Building an Academic Community: Challenges for Education Quality Management provides a broad and multifaceted overview of practices and experiences related to academic community building and quality ...assurance strategies and tools.
Test-based accountability (TBA) draws on a managerialist ideology that emphasises standards, constant measurement, and external motivation for improvement. It stands in sharp contrast to the idea of ...professional learning communities (PLCs) that aim to mobilise teachers' internal motivation and willingness to cooperate with peers to facilitate a joint, self-reflective inquiry process of pedagogical improvement. The Israeli education system has adopted TBA policies. To determine how this affects a professional learning programme focused on reflective inquiry, we analysed staff discussions recorded in 180 PLC meetings in 17 schools. The study suggests that TBA not only narrows the curriculum and the repertoire of pedagogical practices used by teachers but also constrains the ability of teacher professional learning to counterbalance these negative consequences.
The present paper documents a qualitative study that examines the motivating and inhibiting factors that influenced students' engagement in online discussions via Moodle and Facebook. The data was ...collected through individual interviews with 14 pre-service teachers. Using the Activity Theory as a lens, the study reveals a set of factors concerning the technical tools, subjective perceptions, goals of online discussion, social presence within a community, rules for participation, and roles of the participants that affect their online engagement patterns. The findings of the study inform educators and software designers of how online discussions can be better promoted among students, and how a web-based environment more conducive to learning can be created.
•We explore factors affecting students' engagement with Moodle and Facebook.•Students were not interested in using Moodle, yet active on Facebook.•We use Activity Theory as a lens for data interpretation.•Factors are categorized as technological, individual, and community levels.
Improving student achievement through professional development (PD) is both highly sought-after and elusive. This four-arm randomised controlled trial evaluated effects of Quality Teaching Rounds ...(QTR), a pedagogy-focused form of PD, on mathematics, reading, and science outcomes for elementary students (n = 5478). Outcomes at baseline and 8-month follow-up were compared for QTR, QTR trainer-led, peer-observation, and wait-list control groups. Students in the QTR group made 25% more progress in mathematics than the control group (g = 0.12, 95% CI: 0.07–0.17). This result supports QTR as a form of PD with significant potential for wider impact.
•A four-arm randomised controlled trial examining PD effects on student achievement.•PD intervention was pedagogy-focused Quality Teaching Rounds (QTR).•QTR has significant impact on students’ mathematics achievement.•PLCs undertaking peer observation insufficient for growth in achievement.•QTR is a powerful form of PD with significant potential for wider impact.
A four-stage online collaborative learning approach to supporting teachers' professional development was proposed and described in this paper. This study investigated primary school teachers' ...interactive networks and social knowledge construction behavioral patterns in online collaborative learning activities. The subject of this study was 83 primary school Chinese teachers who were participating in a structured online professional development program that was 6 months in duration. By combining social network analysis, content analysis and lag sequential analysis, results showed that interactive networks generated in two rounds of online collaborative learning activities were low reciprocal, and loosely connected with a low cohesiveness. There was no significant difference of behavior distributions between core and peripheral members. Moreover, teachers' social knowledge construction behavioral patterns presented different characteristics in different rounds of activities. In addition, this study identified certain problems in teachers' online learning. Finally, some implications for the design of teacher education programs, limitations and further research plans are proposed.
•A four-stage online collaborative learning approach was proposed.•Interactive networks were low reciprocal and loosely connected.•There was no significant difference of behavior distributions between core and peripheral members.•Social knowledge construction behavioral patterns presented different characteristics.
The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship between self-regulated learning and planned behavior of students participating in massive open online courses (MOOCs) at universities.
...This was a questionnaire study in which all of the respondents in the survey are undergraduate students in Taiwan. A total of 222 (114 male and 108 female) students were selected as survey subjects. Researchers used partial least squares (PLS) regression and confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) to evaluate the measurement model and the quality of measures. Data collection tools were the Self-Regulated Learning at Work Questionnaire and the Theory of Planned Behavior Questionnaire.
Structural equation modeling was used to test research hypotheses. All the hypotheses tests showed that there was a positive and significant relationship between forethought of SRL and TPB. But, the relationship between attitude toward the behavior and behavioral intention was not significant. Additionally, the salient role of self-efficacy, goal setting, and task interest in generating planned behavior for participating in MOOCs was identified. Overall, self-efficacy, goal setting, and task interest were strong prediction variables for the proposed theoretical model.
Results of the structural model comparisons revealed that the prediction power of the integrated model was superior to that of the theory of planned behavior or the self-regulated learning model in the MOOCs online learning context.
•First, this research was the first attempt to merge SRL and TPB into one framework.•Second, when students planned to participate a MOOC, self-efficacy was the powerful variable of SRL.•Third, goal setting and task interest were mediators based on SRL and TPB.
Abstract In teacher professional development (PD), grouping teachers with varying levels of experience can be a productive and empowering way to stimulate the exchange and co‐generation of content ...and pedagogical knowledge. However, less experienced teachers can face socio‐emotional risks when engaging in collaborative science content reasoning tasks with more experienced colleagues, and these risks may impact the collaborative experience of both parties and the learning environment in teacher PD. This exploratory case study examines the process of productively navigating socio‐emotional risks and interpersonal tensions encountered by a veteran and pre‐service physics teacher during one episode of discussing physics content. We use a single term, comfort‐building , to encapsulate discursive moves that result in increased feelings of comfort and safety by the participants. Comfort‐building includes moves that serve to mitigate social risk, ease tension, and avoid discomfort, as well as those geared toward finding common ground and co‐navigating challenges. These moves can carve out conversational space for teachers to more confidently face risks associated with being accountable to the physics content knowledge and engage in discipline‐based conversations more deeply. The presented case was followed by video‐stimulated individual interviews to determine how consciously the teachers connected their participation to explicit risk and comfort. This case study highlights an affective dimension for consideration in the continued study and facilitation of science teacher PD, especially programs that bring together teachers with a variety of backgrounds and skill sets.
What makes a powerful and results-driven Professional Learning Community (PLC)? The answer is collaborative work that expands the emphasis on student learning and leverages individual teacher ...efficacy into collective teacher efficacy. "PLC+: Better Decisions and Greater Impact by Design" calls for strong and effective PLCs "plus"--and that plus is YOU. Until now, the PLC movement has been focused almost exclusively on students and what they were or were not learning. But keeping student learning at the forefront requires that we also recognize the vital role that you play in the equation of teaching and learning. This means that PLCs must take on two additional challenges: maximizing your individual expertise, while harnessing the power of the collaborative expertise you can develop with your peers. PLC+ is grounded in four cross-cutting themes--a focus on equity of access and opportunity, high expectations for all students, a commitment to building individual self-efficacy and the collective efficacy of the professional learning community and effective team activation and facilitation to move from discussion to action. The PLC+ framework supports educators in considering five essential questions as they work together to improve student learning: (1) Where are we going? (2) Where are we now? (3) How do we move learning forward? (4) What did we learn today? (5) Who benefited and who did not benefit? The PLC+ framework leads educators to question practices as well as outcomes. It broadens the focus on student learning to encompass educational equity and teaching efficacy, and, in doing so, it leads educators to plan and implement learning communities that maximize individual expertise while harnessing the power of collaborative efficacy. To view the accompany resource, "The PLC+ Playbook, Grades K-12: A Hands-On Guide to Collectively Improving Student Learning," see ED597930.
Students nowadays are hard to be motivated to solve logical problems with traditional teaching methods. Computers, Smartphone's, tablets and other smart devices disturb their attention. But those ...smart devices can be used as auxiliary tools of modern teaching methods. The flipped classroom is one such innovative method that moves the solving problems outside the classroom via technology and reinforces solving problems inside the classroom via learning activities.
In this paper, the authors implement flipped classroom as an element of Internet of Things (IOT) into learning process of mathematical logic course. In the flipped classroom, an Intelligent Tutoring System (ITS) was used to help students work with the problems in the course outside the classroom. This study showed that perceived usefulness, self-efficacy, compatibility, and perceived support for enhancing social ties are important antecedents to continuance intention to use flipped classroom.
•The present study aims to extend our collective understanding of flipped classroom in three ways:•We used an Intelligent Tutoring System (ITS) to help students work with the problems in the course outside the classroom.•We tested the feasibility of using an instructional design theory-problem based learning to implement flipped classroom.•We compared the effectiveness and learner perceptions in flipped classroom and traditional class.
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