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Spanish teachers' feelings of self-efficacy can provide an important measure of their abilities to be effective in the classroom and, perhaps, affect student achievement. There is a need for qualitative research focused on the lived experiences of inservice foreign language teachers while they are immersed in the target culture in order to better understand how those experiences can affect their instructional practices and teacher efficacy. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to examine current Spanish teachers' feelings of self-efficacy while participating in a summer study abroad program in Costa Rica. The following research question guided this inquiry: How does the study abroad experience affect Spanish teachers' feelings of self-efficacy as it relates to language proficiency and instructional practice? A multiple case study design (Stake, 2006) was employed using multiple data sets to analyze the participants' lived experiences while studying in Costa Rica during the summer of 2014. Four participants were selected that met the following criteria: (1) studying abroad in Costa Rica during the summer of 2014; (2) currently enrolled in a master's program in Spanish education; and (3) currently teaching Spanish in a 7-12 setting in the United States. The following data sets were collected from the participants: (1) individual participant interviews; (2) in-country observations of interactions; and (3) participant reflection journals. Three themes emerged from the findings: (1) after spending time in the target culture, all participants realized deficiencies in their language skills; (2) all participants developed a better understanding of their own students as a result of being a foreign language learner; and (3) all participants were committed to using the target language (Spanish) in their classrooms at least 90% of the time.

Pre-service teacher preparation in the United States is becoming progressively more challenging with respect to the demands on teachers. This study examined the impact of tutoring approach on pre-service teachers? skills to work with English language learners through a qualitative research design. Content analysis was used at the thematic level on student journals written to accompany the semester-long experience of tutoring. Thirty pre-service teachers participated and data was collected from 300 written journal reflections for two semesters. Overall, the pre-service teachers gained an understanding of challenges of working ELLs and other positive impacts through tutoring. The findings suggest that pre-service teachers have perceived value of the use of tutoring approach in the teacher preparation program, use of strategies during field-based experiences, instructional realizations, cultural sensitivity, and professionalism. This paper concluded by discussing the need for teacher education program to assist pre-service teachers to assimilate pedagogies and apply through a tutoring approach.

Educators at Mississippi State University developed an at-home, kitchen chemistry style laboratory to accompany the Survey of Organic Chemistry lecture course. The course featured 12 lab activities; eight hands-on experiences that focused primarily on important organic concepts including acid strength, extraction techniques, chromatographic separation, recrystallization, and selected organic reactions. Four online modeling experiences used ChemSketch and three-dimensional visualization to support student understanding of stereochemistry, isomer configurations, and important reaction mechanisms. A unique component of this laboratory course was that students uploaded photo diaries of their experiments to demonstrate completion. The developed course was implemented and taught for three semesters at Mississippi State University with 119 students successfully completing the at-home, self-paced laboratory course. The authors share this at-home laboratory experience as an option for programs exploring novel, off-campus approaches to laboratory experiences.

This report illustrates the didactical concept and implementation of a theory-practice learning setting where preservice teachers counsel pupils from local schools on their self-regulated learning. The learning setting is part of the preservice teachers' psychology curriculum embedded in their educational foundation studies and aims at fostering preservice teachers' psychological literacy; specifically, to reflect their own and other's behavior and to apply their psychological knowledge of learning and counseling principles into real-life counseling sessions. Besides describing the motivation behind the structure and content of the theory-practice learning setting, the report discusses results of a first qualitative analysis of the preservice teachers' learning journals, which function as a reflection tool and are part of the overall evaluation design. Results indicate that the practice task (counseling session) is a complex and demanding, yet instructive and rewarding, learning setting that fosters certain attributes of psychological literacy. Practical implications and further research endeavors are discussed.

Background: Research demonstrating the positive outcomes of service learning among university students is robust and some describe the impact as transformative. Purpose: To help me better understand how I can support transformative learning in my classroom, this study explored how an intergenerational critical service learning project fostered change among student participants. Methodology/Approach: Data consisted of reflection journals collected over 6 years from 228 students who participated in a course-based intergenerational service learning project and researcher field notes. Using a qualitative design and narrative methodology analysis took place over a 2-year period and consisted of a 3-stage process: deep reading, identifying stories, and re-storying to generate findings. Findings/Conclusions: Three mechanisms were found to foster transformation among students--writing as inquiry, embodied learning, and mindfulness. The two-pronged contemplative approach used in this course informs the way in which students experience the critical service learning project. Together, they provide a deep and transformative learning opportunity. Implications: Insights into course design and pedagogical approaches that support transformative learning.

Background: In successful experiential learning, cycling between experience and reflection promotes higher-order thinking skills. Emotions can either help or hinder productive reflection. The role of emotion as it applies to reflection cycles within experiential learning is not well understood, especially in the criminal justice area. Purpose: The research presented in this article examined how students' emotional reactions shaped their reflection via journal entries and identified key points where these reactions are able to be routed into more developed phases of reflection. Methodology/Approach: Content analysis was used to study five sets of 10 students' reflective journals during a college course entitled "The Role of Canines in Inmate Rehabilitation." Findings/Conclusions: The exploratory study yields the themes of "Unpacking Emotions," which examines emotions that emerged in students' reflective journals, "Pivot Points" designating critical shifts in thinking, "Failure to Launch" when students were stymied in their reflective process, and "Potential for Action," which addresses how successful reflection leads to future action. Implications: The ability to incorporate emotions into a more reasoned, critical analysis is essential to successful reflection and transformational learning, which has implications for students' future in the field as well as their investment in community and society.

This case study addresses the issue of climate change denial among students in their first year of vocational education. It was possible to shake the belief that man-made climate change was not happening, through letting students measure the potential of natural forest vegetation and compare their findings with those gathered by their peers nine years earlier. The comparison revealed that old forests had turned into ecosystems, which were adapted for dryer warmer climates. For education for sustainable development, forest education and biology lessons offer the opportunity to establish a long term project, in which peer-to-peer-learning over generations of students is possible, with a high rate of acceptance of the results generated by the former students.

Traditional paper science notebooks have served the purpose of engaging learners in the scientific practices, however, as with many things, paper is being replaced by digital. This study examined the digital notebook entries of students to consider the affordances and limitations of digital science notebooks versus traditional paper science notebooks. Affordances were related to the use of audio, ability to copy and paste, take photographs, and include material from the internet. Limitations included the time it took students to write and/or draw tables, and the potential learning opportunities lost from close observation through drawing to photographs. This study highlights how a digital science notebook can also integrate technology in a manner that promotes active learning and critical thinking. Based on the notebook entries examined, we suggest that the affordances outweigh the limitations and encourage further research on digital science notebooks.

The main goal of this study was to test whether feedback from a lecturer and tutor on an initial reflective journal entry fosters reflection quality in a subsequent journal entry and reflection skills in student teachers. To address these questions, we, a team of educators and psychologists, conducted a field experiment during the practical semester. Student teachers (N = 54; 40 female) wrote two reflective journals about their own classroom teachings on an online-platform and were randomly assigned to one of two conditions: (a) reflective journaling with feedback (experimental condition, n = 27) or (b) reflective journaling without feedback (control condition, n = 27). Feedback in reflective journaling fostered reflection quality in the subsequent journal entry and conceptual knowledge about reflection. These findings indicate that feedback in reflective journal-keeping exerts a powerful influence in fostering reflection in student teachers during their practical semester.

Through a program called "Snowga" (yoga in the snow), students learned about mindfulness and living in the present moment through yoga postures and meditations. Positive changes included growth in wellbeing as the children explored self, community, and the natural world through yoga, mindfulness, personal reflective journals, and artwork. The purpose: to engender awareness of the efficacy of mindfulness and yoga practices in nature and contribute to the growing body of knowledge around wellbeing in education.

Language teacher identity (LTI) has gained prominence in second language education in the recent two decades, particularly the complexity of identity construction in the changing context shaped by local and global forces. This study adds to recent work on LTI by exploring how Asian teachers of English as a foreign language (EFL) constructed their professional identities in the context of service-learning. Adopting the theoretical framework based on the perspectives of identity-in-practice and identity-in-discourse, the present research investigates eight Taiwanese preservice teachers' identity construction, as they worked with their American collaborators to teach English to Taiwanese elementary school pupils. Data analysis reveals that initially, as the preservice teachers drew upon and negotiated two dominant discourses which are associated with educational models in Confucian heritage culture (CHC) and American culture, they experienced conflict between their desired identities and the identities available to them. However, when the preservice teachers participated in relevant social practices from their service-learning experiences, they managed to reconcile identity conflict by appropriating discourses, which led to empowerment in identity development. Based on the findings, this study discusses implications for future research and the provision of support in preservice teacher education to handle identity conflict and facilitate identity development.

This qualitative research study employs a teacher action research methodology to study how a teacher develops and implements a critical race pedagogy (CRP) curriculum. CRP pairs the liberatory practices of critical pedagogy (Friere, 1970), such a problem-posing classroom and praxis, with the maxims of critical race theory (Delgado & Stefancic, 2000). Situated in a high school teacher pipeline program, this study details how a teacher-researcher developed a curriculum focused on teaching about racial injustice and educational inequality to a group of minoritized youth interested in the teaching profession. The research outlines key levers in her classroom, such as building a classroom community, selecting a range of critical texts, and harnessing dialogue to co-construct knowledge. The author also reflects on challenges that surfaced when moving from theory to practice, such as democratizing the classroom and the unfinished nature on becoming, and offers insights that contribute to the field of teachers-researchers interested in bolstering young people's racial consciousness in schools.

Educators have long recognized the value and import of class journaling. Traditional approaches to journaling, however, only engage students in one mode of communicative expression while allowing them to procrastinate in writing their entries. Typical journals are also read exclusively by the instructor, which overlooks the opportunity for students to learn from one another. In response to each of these limitations, the present paper outlines a semester-long journaling activity we call Engaged Journaling. We begin by situating Engaged Journaling within the theoretical framework of Kolb's (1984, 2015) Experiential Learning Theory (ELT). Next, we offer a step-by-step description of the activity. We then discuss four specific benefits from using such a creative approach to in-class journaling: (1) a more holistic measurement of student comprehension, (2) engagement of potentially disengaged students, (3) enriched class discussion and cross-interaction, and (4) the creation of additional entry points for clarification. We conclude with variations on a theme (i.e., alternative ways in which Engaged Journaling can be used both within and outside of the classroom).

Experiential education programs, such as international and domestic study tours, bridge the limitations of formal learning classroom by allowing students to experience reality in a new learning dimension. This mixed-methods study explores experiential learning during a domestic interior design study tour to New York City and an international fashion-merchandising study tour to China operated by the same fashion-merchandising and interior design department at a public university in the United States southeast region. Both study tours intended to prepare students for the workforce by expanding their understanding of business and the creative process. The tours' organization allows students to meet industry professionals and to investigate and analyze issues such as collaborative work, cultural differences in business and creativity, cultural and social identity in the environment, and personal development. This research explores students' perceptions of a domestic and an international study tour to analyze their effectiveness in achieving learning outcomes. Before and after the study tours, students completed a survey to gauge their perceived level of understanding and attitudes toward the study tours. Additional student feedback came from reflection journals documenting students' personal development, design expressions in the environment, and experiences.

This manuscript presents findings from a reflective inquiry of one global educator's attempt to develop globally competent teacher candidates in an elective general education course for teacher candidates. The course, "Issues in Global Education," was offered to 23 undergraduate teacher candidates in the spring of 2016. One goal of this manuscript is to make the tacit and elusive elements of global education more explicit for practitioners. Discussed within are two frameworks, Global Citizenship Education (UNESCO, 2015) and a Globally Competent Teaching Continuum (2014), which informed the design and enactment of opportunities for teacher candidates to participate in critical inquiry and cross-cultural experiential learning. A second goal is to demonstrate the extent to which teacher candidates learned and developed global competencies as a consequence of participation in the course. Data were collected from teacher candidates' reflective journals at five different intervals during the 15-week course and analyzed thematically. Findings from this inquiry demonstrate the efficacy of global citizenship education practices and the power of collaboration, as resources from the campus and community were leveraged to create a transformative educational experience for all involved. At a time when our classrooms and communities are more diverse and globally connected, this research contributes to a growing body of literature for preparing globally competent teacher candidates and offers several implications for global education practitioners.

Reflection supports actively transforming perspectives regarding study abroad experiences. The current study examines the "how" of reflection. Content of reflections is dictated by questions posed. The process of reflection is less prescribed yet revealing of paths to student understanding. Students posted to a web log (blog) over six time periods during their study abroad sojourn. Five reflection components were identified and tracked via cognitively complex processes and emotional aspects of their writings as analyzed by linguistic inquiry computer software. Changes in language usage revealed patterns of how students reflected. A precipitous drop in identifying distinctions between self and the host culture during immersion seemed to indicate an intense struggle attempting to make meaning of their experience. Also, findings highlighted markedly conflicted feelings both at pre-departure and upon reentry. Linguistic analysis proved promising for both assessment and design of reflective prompts.

The aim of this study was to evaluate differences in physical education students' perception on an educational innovation based on formative and peer assessment through the blogosphere. The sample was made up of 253 students from two Spanish universities. Data was collected using a self-reported questionnaire and t tests were employed in order to find differences among students' groups. Results show significant differences in almost all of the items on which the students were questioned. Basque students were more satisfied with the assessment tool used than the Valencian students. Students found the blogosphere more active, meaningful, functional and motivating and that it made for collaborative learning in comparison to other traditional evaluation methods. They also showed disapproval related to the demands on attendance, continuity and the greater effort required. For future occasions, negotiation about assessment criteria with the students should be implemented right at the very start of the course.

Quick Response (QR) codes have been discussed in the literature as adding value to teaching and learning. Despite their potential in education, more research is needed to inform practice and advance knowledge in this field. This paper investigated the integration of the QR code in classroom activities and the perceptions of the integration by pre-service teachers. Forty-four pre-service teachers enrolled in an undergraduate degree at a higher education institution in the United Arab Emirates took part in the study. Data were collected from a questionnaire, student journals and focus group interviews to enable triangulation. The main results suggested that the pre-service teachers perceived the use of QR codes to be easy and useful in learning activities. They also demonstrated positive attitudes towards the QR codes and stated the intention to use this application in their future career. The study provided practical examples of how QR codes can be integrated in teaching. It also revealed certain challenges that could hinder effective integration of QR code applications in the classroom. Recommendations for practice and future research are discussed.

Counselors-in-training may struggle in working with addictions populations for various reasons, including limited training, pre-existing stigma toward the population, and low self-efficacy treating substance use disorders. This is concerning because professional counselors have the highest proportion of clients with a primary substance abuse diagnosis. The authors explored the experiential learning approach of an abstinence project within an addictions course in an attempt to give students a genuine experience that parallels what an individual with an addiction may experience. The authors utilized generic qualitative analysis to explore the experience of 17 counseling students completing the abstinence assignment. The emergent themes of (1) concrete experiences, (2) dealing with cravings, (3) student's self-reflection of learning, and (4) empathetic understanding and challenging attitudes are presented. Finally, future areas of research and implications for counselor educators are discussed.

In this article, an online student journal is described, and the ways in which student participants value the journal are discussed. "Press Start" is a peer-reviewed international journal of game studies, which aims to publish the best student work related to the academic study of video games. Content analysis of qualitative survey data (n = 29) provides insights into what students value about the journal, revealing six broad themes: community and support, inclusiveness and accessibility, the published research, feedback from peer review, experience of conducting peer review and the opportunity to publish. The article concludes by suggesting that engagement with online student journals should not be limited in terms of geography or the level of study, unless there are robust pedagogical reasons for doing so.

A fresh look at the reader response theory to enhance student comprehension through meaningful interactions with literature, this paper explores the instructional implications of a reader response approach in secondary classrooms and examines its role in fostering students' critical reading and thinking skills. The approach promotes transaction between readers and texts as readers are given the freedom to analyze literary pieces based on their personal experiences, diverse cultures, and unique perspectives. A selective review of recent literature on the positive effect of the reader response approach in secondary settings is included, demonstrating how this approach yields positive results with students becoming both more critical readers and thinkers. The paper also addresses best practices or strategies that help secondary students increase their reading comprehension and interactions with literary texts through a reader response approach. Implications for instruction include reader response journals, reading workshop, and literature circles, which encourage students to respond to literature as a means of interacting with various texts in meaningful ways.

Purpose: This study is part of the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL) grant to examine written reflective learning log among the students studying BPME 3073 Entrepreneurship in UUM. Method: The data collection techniques is researcher-directed textual data through reflective learning log; obtained from students of one hundred forty. A qualitative thematic method was employed to examine the verbatim format of students' reflections. Findings: The empirical results found out majority of students have little academic experience in writing a piece of reflective textual learning log. Resultant in their incapability's to reflect critically and thus; unable to translate their thinking in the written format. Data collected from three classes of Entrepreneurship registered fifty five percent (75 logs) of learning log as Level 1 (descriptive writing); therefore they were not suitable for further analysis. The remaining 61 reflective learning logs were used for the textual data examination. The students' reflections on their Entrepreneurship's experience can be categorize systematically into four different themes comprised of (1) The nature of Entrepreneurship module, (2) Entrepreneurial characteristics, (3) Opportunity recognition, and (4) Creativity & innovation. Significance: The results of this research have strongly suggested the need to urgently develop among the students the skills in writing reflectively as they go through the process of higher education which is useful in molding their future professional and entrepreneurial behavior as when they entered the job market which requires a critical reasoning ability.

Undergraduate student enrollment in online courses has steadily increased over the years and is expected to continue for the foreseeable future. The need for instructors to utilize best practices in online instruction and course design is crucial. This article presents strategies for online instructors to promote student use of self-regulated learning strategies (SRLS) in online courses, which has been associated with positive academic achievement. Implementation guidelines, empirical evidence linked to improved SRLS, and potential drawbacks are discussed.

This exploratory study documents the practices of a group of mentor teachers (MTs) in high-need schools within a high-accountability district. These MTs support teacher candidates, called residents, in an urban teacher residency program. The primary research question--what are the mentoring practices of a group of strong MTs?--led the authors not only to examine the practices of these MTs but to consider the extent to which they purposefully met the learning needs of their mentees. In this article, they describe and illustrate what they term "learner-centered mentoring," a conceptual notion that emerges from our initial examination of the data. The authors use the descriptor "learner-centered" to highlight parallels between these mentors' practices and the tenets of learner-centered pedagogy described by educators and theorists, including John Dewey (1938, 1956), Maxine Greene (1978, 1984), Lev Vygotsky (1978), Lillian Weber (1974), and Deborah Meier (1995). Some of these tenets include a focus on the learner's needs, readiness, and purposes for learning; understanding the learner within a developmental trajectory; providing conditions for learner development and autonomy; and positioning the teacher as learner, observer, and supporter. The aim of this article is to illuminate a conception of mentoring "of" and "for" preservice teachers in ways that can support teacher preparation programs and host K-12 schools in strengthening MT development.

The use of video games as a learning tool, in particular massively multiplayer online games (MMOGs), continues to grow, as does the research in this field of study; research to date has revealed benefits to the language learner as well as hindrances and research gaps (Godwin-Jones, 2014). This study examines participant perspectives on group dynamics, and how comradery and a foreign language guide affect participants' in-game production of L2 German while playing World of Warcraft (WoW) as an extramural activity. This study focuses on an eight-week long MMOG gaming project, in which two groups of participants played WoW with a native German speaker in order to investigate the effects inter-group dynamics have on a participant's real-time target language production and willingness to communicate. Participants reported during interviews and written journal entries that a lack of shared interests and motivation (learning and gaming) negatively affected the groups' target language participation. The findings additionally suggest that a trained foreign language instructor paired with a motivated learner may result in increased participation; however, these increases may be temporary if a group's relationship does not extend beyond the shared goal of foreign language improvement.

Note taking applications for tablet devices offer the potential for meaningful integration of science and technology through the use of digital notebooks. This case study examined one pre-service teacher candidate's thoughts on using a digital notebook during a STEM methods course and how she transferred this knowledge and practice to a summer STEM camp. Data included artifacts from the STEM course, video of a lesson, a follow-up questionnaire, and students' notebooks. Analysis indicated that the candidate had a positive view of a digital notebook based on her use in the STEM course, and that she successfully incorporated a digital notebook into her summer STEM camp. Students' notebook entries incorporated photos, drawings, and explanations that extended beyond what they were doing in science to what they were learning. While this study shows potential for meaningful integration of science and technology through the use of a digital notebook, additional research is needed to further understand the impact a move to digital notebooks could have on the teaching and learning of science.

Postsecondary education programs have increased opportunities for students with and without intellectual disabilities to study abroad as inclusive classes. Using open-coding qualitative techniques, the authors examined an inclusive study abroad group's daily reflective journals during a study abroad trip to London and Dublin. Three shared categories emerged from analysis: personal development, bonding/social inclusion, and learning from English and Irish adults with intellectual disabilities. Each group reported two distinct categories as well. Students with intellectual disabilities described the importance of mobility/transportation and fun, while their classmates without intellectual disabilities described the importance of inclusive learning and an increasing awareness of barriers to full participation for people with disabilities. Student-constructed categories are used to describe the benefits of inclusive study abroad and build future inclusive international opportunities.

The growing cultural and linguistic diversities in Western countries and rapid globalization have put urgent demands on K-16 schools in terms of developing strategies to accommodate these changes. One of the critical issues for schools is to prepare pre-service and in-service teachers to work effectively with their diverse student populations. The increased calls for global and cross-cultural competence training for teachers have led many teacher education programs in the U.S. as well as other countries to offer student teaching abroad opportunities. There seems to be international consensus that student teaching abroad confers significant benefits on pre-service teachers' professional skills and dispositions, including those involved in working with students from diverse cultural and linguistic backgrounds. However, most of the research has identified these benefits through survey or interview data collected immediately upon the participants' return. Few have studied participants' teaching in the following year to explore how the international experience has been translated to their domestic contexts in terms of their cultural awareness and skills in teaching diverse students. The research questions guiding this study were: (1) How did student teaching abroad influence participants' first-year teaching practices with culturally diverse students?; and (2) How were these impacts affected by the teachers' personal and professional backgrounds and current teaching contexts and situations? The participants in the study were twelve pre-service teachers from a large university in the southeastern United States who participated in a student teaching program in Beijing, China. Qualitative case study methodology was used to gain an in-depth understanding of the complex ways in which participants applied their experiences to their subsequent teaching. Data was collected from participants for pre- and post-trip surveys, structured journals, and observations and interviews in China. A later stage of data collection included interviews and classroom observations with five self-selected participant teachers in their domestic classrooms during the following year. To triangulate the data, the principal researcher took the role of a participant observer throughout the preparatory sessions and for two weeks of the time the participants spent in China. The findings suggest that all teachers can benefit from international student teaching; thus, educational institutions should provide international opportunities and encourage students to take advantage of them. However, based on findings from this year-long study, colleges and universities can re-plan their overseas teaching programs to make them more meaningful and useful for novice teachers.

Utilizing an experiential component in group work training is a prominent feature in Counselor Education programs. Although numerous models have been proposed, the vast majority offer limited explanations of incorporating the number of hours of group participation and observation recommended by the Professional Standards for the Training of Group Workers (ASGW, 2000). This article presents an experiential group training model with multiple opportunities for group leadership in a masters level Counselor Education program, and provides a description of common themes experienced by group-leaders-in-training as they progressed through the culminating feature which served as the capstone of this approach.

This study explores Qzone weblog for critical peer feedback (CPF) in Business English writing (BEW) among the Chinese undergraduates. A qualitative case study is conducted by Nvivo 8 to analyze the three research data of semi-structured interviews, BEW writing assignments, and CPF artifacts on Qzone weblog. Three research questions are focused to study the case participants' perception of this study, the strength and weakness of Qzone for critical peer feedback, and online features of Qzone affecting critical peer feedback in Business English writing. The study aims to explore how Qzone weblog affect critical peer feedback in the online environment. The findings indicate that Qzone is a suitable type of weblog for online critical peer feedback, especially, for the Chinese undergraduates. The strength and online features of Qzone are models by Nvivo 8 for description by figures. The six aspects of strength and five online features are coded by Nvivo 8. The only weakness of Qzone is the character number limitation for each blog and feedback. The conclusion of this study will be implied for the use of Qzone weblog and other kinds of weblog for online peer feedback in English writing.

This paper addresses a relatively unexplored area in the field of learning analytics: how analytics are taken up and used as part of teaching and learning processes. Initial steps are taken towards developing design knowledge for this "middle space," with a focus on students as analytics users. First, a core set of challenges for analytics use identified in the literature are compiled. Then, a process model is presented for conceptualizing students' learning analytics use as part of a self-regulatory cycle of grounding, goal-setting, action and reflection--the "Student Tuning Model." Finally, the "Align Design Framework" is presented with initial validation as a tool for pedagogical design that addresses the identified challenges and supports students' use of analytics as part of the tuning process. Together, the framework's four interconnected principles of "Integration, Agency, Reference Frame and Dialogue / Audience" provide a useful starting point for further inquiry into well-designed learning analytics implementations.

This paper describes and analyses, through the use of case studies, two experiences of transformative learning in an undergraduate arts education unit. Pre-service teachers designed and engaged with arts-based curriculum activities, created their own artwork, participated in a modified production of The Tempest and kept a reflective journal. These activities constituted the data which was analysed using creative frameworks such as case writing, script writing, narrative analysis and found poetry as ways of developing richer understanding of pre-service teachers' self-perceptions and self-awareness as teachers and as potential artists. The stories explored here uncover two different ways of encountering the challenges of learning--resistance and struggle--and highlight the significance of the educator's response to individual student needs, and the value of reflective skills in shifting pre-service teachers' cultural, political and institutional understandings.

The level of awareness of the importance of mastering ESL among the local community is poor, particularly in rural areas. A study was conducted to gather information from English as a Second Language (ESL) learners pertaining to the impediments of English Language learning (ELL) by specifically focusing on the four language skills namely listening, speaking, reading and writing. The study involved 30 Intermediate Year 5 pupils from a rural primary school. The method involved the use of note books as the medium for the learners to channel various problems which they feel hinder the effectiveness of their ESL learning in the four language skills. The pupils were also asked to suggest ways they think these problems can be solved by themselves, their ESL teachers and their fellow ESL peers. The analysis revealed varying viewpoints on the contributing factors that trigger various problems in learning the four skills as well as measures for mutual language improvement among them. It is hoped that ESL educators, particularly in rural areas will place importance on the various impediments which their ESL learners face and strive to make their learners' ELL more effective and meaningful.

The paper discusses alienation from the more-than-human world and the need for nature pedagogies through the experience of nature journaling in an environmental education course in higher education. Students at a University Department of Early Childhood Education in Greece engaged in nature journaling through an assignment that encouraged them to explore their connection with the more-than-human world and reflect on their experience. The research results revealed different ways that the students experienced and connected with the more-than-human world. Nature journaling appeared to be a multilayered pedagogical tool of experience, collaboration, participation, reflection and enjoyment in environmental teaching and learning in higher education.

The recent popularity of science, technology, engineering, art, and math (STEAM) education has begun a new renaissance in education. STEAM education demolishes the silos, and from the wreckage it creates a learning environment that embraces multiple discipline areas within the curriculum and allows content to be fluid rather than rigid, enabling teachers to collaborate and create something inspiring (Hunter-Doniger, 2017). As a pedagogical practice, STEAM allows children to learn subject areas concurrently and understand how STEAM disciplines are interrelated, and how they support one another. This article examines the question, What is the effect of a child-centered approach to learning as an artist/scientist? The results revealed that the STEAM camp that is the subject of this article embraced this learning approach, which amplified children's innovation, individual learning, and artistic opportunities.

The following are journal reflections written by Morgan State University Family and Consumer Sciences-Fashion Merchandising students in 2020, during the early phases of the COVID-19 pandemic. As we navigated through a semester that should have had students completing practicum credits, they instead wrote about recouping the time and identifying alternative endeavors that would still meet course objectives. Many emotions were shared through these journal entries--fear, discouragement, disappointment--but they weren't all negative emotions. Some included hope and perseverance. There was even a journal entry written on a successful costume designer (guest speaker) who challenged them to think of innovative ways to design for a post-COVID-19 apparel industry. The entries below, written during the spring semester--January 2020 thru May 2020--are in chronological order, listed by date. They were written by 13 different students. It is my hope that readers experience a level of empathy and acceptance for themselves after going through this pandemic. It has been an unprecedented year. Hopefully, you will be encouraged by the freedom of expression that is evident in the entries below.

Centering the literacy practice of a newly arrived, transnational, emergent multilingual student, the author provides insights into how these students, particularly when positioned as lacking literacy and content knowledge when labeled as students with interrupted formal education, might benefit socioemotionally and educationally from the opportunity to story their own lives and write their way into a new classroom and culture. The author shows how Marlón, a newly arrived immigrant from Guatemala, leveraged existing bodies of linguistic, content, and experiential knowledge to maximize his participation in the classroom-based literacy practice of dialogue journaling. As such, the author demonstrates how the relatively low-stakes, low-tech, dialogic nature of journaling afforded Marlón the opportunity to create a transborder writing space in which he enacted agency in his decisions to translanguage, engage in multimodal writing, invoke familial knowledge, and share personal experiences. In the process, Marlón created an agentive border space that spanned cultures, nations, and languages in ways that authentically represented his multifaceted and complex identity and lived history. Students like Marlón are a growing demographic; thus, the author calls for teachers to consider the benefits of creating instructional spaces for low-risk, low-tech writing to ease transnational, emergent multilingual students into classroom and school-based writing. The author also suggests the need for further research exploring the implementation and benefits of literacy practices that take into account newly arrived students' identities holistically.

The emergence of digital tools, including tablets with a multitude of built-in sensors, allows gathering many geological observations digitally and in a geo-referenced context. This is particularly important in the polar environments where (1) limited time is available at each outcrop due to harsh weather conditions, and (2) outcrops are rarely re-visited due to the high economic and environmental cost of accessing the localities and the short field season. In an educational development project, we explored the use of digital field notebooks in student groups of 3-4 persons during five geological field campaigns in the Arctic archipelago of Svalbard. The field campaigns formed part of the Bachelor and Master/PhD courses at the University Centre in Svalbard in Longyearbyen at 78°N. The digital field notebooks comprise field-proofed tablets with relevant applications, notably FieldMove. Questionnaires and analyses of students' FieldMove projects provided data on student experience of using digital field notebooks, and insight into what students used the digital notebooks for, the notebooks' functionality and best practices. We found that electronic and geo-referenced note- and photo-taking was by far the dominant function of the digital field notebooks. In addition, some student groups collected significant amounts of structural data using the built-in sensors. Graduate students found the ability to conduct large-scale field mapping and directly display it within the digital field notebook particularly useful. Our study suggests that the digital field notebooks add value to field-based education in polar environments.

This constructivist grounded theory study reveals nine interrelated components that describe white undergraduates' processes for making meaning of issues of race and racism in their environments. Findings also reveal how these processes perpetuate whiteness and anti-blackness. I present the theory as a composite counternarrative that draws upon data from 31 white undergraduate students and foregrounds Black students' experiences with racism on campus. The resulting juxtaposition highlights how whiteness and anti-blackness, on a spiritual level, function as pathologies that perpetuate trauma.