Reinventing learning: a design-research odyssey

Design research is a broad, practice-based approach to investigating problems of education. This approach can catalyze the development of learning theory by fostering opportunities for transformational change in scholars’ interpretation of instructional interactions. Surveying a succession of design-research projects, I explain how challenges in understanding students’ behaviors promoted my own recapitulation of a historical evolution in educators’ conceptualizations of learning—Romantic, Progressivist, and Synthetic (Schön, Intuitive thinking? A metaphor underlying some ideas of educational reform (working paper 8). Division for Study and Research in Education, MIT, Cambridge, 1981)—and beyond to a proposed Systemic view. In reflection, I consider methodological adaptations to design-research practice that may enhance its contributions in accord with its objectives

Using Culturally Ambitious Teaching Practices to Support Urban Mathematics Teaching and Learning

Culturally relevant pedagogy is an ideology upon which strong urban classrooms can be built. However, culturally relevant pedagogy has not been operationalized in a way that allows consistent implementation in classrooms. This work focuses on the conceptualization of culturally ambitious teaching practices (CATP) in mathematics that exemplify the tenets of culturally relevant pedagogy – academic achievement, cultural competence, and critical consciousness – with those of ambitious mathematics teaching practices. This paper will describe the findings of the initial work of developing and operationalizing CATP in mathematics through a quantitative and qualitative analysis

Mathematical thinking of undergraduate students when using three types of software

The research investigates how conceptual understanding of mathematics is promoted when using three types of software: black-box (no mathematical intermediate steps shown), glass-box (intermediate steps shown) and open-box (interaction at each intermediate step). Thirty-eight students were asked to think-aloud and give detailed explanations whilst answering three types of tasks: mechanical (mostly procedural), interpretive (mostly conceptual) and constructive (mixture of conceptual and procedural). The software types had no impact on how students answered the mechanical tasks; however students using the black-box did better on the constructive tasks because of their increased explorations. Students with low maths confidence resorted to using real-life explanations when answering tasks that were application related

IT&C AND THE PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT

In this paper I explore the phenomenon of personal development in an "unconventional" way. The contribution of this paper is to use a different method (i.e. in -depth interviews) to focus on a different unit of analysis (i.e. managerial couples) in a different context. In addition the information and communication technologies (IT&C) are entering all the fields: business, state institutions, education and the day-by-day life. This paper contributes to the field by suggesting a different theoretical approach to personal development conflict as a decision-making problem. I propose using social exchange theory to explain personal development conflict as a complex evaluation of cost and benefits of exchanges between multiple actors on the basis of personal values and beliefs. The critical thinking is one of the most popular learning objects in the English speaking countries and they are also offering most of hopes to distance learning and also the critical thinking is a reflective one. This paper suggests that the field may be overlooking some fundamental variables. Content analysis of the interview transcripts reveals the crucial importance of implicit values and benefits, immanent or tacit actions such as decision-making and learning and communication and mutual understanding. Communication and personal development is essential in this respect. It's difficult to separate work, family and personal development and communication is fundamental in all directions. To conceptualize personal development conflict as a decision-making problem while taking into account exchanges and interactions between multiple actors and we can draw on equity theory or social exchange theory.Future research should test whether decision making is central for the understanding of personal conflict only in managers or in other collectives as well. I recommend the couple as the best unit of analysis to address issues such as accommodation within couples and complex decision- making in both individuals and couples. Future research should draw on boarder and different samples to replicate our study and check the generalizability of its findings - because if it can be generalized it may have strong implication for theoretical development.e-learning, critical thinking, IT training

Innovating Pedagogy 2017: Exploring new forms of teaching, learning and assessment, to guide educators and policy makers. Open University Innovation Report 6

This series of reports explores new forms of teaching, learning and assessment for an interactive world, to guide teachers and policy makers in productive innovation. This sixth report proposes ten innovations that are already in currency but have not yet had a profound influence on education. To produce it, a group of academics at the Institute of Educational Technology in The Open University collaborated with researchers from the Learning In a NetworKed Society (LINKS) Israeli Center of Research Excellence (I-CORE). Themes: • Big-data inquiry: thinking with data • Learners making science • Navigating post-truth societies • Immersive learning • Learning with internal values • Student-led analytics • Intergroup empathy • Humanistic knowledge-building communities • Open Textbooks • Spaced Learnin

Promoting conceptual change of learning sorting algorithm through the diagnosis of mental models: The effects of gender and learning styles

It has been advocated that pedagogical content knowledge as well as subject matter knowledge are important for improving classroom instructions. To develop pedagogical content knowledge, it is argued that understanding of students' mental representations of concepts is deemed necessary. Yet assessing and comparing mental model of each individual is very tedious and time consuming. This study attempted to use gender and learning styles to associate mental models in learning sorting algorithm. The Gregorc Style Delineator (GSD) was used to measure learning styles of the participants. Mental models were assessed using the Pathfinder Scaling Algorithm (PSA). Results indicated that females showed greater similarity in mental models than males and concrete learners also exhibited closer resemblance to the expert mental model than abstract learners. These suggest that gender and learning styles can be meaningfully used to associate mental models in order to provide a group-based instead of individual-based diagnosis and thus promote conceptual change in learning. © 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.postprin

The Trans-Contextual Model of Autonomous Motivation in Education: Conceptual and Empirical Issues and Meta-Analysis.

The trans-contextual model outlines the processes by which autonomous motivation toward activities in a physical education context predicts autonomous motivation toward physical activity outside of school, and beliefs about, intentions toward, and actual engagement in, out-of-school physical activity. In the present article, we clarify the fundamental propositions of the model and resolve some outstanding conceptual issues, including its generalizability across multiple educational domains, criteria for its rejection or failed replication, the role of belief-based antecedents of intentions, and the causal ordering of its constructs. We also evaluate the consistency of model relationships in previous tests of the model using path-analytic meta-analysis. The analysis supported model hypotheses but identified substantial heterogeneity in the hypothesized relationships across studies unattributed to sampling and measurement error. Based on our meta-analysis, future research needs to provide further replications of the model in diverse educational settings beyond physical education and test model hypotheses using experimental methods

A New Direction in University. Teaching between Solidarity, Complexity and Media Education

At the time of an abundance of media o ers and the reduced prestige of the institutions, teaching became strategic to maintaining and rede ning the authority and professional recognition of teachers. It has therefore become advisable to activate a process of self-re ection on the part of universities on the dimensions of didactic innovation and new demands placed on university professors, starting from the reformulation of the mission of the University of the ird Millennium. Areas in need of consideration include: educating to educate (old and new trends in the mode of transmission of knowledge, considering the continuous access to the contents and the new media and cultural behaviours of the students); educating towards an interdisciplinary perspective; educating towards internationalization; educating for integration and solidarity; educating to divulge the results of scienti c research, national and global problems and evolutions in terms of technology and human value; educating with and about the digital media. All these dimensions are explored in the paper, with particular a ention given to the multiple dimensions of Media Literacy for university teachers with regard to overcoming physical, cultural and generational barriers between teachers and students and to up-to-date and democratize the quality university education