Cuba Poll 2014 : Full Survey Results

The full survey results include the full list of questions and tables with results for each question.https://digitalcommons.fiu.edu/cuba_poll/1004/thumbnail.jp

A systemic model for differentiating school technology integration

School technology integration rarely begins with school or educator choice. It is part of a wider context where external and internal factors have direct influence on the goals and tools that are adopted over time. The objective of this study is to investigate the systemic conditions that contribute or inhibit the development of different activities by teachers making use of new media. We compiled a list of well-known conditions for technology integration success and mapped these in the historical and culturally bound perspective of activity theory (cultural historical activity theory). We conducted a multiple case study analysis of four schools, public and private. The results point to unique and distinctive scenarios even when homogeneity would be expected, reinforcing the argument that material conditions do not determine pedagogical outcomes nor do they determine changes in practice. Beyond this, the study proposes a methodology that can help elicit tensions in technology integration, pointing to avenues for school development

Cuba and Puerto Rico: Two Wings of One Bird?

The Cuban Research Institute (CRI) of Florida International University continues its tradition of convening scholars and other persons interested in the study of Cuba and Cuban Americans by announcing its 12th Conference. The Twelfth Conference on Cuban and Cuban-American Studies takes Lola Rodriguez de Tio\u27s famous metaphor of Cuba and Puerto Rico as the two wings of one bird as a cue for comparative academic inquiry and public debate.https://digitalcommons.fiu.edu/cri_events/1437/thumbnail.jp

How new technology is addressed by researchers in educational studies: approaches from high-performing universities in China and the UK

There is a crisis of expectation in relation to educational technology. This is sometimes interpreted as a failure of academic researchers to disseminate their work to educational practitioners. However, another interpretation dwells on the lack of vision characterising such research. Because teachers often encounter research most intensely during their own pre-service and in-service education, we review academic research here through a snapshot of output from 10 leading university Education departments sampled in the UK and China. Empirical papers with a central interest in new technology were scarce, representing around 10% of the sample. Research was strongly situated in 'classroom' contexts although, as critics have suggested, with limited attention to the wider ecology of those places and with teachers being the focal interest as much as students. An 'outcomes' research orientation was less common than an interest in process. Although this was approached with different methodologies in China and the UK. Discussion addresses the challenge of effective and authoritative dissemination and constraints arising from the political economy of research itself

2011 Cuba Poll

Summary of poll results from the 2011 FIU Cuba Poll.https://digitalcommons.fiu.edu/cuba_poll/1001/thumbnail.jp

Transforming teacher education, an activity theory analysis

This paper explores the work of teacher education in England and Scotland. It seeks to locate this work within conflicting socio-cultural views of professional practice and academic work. Drawing on an activity theory framework that integrates the analysis of these contradictory discourses with a study of teacher educators’ practical activities, including the material artefacts that mediate the work, the paper offers a critical perspective on the social organisation of university-based teacher education. Informed by Engeström’s activity theory concept of transformation, the paper extends the discussion of contradictions in teacher education to consider the wider socio-cultural relations of the work. The findings raise important questions about the way in which teacher education work within universities is organised and the division of labour between schools and universities

School-based curriculum development in Scotland: Curriculum policy and enactment

Recent worldwide trends in curriculum policy have re-emphasised the role of teachers in school-based curriculum development. Scotland’s Curriculum for Excellence is typical of these trends, stressing that teachers are agents of change. This paper draws upon empirical data to explore school-based curriculum development in response to Curriculum for Excellence. We focus on two case studies – secondary schools within a single Scottish local education authority. In the paper we argue that the nature and extent of innovation in schools is dependent upon teachers being able to make sense of often complex and confusing curriculum policy, including the articulation of a clear vision about what such policy means for education within each school

Teacher agency in curriculum making: agents of change and spaces for manoeuvre

In the wake of new forms of curricular policy in many parts of the world, teachers are increasingly required to act as agents of change. And yet, teacher agency is under-theorised and often misconstrued in the educational change literature, wherein agency and change are seen as synonymous and positive. This paper addresses the issue of teacher agency in the context of an empirical study of curriculum making in schooling. Drawing upon the existing literature, we outline an ecological view of agency as an effect. These insights frame the analysis of a set of empirical data, derived from a research project about curriculum-making in a school and further education college in Scotland. Based upon the evidence, we argue that the extent to which teachers are able to achieve agency varies from context to context based upon certain environmental conditions of possibility and constraint, and that an important factor in this lies in the beliefs, values and attributes that teachers mobilise in relation to particular situations

Young children engaging with technologies at home: the influence of family context

This paper is about with the ways in which young children engage with technological toys and resources at home and, in particular, the ways in which the family context makes a difference to young children’s engagement with these technologies. The data reviewed come from family interviews and parent-recorded video of four case study children as they used specific resources: a screen-based games console designed for family use, a technology-mediated reading scheme, a child’s games console and two technological ‘pets’. We found the same repertoire of direct pedagogical actions across the families when they supported their children’s use of the resources, yet the evidence makes it clear that the child’s experience was different in each home. The paper goes on to present evidence that four dimensions of family context made a difference to children’s engagement with technological toys and resources at home. We argue that understanding children’s experiences with technologies at home necessitates finding out about the distinct family contexts in which they engage with the resources