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Enhancing Critical and Creative Thinking Capabilities in Pre-service Teacher Education: Digital Integration and Pedagogical Innovation in Thailand’s Next Normal Era
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This review paper delves into the cognitive aspects of corporate learning and competency development, focusing on various theories and models explaining neurocognitive and behavioral psychology. This paper explores “Maslow's hierarchy of needs”, “Affective, Behavioral, and Cognitive (ABC) Model of Attitude”, “Expectancy Value Theory”, “NLP Communication Model”, “Social Cognitive Learning Theory”, “Knowles' theory of Andragogy”, “NLP Neurological Levels”, “Theory of Planned Behavior”, "Cognitive Load Theory", "Cognitive Learning Principles Underlying the 5E Model", and "Constructivism Theory". While these theories individually address specific aspects of human behavior, they have limitations in their individual scope when applied to the corporate competency development process. This paper constructs the "Cognitive Competency Development Model (CCDM)", which integrates the examined theories and models, providing a cohesive framework for understanding competency development within organizations. This paper briefly discusses the meaning of competency and a typical competency development framework used by corporates. The CCDM emphasizes the multifaceted nature of competency development. It considers the intricate interplay of individual, social, and environmental factors in shaping competency development. It begins with the mental filtering of learning stimuli by various expectancies, neurological factors, and hierarchies of needs. This filtered information forms a perception and knowledge construct, leading to competency development. Competency may affect attitudes and intentions, resulting in behavioral change and better performance at work. The paper concludes by highlighting the potential of the model to inform the design of more effective learning and development interventions. By understanding how the brain influences learning and development, organizations can improve their training programs and create a culture of continuous learning.
This study explores the implementation of an interdisciplinary curriculum in product and media design education and its impact on knowledge innovation and competency development. The curriculum is based on scaffolding theory, incorporating design proposals, workshops, digital design, marketing tests, and marketing activities guided by teachers and mentors from a branded ceramic workshop. The research findings demonstrate that the interdisciplinary curriculum facilitates knowledge innovation and fosters the development of students’ professional skills, creativity, and problem-solving skills. The study also highlights the importance of stable scaffolding, including artefact-, peer-, and teacher support, which significantly contributes to cultivating transformational competencies, as outlined in the 2030 OECD Learning Compass. Additionally, the collaboration with Shanshing Four Seasons Celadon Studio on a patented ceramic product, “Funny Monkey”, is a tangible example of the journey towards a triple-helix knowledge economy. This research underscores the importance of interdisciplinary curricula in promoting knowledge innovation and integrating transformational competencies in education. Scaffolding theory provides practical guidance for student learning and teaching strategies, presenting a sustainable roadmap for developing interdisciplinary curricula and offering a concrete and transferable pedagogical prototype for educational innovation.
The circumstances in which humans live and learn are subject to constant change. Given these cycles of change, educational designers (teachers, instructional designers, and others) often search for new models and frameworks to support their work, to ensure their designs are in alignment with valued forms of learning activity. Our research foregrounds the entanglement of people (the relational), tasks (the conceptual) and tools (the digital and material) in formal and informal learning settings. In this paper, we explore the use of the ACAD toolkit with the aim of understanding how this analytical tool supports design for learning. A thematic analysis of five workshops attended by 40 educators from diverse professional and academic backgrounds in Spain and Argentina, reveals how ACAD supports educational designers in four distinctive ways: encouraging dynamic engagement with key elements and concepts; supporting the visualization of (dis)connections and (in)coherence in designs; prompting critical reflection on past practices and contexts; and stimulating discussion about future teaching practices. A key contribution of this article is the discussion about how the ACAD toolkit helps educators see the ways in which all learning is situated, subject to constraints and affordances at multiple scale levels, and oriented towards certain pedagogical purposes or values.
The COVID-19 pandemic necessitated many adjustments to everyday teaching at higher education institutions. While face-to-face lectures were the preferred teaching method of teacher educators prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, the shift to online teaching was heightened during the COVID-19 pandemic. This paper draws attention to the shifts we transitioned to as teacher educators teaching and researching via online platforms-specifically Zoom—in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. This study explored how three teacher educators used co-creative arts-based inquiry to deepen their understanding of their shifting teacher ‘selves’ as online users. Object-inspired narratives and poetic inquiry were employed to co-flexively engage with our shifting teaching experiences and question our feelings of discomfort teaching online. Framed conceptually by an ethics of care and collaborative-creativity, we discuss the tensions and possibilities we experienced, and shared through our scholarly online conversations via Zoom to think through the shifts in our teacher selves and teaching. We highlight our online teaching experiences amidst the uncertainty and disruption of the COVID-19 pandemic. We then share the methodological insight of collaborative arts-based inquiry and how it facilitated reflexive dialogues and deep conversations that ignited self-learning and collective insights into the potential and possibilities of online teaching. Findings highlighted that co-creative, online engagement enabled sharing of emotional experiences and offered possibilities for transforming teacher selves. In addition, co-creative, online engagement enabled the cultivation of relational scholarly thinking. The article highlights the methodological insight of co-creative arts-based research in productively disrupting instrumental university discourse of online teaching.
Educators and course designers may face great hurdles when designing courses if they include an online setting. Instructional design (ID) has played a vital role as a change agent in facilitating the pedagogical and technological transformation of educators and students. However, some instructors still find ID challenging and there are information gaps regarding instructional design models, categories, educational context, and recommendations for future work. This systematic literature review (SLR) analyzed 31 publications using PRISMA to address this gap. The results of this review suggest combining ID models with broader theoretical frameworks. Investigations and research on ID should include a bigger number of ID types. It is highly recommended that extra frameworks be added to the ID procedure. To explore and grasp all parties engaged in ID, including the role of the instructor, the ID designer, and the student, it is important for additional educational contexts to be amalgamated. For novices in the field, such as graduate students, it is crucial to pay close attention to the several phases and techniques of ID. This review sheds light on the trends, future agenda, and research requirements associated with ID in educational settings. It might serve as a basis for future research on ID in educational contexts.
Higher education institutions are increasingly moving from traditional education approaches to incorporate online and distance learning (ODL) models, and this represents a substantial educational challenge for many educators. One way to support this challenge is by providing appropriate professional development (PD) for the design of ODL. Based on models from the Open University, UK this paper contends that PD for the design of ODL should align learning design frameworks with constructivist and student-focused pedagogies to manage the change to the professional teaching identities of participants that designing ODL represents. Robust professional identities are important for mitigating anxiety, embedding lasting change and leveraging the benefits of ODL for institutions and students. In this study, the rationale, model, and strategies of the Learning Design and Course Creation Workshop, based on current literature and participant feedback gathered immediately after instances of the PD was completed in China, are described. Evidence and examples of impact gathered from a second instrument, gathered after implementation, is also provided, and discussed in this context. The findings and conclusions will be of interest to those tasked with providing PD to support educators faced with rapid educational change, particularly as a response to the global demand for the design of ODL.
Graduate Teaching Assistants (GTAs), or student instructors, are the crucial force in college for undergraduates' learning in Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths (STEM) disciplines. However, professional development of student instructors is often neglected. Providing adequate and appropriate teacher training for student instructors is a critical challenge. When the technology is available, open‐source non‐immersive virtual reality (VR) can be a cost‐efficient and accessible platform for teacher training. Empirical research of designing and implementing VR for the training on teaching knowledge and skills development is inconclusive and thus warranted. In this ex post facto study, we investigated VR‐based teacher training with 33 STEM student instructors to explore the effects on the participants' virtual teaching practices of two design factors: (1) the simulated teaching scenario and (2) the duration of training program implementation. We analysed 7604 event logs from the recordings of their virtual teaching sessions. The results of ordinal logistic regression analyses showed two factors contributed to higher odds of appropriate teaching actions. The first is the simulated scenarios that induced a more dynamic balance of domain‐specific and pedagogical knowledge for decision making in teaching; the second is the teacher training program with a longer duration.
Practitioner notes
What is already know about this topic Teacher training, especially for college graduate teaching assistants in Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths (STEM) disciplines, is a key for the success of undergraduate students in STEM.
Virtual reality (VR)‐supported simulation‐based learning has been found effective for enhancing knowledge and skills development in diverse settings, including when being used for teacher training.
What this paper adds A guiding framework for the investigation of scenario design and duration of implementation in VR‐supported teacher training.
VR scenarios that encourage more dynamic balance of domain‐specific and pedagogical knowledge for decision making in teaching have higher odds for appropriate teaching acts.
A longer duration of program implementation in VR can result in higher odds for appropriate teaching acts.
Implications for practice We should carefully consider appropriate scenario designs in VR to enhance dynamic decision making and interactivity in simulation‐based teaching practices for teacher training.
We encourage extended duration of VR teacher training programs to facilitate teachers' observant, autonomous and attentive VR‐based micro teaching practices.
The article focuses on teaching in the direction of developing learners’ competencies through the influence of four factors, namely knowledge, skills, attitudes, and situations. Previous studies have shown that properly exploiting these four factors will contribute to effectively reaching the teaching goals, that is, creating the best capacity for learners. Therefore, this study has selected an approach to the problem of improving teaching quality in the direction of developing learners’ capacity. This involved putting the elements of knowledge, skills, attitudes, and teaching situations in the same interactive relationship and to find ways to exploit them most effectively. Using this approach, educational managers should influence the construction of curriculum content (knowledge), create appropriate teaching conditions and environments (situations), establish a mechanism for academic freedom, and relate schooling to life to train learners in skills and attitudes. Teachers can exploit all four factors in the teaching process to improve teaching quality. Using such an approach, a questionnaire was designed to carry out an educational survey with 394 respondents (including 112 graduate students of educational management and 282 pedagogical students living and studying in 41/63 provinces of Vietnam). The survey results affirmed a number of observations and assessments about the current situation of teaching in the direction of developing the learners’ capacity in Vietnam. Solutions to improve the effectiveness of these activities are proposed.
Learning Design (LD) research accounts for several design support tools, or LD tools, employing representations for learning designs to facilitate the “teachers as designers” thinking while preparing learning experiences. In contrast to existing studies having followed mainly a specialist/researcher (as opposed to a teacher) perspective, our quest to develop an LD tool follows a Design-Based Research (DBR) approach involving practitioners. Specifically, in this paper, we attempt to give voice to teachers as designers and investigate how they prefer having their learning designs represented by LD tools. Aiming to create a principled account of how to represent learning designs in an LD tool, we first conducted an integrative literature review to formulate a representational framework that drove our research. Subsequently, we addressed the following LD representational dimensions: (i) format, (ii) organisation, (iii) guidance and support, and (iv) contextualisation. We are reporting on a case study conducted with 16 participants in a teacher education context. Although previous research typically reported findings based on a single LD tool’s evaluation over a short period, we have opted for eliciting feedback based on a rich LD experience. To this end, we acquainted participants in LD projects with two LD tools (Learning Designer and WebCollage) during an academic semester. Furthermore, we followed a mixed-method explanatory sequential design applied through a survey questionnaire and semi-structured interviews to achieve a more profound consideration of the teachers’ preferences for LD representations. Our findings indicate that the teachers strongly endorse an LD tool supporting a visual format and a global organisation in the form of a table that provides a global overview of a learning design while focusing on its specific elements. Teachers seem to prefer an LD tool that balances providing guidance and flexibility, as they opt for (i) a non-restrictive taxonomy for articulating learning objectives, (ii) some form of standardisation for formatting learning units, along with allowing free formation, (iii) a flexible pedagogical framework for modelling the learning activities’ pedagogy so that it can be adjusted to particular designers’ needs, and (iv) a typology of technologies that can be utilised or not. In addition, they seemed to favour an LD tool supporting high contextualisation, as they prefer to describe contextual details for a learning design’s units and activities. These findings constitute design principles for our ongoing DBR and may stimulate momentum for researchers developing LD tools.
Higher education may benefit from investigating alternative evidence-based methods of online learning to understand students’ learning behaviors while considering students’ social cognitive motivational traits. Researchers conducted an in situ design-based research (DBR) study to investigate learner experience design (LXD) methods, deploying approaches of asynchronous video, course dashboards, and enhanced user experience. This mixed-methods study (N = 181) assessed associations of students’ social cognitive motivational traits (self-efficacy, task-value, self-regulation) influencing their learning behaviors (engagement, elaboration, critical thinking) resulting from LXD. Social cognitive motivational traits were positively predictive of learning behaviors. As motivational factors increased, students’ course engagement, usage of elaboration, and critical thinking skills increased. Self-efficacy, task-value, and self-regulation explained 31% of the variance of engagement, 47% of the explained variance of critical thinking skills, and 57% of the explained variance in the usage of elaboration. As a predictor, task-value beliefs increased the proportion of explained variance in each model significantly, above self-efficacy and self-regulation. Qualitative content analysis corroborated these findings, explaining how LXD efforts contributed to motivations, learning behaviors, and learning experience. Results suggest that mechanisms underpinning LXD and students’ learning behaviors are likely the result of dynamically catalyzing social cognitive motivational factors. The discussion concludes with the LXD affordances that explain the positive influences in students’ social cognitive motivational traits and learning behaviors, while also considering constraints for future iterations.
Information and communications technology (ICT) is rapidly changing how we teach and how we learn. ICT can not only act as a teaching and learning aid but also reshape the delivery of instruction and bring about changes in education. Research has largely examined the effects of teacher education programs on their knowledge, attitudes, and beliefs of technology integration and relatively little attention has been paid to their ability to use ICT to innovate instruction. This study examined how pre-teachers engaged in co-design via Google Slides, and how their behavioural characteristics influenced their improvement of instructional innovation with ICT of lesson design. The results of correlation and step regression analyses and lag sequential analysis showed that behaviours of engagement into individual ideation and within-group ideation in co-design activities positively related to the pre-service teachers’ innovations of lesson designs (i.e., usefulness and originality). The clarification type and positive affection type of peer feedback negatively related and predicted their innovations, and the worst-performed group tended to directly copy information from peer feedback. The implications of how pre-service teachers engaging in co-design activities affect their instructional innovations with ICT are discussed. Implications for practice or policy Co-design activities are helpful for instructional innovation for pre-service teachers. Pre-service teachers are encouraged to engage in individual ideation, group ideation, and peer feedback during co-design activities.
The development of students’ holistic competencies is a key imperative of higher education. This study formulated and tested a conceptual framework that models (a) the acquisition of holistic competencies as the outcomes of students’ approach to develop the competencies in out-of-classroom contexts and (b) the approach as in turn affected by the characteristics and perceptions of the learners. The term “approach to develop” is coined for the development of competencies in out-of-classroom settings as distinguished from the approach to learn in academic contexts. Self-report measures were developed for the framework’s variables, and the data collected from 207 participants on the measures allowed the framework to be tested as a structural model. The model was supported by good data fit, and the results suggested that students’ approach to develop is a critical outcome determinant, quantifiable as an overall engagement level and is affected by learners’ characters and perceptions of the environments.
Using 61 stories from design educators from different countries, this paper presents (1) the design competencies being fostered at different levels of education, (2) the practices (approaches, techniques, methods and tools) used to facilitate teaching and learning, (3) the ‘non-design’ competencies being fostered, and (4) the impact of COVID 19. Our findings highlight design education is not only used to teach students how to design, but also to kindle productive attitudes, behaviours and mindsets that give them the ability to address a wide range of challenges.
The pedagogical strategy of flexible learning itineraries in digital environments aligns with current practices that focus on students’ agency to control their own learning. Flexible learning itineraries allow personalised learning while enhancing self-regulated learning skills such as setting aims and defining strategies. Paramount for successful strategies of flexible learning itineraries is the learning design which has to be defined with precision and responds to a detailed set of needs beyond access at anyplace or anytime. The main aim of flexible learning itineraries is to allow student choice so that they may construct their own pathway by selecting their options based on their own individual needs, motivations and prior knowledge. This research seeks to validate the prototype of a pedagogical strategy based on flexible learning design implemented in a subject of the Teacher Education programme at the University of the Balearic Islands. From a design-based research methodological approach, learning itineraries and sequences were created, and data was collected on student satisfaction via an online survey. Results show, on the one hand, the students' satisfaction with the experience and the pathways built, and on the other hand, in view of the diversity of choices made, that the pathways promoted the personalisation of learning, allowing the teaching-learning process to be adjusted to their personal characteristics. Conclusions suggest that the instructional design supports self-regulated learning strategies. In addition, conclusions reflect on the need to address digital current challenges from equitable and just approaches; and, also, on the value of the teacher's role as designer.
Teachers play a major role in the effectiveness of student learning. Teacher’s competence contributes to their classroom practice. We applied a generic model of teacher competence to the specific context of teachers’ promotion of self-regulated learning (SRL) in the classroom, and investigated teachers’ competence profiles regarding SRL (study 1) and how teachers’ competence can moderate the effectiveness of teacher training (study 2). In the first step, in study 1 191 teachers were assessed according to different characteristics that have been found to be important aspects of teacher competence (knowledge, beliefs, and self-efficacy). To investigate how these characteristics co-occur in teachers we determined latent profiles of teacher competence regarding SRL. To this end, and the data were subjected to a latent profile analysis that yielded two levels of competence profile: low and high competence to promote SRL. These competence profiles were positively associated with teachers’ self-reported SRL practice in the classroom. Next, to test whether these competence profiles affect teachers’ competence development, we conducted a training study. In this study 2, we examined the effects of an 8-h long teacher training about SRL on the development of teachers’ competence (knowledge, beliefs, self-efficacy) and on their SRL practice in the classroom with a repeated measures control group design. Forty-five teachers participated in the training, and these teachers and their 543 students evaluated the effectiveness of the training. Training effects were found on the teacher level, but not on the student level. Teachers who participated in the training outperformed the control teachers in their development of self-efficacy to foster SRL, and their perceived SRL practice. Moreover, teachers’ competence profiles moderated the training effect, showing that teachers with an initially high competence benefitted more from the training. Applying a generic model of teacher competence to the context of promoting SRL seems beneficial to inspire future research on indicators of teachers’ SRL practice.
Teacher design work has gained increasing attention by re-conceptualizing teachers as designers rather than curriculum deliverers. However, assessing teacher design work can be challenging given that there are very few research tools to assess teacher design knowledge (TDK) competencies. To fill that gap, this study proposes a survey that assesses TDK competencies in the era of digitally-mediated learning. The validity and reliability studies of the scale were carried out with 66 teachers. After the EFA, the TDK survey included 43 items from 77 items and had three factors. These factors were data literacies practice, design practice, and distributed epistemic practice. Despite the limitations of the small sample size, the findings revealed that the TDK scale was a valid and reliable instrument for measuring TDK competencies. The implications of these findings were discussed.
This report describes a teaching development grant (TDG) project that adopted a design-based research approach to enhance the language assessment literacy of preservice English teachers. In small groups, 92 preservice teachers engaged in test development projects, during which they developed tailor-made language tests for collaborating schools, implemented the tests, analysed responses, evaluated the tests, provided feedback to the schools, and wrote project reports. The assessment tasks they produced were annotated with detailed task features, categorised according to target skills, students and schools and stored in an online database open to incoming students and the world. 48 participants and users of the database evaluated their experience and the database via a questionnaire, which found a generally positive attitude towards the innovation but also several remaining issues to be addressed in the next iteration of the project. This project and the design-based research approach it adopted are applicable to preservice teacher training in other educational contexts as well as other areas of research interest.
To understand the development of students’ higher-order thinking skills (HOTS) in the smart classroom environment, a structural equation modeling analysis was used to examine the relationships between key factors that influence students’ learning and their HOTS within a smart classroom environment. A sample of 217 first-year Chinese college students, who studied in a smart classroom environment for one semester, completed a survey that measures their smart classroom preferences, learning motivation, learning strategy, peer interaction, and HOTS. The results indicated that peer interaction and learning motivation had a direct impact on students’ HOTS. Furthermore, indirect effects were found between students’ learning strategy and HOTS through the mediator peer interaction, and between smart classroom preferences and HOTS through the following: learning motivation, the combination of learning strategy and peer interaction, and the combination of learning motivation, learning strategy and peer interaction. Based on these findings, this study recommends that instructors teaching in a smart learning environment should focus on improving peer interaction and learning motivation, as well as smart classroom preferences and learning strategy, to hone students’ HOTS.
The paper proposes principles and a theoretical framework for the construction of an online personal learning environment model named the PLERN model, aiming to assist university students to improve their academic listening comprehension skills, and to apply the suggested model to investigate the targeted students’ perception of online
learning. The paper describes the importance of listening comprehension at tertiary level, and the principles employed to construct the PLERN model. It presents the theoretical and intellectual framework used to construct the model, and a suggested research methodology to effectively implement this online learning model in the digital age. The paper also includes research design, research settings, and participants, instruments to implement the PLERN model, and the data collection methods of data analysis procedures which bring out research findings as well as the recommendations
of the future study. The paper ends by indicating the weaknesses and strengths of the model which help researchers maximize the model strengths and minimize its weaknesses.
Bioscientific advances raise numerous new ethical dilemmas. Neuroscience research opens possibilities of tracing and even modifying human brain processes, such as decision-making, revenge, or pain control. Social media and science popularization challenge the boundaries between truth, fiction, and deliberate misinformation, calling for critical thinking (CT). Biology teachers often feel ill-equipped to organize student debates that address sensitive issues, opinions, and emotions in classrooms. Recent brain research confirms that opinions cannot be understood as solely objective and logical and are strongly influenced by the form of empathy. Emotional empathy engages strongly with salient aspects but blinds to others’ reactions while cognitive empathy allows perspective and independent CT. In order to address the complex socioscientific issues (SSIs) that recent neuroscience raises, cognitive empathy is a significant skill rarely developed in schools. We will focus on the processes of opinion building and argue that learners first need a good understanding of methods and techniques to discuss potential uses and other people’s possible emotional reactions. Subsequently, in order to develop cognitive empathy, students are asked to describe opposed emotional reactions as di- lemmas by considering alternative viewpoints and values. Using a design-based-research paradigm, we propose a new learning design method for independent critical opinion building based on the development of cognitive empathy. We discuss an example design to illustrate the generativity of the method. The collected data suggest that students developed decentering competency and scientific methods literacy. Generalizability of the design principles to enhance other CT designs is discussed.
Article is openaccess
http://doi.org/10.1007/s11191-020-00154-2
Research on instructional and learning design is ‘booming’ in Europe, although there has been a move from a focus on content and the way to present it in a formal educational context (i.e., instruction), to a focus on complex learning, learning environments including the workplace, and access to learner data available in these environments. We even see the term ‘learning experience design’ (Neelen and Kirschner 2020) to describe the field. Furthermore, there is an effort to empower teachers (and even students) as designers of learning (including environments and new pedagogies), and to support their reflection on their own practice as part of their professional development (Hansen and Wasson 2016; Luckin et al. 2016; Wasson et al. 2016). While instructional design is an often heard term in the United States and refers to “translating principles of learning and instruction into plans for instructional materials, activities, information resources, and evaluation” (Smith and Ragan 1999), Europe tends to lean more towards learning design as the key for providing efficient, effective, and enjoyable learning experiences. This is not a switch from an instructivist to a constructivist view nor from a teacher-centred to a student-centred paradigm. It is, rather, a different mind-set where the emphasis is on the goal (i.e., learning) rather than the approach (i.e., instruction). Designing learning opportunities in a technology enhanced world builds on theories of human learning and cognition, opportunities provided by technology, and principles of instructional design. New technology both expands and challenges some instructional design principles by opening up new opportunities for distance collaboration, intelligent tutoring and support, seamless and ubiquitous learning and assessment technologies, and tools for thinking and thought. In this article, the authors give an account of their own and other research related to instructional and learning design, highlight related European research, and point to future research directions.
Educational theories offer teachers useful conceptual tools for developing teaching. However, such theoretical concepts are often hard to learn, and to teach. Phenomenography and Variation Theory (PVT), and especially the concept critical aspect, is an example of a powerful tool for teachers when designing teaching. When teaching this concept, educators could benefit from knowing what learners need to discern to understand and use the notion of critical aspects. In this study, this is explored by using PVT to analyse written material from teachers undergoing an introduction to Variation Theory. The study identifies five qualitatively different conceptions of the notion of critical aspects. By comparing the differences between these conceptions, four aspects were identified that address what the teachers need to discern in order to perceive the notion of “critical aspects” in the targeted way. The results have potential for developing in-service training and teacher education on theoretical concepts.
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to re-center playfulness as a humanizing approach in teacher education. As teachers navigate the current moment of heightened control, surveillance, and systemic inequity, these proposed moves in teacher education can be transgressive. Rather than play as relegated to childhood or infancy, what does it look like to continue to be “playful” in teaching and teacher education?
Design/methodology/approach
To examine how teacher educators may design for teachers’ critical playful literacies, the authors offer three “worked examples” (Gee, 2009) of preservice teachers’ playful practices in an English literacies teacher education course.
Findings
The authors highlight instructional design elements pertinent to co-designing for teachers’ play and playful literacies in teacher education: generative constraints to practice everyday ingenuity, figuring it out to foster teacher agency and debriefs to interrupt the teaching’s perpetual performance.
Originality/value
The term “playful,” as a descriptor of practice and qualifier of activity appears frequently in educational literature across domains. The relationship of play to critical literacies – and, more specifically, educators’ literacies and learning – is less frequently explored.
Much of the formal professional development teachers experience consists of short-term workshops that maintain – rather than disrupt – the systems of power that reproduce educational inequities. In response, some scholars have advocated critical professional development (PD) as a means of supporting teachers’ interrogation of these inequities and empowerment to effect change. Critical PD is based on Paulo Freire’s ideas of dialogue, problem-posing, and praxis, and it tends to emerge within grassroots organisations that function independently from the school systems. There are two drawbacks to this autonomous structure, however: the legitimacy problem, or the fact that the pedagogies advocated within these groups may be difficult to implement without the institutional support of participants’ districts; and the resource problem, or the fact that teachers’ time and efforts within these independent organisations is typically uncompensated. In this essay, we describe a research – practice partnership in which we co-developed critical PD on culturally responsive teaching with district leaders. The form of the PD, critical action research, allowed the participants to engage in problem-posing and praxis in order to analyse systems of power and their own positionalities within these systems. Recommendations for those with and without access to research – practice partnerships are offered.
Teacher educators drive preservice teachers' learning about teaching particularly through feedback. The learning materials produced by preservice teachers also play a crucial role in English language teacher training but may not be receiving the necessary attention in teacher education programs. Preservice teachers lack formal teaching experiences, which may result in their overemphasizing material delivery while underemphasizing material suitability. Providing teacher educators with criteria for evaluating learning materials developed by preservice teachers could aid in their providing quality formative feedback. Therefore, this study was
designed to construct a research-based contextualized evaluation checklist for learning materials. Adopting a systematic yet flexible design-based method allowed for the integration of design and intervention to develop a solution for this targeted educational problem. The researchers adopted a three-phase process for this study: analysis and exploration of a teacher educator's needs and extant literature on learning materials; design and construction; and evaluation and reflection. Learning materials designed by a preservice teacher were used to pilot the checklist. The results showed a need for refinement to form the final evaluation checklist. The checklist can be used by teacher educators for preservice teacher evaluation purposes or by preservice teachers as a quality check.
How can we teach critical hope, amidst contemporary challenges that seem intractable, within neoliberal educational institutions that work to foreclose transformative pedagogies and through academic critique that can result in cynicism and disillusionment among students? Here, I draw on the writings of Paolo Freire, J.K. Gibson-Graham and Sarah Amsler, as well as long-term research at the University of Sussex in the UK, to propose a critical-creative pedagogy that enables students to better understand global challenges and to imagine alternative responses to them. Consisting of whole-person learning, the use of arts and design methods and praxis, this pedagogy aims to nurture students’ critical hope. In this article I sketch an outline of its elements, advance philosophical arguments for their importance and share brief examples from my own teaching in International Development to show how it can be enacted in classrooms. Critical-creative pedagogy necessitates generative theorising that allows pedagogies of possibilities to emerge and grow, critical engagement with the neoliberal education system to find spaces for action, and a radical understanding of pedagogical creativity. It results in practices of pedagogical prefiguration that enable students, and educators, to collectively imagine heterodox responses to contemporary social, economic and ecological challenges.
This research identifies the critical factors of student engagement and distance learning that will improve academic performance during a pandemic. The fuzzy Delphi method and fuzzy analytical hierarchy process method are applied to this research, which is a multicriteria decision‐making technique. A survey is conducted and evaluated based on experts' opinions. The social constructivism theory was selected to be applied here; it supports student engagement and distance‐learning factors' relationships with academic performance. After the analysis, the six most significant factors are evaluated. It is observed that Social isolation (C1), Technology effectiveness (C2), Social status enhancement (C3), Student Competency (C4), Motivation (C5), and Satisfaction (C6) are the highest‐ranking factors that increase academic performance. On the basis of the results, it is suggested that management's primary responsibility is to provide training and guidance to instructors/teachers to enhance, motivate the students, and create opportunities for every student to improve their academic performance in a pandemic situation through distance learning. • Academic institutions should use dependable and user‐friendly technology to promote distance learning. • Academia should use online and virtual channels to engage students during emergencies to maintain learning continuity. • Students balancing employment, family, and other responsibilities may require flexible distance learning programs. Academic institutions should use dependable and user‐friendly technology to promote distance learning. Academia should use online and virtual channels to engage students during emergencies to maintain learning continuity. Students balancing employment, family, and other responsibilities may require flexible distance learning programs.
Teacher professional development in writing is an increasing area of interest due to the complex nature of the profession including learning needs of students and the demands of external assessment regimes in the contemporary landscape. However, professional development often denies the contextual experiences and expertise of teachers in favor of prescriptive top-down approaches. This paper contributes to the literature on effective teacher professional learning by showing how co-design between teachers and researchers can have an impact on student learning. In this study we focus on professional learning for the teaching of writing in the elementary classroom context, working with third grade students in the age range of 8–9. Through a reflexive analysis of multiple data sets including student writing samples, interviews, classroom observation footage, and teacher testimony, this study reveals the importance of teacher confidence in enabling students to view themselves as writers with a clear audience and purpose. The findings show how positioning teachers as research partners throughout a co-design process of professional learning benefits both students and teachers as it provides authentic, contextualized and creative approaches to teaching writing and improved writing outcomes for students.
While there is a strong consensus on the importance of Critical and Creative Thinking (CCT) skills for the rise of participatory citizens and work-ready professionals, the extent to which university attendance by itself supports their development and acquisition remains controversial. This research presents a cohort, longitudinal follow-up study aimed at investigating the impact of university attendance by itself on the CCT skills development of 41 higher education students from two, 3-year Bachelor’s programmes at a northeastern Portuguese university, namely Pre-Service Teaching and Psychology. Using Lopes et al.’s Critical and Creative Thinking Test, an open-access CCT assessment instrument validated for the Portuguese higher education population, data were collected at the beginning of the first and of the third academic years: 2016–2017 and 2018–2019, respectively. Non statistically significant differences were found for both cohorts, suggesting that the domain-specific training of these study programmes per se are not a sufficient condition to enhance students’ domain-general CCT skills. Therefore, further research is still needed to better identify the moderating variables influencing the development of students’ CCT skills during their attendance in undergraduate higher education.
Discussions about power have only recently begun to appear in the learning sciences literature. Most of this important work takes a critical perspective; the present work complements these efforts by examining power sharing as a catalyst for empowerment in teacher-researcher co-design. Even though teacher-researcher collaborations are discussed in the literature as contexts for empowerment, less is known about the processes that enable empowerment and their connection to learning. This case study examined co-design interactions to identify processes and conditions of empowerment in the context of designing a module to integrate Responsible Research and Innovation in elementary school science education. The co-design team consisted of seven in-service science teachers and one researcher. The main data corpus included ten face to face and online co-design meetings of over 13 hours of video, supplemented by co-design documentation, teacher interviews, and survey data. The analysis of the co-design interactions identified facilitating conditions for supporting power sharing during the co-design, which attended to socio-structural conditions to support the co-design activities and included the anticipation of real-world impact through classroom implementations. Findings suggest that teacher and researcher empowerment develop through power sharing which helps increase access to information and resources and the development of knowledge and skills, thus enabling teachers to make decisions on what and how to teach and researchers to provide just-in-time support.
Purpose
This study aims to investigate how primary teachers, when taking part in digital didactic design (D ³ ) workshops at the Digital Laboratory Centre at the university, develop their insights about how digital tools can be designed and further used in their teaching of science. The research question addresses how D ³ can be used to develop primary teachers’ knowledge about teaching science with digital technologies.
Design/methodology/approach
During two semesters, 14 primary science teachers from three different schools participated in an in-service course at the university. Five D ³ workshops lasting 4 h each were conducted with the aim to analyze, design and implement digital tools based on the needs of teachers and students. This includes discussions about the technological, pedagogical and content knowledge (TPACK) framework and further recommendations about how to choose, design, implement and evaluate digital tools for different teaching and learning situations. In between the workshops, the teachers were told to reflect on their experiences with colleagues and students and share their ideas and reflections to support collegial learning.
Findings
The results indicate that D ³ has an opportunity to promote deep learning experiences with a framework that encourages teachers and researchers to study, explore and analyze the applied designs-in-practice, where teachers take part in the design process. This study further indicates that having teachers explicitly articulates their reasoning about designing digital applications to engage students’ learning that seems important for exploring the types of knowledge used in these design practices and reflecting on aspects of their teaching with digital technologies likely to influence their TPACK.
Research limitations/implications
This research indicates that the increasing prevalence of information communication technology offers challenges and opportunities to the teaching and learning of science and to the scientific practice teachers might encounter. It offers solutions by investigating how primary teachers can design their own digital technology to meet students’ science learning needs. One limitation might be that the group of 14 teachers cannot be generalized to represent all teachers. However, this study gives implications for how to work with and for teachers to develop their knowledge of digital technologies in teaching.
Practical implications
As this project shows teachers can take an active part in the digital school development and as such become producer of knowledge and ideas and not only become consumers in the jungle of technical applications that are implemented on a school level. Therefore, it might well be argued that in science teaching, paying more careful attention to how teachers and researchers work together in collaborative settings, offers one way of better valuing science teachers’ professional knowledge of practice. As such, an implication is that digital applications are not made “for” teachers but instead “with” and “by” teachers.
Social implications
The society puts high demands om teachers’ knowledge and competencies to integrate digital technologies into their daily practices. Building on teachers’ own needs and concerns, this project addresses the challenge for teachers as a community to be better prepared for and meet the societal challenge that digitalization means for schools.
Originality/value
Across the field of science education, knowledge about the relation between teachers’ use of digital technology and how it might (or might not) promote students’ learning offers access to ideas of how to design and implement teacher professional development programs. This offers enhanced communication opportunities between schools and universities regarding school facilities and expectations of technology to improve teachers’ experiences with integrating technology into their learning and teaching. This pragmatic approach to research creates theory and interventions that serve school practice but also produces challenges for design-based researchers.
The use of massive open online courses (MOOCs) for teacher professional development (TDP) has increased in the past decades. This study explored the key factors that influenced teachers’ online course completion as a significant indicator of their success in a TPD MOOC. Six key influencing factors (self-efficacy, interaction with curriculum content and peers, satisfaction, overall course score, and TPACK self-assessment) were identified from the perspectives of general influencing factors and teacher specific influencing factors. Employing a learning model that was constructed as a hypothesis path model based on literature review, we analysed these influencing factors’ effects on participants’ online learning completion. Results showed that participants’ TPACK self-assessment and overall course score had a strong direct effect on their course completion, while their interaction with course content and peers had a significant indirect effect on their course completion. This study also discussed the features of teachers’ learning in TPD MOOCs based on the results. Suggestions to promote the success of TPD MOOCs from the aspects of curriculum, learners, and community were put forward. Implications and prospects for research and practice are discussed.
This study presents an ethnographic account of the learning design experiences of six Namibian teachers during school closures caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. The study explores the emotions, perspectives and actions of these teachers and also reveals the influence of personal, institutional and national culture on their learning design decisions, processes and outcomes. This exploration is important because it surfaces and highlights teacher experiences with learning design that can be used to influence practice and policy in future emergency situations. Data were collected using a variety of educational ethnographic techniques including artefacts, formal and informal interviews, and stimulated recall from video presentations. Five knowledge criteria were identified around the learning design and innovative processes of emergency remote teaching. These knowledge criterion include the Professional and School Context, Emotions of the participants at the time; Perspectives and actions to meet the Challenge; Process and Preparations for Remote teaching; Learning Design Context-based Decisions (including the processes used; the outcomes, and teaching artefacts). Results indicate that the school situation and context influenced the appropriate learning design materials. Furthermore, results showed that lack of infrastructure, access and connectivity as well as teacher ICT confidence and competency affected the decision making in learning design. Most of all, fear of being infected by SARS CoV-2 and fear for one’s life gripped teachers such that they were unable to fully engage in problem-solving for designing appropriate learning materials for learners.
Designing a lesson plan for science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) is an important skill in STEM teaching. It requires systematic training that begins at the pre-service stage. It is particularly difficult to help pre-service teachers (PSTs) develop their ability to design an integrated STEM learning unit that features competence-oriented, interdisciplinary, student-centered, authentic, and collaborative learning. Through three rounds of iterative design, this study aimed to develop a technology-enhanced STEM PST training solution. Each round of design sought to address practical issues that had been identified during the implementation of the training in the previous stage. When developing the program, we articulated five principles that guided our design, the final outcome of which was an online teacher training environment integrated with a visual learning design tool and a learning analytics function. We discuss the implications of our research in terms of recommended design principles for STEM PST training, and we suggest directions for future research on the cultivation of STEM learning design expertise.
The digital revolution has substantially impacted education. The evolution of the use of technologies in education has been gradual and different, mostly depending on the teaching professionals' predisposition and skills. With the advent of the COVID pandemic, digital tools' impact has been exponential in all educational levels. An study of the new educational hybrid model is offered. The role of the educator is critical in this new model, confirming the necessity to have technical resources and qualified educators to improve students’ competence in order for them to work successfully in the digital economy.
We have reflected on the evolution of Educators' Digital Competence (EDC) and its relationship with students' digital skills and impact on the learning process. An analysis of digital competence-learning in the context of the student-centered-learning approach has been studied. A more holistic approach to EDC is suggested.
The European Framework for the Digital Competence of Educators (DigCompEdu) has identified 22 competences in six areas of competence. This paper has analyzed 251 responses from a convenience sample of professors from Madrid's universities in business administration based on this validated instrument.
The results show the relevance of educators' characteristics to the learning process concerning previous knowledge about technology, training received, and their attitude toward technology. From a theoretical point of view, these competencies have been grouped into four competency areas, and their level of impact on student learning has been determined. In conclusion, digital competence has evolved from being a mere tool to becoming an essential pedagogical element.
Implementation of information technologies to develop students' creative and critical thinking in ESL classes
- О Babenko
Babenko, О. (2020). Implementation of information technologies to develop students' creative and
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The model development competency learning designers to teacher by integrating active learning
- A Phodong
- N Jarujit
Phodong, A., & Jarujit, N. (2022). The model development competency learning designers to teacher
by integrating active learning. Journal of Buddhist Anthropology, 7(8), 373-388.
https://so04.tci-thaijo.org/index.php/JSBA/article/view/258831
Blended Learning approach to enhance reflective higherorder cognitive thinking skills in students
- E Wong
- T Kwong
- C Chan
Wong, E., Kwong, T., & Chan, C. (2021). Blended Learning approach to enhance reflective higherorder cognitive thinking skills in students. In Creativity in the twenty-first century (pp. 121-132).
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-72216-6_8
Advanced Multimedia Production, Learning Innovations, and Marketing Communications. Her research focused on brain-based learning, UX design, educational technology and digital media which has been published and presented in journals and at international conferences
- Wanwisa Wannapipat
Wanwisa Wannapipat, Ph.D, is an Associate Dean and university lecturer at International College,
Khon Kaen University. She is in Creative Media Technology program with her Ph.D. in Educational
Technology. She has designed and led courses in Design Thinking, Advanced Multimedia Production,
Learning Innovations, and Marketing Communications. Her research focused on brain-based
learning, UX design, educational technology and digital media which has been published and
presented in journals and at international conferences.
Email: wanwwa@kku.ac.th
ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8775-9914