Constructing the Learning Environment in Classroom Convivial Computer Tools for Higher Education

New education technologies are coming on stream, enabling connectivity among teachers, facilitators and students. Students have to learn how to access Managed Learning Environments each time they move to different course websites. These barriers can hinder the real understanding of the subject matter for a course. This research calls for a rethink of pedagogical process towards blending together commonly used emerging social software and legacy educational tools rather than developing new tools for the classroom. Indeed, a learning tool should fit well to the learning model and philosophy of that course. Three case studies were conducted through different courses in the Digital Media master program and Informatik program at the University of Bremen, Germany. Students worked in small groups to design digital media and learning portal that should make learning more interesting and meaningful for them. At the end, this research proposes the concept of Constructing the Learning Environment in classroom and Convivial Computer Tools for higher education, where students and teachers, via dialogues in the class, can negotiate to deploy a set of selected tools and functions to match their learning needs. It is also to show that a tool with too many functions can cause confusion, rather than enhance effectiveness. To empower collaborative, interactive and personal learning, this work proposes the blended learning and classroom procedures for a convivial selection of educational tools. At the end, our innovative attempt is to bring constructionist learning into the higher education context

The integration of mapwork and environmental issues using local context in FET Geography: an investigation of current pedagogic practices to inform professional development

This is an interpretative case study of four Grahamstown Education District Further Education and Training (FET) schools. The study sets out to investigate how Geography teachers integrate mapwork and environmental issues using local context, with the intention of providing insights for future professional development. Data for this study were generated using qualitative methods such as document analysis, semi-structured interviews and lesson observations. Interviews were conducted with geography teachers, the subject advisor and a workshop facilitator. The evidence generated in the study revealed that contrary to the integrative design of the curriculum, there is a superficial integration of mapwork and environmental issues as well as a cursory reference to and use of local context. This was noted in both professional development support workshops and classroom practice. The study finds that efforts to improve performance in geography need to pay closer attention to curriculum policy that calls for an integration and localization of knowledge and skills for coherence and relevance. It also notes that there is a need for a focus on real-world problem solving in social, economic, cultural and physical environments through the use of inquiry-based local fieldwork. Local investigations provide an integrative space for content and skills as well as being an important point of reference from which learners can compare and contrast issues in other places such as provincial, national, continental, and global locations. A professional development programme that emphasizes integration and contextualization alongside the current focus on basic skills training is proposed to improve what teachers are delivering in the classroom and to support enquiry-based fieldwork and research to strengthen a place-based relevance in local, national and international contexts. Finally an exemplar for professional development is briefly developed for the topic of soil erosion

Relating indigenous knowledge practices and science concepts : an exploratory case study in a secondary school teacher-training programme

This study reports research on how student teachers in Science at Mutare Teachers' College in Zimbabwe worked with indigenous knowledge practices in relation to science concepts in the secondary school syllabus. The study was conducted among first-year science students and involved them in developing science learning activities for a peer-teaching process that was part of their course. The research was undertaken during a review ofthe college syllabus and as a study to inform the Secondary Teacher Training Environmental Education Programme (ST²EEP). The research design involved the researcher in participant observations and interviews with rural people to document indigenous knowledge practices and to develop materials for the students to work with in the lessons design part of the study. The student teachers used the documented practices to generate learning activities and lesson plans to teach the science concepts they had identified. A peer review session and focus group interviews followed the lesson presentations. Findings from the research point to the rural community being a repository of diverse indigenous knowledge practices. Student teachers showed that they had prior knowledge of both indigenous knowledge practices and science concepts when they come to class. Student teachers were able to relate indigenous knowledge practices and science concepts in ways that have the potential to enhance the learning of science in rural school contexts that lack laboratories and science equipment. The scope of the study does not allow for anything beyond tentative conclusions that point to the need for further work to be undertaken with student teachers and for the research to be extended to teaching and learning interactions in schools. Recommendations are also made for further resource-based work to be undertaken within the forthcoming St²eep implementation phase in 2007

Being a barrister

This study provides a conceptual bridge between barristers’ professional training and educational academic expertise, facilitating an intellectual dialogue between those two areas of professional knowledge. The need for such a dialogue is impelled by my discovery of a dearth of research into legal professionalism particularly in relation to concepts of social learning, apprenticeship and communities of practice (Lave and Wenger, 1991). Focussing on a snap-shot case study of a previously unexamined stage in the professional education and formation of barristers, I develop novel understandings of the complex process of becoming a barrister and of participants’ connections with the nested communities (Brannan, 2007) of the bar. From these understandings I then develop new theoretical perspectives on the notion of communities of practice (Lave and Wenger, 1991) and novel analytical approaches based on understandings of professionals’ motivational factors, (Parsons, 1939) and consensus formation (Goffman, 1959) underpinning professional formation. My study reveals a community of practice dedicated to excellence and a notion of service to others but also uncovers novel perceptions of sequestration and new understandings of new-comer/old-timer relations. The understandings uncovered here led me to create a new theoretical notion of learning terrains, a development of conceptions of learning territories (Fuller and Unwin, 2004, 2005) and my own novel notion of pervasive learning, a new perspective on participatory practice based learning. I conclude by contextualising my uncovered understandings and my theoretical refinements and developments in relation to some of the most recent theoretical developments in professional education and formation; including notions of comingling of propositional and practical knowledge (Guile, 2014a); workplace re-contextualisation (Guile, 2014b); and, professional apprenticeships (Fuller and Unwin, 2014). This additional contextualisation further enhances the value of my conceptual bridge in light of up to the moment understandings of professional learning and formation