Promoting aesthetical values to education

With a pressure on schools to meet the requirements of a knowledge-based global economy, human development, critical thinking and imagination seem to be given lower priority. This article argues for including the aesthetic dimension in teaching as a way to foster human development. While aesthetic subjects are cut, there is a growing interest in aesthetic methods through which students are expected to use their knowledge in new and creative ways. However, there is a tension involved in combining innovative and creative thinking with the objectives model, in which education is broken down into measurable targets. Including more than what is measurable is important to encourage students to not only copy what they are told, but to become creative and able to find their own solutions in the future. The aesthetic dimension might support independent thinking and imagination, crucial qualities in a democracy and for developing a future that we cannot yet see. Aesthetics is here understood in a broad sense and not limited to certain subjects. A main concern in the article is how to include aesthetics in academic subjects. Every subject has elements of emotions, intuition and interpretation and might make use of symbolic forms. The aesthetical involves knowledge that is gained through the senses and that appeals to emotions. An aesthetic approach might contribute to interest and meaning, preconditions for learning that transforms the individual. It might open up unrealized knowledge and unexpected outcomes. Furthermore, the approach might contribute to a good life. The argumentation in the article will build on theory as well as on empirical research from upper secondary school.publishedVersio

Barn som relasjonspartnere: Diskurser om det kulturelt adekvate barnet

Parental relationships are to a great extent theoretically naturalised, in psychology as well as in other social sciences. This article aims to analyse parental relationships as culturally and historically situated. The meaning of being a child and a responsible caregiver related to one another are negotiated in everyday life practices in continual care relationships between children and adults. Discourses of children and relationships are cultural tools for the participants of those practices. This paper will focus on adult expectations to children. The analysis is based on an interview study with adults and children living in foster families. In foster families, what is taken for granted in other families, will be more explicit. Thus, it is a strategic area to explore cultural meaning of adultchild relationships. The article elaborate “the discourse of the child with limited responsibility”, “the discourse of the child competent of reciprocity”, and “the discourse of the self constructing child”, discourses that are dynamically related

Grensearbeid: Barnevernets møte med foreldrekonfliktsaker

Tema for denne artikkelen er barnevernets møte med foreldrekonfliktsaker. Barn som har ikke-samboende foreldre med høyt konfliktnivå kan være i en sårbar livssituasjon. Å bistå disse familiene kan være en utfordring for profesjonelle hjelpere i barnevernet. Med utgangspunkt i kvalitative intervjuer med 26 ansatte i den kommunale barneverntjenesten belyser artikkelen hvordan saksbehandlere forstår og definerer foreldrekonfliktsaker, sitt handlingsrom, og hva de opplever som vanskelig i disse sakene. Begrepet grensearbeid (boundary work) brukes som analytisk verktøy for å utforske saksbehandlernes kategorisering og meningsskaping i et faglig og juridisk grenseland. Artikkelen viser hvordan foreldrekonfliktsaker kan utfordre og endre saksbehandleres faglige forståelser, prioriteringer og etablerte praksiser

Expectations to mentoring as support for professional development

Mentoring is acknowledged as a means to support professional development for teachers. However, mentoring has multiple meanings and may be practiced as supervision, support or collaborative self-development for new as well as experienced teachers. The aim of this Norwegian study is to get an understanding of what expectations newly-qualified teachers, their mentors and their leaders have to mentoring and professional development and thereby to identify what kind of mentoring is needed. Data is collected through questionnaires and focus group conversations. The result shows a discrepancy between school leaders’ expectations on one hand and those of mentors’ and newly qualified teachers’ on the other. While school leaders call for supervision and for teachers’ opportunities to join external courses, mentors and newly-qualified teachers ask for mentoring rooted in classroom- activities. One implication of the study is to introduce an induction period for novice teachers where they are gradually included in the organization. Another implication is to use educated mentors as resources for school development, not only for newly-qualified, but also for experienced teachers. Implications for politicians are to provide resources and for school leaders to provide space and protected time for mentoring and professional learning at all levels to ensure sustained school development.publishedVersio

Case-based teacher education preparing for diagnostic judgement

An integrated part of teaching is to face unexpected situations. Teachers have to make immediate decisions, and these decisions may have a great impact on many people. An important question is how teacher education can prepare students for unexpected situations. The aim of this practitioner research study is to investigate if case-based teaching can contribute to reducing the perceived gap in teacher education. A step-wise model was introduced for the students and data based on the student teachers’ experiences was collected through questionnaire and focus-group conversations. The findings show three main arguments for why teacher education should be case-based. First, analysing cases helps students to understand that every situation in practice is unique. Second, cases link to practice and theory, and finally, a case opens for different perspectives depending on how the diagnosis is made.publishedVersio

Entrance into teaching and need for support – narratives from diverse national and local contexts

Denne studien undersøker hvordan en gruppe nye lærere i ulike nasjonale og lokale sammenhenger erfarer inngangen til læreryrket. Studien er basert på narrativer fra nye lærere i Australia, England og Norge. Ved å lytte til deres fortellinger, er målet å utvikle en forståelse for denne spesifikke fasen i læreres profesjonelle liv og å lære mer om hvordan nyutdannede kan støttes. Funnene indikerer at det på tvers av de aktuelle nasjonene er flere likheter enn forskjeller knyttet til inngangen til lærerprofesjonen. Når det gjelder støtte, er behovene mye de samme, men rammene rundt veiledning og annen støtte er forskjellige. Studien impliserer at det er likheter som gjør det mulig å lære av hverandre når det gjelder rammeverket for støtte og veiledning og når det gjelder hva som bidrar til profesjonell utvikling på tvers av nasjonale kontekster.publishedVersio

What Do We Mean by "Stone Free," and How Accurate Are Urologists in Predicting Stone-Free Status Following Ureteroscopy?

Under embargo until: 2022-01-12Background and Purpose: No consensus exists on how stone-free rates (SFRs) should be reported after stone treatment. The aim of this study was to assess how accurate urologists predict their patients being stone free after completing ureteroscopy (URS) and to see how various treatment strategies influenced the precision of these predictions. We also wanted to study how different definitions of stone-free status (SFS) affected the results and propose a standard definition of “stone free” to be used in future studies. Materials and Methods: A retrospective evaluation of 1019 URS done for stone treatment at Haukeland University Hospital between 2013 and 2018 was performed. Data on pretreatment status, the surgical procedure, and follow-up were recorded. SFS was defined as either no fragments detected on computed tomography (CT) after 3 months or as practical stone-free status, which also included those with small residual fragments not needing further treatment. Exact chi-squared and independent-samples t-tests were used comparing data between different treatment modalities. Results: The overall SFR, irrespective of treatment strategy and location of stone, using the no residual fragments and practical stone-free definitions were 54.2% and 74.7%, respectively. Urologists predicted intraoperatively that 91.0% of their patients treated with fragmentation and extraction would be stone free compared to 76.8% of patients treated with dusting, p < 0.0001. At follow-up, the actual SFRs with no residual fragments for the two treatment strategies were 68.0% and 35.5%, respectively, p < 0.0001. The practical SFRs for fragmentation and retrieval were 83.1% and 64.8% for dusting, p < 0.0001. Conclusion: The different definitions of SFS have great impact on SFRs. Urologists are far too optimistic predicting their patient being stone free after URS. SFS should be defined as no fragments detected on CT 3 months after the URS procedure when presented in studies.acceptedVersio

School experiences that make an impression – a study on how to promote bildung and the desire to learn

Postponed access: the file will be accessible after 2022-07-11This qualitative study investigates, through focus groups, how students in upper secondary school in Norway experience schooling. The background for the study is a tension between measurable outcomes and the educational aim of supporting students’ human growth, their Bildung. As teacher educators, we wanted to learn about situations that made an impression on students and thereby might promote Bildung and the desire to learn. Findings show that what made an impression was primarily related to teachers, fellow students, school atmosphere, and to aesthetic experiences and variations. Students emphasise teachers’ attitudes, interpersonal skills and ability to vary their teaching. Teachers content knowledge was taken for granted. Based on the findings, we suggest implications for how to educate teachers, for teachers working conditions and for cooperation in schools. In order to promote students’ Bildung, also teachers’ human development needs to be put on the agenda.acceptedVersio

Changing context, changing landscapes: a review of teacher education in Norway and England

Teachers matter (OECD, 2005) and the selection and preparation of ‘good’ teachers are essential functions when securing excellent teaching and learning in schools. For this to happen, teacher education (as opposed to ‘training’) within the Academy must continue to play a crucial role, not least in its functioning as a gatekeeper to the profession and the educational research that informs it. Proposals made by the European Commission in 2007 have led to the Education Council adopting, for the first time, a European agenda for improving the quality of teacher education for all countries within the European Union. There are, however, different globalised and internationalised views on how to educate teachers and the nature of what it means to be a professional teacher educator (Gewirtz et al 2009; Darling Hammond and Liberman 2012). Within the rapidly shifting landscapes of an international context in which the education and training of teachers is moving into schools, the focus in this chapter is on teacher preparation. We investigate this topic by comparing teacher education in England and Norway, and the policy that forms the basis of two very different educational systems. The aim of this chapter is to reflect on current developments in teacher education in two Northern European countries in order to provoke and stimulate further discussion and critical enquiry in relation to Initial Teacher Education (ITE) in a wider international arena

Extension and remodelling of teachers' perceived professional space

This article examines the sociocultural shaping of teacher agency by focusing on how various conditions mediate teachers’ perceived professional space. Agency is understood from a sociocultural perspective as the mediated capacity to act, which is achieved and exercised in a professional space, and, consequently, shaped by the perceptions of this space. Based on thematic and interpretative analysis of interviews with Norwegian L1 upper secondary teachers, the article identifies several conditions that mediate the teachers’ perceived professional space: the exam, the curriculum, accountability demands, school leadership, colleagues, students, learning materials, and subject traditions and purposes. Two aspects of mediation are identified, what we respectively term extension and remodelling. Extension conveys how mediating conditions provide resources or constraints that contribute to expanding or narrowing the teachers’ perceived professional space. Remodelling, however, conveys how mediating conditions qualitatively transform the perceived professional space. Findings highlight the subject as a resource for teachers, and teacher agency as socioculturally shaped by the perceived size and character of professional space.acceptedVersio