weSPOT: A personal and social approach to inquiry-based learning

weSPOT is a new European initiative proposing a novel approach for personal and social inquiry-based learning in secondary and higher education. weSPOT aims at enabling students to create their mash-ups out of cloud based tools and services in order to perform scientific investigations. Students will also be able to share their inquiry accomplishments in social networks and receive feedback from the learning environment and their peers. This paper presents the research framework of the weSPOT project, as well as the initial inquiry-based learning scenarios that will be piloted by the project in real-life educational settings

Argumentation in school science : Breaking the tradition of authoritative exposition through a pedagogy that promotes discussion and reasoning

The value of argumentation in science education has become internationally recognised and has been the subject of many research studies in recent years. Successful introduction of argumentation activities in learning contexts involves extending teaching goals beyond the understanding of facts and concepts, to include an emphasis on cognitive and metacognitive processes, epistemic criteria and reasoning. The authors focus on the difficulties inherent in shifting a tradition of teaching from one dominated by authoritative exposition to one that is more dialogic, involving small-group discussion based on tasks that stimulate argumentation. The paper builds on previous research on enhancing the quality of argument in school science, to focus on how argumentation activities have been designed, with appropriate strategies, resources and modelling, for pedagogical purposes. The paper analyses design frameworks, their contexts and lesson plans, to evaluate their potential for enhancing reasoning through foregrounding the processes of argumentation. Examples of classroom dialogue where teachers adopt the frameworks/plans are analysed to show how argumentation processes are scaffolded. The analysis shows that several layers of interpretation are needed and these layers need to be aligned for successful implementation. The analysis serves to highlight the potential and limitations of the design frameworks

Functional Skills Support Programme: Developing functional skills in science

This booklet is part of "... a series of 11 booklets which helps schools to implement functional skills across the curriculum. The booklets illustrate how functional skills can be applied and developed in different subjects and contexts, supporting achievement at Key Stage 3 and Key Stage 4. Each booklet contains an introduction to functional skills for subject teachers, three practical planning examples with links to related websites and resources, a process for planning and a list of additional resources to support the teaching and learning of functional skills." - The National Strategies website

Subject knowledge and pedagogic knowledge: ingredients for good teaching? An English perspective

The term 'pedagogy' has become a more commonly used word in English educational circles, but it is an under-used and partially misunderstood concept. It is the aim of this article to explore some of the factors that lead to effective classroom teaching. The medieval view of teaching was one where only subject knowledge was necessary, but the work of social constructivists has led to a more student-centred approach to teaching that depends largely on learners' activities and within which the pedagogical skills of the teacher can actively promote better learning. One conceptualisation of teachers? knowledge is that teachers' knowledge is predominantly a 'craft knowledge' which is largely idiosyncratic and nontheoretical. Other conceptualisations suggest that teachers need a deep understanding of several different knowledge bases to develop sophisticated professional expertise. One pertinent issue is one of how teachers transform content expertise into forms that are pedagogically powerful and yet adaptive to the variety of student abilities and backgrounds. Another significant issue is one of reflection. The reflective process includes reviewing, reconstructing, re-enacting and critically analysing one's own teaching abilities and then grouping these reflected explanations into evidence of changes that need to be made to become a better teacher. In summary, this article examines the importance of subject knowledge and its relationship to pedagogical knowledge. It explores teachers' tacit knowledge and teachers' expertise in transforming content knowledge into a form that is accessible to pupils

Innovating Pedagogy 2015: Open University Innovation Report 4

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 fourth 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 Center for Technology in Learning at SRI International. We proposed a long list of new educational terms, theories, and practices. We then pared these down to ten that have the potential to provoke major shifts in educational practice, particularly in post-school education. Lastly, we drew on published and unpublished writings to compile the ten sketches of new pedagogies that might transform education. These are summarised below in an approximate order of immediacy and timescale to widespread implementation