77 research outputs found
Ruffling the calm of the ocean floor: merging practice, policy and researching assessment in Scotland
The formative Assessment for Learning proposals outlined by Black and Wiliam (e.g. Black et al, 2002) have been well publicised. Since 2002, in its Assessment is for Learning programme, the Scottish Executive Education Department (SEED) has been exploring ways of bringing research, policy and practice in assessment into closer alignment using research on both assessment and transformational change. This paper focuses on one project within Assessment is for Learning, in which pilot primary and secondary schools across Scotland were encouraged to develop formative assessment approaches in classrooms. They were supported in this by researchers, curriculum developers and local and national policy makers. The paper examines the rationale and methods behind the enactment of formative assessment in these schools. It draws upon evidence provided by the interim and final reports of participating schools to draw conclusions about areas of success within the project and potential barriers to the projectâs future in its evolution from pilot to national programme
Konstruktivistische AnsÀtze in der Erwachsenenbildung und Weiterbildung
Theoretical approaches in the field of further education and advanced vocational training have to face multifaceted demands: the analysis of knowledge aquisition and knowledge transfer and its instructional support as well as the revealment of the mechanisms which influence further education on an organisational level in companies. This article describes, that herefore especially moderate constructivistic approaches are useful. After an introduction to the philosophical tradition of these approaches and important characteristics of adult learning, two examples of constructivistic models are being described particularly: The theory of situated learning environments and career counseling. Concluding it is shown, that a moderate constructive perspective fulfils important criteria for the theoretic modelling of further education processes.Theoretische AnsĂ€tze in der Erwachsenen- und insbesondere in der beruflichen Weiterbildung mĂŒssen sich vielfĂ€ltigen AnsprĂŒchen stellen: der Analyse des Wissenserwerbs und Wissenstransfers und seiner instruktionalen UnterstĂŒtzung ebenso wie der Aufdeckung der Mechanismen, die in den Betrieben auf organisatorischer Ebene die Weiterbildung beeinflussen. In diesem Beitrag wird die Auffassung vertreten, daĂ dafĂŒr insbesondere liberalisierte konstruktivistische AnsĂ€tze gut geeignet sind. Nach einer EinfĂŒhrung in die philosophische Tradition dieser AnsĂ€tze und wichtiger Merkmale des Lernens im Erwachsenenalter werden zwei Beispiele konstruktivistischer Modelle genauer beschrieben: die Theorie situierter Lernumgebungen und das career counseling. AbschlieĂend wird gezeigt, daĂ eine liberalisierte konstruktivistische Perspektive wichtige Kriterien fĂŒr die theoretische Modellierung von Weiterbildungsprozessen erfĂŒllt
Transition in RE in Finland
In this chapter, we will discuss key questions regarding religious education in Finnish state schools today. Recent years have shown that issues related to dialogue, citizenship skills, social integration have moved into the forefront when discussing religious education (Jackson 2014a). Similarly, several researchers have analysed the challenges that diversification, secularisation and post-secularity create for education in religions and non-religious worldviews in Finnish state schools (Ubani et al. 2019a). When we refer to Finnish society in a post-secular context, we do not wish to overstate the rising impact of religion in Europe, but acknowledge the resurgence of public religion and the emergence of an increasingly pluralistic public sphere in Finland too. We convey criticism of the secular normativity of schools and of the liberal-secular foundation of the mainstream approaches of multicultural education, which have emerged against a backdrop of the notion of post-secularity (Coulby and Zambeta 2008; Ubani 2013a). In the Nordic context too, scholars have criticised the othering of non-secular and non-Western worldviews in educational thinking and practices (see e.g. Berglund 2017; Poulter et al. 2016).Peer reviewe
Digital methodologies of education governance:Pearson plc and the remediation of methods
This article analyses the rise of software systems in education governance, focusing on digital methods in the collection, calculation and circulation of educational data. It examines how software-mediated methods intervene in the ways educational institutions and actors are seen, known and acted upon through an analysis of the methodological complex of Pearson Education’s Learning Curve data-bank and its Center for Digital Data, Analytics and Adaptive Learning. This calls for critical attention to the ‘social life’ of its methods in terms of their historical, technical and methodological provenance; their affordances to generate data for circulation within the institutional circuitry of Pearson and to its wider social networks; their capacity to configure research users’ interpretations; and their generativity to produce the knowledge to influence education policy decisions and pedagogic practices. The purpose of the article is to critically survey the digital methods being mobilized by Pearson to generate educational data, and to examine how its methodological complex acts to produce a new data-based knowledge infrastructure for education. The consequence of this shift to data-based forms of digital education governance by Pearson is a challenge to the legitimacy of the social sciences in the theorization and understanding of learning, and its displacement to the authority of the data sciences
The Paradox of Being a Teacher: Institutionalized Relevance and Organized Mistrust
In the article "The Paradox of Being a Teacher: Institutionalized Relevance and
Organized MistrustW Daniel Tröhler describes the paradoxical nature of the teaching
profession which arises out of the mismatch between the excessive expectations
imposed on teachers and, at the same time, the constant mistrust shown to them
for fulfilling these expectations. The paradox is related to the cultural shift of the
educationalization of the Western world â that not only are a wide variety of social,
economic and moral problems defined as educational problems but, in addition,
education itself is placed at the core of the historical process and expected to fulfil
future ideals. According to Tröhler, educationalization was reinforced by the tradition
of modern educational thinking and especially by certain inherent fundamental
religious motives. The author defends this thesis with the help of two, at first sight
very divergent, figures in the history of education: Johan Heinrich Pestalozzi and
Burrhus F. Skinner. Common to these thinkers is, according to Tröhler, their argument
which is constitutive of the cultural shift of educationalization but, also, their shared
view that in order to save the younger generation from the corrupting forces of
external society, certain ideal conditions for making the natural development of the
children possible are needed. Tröhler underlines the religious motives behind this
idea. The task of education is to take care of the salvation of the younger generation,
to protect the âGodâs creationâ against the world of artificial moral corruption.
The educatorâs task is, then, to be Godâs deputy, substitute and imitator, to secure
the existence of this moral order. This religious background helps us, according to
Tröhler, to understand those enormous expectations that schools and teachers meet
even in secular contemporary societies. This raises the question: should one reject
expectations, which no one can fulfill
New wine in old skins: changing patterns in the governing of the adult learner in Sweden
An ethico-aesthetic paradigm as an alternative discourse to the quality assurance discourse
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