Strategy (NLS) in England (Department for Education and Employment (DfEE), 1998). These programmes are largely based on the growing body of evidence about what may constitute effective literacy teaching. Following the trend, Taiwan‟s government is also recognizing that in order to meet the challenges of globalization and the desire to improve students‟ PIRST in the literacy section year–on-year, Taiwanese should be well-equipped with new knowledge and literacy (Ministry of Education, Taiwan; 1999, 2000, 2003, 2005). One of the ways to make education and training more accessible is by providing better infrastructure, such as building new libraries and providing more books, as well as upgrading the teaching and learning practices through teacher training. There is also an urgent need to improve the declining standards in Chinese literacy (Ministry of Education, Taiwan; 1999, 2000, 2003, 2005). In 2000, the Taiwan Education Commission proposed a Reading Project in an attempt to deal with these challenges, which included the whole language approach (MOE, 2000). This approach was the key guideline for the implementation of the aims of early childhood education for the twenty-first millennium. Therefore, many nurseries and kindergartens claim that they have applied the whole language approach as part of their teaching policy, and have treated it as an important element of their curriculum design. In order to explore the understanding of Taiwanese early year‟s teachers regarding whole language approach and its implementation, a total of 200 questionnaires were delivered to teachers at nurseries and kindergartens. 169 were completed and analyzed. In addition, three Taiwanese nursery teachers participated in an in-depth qualitative study to investigate the implementation of the whole language approach and to explore their understanding of it. During the course of the investigation, their beliefs about literacy teaching and the extent to which those beliefs are reflected in their classroom practices were examined. Their framing of the whole language approach was tracked for more than four months by means of interviews and classroom observations. The wealth of data and information collected revealed that although the whole language approach may be positively mandated on a large scale, individual differences between teachers may make the implementation of any such approach or reform more variable in its impact than researchers and policy makers would expect. The findings indicate that, while teachers sought to include the whole language approach into their literacy teaching, their thinking often shifted and their concept of the whole language approach and literacy learning and teaching fluctuated. The findings also highlight the complexity of these views. The key influences on teachers‟ perceptions of literacy and literacy teaching form a continuum, ranging from a purely discrete skill-based curriculum, which reflects traditional Confucian beliefs, to social interaction, which supports the integration of the whole language approach. This range of beliefs is informed by a variety of different influences, including the experience of teachers; their personal background; their understanding of the needs of parents, as well as those of school requirements; government suggested guidelines, and, finally, cultural demands. Each of these influences represents a unique challenge to the beliefs of teachers. When drawn together, the combination of influences that emerge illustrates the complex ways in which teacher beliefs inform their pedagogical practice. What the data reveals is that the pedagogical practices of teachers were pushed and pulled by these intervening forces, along a continuum between a whole language approach and a more traditional skill-based teaching. Therefore, it is not that they were slow to adopt the utopian whole language approach in practice, nor were they reluctant to change, but that their practice was in reality always constrained by these forces. The findings also indicate that there are immense difficulties in understanding the concept of the whole language approach and a gap between the practitioners‟ espoused theories and practice. The study revealed the complex nature of learning and teaching and the core issue for implementing reform, namely, the need to bridge the gap between theory and practice. Based upon the findings of the study, implications for practice are also considered, namely, the need for government funding and subsidies to help nursery schools to mediate market forces; the restructuring of the bureaucratic and hierarchical management in nurseries; the empowerment of teachers through nurturing their pedagogical competence; support of professional career training; and the ongoing development and reformation of the philosophical underpinnings of teacher training

Exploring the Assessment Aspect of Differentiated Instruction: College EFL Learners\u27 Perspectives on Tiered Performance Tasks

If human beings are believed to be individually unique, why are students evaluated with standardized tests? Differentiated instruction, honoring individual differences of each learner, provides an alternative answer to the question by employing tiered performance tasks to address personal needs in assessment situations. To explore the applicability of differentiated instruction in an English as a Foreign Language (EFL) environment, this case study explored Taiwanese college students’ perspectives on tiered performance tasks and educational implications of the perspectives with regard to EFL learning and teaching at the tertiary level. Grounded in the humanistic stance of education and sociocultural view of learning, the study’s premise is that culturally responsive learner-centered instruction will promote English learning experience in a Chinese context. Data gathering techniques employed included observations, interviews, videotaping, and artifact collection, while data analysis procedures followed a three-step process: data reduction, data display, and conclusion drawing and verification. A total of 12 participants demonstrated generally positive responses to tiered performance tasks offered in a final examination for a freshmen English listening and speaking class. An overall acceptance of the assessment strategy was generated through recognition and appreciation of choices of leveled tasks, heightened motivation, increased efforts, improved English skills, and greater confidence. Concerns caused by the challenging tasks included complexity level, time required to complete the task, partnership, and score. Affirmative results were particularly evident in low-ranking students. The acceptance of tiered performance tasks indicated that differentiated instruction is promising in supporting English language learning of college EFL learners in Taiwan. Implications pointed to the needs of an authentic assessment to link teaching and learning, as well as an equitable relationship between the educator and the learner. Suggestions for future research were offered

Doctoral candidates' information practice through research writing : cases of East-Asian students in Australian universities

Information practices are pertinent to research writing, particularly in the writing of a literature review. This study examined East Asian doctoral (PhD) candidates’ information practices as a construct in writing literature reviews for social science theses in Australian universities. The outcomes of this research complement and extend the current documented strategies and regulations in information practices in both fields of Higher Degree Research education and Library and Information Science (LIS). Conceptualised in terms of Foucauldian (1972) “statements”, this study contributes to a reconceptualisation of information practices in research writing through the analysis of students’ literature reviews. Further, this research sheds light on research pedagogy for researchers who are committed to being educators more than supervisors. For doctoral students this thesis provides in part a picture of information practices in research writing. Information practices in literature reviews have largely been under-researched and/or overlooked in the fields of LIS and research education. Past studies in these two areas have contributed to developing research students’ information search abilities and writing abilities through various strategies (Carter, 2011a; Cotterall, 2011a; Kavuluru et al., 2012; Lee & Kamler, 2008; McCulloch et al., 2010; Olsson, 2010; Switzer & Lepkowski, 2007), while there is lack of combined investigation about information practices in research writing. Moreover, there are few studies investigating the statements (Foucault, 1972) per se in these two areas. Statement which is the core unit of discourse brings about the particular modalities of existence such as the information practices in research writing (Foucault, 1972). The investigation on statement can generate new insights into research writing by relating to information practices in both research education and LIS