Educational barriers for refugee high school students literature review

This report contains a review of the literature concerning the schooling experience of recently migrated refugee high school students. The report first distinguishes the refugee dilemma and why it is a focus of research. This work reviews citations that include literature reviews, empirical studies, ethnographic studies as well as practitioner pieces. The themes found throughout the research fall into the two categories of social and academic context of a school. The aim is to see what the literature has in terms of these categories and then to assess critical issues for future research. The review concludes with a series of recommendations for practitioners to implement in their classrooms with refugee students.Curriculum and Instructio

Multimodal ways of eliciting students' voice.

For some time researchers have been exploring how students might best be supported to express their ideas, opinions and feelings and to demonstrate what they know and can do. In this paper, we discuss some of the implications of sociocultural view of learning for how classroom research is conducted and describe some of the approaches we have used to generate information on student classroom experiences. Over the course of our work we have found that the use of multiple and multimodal data generation methods allows student with different interests and abilities to take an active part in research. We then detail some of the challenges and rewards involved in working with students in these ways as part of a research agenda focused on enhancing teaching and learning

Doctorates in the dark: Threshold concepts and the improvement of doctoral supervision

The overall goal of this qualitative research case study into doctoral writing was to determine if there were knowable threshold concepts and, if so, to develop effective strategies for helping students overcome them. In addition, it was understood that such strategies could have change implications for supervisory practice. Interview and survey data were collected from students and supervisors. From the student data two threshold concepts had emerged: “Talking to think”—a strategy for developing clarity in writing; and self-efficacy—the belief in one's ability to overcome writing barriers and become an independent academic researcher. In this paper, those two threshold concepts provide an organising framework for the presentation of supervisor findings and for discussion of supervisor professional development needs. The paper concludes with insights into how supervisor professional development could be improved and extended beyond its current focus on regulations and compliance issues

Marking as judgment

An aspect of assessment which has received little attention compared with perennial concerns, such as standards or reliability, is the role of judgment in marking. This paper explores marking as an act of judgment, paying particular attention to the nature of judgment and the processes involved. It brings together studies which have explored marking from a psychological perspective for the purpose of critical discussion of the light they shed on each other and on the practice of marking. Later stages speculate on recent developments in psychology and neuroscience which may cast further light on educational assessment

Recodifications of academic positions and reiterations of desire: change but continuity in gendered subjectivities

This paper argues that the analysis of changes in the social position of women needs to distinguish between levels of social practice and psychic subjectification. The argument draws on Lacan's conception of the relationship between subjectivity, desire and sexual difference to describe gendered aspects of subjectivity embedded within the (re)organisation of social fields. The data is taken from a comparative case study of undergraduate modules in four universities, and the analysis identifies gendered differences in the tutors? pedagogic and disciplinary practice. These differences suggest that while the practice of the female tutors, in different ways, constituted recodifications of existing disciplinary and pedagogic practices, these instances of recodification can simultaneously be interpreted as gendered identifications with an external, feminine position in relation to the dominant structures of the Symbolic Order. Thus, while change may be instituted at the level of practice within specific social fields, at the level of subjectification the recodifications that mark such changes can be read as a reiteration of primary gendered identifications

The ethics of interpretation : The signifying chain from field to analysis

This paper attempts to describe the relationship between the embodied practice of fieldwork and the written articulation of this experience. Starting from Valerie Hey's conceptualisation of 'rapport' as form of 'intersubjective synergy', a moment of recognition of similarity within difference – similar in structure to Laclau and Moufffe's conceptualization of hegemony – the paper explores how we can understand these moments of recognition as positioned within a complex web of signifying chains that interlink social, psychic and linguistic means of representation. Laclau and Mouffe's logics of equivalence and difference and Lacan's account of the production of meaning through metaphor and metonymy provide a theoretical language through which to explore chains of meaning in two fragments of data drawn from a study comparing disciplines and institutions in higher education. My argument is that an awareness of these processes of production of meaning is necessary to the development of an ethical mode of interpretation

Language Teachers’ Self-efficacy Beliefs: A Review of the Literature (2005-2016)

Research into language teachers’ self-efficacy (LTSE) beliefs, a domain-specific branch of research into teachers’ self-efficacy (TSE) beliefs in general education, has emerged in the past 16 years. To date, though, this emergent domain-specific research field has not been described in depth, with most accounts of it summarised very briefly, even in published research that provides empirical data relating to the specific topic of LTSE beliefs. Guided by a synthetic research ethic, this literature review aims to explore the gap. It highlights the characteristics of this LTSE beliefs research field, discussing the methodology employed by various studies that have elicited LTSE beliefs, indicating their areas of focus and evaluating what can be learned from them. Finally, it raises implications for teacher education and highlights potential research directions for quantitative, qualitative and mixed methods designs, offering suggestions that may benefit (teacher-educator) researchers

An evaluation of a series of sixth grade compositions to determine growth in originality, elaborative thinking, and vocabulary

Thesis (Ed.M.)--Boston Universit

Finding common ground: identifying and eilciting metacognition in ePortfolios

Research has suggested ePortfolios reveal and support students’ metacognition, that is, their awareness, tracking, and evaluation of their learning over time. However, due to the wide variety of purposes and audiences for ePortfolios, it has been unclear whether there might be common criteria for identifying and assessing metacognition in ePortfolios across varied contexts. The purpose of this study was to identify evidence of metacognition across ePortfolios of three distinct populations of students: traditional-age undergraduates, graduate Education students, and adults returning to school to complete a bachelor’s degree. We set out to explore if and how ePortfolios could support these different learners’ growth as reflective, intentional learners and professionals. Through a qualitative coding process, we identified four key metacognition markers across students’ ePortfolios in these three populations. We conclude students can be guided to engage in metacognition in ways through thoughtful assignment design and assessment process, no matter their context