Curricula and pedagogic potentials when educating diverse students in higher education: students’ Funds of Knowledge as a bridge to disciplinary learning

With the massification of higher education in a knowledge-driven economy, Western universities have struggled to keep pace with the cultural, linguistic, educational and economic diversity of university students and the complex realities of their lifeworlds. This has generated systemic inequities for diverse or ‘non-traditional’ students, and left academics with pedagogic uncertainty. This paper reports on action research that examined curricular and pedagogic practices that made elite academic codes explicit, and utilised students’ Funds of Knowledge as assets for disciplinary learning, in an Australian university. The action research confirmed the potential of creating bridges between the cultural practices and literacies of diverse students and the acquisition of disciplinary knowledge, facilitating their negotiation of multiple literacies and the successful participation of all students. Institutional arrangements – governed by economic, cultural and socio-political conditions – that enabled and constrained these potentials were highlighted, suggesting areas for negotiation for the pedagogies’ ongoing and wider use

Deleuze-inspired action research in the university: Mobilising Deleuzian concepts to rethink research on the reflective writing practices of student teachers

This article offers an insight into the process and potential of Deleuze-inspired action research. It draws on a classroom action research (CAR) project that critically reconceptualises practices of reflective writing in teacher education, including the widespread use of the ‘professional learning journal’ as a resource to facilitate reflection on practice. Students following a teacher education programme in England took part in an innovative mode of engagement with texts, including their learning journals, drawing on the Deleuzo-Guattarian notion of the text as an agent that acts outside of itself. The process was called ‘implicated reading’. An example of a teaching and learning intervention, in the form of a seminar transcript, is offered as an illustration of how Deleuzian theory and philosophy can inspire and shape innovations in practice. The transcript also serves as an opportunity to reimagine the ways in which data and data analysis are conceptualised and practiced in action research (AR) projects. Data is (re)conceptualised as agentic, rather than inert or indifferent. Synthesis is privileged over analysis so that the transcript acts as a provocation to rethink the relation between theory and data, asking what is made possible when these are ‘plugged into’ one another to raise questions that otherwise would have remained unthought. Ultimately, the article offers a worked example of what happens when action researchers take up the challenge of working and thinking within a Deleuzian ontology that seeks to maintain the plurality and potentialities of AR in practice

Experimenting with data and analysis in researching the writing practices of student teachers

Primarily methodological in its orientation, this paper offers a presentation of ‘research outcomes’ in ways that challenge and disrupt commonplace notions of data and analysis. In an attempt to write against the grain of conventional qualitative research practice and to experiment with alternative encounters with data and analysis, I present ‘data/analysis’ in the form of a play (or imagined performance) that writes into being two Deleuzo-Guattarian principles - the critique of the self-conscious ‘I’ and desire. The play draws on a wider study that examined the potential of writing as a tool for learning for undergraduate student teachers in England. As such, the paper also contributes to debates on the practice and purpose of writing as a method of (professional) inquiry

Cloud subtitling in research-led education: Synergizing audiovisual translator training and action research

Empirical research has boomed in the last few years in translation studies (TS) scholarship in general and audiovisual translation (AVT) in particular (Orero et al. 2018; Díaz-Cintas and Szarkowska 2020). As a discipline heavily driven by new technologies, AVT poses additional problems for translator trainers as training institutions sometimes fail to keep abreast of the latest technological developments in the industry. The learning and teaching of said practices ought to bear empirical scrutiny and shed light on how new technologies can inform classroom practices and vice versa. This paper explores practice-based research on the use of cloud technologies in the subtitling classroom and encourages the establishment of closer links between training institutions and industry partners, as well as the use of user-generated feedback to improve existing AVT software

Multimodal storytelling : exploring the role of pedagogy in developing student literacy via school television.

This research study was designed to explore the effectiveness of pedagogical practices on student literacy learning within a student television context. The study was undertaken in response to practitioner inquiry into the value and worth of school television for student literacy learning. Over the research period this project evolved into a deeply reflective self-study of teaching practice within a technological environment. This research took place in a suburban primary school where school television had been created by students for the previous two years. Twenty-two students aged between 10 and 12 participated in three cycles of action research to investigate how pedagogy influences learning within this context. A range of pedagogical actions designed to influence students’ critical thinking were implemented into action research cycles. The selection of actions for intervention was influenced by an investigation into current literature from the field, and an analysis of existing multi-literacy learning, pedagogical conditions and student views of teaching and learning within student television at the beginning of the research cycles. This study gathered information during research cycles using student learning conversations and student interviews, which provided insight into learning from the point of view of students. Supporting this information were daily researcher observations and end-of-cycle interviews with classroom teachers. Through careful monitoring, analysis and reflection on each research cycle it was clear that strategic pedagogical interventions did positively influence multi-literacy learning. Rather than attempt to measure differences in student learning, this study explored how multi-literacy learning, strategic pedagogy and learning within student television inter-related with one another. This research study identified and explored the complex inter-relationships between pedagogies and multi-literacy learning

Elementary art education: an expendable curriculum?

This ethnographic study was initiated by the concern that elementary art education is an endangered subject, not only marginalised but expendable. This concern was based on informal conversations with pre- and in-service teachers and observations during pre-service teacher evaluations in elementary schools in Ontario, Canada. From these conversations and observations, it seemed that the emphasis in elementary schools is on core subjects with anything else deemed to provide balance alongside initiatives to improve literacy, numeracy, character, and inclusion. The school day is teeming with subjects and initiatives and the resulting crowded curriculum may be affecting teaching and learning in non-core subjects, such as art, negatively. In addition to such external issues are individual challenges faced by generalist teachers with little or no background in visual arts. These teachers’ lack of comfort with art might, I surmised at the start of this study, impede the effective planning, implementation, and assessment of art education. To understand what impacts art education, specifically visual arts instruction, I used a variety of interpretive enquiry methods to interrogate what makes art in elementary schools a vulnerable if not an expendable subject. Initially seeking to find out if art was expendable, I went beyond this to explore perceptions of teachers on teaching art through a localised small-scale study involving 19 elementary teachers in two school boards in north-eastern Ontario. I conducted interviews, recorded observations, and read related documents to answer my research questions, which were as follows: Why is art education important, or not, for students, educators, parents, and other stakeholders? Is art jettisoned in favour of implementing other policies and curricular subjects? Do teachers use other programmes and initiatives as an excuse not to teach art? How do teachers feel about teaching art? Is art expendable? Nussbaum’s (1997) capacities (critical self-examination, connectedness with the world, narrative imagination, scientific understanding) provide the theoretical framework for the study, support the analysis of the state of art education, and help defend its importance at the elementary level. Possible barriers to effective art education (history, policy, practice, economics, geography) and how they may affect learners’ ability to connect with the capacities through visual arts instruction are also analysed and discussed. Through this study, I found that elementary art education is threatened in the participants’ schools for a number of reasons including external issues (minimal attention to, inconsistent delivery of, and poor funding for the mandated art curriculum; a high focus on literacy, numeracy, and other initiatives) and internal issues (discomfort with teaching art; wide range of concepts of art). The study concludes with concerns regarding overall problems with miscommunication and disconnection that threaten effective elementary art education. Recommendations for addressing external and internal issues, and these overall problems are outlined, along with plans to improve art education in pre-service teacher education, in-service practice, and the world beyond the classroom

Premarital Education : a Comprehensive Approach for Seventh-day Adventist Pastors in the Italian Union

Problem Although the Adventist Church upholds the importance of a Christlike and stable marriage, the Italian Union historically never developed a systematic and comprehensive approach to both premarital counseling and enrichment programs for married couples, whose preparation is aleatory and depends on both/either the pastor’s approach and/or the couple’s request. The results could be a weakening of both marital stability and marital satisfaction. We assume that the root problem is a naïve understanding of marriage which causes couples to put more effort into preparing for the wedding day rather than for the marital journey. Method An action research intervention was designed and applied in the Italian Union between the summer and autumn of 2022, according to the model suggested by Stringer and Aragón (2021). Several groups of stakeholders—church administrators, pastors, and psychologists certified in Prepare/Enrich, and couples who took the Prepare/Enrich assessment—totaling 30 participants, were involved in a participative construction of new knowledge and practice. Data was evaluated using qualitative methods. Data came from reflective journals written by ten pastors, as co-researchers in the intervention; interview transcriptions from all stakeholders participants; and focus groups with the abovementioned co-researchers pastors. Based on close readings and analysis of the journals and interview transcripts, the data were arranged and examined using the NVivo 1.0 software program. For the first coding cycle (Saldaña 2021), I used values, emotion, and process coding (Saldaña 2014). Results Data analysis and data reflection identified some key issues, as reported in the Participated Written Report, which is the conjoint elaboration for planning future actions (see Appendix G). The co-researchers pastors—as primary stakeholders—became aware of several vulnerabilities in the premarital education approach in the Italian Union and suggested some specific strategic actions. The co-researchers expressed appreciation for the Prepare/Enrich assessment tool but considered it paramount to create a pastoral culture of premarital education where all the involved stakeholders should be more effective: the Seminary should take to heart the urgency of training the new generations of pastors in the premarital education field; the Italian Union is invited to develop more effective protocols for continuous education in premarital education and certification as Prepare/Enrich facilitators of new pastors; pastors are invited to create a network with other professionals to share challenges encountered in premarital education, and learn from each other; couples who took the Prepare/Enrich assessment are welcomed to provide testimonials to other young couples, according to the practice of peer-education intervention. Conclusions The action research methodology allowed us to train pastors while they were also co-researching with the lead researcher. For the lead researcher, this approach had the advantage of being seen as one member among others, and all together in agreement towards a collective journey to produce transformative knowledge. Consequently, the results of this project—as defined in the Statement of the Task—and its relative plans were disseminated as a collective project—because of its local-centered approach—rather than as a top-down institutional program