Search

This study aims to explore primary school students’ perspectives of emergency remote teaching and learning during the COVID-19 pandemic and their preferences when comparing it with face-to-face learning. Data from 114 Greek primary students showed that students did not find online learning particularly intriguing, enjoyable, and interactive and felt social isolation due to the lack of communication and interactions. Most students preferred traditional learning to online learning as they found it more enjoyable and interactive, and made it easier to learn, focus on, comprehend, and perform better. They greatly valued the class atmosphere and the ability to actively participate and freely communicate, and stated that it was easier to devote time to studying, complete their assignments, and get answers to their question when learning in person. Students believed that despite its disadvantages, online learning might be more broadly used in the future. Finally, no significant differences were found regarding students’ gender, age, and class level.

Transnational education is rather common in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries, with among the highest TNE enrolments of any region worldwide. Approximately a third of the Omani students in higher education are registered in programmes offered transnationally, and a UK university is the main provider. The aim of this study was to identify the challenges that Omani students perceive when studying in transnational education by means of a survey and in-depth follow-up interviews. The findings show that challenges relate mainly to students' adaptation to transnational higher education pedagogies, the challenges of academic writing, and challenges related to the international or UK culture of the programme. It argues in favour of widening the definition of contextualisation from simply including local examples to a pedagogical approach in TNE that supports students in dealing with their challenges in the TNE contexts.

Brokers are individuals who facilitate transfer of knowledge and resources, and coordinate efforts across boundaries of organizations. They are defined by their role rather than their organizational position. Brokers might be imperative for the formation and maintenance of inter-institutional relationship as they have the responsibility and the necessary structural position to connect otherwise separate groups. In the context of this study, brokers had the role to cultivate an inter-institutional community around open educational resources (OER) by connecting groups of teachers across higher education institutes. OER provide higher education institutes with an aid to face the challenges of improving teaching and learning. Yet most OER users encounter challenges that relate to finding resources that are relevant, up-to-date, and of good quality. Communities could minimize this issue, but many OER initiatives fizzle out as expanding their impact is an arduous task. This qualitative descriptive study draws upon cultural-historical activity theory to understand the complexities associated with the role of brokers in creating sustainable collaboration on OER across 15 higher education institutes in the Netherlands. Data was collected from project documents, process reports, reflections reports, and a retrospective focus group. The findings show that brokers engaged in a wide variety of actions but that a small-scale, personal, and content-oriented approach to encourage teachers to engage with the OER repository and the online community was perceived as the most valuable. Brokers also experienced conflicts due to the demanding context they were operating in, the ambiguity of their role, and the organizational constraints they were confronted with. Practical implications refer to supporting higher education institutes that wish to initiate sustainable collaboration across institutes., Author(s): Marjon Baas [sup.1] [sup.2] , Robert Schuwer [sup.3] , Ellen van den Berg [sup.2] , Tjark Huizinga [sup.2] , Roeland van der Rijst [sup.1] , Wilfried Admiraal [sup.4] Author [...]

Context-based approaches aim at increasing students' learning and motivation. However, students perceive its complexity often as overwhelming, causing frustration and disengagement. Thus, there is a need for innovative teaching methods to scaffold students in context-based education. Two perspectives are used to argue that Scrum methodology, a project management framework, is a promising candidate. First, its features are described and subsequently connected to six well-known scaffolds from the motivational literature. This exploration showed that implementation of Scrum methodology might lead to improvements of students' motivation and an increase in cognitive and metacognitive learning achievements. Secondly, an empirical pilot study was conducted. Three experienced chemistry teachers implemented Scrum methodology in their chemistry lessons. Interviews revealed that Scrum methodology visualized students' learning process and progress. Two teachers reported stable and even better learning outcomes. In addition, they perceived that their students showed increased engagement. However, one of the participating teachers reported student resistance towards parts of the Scrum methodology as well as organizational issues. This teacher emphasized that Scrum methodology is in itself rather complex and that implementation is not an easy job. Although the pilot study suggests that caution is urged, its implementation might give new momentum to reinforce context-based approaches.

Teaching with Scrum methodology includes ceremonies, roles and artefacts supporting students in planning, monitoring and directing their learning process. It scaffolds students' learning in complex and sometimes overwhelming context-based learning environments. Effects of the implementation on both students' learning outcomes and self-reported perceptions of six affective and metacognitive outcomes were investigated. Six teachers implemented Scrum methodology in a context-based secondary chemistry module on Green Chemistry. Their classes formed the experimental group. Based on how students experienced the quality of the implementation, teachers of the experimental group were subdivided into top-teachers and growth-teachers. Consequently, their students formed two sub-experimental groups. The comparison group, which did not use Scrum methodology, consisted of students taught by four teachers. A pre-test post-test control group design was used to study its effect on students' achievements and self-reported affective and metacognitive outcomes. Students of both experimental groups outperformed students of the comparison group with a large effect-size (top-teachers); and medium effect-size (growth-teachers) on learning outcomes. Findings on students' perceptions of affective and metacognitive outcomes revealed medium and small effects of Scrum methodology. Despite the fact that the implementation is challenging for teachers, it appears that Scrum methodology has positive effects on students' achievement and on students' perceptions of affective and metacognitive dimensions of their learning.

The quality of teaching is significantly influenced by teachers’ self-efficacy. Grounded in social cognitive theory, this study examined the relationship between teachers’ self-efficacy for teaching, on the one hand, and individual factors, working conditions, and principal leadership, on the other. Data derived from 466 primary teachers were analyzed using structural equation modeling. The results indicated that teachers’ self-efficacy in teaching was positively associated with their teaching experience, beliefs in self-directed learning, and support from colleagues. These findings underscored the importance of teachers’ characteristics and collegial support in explaining teachers’ self-efficacy, highlighting the need for fostering a supportive and collaborative work environment in schools. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Work placement has been regarded as one of the most effective ways of developing vocational teachers' occupational expertise. Guided by expectancy-value theory, we aim to explore how vocational teachers' motivation towards professional learning shapes to their engagement when on work placement. Two research questions were addressed: 1) What is the relationship between vocational teachers' motivational beliefs and engagement in work placement? 2) Does teaching experience have a moderating effect on this relationship? The data was collected from an online survey and analysed with a quantitative way. The participants were 426 Chinese secondary vocational teachers. Exploratory factor analysis identified four motivational beliefs: task value, self-efficacy, task effort, and emotional cost. Regression analysis revealed that vocational teachers' task value, self-efficacy, and task effort were positively related to their engagement. Teachers' emotional cost was negatively linked to their behavioural, cognitive, and emotional engagement, but positively linked to agentic engagement. Moreover, a negative moderation of teaching experience was seen. These findings facilitate the understanding of vocational teachers' professional learning in work site and provide suggestions on how to reinforce their engagement. The future research could examine the relationship between vocational teachers' motivational beliefs and engagement from a longitudinal perspective or within other learning contexts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Secondary science education plays a key role in students' process to become scientifically literate citizens. However, teaching students to acquire the necessary skills and knowledge to deal with complex societal issues is challenging. This paper reports about a study in which Scrum -- a methodology to manage complex projects -- was implemented in secondary chemistry classrooms to increase students' conceptual understanding as well as their critical scientific literacy. A quasi-experimental design was used with 198 Grade 11 students from eight different classes. The experimental condition (99 students, 4 classes, 25 groups with 3 or 4 students, 2 teachers) used Scrum methodology during a context-based course on Green Chemistry. The comparison condition (99 students, 4 classes, 29 groups of 3 or 4 students, 3 teachers) completed the same module about Green Chemistry, without using Scrum methodology. At the end of the course students formulated a written advice on the greenest synthesis of adipic acid. A pre-test on prior knowledge of Green Chemistry principles and a post-test on conceptual understanding of the chemistry concepts involved were administered. In addition, the Standard Observed Learning Outcomes taxonomy (SOLO) was used to analyse the quality of the written advices as a measure for students' critical scientific literacy. Students from the experimental condition outperformed their peers from the comparison condition in their conceptual understanding. Moreover, the quality of the advices of students from the experimental condition were rated higher than the quality of advices of students in the comparison condition. These findings are discussed and connected to Scrum methodology as teaching approach to scaffold both students' conceptual understanding and its potential to promote the development of their critical scientific literacy.

Musicians nowadays need to be able to work both creatively and collaboratively, often in a wider range of artistic, social and cultural contexts. A strong vision on conservatoire pedagogy is needed to reach this goal and at the same time align with the demands of higher education. At the start of the 21st century, renewal of curricula concentrated on implementing the teaching of a broader range of skills, knowledge and attitudes, including problem-solving, reflective, cooperative and communicative competences, as part of the Bologna process of implementing bachelor and master of music programmes. In semi-structured interviews, leaders of conservatoires in Belgium (Flanders) and the Netherlands reflected on their curriculum and revealed their observations and perceptions of its connection to professional practice. Based on a thematic analysis, conservatoire leaders' observations and perceptions of the process of curriculum reform were identified. They indicated that teaching professionals continue to maintain an autonomous position, practising traditional forms of teaching and learning. Conservatoire leaders were rather hesitant in implementing new pedagogies, teaching principles and guidelines, due to a dedication to craftsmanship and a large amount of respect for the expertise of their teaching professionals.

Scrum methodology is a novel framework for teaching intended to scaffold students' learning process when they work on complex, real-world tasks. It is originally a project management framework frequently used in business and industry to manage projects. Scrum methodology is increasingly used in educational contexts. Yet, it is also a rather complex framework and more insight in how teachers understand and implement Scrum methodology is needed. Twelve teachers attended a professional development program and simultaneously implemented Scrum methodology in their chemistry lessons. Teachers' didactical expertise and pedagogical expertise appeared to play a key role during the implementation process, whereas teachers' subject matter expertise, and other factors such as teaching context, teaching experience and personal biography seemed to be less important. Didactical and pedagogical expertise enhances teaching with Scrum: it supports the implementation as well as increases its effectiveness, independently of teaching context, experience and personal biography. This would mean Scrum methodology offers possibilities for teachers to enhance and enrich their teaching practice.

In the past two decades, transnational education has been increasing and so has the need for staff to teach on these programmes. This study sought the views of non-Anglophone expatriate academics teaching transnationally in Oman by means of a survey and follow-up interviews. It highlights the challenges that they face in a teaching and learning environment that is academically and culturally new to them. These challenges relate mostly to the students, as they need extensive structured guidance, and to maintaining programme quality in meeting the learning outcomes, particularly critical thinking and writing in English. Teaching adaptation and quality assurance were less challenging. Findings indicate that for a more enhanced teaching and learning environment, both the provider and host institution need to continuously invest in face-to-face professional development addressing the challenges expatriate academics experience, and that the sole focus on quality assurance by provider universities is not sufficient to create this.