'Complex teaching realities' and 'deep rooted cultural traditions': barriers to the implementation and internalisation of formative assessment in China

This article forms the first part of an Action Research project designed to incorporate formative assessment into the culture of learning of a bilingual school in Shanghai, China. It synthesises the empirical literature on formative assessment in China to establish some of the difficulties that teachers have faced in trying to incorporate this approach into their teaching. Some of the barriers include student and teacher resistance and notions of face (mianzi) which are also related to deeply held cultural scripts for teaching and learning that emphasise knowledge transmission and respect for the teacher. The article then explores some of the bottom-up solutions that have been suggested by researchers, such as collaborative dialogue, professional development and international perspectives. These suggestions provide a jumping-off point for offering intercultural communicative competence as a concept and a method that could be effective in ameliorating cultural discontinuities. Throughout, I show how the difficulties and solutions highlighted by empirical research relate to my own teaching context. Although intercultural communicative competence is not new to China, its application to the internalisation of borrowed policies that include formative assessment has yet to be explored

Funds of knowledge 2.0: towards digital funds of identity

This article builds on the growing work on Funds of Identity by offering a conceptualisation of identity in relation to Vygotsky's concept of perezhivanie which is then situated within the discourse on digital identities. I also suggest how teachers and researchers could use avatars, digital representations of online users, as an identity text for drawing on and constructing students' Funds of Identity. In order to illustrate this approach, I briefly sketch an ongoing class-based research project called The Avatar Project. Overall, this article reaffirms and develops the argument that the Funds of Identity approach is an evolution of Funds of Knowledge. This thesis is encapsulated in the phrase, digital Funds of Identity: Funds of Knowledge 2.0

Possibilities-within-constraints: implementing the funds of knowledge concept in the People’s Republic of China

This article is designed as the starting point for future research into the implementation of the funds of knowledge concept in the People’s Republic of China. Utilizing an exploratory research design, I sketch how the funds of knowledge concept could be used by teachers to empower ethnic minority and city-born migrant children disadvantaged by government policies that restrict access to educational resources and marginalize local languages. The article identifies a number of logistical and cultural constraints that complicate the implementation of the funds of knowledge concept in the Chinese context, including access to minority and city-born migrant students, guanxi, examination pressure, and cultural scripts for teaching that emphasize knowledge transmission. However, it also suggests how teachers can work within these constraints by taking advantage of curriculum reform in China, which has led to more autonomy at the local level and the creation of elective courses. Elective courses could provide the space for the deployment of strategies that draw on students’ funds of knowledge. The strategies proposed include neighborhood walks, artifact collection, and pedagogies for teaching that foster collaboration between teachers and students. The article also extends the notion of funds of knowledge by suggesting how the funds of knowledge concept could be of benefit to China’s Han ethnic majority

Digital Funds of Identity: Funds of Knowledge 2.0 for the digital generation?

This paper is a theoretically orientated analysis that synthesises the literature on Funds of Identity with the literature on digital identities. It makes the case for considering Funds of Identity as more than just an enrichment of the Funds of Knowledge approach by suggesting that it is in fact a development. This article also extends the concept and methodology of Funds of Identity by situating identity within a digitised interpretation of social interaction. It does this by exploring the role that avatars and virtual learning environments could play in the development of online identities and their potential application within the classroom. The literature on funds of identity is then synthesised with the literature on new technology, identity and digital literacies This article also explains how digital funds of identity could be used in relation to domain specific knowledge which is illustrated by focusing on English literature and secondary education

Interpreting and implementing the IB Learner Profile in an internationalised school in China: a shift of focus from the ‘Profile as text’ to the ‘lived Profile’

This article presents findings from a case study that explored the way Sophie, an expatriate International Baccalaureate Diploma art teacher in an internationalised school in Shanghai, China, interpreted and implemented the International Baccalaureate Learner Profile. The findings challenge the view that the Profile exerts a regulatory force on teachers’ behaviour by showing that Sophie not only reshaped the Profile according to her beliefs about teaching and learning, but also resisted what she perceived to be underlying patriarchal and westernising discourses. Findings suggest that the notion of a regulatory discourse should focus on both the Profile as text and also what could be called the lived Profile. Finally, this article offers tentative recommendations for professional development that incorporate both the Profile as text and the lived Profile

Teacher (in)discretion in international schools

The topic of teacher autonomy has been extensively explored in state schools in the West. However, little research has been done on neoliberal discourses and notions of performativity within international schools. From the outside, it might seem that international schools are not subject to the \u27tyranny of performativity\u27 due to their relatively autonomous status outside of national education systems. However, the author argues that technologies of performativity are reconfigured in international schools in relation to the sociocultural idiosyncrasies of the local context. In order to illustrate this, this paper focuses on three aspects of performativity in an international school in China - the International Baccalaureate (IB) accreditation process, the student appraisal system, and the school appraisal system. This paper ends by briefly proposing the notion of \u27teacher (in)discretion\u27 which is theorised as a form of resistance and refusal. (DIPF/Orig.

Modified Schema-Based Instruction for Solving Mathematical Word Problems for Elementary School Students with Mild to Moderate Disabilities

Abstract The purpose of this study was to evaluate the effect of an intervention utilizing modified schema-based instruction (MSBI) on the mathematical problem-solving ability of elementary school students with mild to moderate disabilities. Four participants were taught to solve percent of change word problems, which required them to calculate the discounted price of an item or service after the use of a coupon or the final price of an item or service after leaving a tip. Participants were then required to count out an appropriate amount of money to cover the final cost. Effectiveness of the intervention was measured by how many steps on a task analysis the participants were able to complete correctly. Results of the single-case, multiple baseline across participants design indicated a functional relationship between the intervention and the problem-solving ability of the participants. Keywords: schema-based instruction, modified schema-based instruction, word problem solving, percent of change, students with disabilitie

Macroscopic Traffic Model Validation of Large Networks and the Introduction of a Gradient Based Solver

Traffic models are important for the evaluation of various Intelligent Transport Systems and the development of new traffic infrastructure. In order for this to be done accurately and with confidence the correct parameter values of the model must be identified. The focus of this thesis is the identification and confirmation of these parameters, which is model validation. Validation is performed on two different models; the first-order CTM and the second-order METANET model. The CTM is validated for two UK sites of 7.8 and 21.9 km and METANET for the same two sites using a variety of meta-heuristic algorithms. This is done using a newly developed method to allow for the optimisation method to determine the number of parameters to be used and the spatial extent of their application. This allows for the removal of expert engineering knowledge and ad-hoc decomposition of networks. This thesis also develops a methodology by use of Automatic Differentiation to allow gradient based optimisation to be used. This approach successfully validated the METANET model for the 21.9 km site and also a large network surrounding the city of Manchester of 186.9 km. This proves that gradient based optimisation can be used for the macroscopic traffic model validation problem. In fact the performance of the developed gradient method is superior to the meta-heuristics tested for the same sites. The methodology defined also allows for more data to be obtained from the model such as its Jacobian and the sensitivity of the objective function being used relative to the individual parameters. Space-Time contour plots of this newly acquired data show structures and shock waves that are not visible in the mean speed contour diagrams

The Patrimonialization of Old Montreal or, Preserving a Monument, a Cultural Resource, and a Heritage Space for the Modern Metropolis

The Historic Monuments Commission of Quebec declared Old Montreal an historic district in 1964 but that was hardly the beginning or the end of its preservation. This thesis explores what it meant for Old Montreal to be preserved and the long process whereby that happened. Specifically it proposes that there were three general ways that the place was understood as something to keep: as an historic monument, as cultural property, and as a heritage space. While they are roughly embodied in the three versions of preservation law in Quebec and informed by international preservation discourse, each had its own players, its own important sites, and its own political agenda specific to the district. Moreover, each had its own methodology of preservation. Having brought us up more or less to the present day, this thesis concludes by speculating on the challenges that will face the district's preservation as the current paradigm develops

Developing the notion of teaching in ‘International Schools’ as precarious:Towards a more nuanced approach based upon ‘transition capital’

This paper is a response to a recently published article in this journal entitled ‘Precarious privilege: personal debt, lifestyle aspirations and mobility among international school teachers’ by Rey, Bolay, and Gez (2020. “Precarious Privilege: Personal Debt, Lifestyle Aspirations and Mobility Among International School Teachers.” Globalisation, Societies and Education, 1–13. doi:10.1080/14767724.2020.1732193). In this follow-up paper, we take the notion of ‘precarious privilege’ as the starting point for theorising an emerging concept derived from our recent research into teachers’ experiences of turnover in the field of International Schooling. We call this concept ‘transition capital’, which encompasses a newer ‘positive sociology’ approach, imagining the social reality of being a teacher in an International School setting as being a mixture of both the negative and positive. We believe that the concept of ‘transition capital’ complements the notion of ‘precarious privilege’ by recognising the paradoxical nature of the teacher experience. It also attempts to go beyond it by showing how the positive and the negative are dialectical in nature. We also seek to flesh out the burgeoning concept of ‘transition capital’ by explaining its origins in the notion of ‘resilience capital’ and sketching a future research agenda.</p