Threshold Concepts Vs. Tricky Topics - Exploring the Causes of Student's Misunderstandings with the Problem Distiller Tool

This paper presents a study developed within the international project JuxtaLearn. This project aims to improve student understanding of threshold concepts by promoting student curiosity and creativity through video creation. The math concept of 'Division', widely referred in the literature as problematic for students, was recognised as a 'Tricky Topic' by teachers with the support of the Tricky Topic Tool and the Problem Distiller tool, two apps developed under the JuxtaLearn project. The methodology was based on qualitative data collected through Think Aloud protocol from a group of teachers of a public Elementary school as they used these tools. Results show that the Problem Distiller tool fostered the teachers to reflect more deeply on the causes of the students’ misunderstandings of that complex math concept. This process enabled them to develop appropriate strategies to help the students overcome these misunderstandings. The results also suggest that the stumbling blocks associated to the Tricky Topic ‘Division’ are similar to the difficulties reported in the literature describing Threshold Concepts. This conclusion is the key issue discussed in this paper and a contribution to the state of the art

Conceptual-associative system in Aboriginal English : a study of Aboriginal children attending primary schools in metropolitan Perth

National measures of achievement among Australian school children suggest that Aboriginal students, considered as a group, are those most likely to end their schooling without achieving minimal acceptable levels of literacy and numeracy. In view of the fact that many Aboriginal students dwell in metropolitan areas and speak English as a first language, many educators have been unconvinced that linguistic and cultural difference have been significant factors in this underachievement. This study explores the possibility that, despite intensive exposure to non-Aboriginal society, Aboriginal students in metropolitan Perth may maintain, through a distinctive variety of English, distinctive conceptualisation which may help to account for their lack of success in education. The study first develops a model of conceptualisations that emerge at the group level of cognition. The model draws on the notion of distributed representation to depict what are here termed cultural conceptualisations. Cultural conceptualisations are conceptual structures such as schemas and categories that members of a cultural group draw on in approaching experience. The study employs this model with regard to Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal students attending schools in the Perth Metropolitan area. A group of 30 Aboriginal primary school students and a matching group of non-Aboriginal students participated in this study. A research technique called Association-Interpretation was developed to tap into cultural conceptualisations across the two groups of participants. The technique was composed of two phases: a) the \u27association\u27 phase, in which the participants gave associative responses to a list of 30 everyday words such as \u27home\u27 and \u27family\u27, and b) the \u27interpretation\u27 phase, in which the responses were interpreted from an ethnic viewpoint and compared within and between the two groups. The informants participated in the task individually. The analysis of the data provided evidence for the operation of two distinct, but overlapping, conceptual systems among the two cultural groups studied. The two systems are integrally related to the dialects spoken by Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal Australians, that is, Aboriginal English and Australian English. The discrepancies between the two systems largely appear to be rooted in the cultural systems which give rise to the two dialects while the overlap between the two conceptual systems appears to arise from several phenomena such as experience in similar physical environments and access to \u27modem\u27 life style. A number of responses from non-Aboriginal informants suggest a case of what may be termed conceptual seepage, or a permeation of conceptualisation from one group to another due to contact. It is argued, in the light of the data from this study, that the notions of dialect and \u27code-switching\u27 need to be revisited in that their characterisation has traditionally ignored the level of conceptualisation. It is also suggested that the results of this study have implications for the professional preparation of educators dealing with Aboriginal students

Formative assessment strategies for students' conceptions—The potential of learning analytics

Formative assessment is considered to be helpful in students' learning support and teaching design. Following Aufschnaiter's and Alonzo's framework, formative assessment practices of teachers can be subdivided into three practices: eliciting evidence, interpreting evidence and responding. Since students' conceptions are judged to be important for meaningful learning across disciplines, teachers are required to assess their students' conceptions. The focus of this article lies on the discussion of learning analytics for supporting the assessment of students' conceptions in class. The existing and potential contributions of learning analytics are discussed related to the named formative assessment framework in order to enhance the teachers' options to consider individual students' conceptions. We refer to findings from biology and computer science education on existing assessment tools and identify limitations and potentials with respect to the assessment of students' conceptions. Practitioner notes What is already known about this topic Students' conceptions are considered to be important for learning processes, but interpreting evidence for learning with respect to students' conceptions is challenging for teachers. Assessment tools have been developed in different educational domains for teaching practice. Techniques from artificial intelligence and machine learning have been applied for automated assessment of specific aspects of learning. What does the paper add Findings on existing assessment tools from two educational domains are summarised and limitations with respect to assessment of students' conceptions are identified. Relevent data that needs to be analysed for insights into students' conceptions is identified from an educational perspective. Potential contributions of learning analytics to support the challenging task to elicit students' conceptions are discussed. Implications for practice and/or policy Learning analytics can enhance the eliciting of students' conceptions. Based on the analysis of existing works, further exploration and developments of analysis techniques for unstructured text and multimodal data are desirable to support the eliciting of students' conceptions

A Genealogy of Reflective Practice

The thesis considers the phenomenon of Reflective Practice as it is deployed in Higher Education in the United Kingdom today. It draws on a Foucauldian notion of governmentality to provide the theoretical basis for understanding the proliferation of Reflective Practice as a discursive practice in Higher Education. It undertakes a genealogy of Reflective Practice with a view to examining a ‘history of the present’ and considers the ways in which the Reflective Practitioner is the touchstone for a policy framework that seeks to acculturate the student into Higher Education. It problematises the Lockean premise that subscribes to the notion that experience is the foundation of knowledge and that through reflection one can change or direct self conduct in ways that can be planned for. The genealogy explores three distinct historical periods that engage with and reinforce the notion of the self as the site of knowledge construction and meaning making in the form of; the reflective practitioner of the 21st century; the entrepreneur of the self in the late 20th century ; and the subject of the Commonwealth of Learning as conceived by John Locke, of the seventeenth century and early enlightenment. It notes the ways in which Reflective Practice recurs as a teleological dynamic that serves to facilitate a transition to a new governmental order, with recourse to the reflexive subject as the touchstone of liberal governance. The thesis presents a case study of student writing to explore the relationship between discourses of education and actual processes of education that characterise Higher Education today. The concern is, after Fairclough (2006), that if we cannot provide adequate representations for processes of education we risk providing ideological ones

Making sense of traditional Chinese medicine: a cognitive semantic approach

Cognitive linguists posit that language as a system of meaning is closely related to cognition and to the associated perceptual and physiological structures of the body. From the cognitive semantic viewpoint, cognitive processes underpin and motivate linguistic phenomena such as categorisation, polysemy, metaphor, metonymy and image schemas. The pedagogical implication of the cognitive semantic perspective is that understanding these cognitive motivations facilitates language learning. This dissertation uses an applied cognitive semantic approach to `make sense' of a traditional knowledge system, Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM). TCM views human physiology as a holistic and dynamic system that exemplifies the same principles as the cosmos-environment. TCM models result in a categorisation of physiological phenomena based on a complex system of experiential and cosmological correspondences. I suggest that the holistic epistemology of cognitive linguistics is well suited to an understanding of these holistic models. From a pedagogical viewpoint, I argue that an analysis of the cognitive motivations which underpin TCM categorisations and the polysemy of some key TCM terms can help the student make sense of TCM as a meaningful system of thought and practice. Both the theoretical and applied approaches explored in this dissertation should have relevance to other traditional knowledge systems, particularly traditional medical systems.Linguistics and Modern LanguagesM.A. (Linguistics

Collaboration: The ubiquitous panacea for challenges in education

Collaboration has long featured as a policy mechanism, an organisational structure, a tool to support professional practice, and a dominant discursive concept in the field of education. In the Scottish context, collaboration has been presented as the means through which persistent challenges like the poverty related attainment gap are tackled, and how what it means to be a professional has been re-characterised, particularly since the turn of the new century. As such, there is a lot at stake when it comes to how collaboration is understood and mobilised. With much emphasis across the domains of practice, policy, and research highlighting the forms collaboration takes and the purposes of it, this study examines the complex reality of collaboration and how understanding this could lead to better outcomes, particularly in relation to improvement agendas. Using Scotland as a context of study, the questions driving this study are: • How is collaboration defined conceptually and practically in education? • How is collaboration presented in the literature, and in policy? • How is collaboration understood in practice? • What role do policy actors and school leaders believe collaboration has in tackling challenges in education? • What role could collaboration play in tackling challenges in education? Deriving from an interpretivist paradigm and articulated within the frame of pragmatic social constructivism, a novel theoretical framework was created, emphasising the contextual influences centred around leadership and governance that enable collaboration to happen. This was utilised in order to analyse collaboration as understood within the literature. Following from this was a critical policy analysis focusing on six key policy texts from the Scottish education context with significance between the period of 2015 to 2020. This analysis drew upon both the novel theoretical framework and an original analytical framework emphasising policy drivers, mechanisms, and consequences. Through these frameworks, this study offers critical insight into dimensions of collaboration that are rarely examined. This went on to include insight into and analysis of the lived reality of collaboration in the Scottish context through semi-structured interviews with five primary school headteachers from two Scottish local authorities, and an exploration of the commonalities and contradictions, with the insights derived through critical policy analysis. Through this analysis, the application of a postmodern lens, and in answering the research questions, a number of key findings were identified. It was clear that collaboration is frequently presented as the lynchpin to improvement and change, as well as being seen as characteristic of the contemporary professional, and of modern professional practice. There is a consistent emphasis on collaboration across policy and practice in the Scottish context, but its manifestation and utilisation are either left to chance, or reliant on specific governance arrangements initiated at various levels of the system. As such, collaboration frequently does not meet its intended aims, given that it does not reflect the complex realities within which it is frequently being imposed upon rather than emerging from. Collaborative mechanisms initiated at national and regional levels, complimented, or enabled by alternative forms of governance, were seen to result in the power to initiate or drive collaboration lying with fewer people. When collaboration was designed and utilised without the input of those required to be involved, there was seen to be more limited success in achieving the often-laudable goals of collaboration. Finally, it was clear that the Scottish policy context and its surrounding discourse enjoy a shared vocabulary when it comes to collaboration, but without a shared operational definition, or understanding of its inherent complexity, what results is varied outcomes from it. What this study has begun to demonstrate is the limited advancement of thinking in recent years on the meaning and conceptualisation of collaboration. To achieve its intended impact, collaboration requires consideration of the need for shared conceptual clarity and the unique contextual influences and drivers of collaboration in its varied forms. Through the articulation of an alternative framework for understanding collaboration within the domains of practice, policy, and research, this research extends current thinking and presents a new means of planning for and understanding the mobilisation of collaboration. The framework for collaboration presented emphasises the complex consideration of the interrelated domains of the forms, drivers, and influences of collaboration. In doing so, the study demonstrates the need for further critical examination of where power is situated within systems in order to enable more responsive approaches to collaboration to emerge from within the communities they are intended to impact, and in doing so, more successfully strive towards broader systemic goals

On epistemological violence in mathematics education research – An exemplary study in the Journal of Mathematics Teacher Education

The contribution introduces the concept of epistemological violence from critical psychology into the discourse of mathematics education research. The concept is specific to violence produced through ‘knowledge’. It addresses the negative impact of research on the Other – the group being studied as distinct from the ones studying. It holds the possibility to link research ethics and the idea of scientific correctness to each other, by focussing on the relationship between theoretical propositions about the Other and practices of data interpretation in empirical research products. An exemplary study in the Journal of Mathematics Teacher Education illuminates how easily epistemological violence is (re-)produced in the dissemination of research results when it goes unreflected. Finally, the scope and limits of this concept in mathematics education research are discussed

Community participatory design in the information systems development process in Africa: a systemic literature review

Participatory design (PO) pertains to the different ways of incorporating ideas and acts of organisational members in designing, developing and evaluating an Information Systems (IS) artefact. The context of this study is community organisations in African settings participating in the designing and developing of an IS artefact. The study traces and synthesises findings from 95 articles on community PO in Information Systems Development in Africa. It argues that community PO consists of vast diverse constructs and implementations. This produced and reproduced concept is formulated in five major themes of: conceptualisations; ethics; standards; checks and balances and approaches; and perspectives and methodologies of PD. The themes constitute the possible ways of classifying PO research and practice in African settings. The results demonstrate that there is a wide belief that participation is one of the vital ingredients necessary for successful designing of IS artefacts for human development. However, the different elements involved in PO involve much discussion on what is known and needs to be known about PO and how to achieve the desired results by PD. The study uses Critical Research philosophy to pay special attention to the behavioural and attitudinal arguments of the different PO practices on community organisations. The researcher found Design Science (OS) principles that centre on devising an artefact as appropriate to frame this work. In sum, through the use of Critical Research and a OS lens, the researcher found that community participation is important in designing a useful IS artefact, but treacherous if misunderstood and inappropriately implemented