Iterative Classroom Teaching

We consider the machine teaching problem in a classroom-like setting wherein the teacher has to deliver the same examples to a diverse group of students. Their diversity stems from differences in their initial internal states as well as their learning rates. We prove that a teacher with full knowledge about the learning dynamics of the students can teach a target concept to the entire classroom using O (min{d,N} log 1/eps) examples, where d is the ambient dimension of the problem, N is the number of learners, and eps is the accuracy parameter. We show the robustness of our teaching strategy when the teacher has limited knowledge of the learners' internal dynamics as provided by a noisy oracle. Further, we study the trade-off between the learners' workload and the teacher's cost in teaching the target concept. Our experiments validate our theoretical results and suggest that appropriately partitioning the classroom into homogenous groups provides a balance between these two objectives

The Teacher-Student Writing Conference Reimaged: Entangled Becoming-Writingconferencing

This analysis is experimental: we attempt to read data with the work of Karen Barad and in doing so ‘see’ teacher-student writing conferences (a common pedagogy of US elementary school writing) as intra-activity. Data were gathered during teacher-student writing conferences in a grade five US classroom over a six week period. One conference between a researcher and a male Latino student, a Student of Labels, is diffracted. Reading and writing and thinking with Barad disrupts our habitual ways of privileging language as representational. Rather, we consider the material-discursive practices of schooling that produce what comes to matter, leading us to reimage the teacher-student writing conference as entangled becoming-writingconferencing, speaking to the multiplicity of participants, merging of bodies, continual movement, open-ended possibilities, and anticipated transformation of intra-action

Creating, Doing, and Sustaining OER: Lessons from Six Open Educational Resource Projects

The development of free-to-use open educational resources (OER) has generated a dynamic field of widespread interest and study regarding methods for creating and sustaining OER. To help foster a thriving OER movement with potential for knowledge-sharing across program, organizational and national boundaries, the Institute for Knowledge Management in Education (ISKME), developed and conducted case study research programs in collaboration with six OER projects from around the world. Embodying a range of challenges and opportunities among a diverse set of OER projects, the case studies intended to track, analyze and share key developments in the creation, use and reuse of OER. The specific cases include: CurriculumNet, Curriki, Free High School Science Texts (FHSST), Training Commons, Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (SEP), and Teachers' Domain

What Does it Mean to Teach Interpretively?

The ‘interpretive turn’ has gained traction as a research approach in recent decades in the empirical social sciences. While the contributions of interpretive research and interpretive research methods are clear, we wonder: Does an interpretive perspective lend itself to – or even demand – a particular style of teaching? This question was at the heart of a roundtable discussion we organised at the 2014 Interpretive Policy Analysis (IPA) International Conference. This essay reports on the contours of the discussion, with a focus on our reflections upon what it might mean to teach ‘interpretively’. Prior to outlining these, we introduce the defining characteristics of an interpretive perspective and describe our respective experiences and interests in this conversation. In the hope that this essay might constitute the beginning of a wider conversation, we close it with an invitation for others to respond

‘Balancing’ the ‘live’ use of resources towards the introduction of the iterative numerical method

This paper draws on the Knowledge Quartet (Rowland, Huckstep, & Thwaites, 2005) to analyse an introductory to the Iterative Numerical Method Year 13 lesson of a secondary mathematics teacher who uses a range of paper based and electronic resources including Autograph, a mathematics-education software. Data were collected during one lesson observation and a follow up interview with the teacher. Analysis identifies the different aspects of the Knowledge Quartet dimensions: foundation, transformation, connection and contingency, in relation to the introduction to the Iterative method and to the teaching of Year 13 students. Findings demonstrate how the teacher used students’ contributions as resource for his teaching; how he balanced his use of resources; and how he created connections between these resources while he remained attentive to exam requirement

Augmenting primary teaching and learning science through ICT

This study explored how information communication technologies (ICTs) in primary classrooms can enhance the teaching and learning of science. By building on teachers’ and students’ prior knowledge and experience with ICTs, we investigated how ICT use can structure activities to offer enhanced opportunities for active participation in science. The project generated examples of how ICTs can support subject-relevant ways of exploring and communicating science, and evaluating what has been learnt. The major implications from the key finding, found in the Summary report are that; ICTs amplify science learning if teachers unpack the scientific ideas to identify specific pedagogical strategies that exploit the opportunities of each ICT. Visually recorded data present instant, immediate and context-rich information that teachers and students can use as a repository for evaluation, analysis and communication. For ICT-supported activities to meet the needs of diverse learners, students and teachers need “sandpit” time to develop competencies to participate in various tasks. Teachers who use ICTs require support tailored to the specific pedagogical, content and technology needs of the topic they are teaching