Instructional Choices Research Articles

STRATEGIES IN ORAL ENGLISH INSTRUCTION: A PEDAGOGICAL STUDY OF SOME GHANAIAN SENIOR HIGH SCHOOLS

Research on English language instruction, particularly on oral English, is increasingly growing in Ghana and in many countries where the English language is not only used as an official language but also as a language for the medium of instruction and a subject of study in schools. This can perhaps be attributed to the global demand for and use of the English language despite the many difficulties in its instruction. The current study investigates the instructional strategies teachers of English in selected senior high schools in Ghana employ during oral English instruction. Utilizing a mixed-method approach with a convergent parallel design, the study collected data through questionnaires, interviews, and classroom observations involving 43 English teachers from five senior high schools. The findings reveal a predominant reliance on traditional and direct instructional strategies such as question-and-answer sessions and drills in lieu of more interactive and indirect methods like paired conversations, oral reports, debates, etc. Meanwhile, teachers attribute their instructional choices to large class sizes, teaching environment, instructional resources and the teacher’s pedagogical skills. Based on these findings, The study concludes by advocating for the integration of a diverse range of instructional strategies, especially interactive and experiential strategies, to enhance student engagement and improve oral language competencies both inside and outside the classroom.<p> </p><p><strong> Article visualizations:</strong></p><p><img src="/-counters-/soc/0770/a.php" alt="Hit counter" /></p>

Why educators endorse a neuromyth: relationships among educational priorities, beliefs about learning styles, and instructional decisions.

Despite evidence to the contrary, many people believe in learning styles (LS)-the idea that students learn best in their preferred modality, such as visual, auditory, or kinesthetic. However, the impact of this belief on instructional decisions remains unclear. Therefore, this study investigated how belief in the neuromyth impacts instructional choices and why educators choose an LS lesson plan or an alternative. We found that educators' beliefs about LS indeed predicted their instructional choice, but that other factors influenced their decisions as well. Three themes encapsulate educators' justifications for their lesson plan choices: beliefs about LS, practical considerations, and student learning and motivation. These findings suggest that for many educators, implementing an LS lesson provides an opportunity to integrate diverse teaching strategies that address multiple educational priorities. Although many prior studies have replicated the prevalence of the myth, this is one of the first to explore the reasons that LS is attractive to educators. Attempts to dispel the LS neuromyth could leverage the reasons educators find LS appealing to provide alternative research-backed approaches to meet their goals. Future research should examine the extent to which beliefs in the LS neuromyth are translated into instructional practices within classroom lessons and explore potential differences across grade levels.

Teaching Matrix Multiplication with Impactful and Productive Meaning

What is the meaning of matrix multiplication? In this article, I outline a sequence of lessons for an introductory linear algebra course to teach matrix multiplication with impactful and productive meaning. These lessons are part of a broader linear algebra curriculum I have developed centered around students developing core mathematical mental actions such as meaning-making, symbolizing, interpreting, and justifying. For each lesson, I provide goals, a lesson plan, and an explanation of my instructional choices.

Student perceptions of inclusive pedagogy in undergraduate STEM classrooms.

In university STEM classrooms, the incorporation of inclusive practices improves student performance, decreases disparities in the academic success of underrepresented students, and increases student retention and persistence in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) programs. Inclusive pedagogical practices include effective instructional choices like active learning, providing rubrics, and other strategies that have been shown to support students from disadvantaged backgrounds. Additionally, explicitly inclusive practices such as addressing microaggressions and sharing pronouns can promote a sense of belonging for students. While a plethora of literature has shown these impacts and faculty have access to resources and training about inclusive pedagogy, we were interested in whether students are noticing these practices and how student identities impact their observations of instructional practices. We surveyed undergraduates (n = 74) from diverse STEM disciplines at a large land-grant university regarding their observation of 11 different inclusive pedagogical practices. Overall, students observed inclusive instructional practices more often than they observed explicitly diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI)-related practices. For explicitly DEI-related practices, white students observed more practices than Students of Color. This suggests that more work needs to be done to train faculty in explicit DEI-related practices, especially with the goal of supporting Students of Color who have been historically excluded from STEM.

Secondary Science Teachers’ Views and Approaches for Teaching for Climate Justice and Action

ABSTRACT Climate change is a growing global crisis with short and long-term physical and human impacts. Although climate change is a global occurrence, the impacts of climate change are not felt equally among all locations and all groups of people. Climate justice education is a form of social justice education that invites students to consider how the contributions toward and impacts of climate change differ across racial, socioeconomic, geographic, and intergenerational lines. Climate justice education can be impactful and may motivate climate actions and activism. To learn more about how climate justice education can be enacted, this mixed methods study sought to investigate Ohio secondary science teachers’ climate justice and climate action teaching practices and their reasons for their instructional choices. Eighty-six Ohio secondary science teachers completed an electronic survey about their climate change teaching practices, and 26 of these teachers were interviewed to explain their practices. Research participants most often framed their climate change teaching as a global social issue and as a current problem with primarily physical impacts on the Earth. Most participants who taught about climate change address multiple climate actions and at least one climate justice issue. When participants address climate justice, they most commonly address geographic injustices and least often address racial injustices. Teachers most often teach individual, apolitical climate mitigation actions and seldom teach collective and/or adaptation actions. Implications for science teacher professional learning and curriculum development are discussed.

The Classroom‐Research‐Mentoring Framework: A lens for understanding science practice‐based instruction

AbstractReformed science curricula provide opportunities for students to engage with authentic science practices. However, teacher implementation of such curricula requires teachers to consider their role in the classroom, including realigning instructional decisions with the epistemic aims of science. Guiding newcomers in science can take place in settings ranging from the classroom to the undergraduate research laboratory. We suggest thinking about the potential intersections of guiding students across these contexts is important. We describe the Classroom‐Research‐Mentoring (CRM) Framework as a novel lens for examining science practice‐based instruction. We present a comparative case study of two teachers as they instruct undergraduate students in a model‐based inquiry laboratory. We analyzed stimulated‐recall episodes uncovering how these teachers interacted with their students and the rationale behind their instructional choices. Through the application of the CRM Framework, we revealed ways teachers can have instructional goals that align with those of a research mentor. For example, our teachers had the goals of “creating an inclusive environment open to student ideas,” “acknowledging students as scientists,” and “focusing students on skills and ideas needed to solve biological problems.” We suggest three functions of research mentoring that translate across the classroom and research laboratory settings: (1) build a shared understanding of epistemic aims, (2) support learners in the productive use of science practices, and (3) motivate learner engagement in science practices.

The possibilities of teaching the past: fifth grade teachers' instructional choices

PurposeThe purpose of this study is to explore decision-making of elementary teachers (n = 5) specific to US/American history content and curricular resources. More specifically for this study, the author asks the following broad research question: When presented with a collection of social studies instructional resources, how do elementary teachers describe the choices they do make/may make?Design/methodology/approachIn this comparative case study, fifth-grade teachers were interviewed using verbal protocol methodology, they discussed their curriculum, teaching and instructional decisions as each was presented with history/social studies resources associated with newly adopted state standards.FindingsFindings indicate these elementary teachers have professional freedom to make instructional decisions in the ways they interpreted the standards, design instruction and select materials for social studies.Originality/valueThis study contributes to and extends the research in elementary social studies. Teachers' voices and decisions are presented as intellectual and pedagogical actions associated with teaching elementary school social studies.

Academic thriving and online course design: a conceptual model

ABSTRACT The concept of thriving in post-secondary education has largely been studied in the context of academic advising and student support services, with limited research that links thriving to pedagogical practices. This paper presents a conceptual model created using an integrative literature review to illustrate how instructional choices made during the design and teaching phases of online courses may impact students’ academic thriving. The Instructional Design for Academic Thriving (IDAT) model, nested within the Community of Inquiry (COI) framework for online learning, supports online course design practices that emphasize student wellbeing and allow students to not just succeed but thrive academically.

Becoming Culturally Responsive: Equitable and Inequitable Translations of CRE Theory into Teaching Practice.

Research on Culturally Responsive Education (CRE) to date has mostly focused on identifying the aspects of education that already work for Black, Indigenous, and Students of Color. Building on this important literature base, this qualitative study examines the implementation, rather than the identification, of CRE practices. The seven New York City public schools that participated in the study were making school-wide changes for CRE as part of a program for Competency-Based Education (CBE) for personalizing learning for students. Both CRE and CBE are employed in schools to address common issues associated with educational inequities such as irrelevant lessons, teacher biases, one-size-fits-all instruction, and systemic racism. Based on interviews with teachers at the study schools, our findings demonstrated that teachers translated CRE theory into their CBE practice in three key ways: (1) deficit practices, where instructional choices were treated as neutral; (2) access practices, where instruction was differentiated but was not culturally responsive; and (3) transformative practices, where student agency challenged traditional structures. We argue that for schools and educators to meaningfully grapple with the issues of power they seek to address by engaging in CRE, they must embrace and nurture a more radical CRE imagination that leads to deeper school transformation.

Preparing Preservice Teachers to Teach Equitably: A Longitudinal, Collaborative Interrogation of Two Mathematics Teacher Educators’ Positionalities

ABSTRACT Just as elementary mathematics teaching is complex and lacks a single appropriate method, the same is true for mathematics teacher education. There is no consensus around the best approach to preparing prospective mathematics teachers to have a strong command of mathematical concepts, a robust understanding of pedagogical approaches, and a disposition towards children and mathematics that accounts for the historical, sociocultural, and political contexts. We designed a longitudinal, collaborative self-study to explore the experiences and perspectives of each author, their pedagogical design of mathematics teacher education, and the connections of these to prospective teachers’ readiness to teach mathematics equitably. As part of a structured reflective process, we engaged in collaborative interrogation of written accounts of our backgrounds, experiences, and instructional choices. We also analyzed, using documentation tables and code mapping, journal entries following teaching sessions and inventories of class assignments to scrutinize if learning outcomes were realized in earnest. Our findings highlight how our personal and professional experiences shape our perspectives on schooling and mathematics teaching and learning, and how we make sense of equity in these contexts. These perspectives are evident in our course design and instruction, although this interrogation has raised questions about the efficacy of our work vis-a-vis our larger goals of preparing critically conscious mathematics teachers. This self-study underscores the imperative for mathematics teacher educators to examine both the contents of their course work and field experiences, as well as understand the reasons why those instructional choices were made.

Incorporating choice: empowering teachers and families to support students in varied learning contexts

In this article, we introduce instructional choice as a simple, feasible, effective strategy for teachers and families to increase student engagement as well as decrease off-task and disruptive behaviors in range of contexts. We provide step-by-step guidance to illustrate how instructional choice can be used by teachers in in-person and remote learning environments as well as how families can incorporate choice into daily routines at home.

Using low-intensity strategies to support engagement: practical applications in remote learning environments for teachers and families

In this introductory article, we explain the rationale for this special issue: to provide educators and families with effective, practical strategies to increase student engagement and minimize disruption in remote, in person, and hybrid learning environments. We offer this special issue out of respect for the complexities educators and families face in maintaining continuous learning for students during ongoing COVID related school disruptions. We recognize the emotional well-being of today’s educators, family members, and students must be prioritized as we collaborate to mitigate learning loss during this tumultuous time in history. We attempt to meet a need for educators and family members – providing effective, feasible tools – as they strive to engage students using online or remote technologies and navigate the often-turning tides in the COVID era. Therefore, we adapted traditionally in-person use of these strategies (i.e., behavior-specific praise, precorrection, active supervision, and instructional choice) to apply to remote learning. These strategies are often incorporated as foundational elements of tiered systems of support such as Comprehensive, Integrated, Three-tiered (Ci3T) models of prevention and can be used by teachers and families in schools without tiered systems in place.

Using methodologies in the Political Science and International Relations classrooms in Spain: Views from instructors

This paper highlights the classroom use of active methodologies in Political Science and International Relations in a Spanish setting. Using both surveys and in-depth interviews, it examines how extensively active methodologies are used in Spanish universities, what professors understand active methodologies to be, and how are they implemented in the classrooms. Most importantly, it seeks to understand the instructional transition made by professors that started off their professional careers as lecturers and, subsequently, decided they wanted to include active methodologies as a meaningful part of their courses. Results show an extensive use of active methodologies, although instructional choices are often made without prior pedagogical expertise, nor a proper evaluation of the student’s learning experience. We conclude with some suggestions on policy recommendations that would increase the quality of teaching and improve the learning outcomes in the classrooms.

What if it Were Otherwise? Teachers Use Exams from the Past to Imagine Possible Futures in the Teaching of Literature

ABSTRACTIn the United States, standardized tests shape what, how, and why English Language Arts teachers teach. For the last generation, these tests have increasingly taken a narrowly text‐centered approach to literature, making it difficult to enact or research alternatives. But what if it were otherwise? In the current study, we asked teachers to imagine alternatives to the current world of standardized testing. Drawing from a hundred years of New York state exams, we selected reader‐ and text‐centered essay prompts that represented a range of alternatives to current standardized exams. Then we interviewed 30 high school English Language Arts teachers from across the U.S., asking them to imagine what, how, and why they might teach with these alternative prompts in mind. Compared to their responses to a current Common Core aligned exam, when teachers responded to the alternative prompts, they were more likely to imagine selecting texts by authors of color, plan a wide variety of discussion‐based and writing activities, highlight the ethical dimensions of the teaching of literature, and envision the pleasure of aligning their beliefs with their instructional choices. As testing becomes more uniform, studies that imagine alternatives to the status quo allow for a broad exploration of the possibilities of language arts curriculum and instruction, as well as an understanding of teachers' untapped creativity and skill.

Tracking Student Outcomes Through Instructional Choices in Physical Education

This study used self-determination theory to provide a better understanding of learner motivation in a physical education program. Students participated in a sports unit with choice in activities, equipment, partners, and competition as opposed to a traditional teacher-led activity unit. The objective was to determine differences in motivation and perceptions of physical education in grade school children. An alternating treatment design was used in which students experienced both a teacher-led unit and a student choice–driven sports unit. Fifty fifth-grade students from a suburban school in the Western United States participated in this study. Students were assessed through a number of parameters: physical activity enjoyment, situational motivation, fourth- and fifth-grade student attitudes toward physical education, pedometer readings, and interviews. This study used t tests and repeated-measures analyses of variance to explore differences based on condition (i.e., choices and/or teacher led) and gender, as well as common comparisons (i.e., trustworthiness measures) for the interview data. Students displayed significantly higher enjoyment ratings when they had the choice condition second (from the alternating treatment design), immediately before posttests, and boys rated enjoyment of physical education significantly higher than did girls. In another measure, the group with choices of the hockey unit was predominantly more active in the sport than those participating in the teacher-led activity. The interview themes elicited the following responses: (a) students expressed a desire for instructional choices, but not in team selections; (b) students loved sports, but they also wanted more fitness; and (c) students identified and valued instructional choices. The findings suggest that competence plays a critical role in physical education, and when students can choose the level of competition and play in small group games, they feel more competent, play more, and have higher enjoyment ratings within the physical education program.

The Use of Virtual Research Experiences for Appalachian Career Training in Oncology (ACTION) Program High School Participants During the COVID-19 Pandemic.

Kentucky has the highest cancer incidence and mortality rates in the nation, with rates greatest in the Appalachian region due to poor health behaviors and inequities in social determinants of health. The Appalachian Career Training in Oncology (ACTION) Program at the University of Kentucky Markey Cancer Center engages 20 Appalachian-native high school students annually in cancer education, research, and outreach activities. During the COVID-19 pandemic, programming was disrupted, and alternative activities were implemented, including virtual research experiences. The program's goals were to improve students' biology and cancer content knowledge and research skills and help students make career decisions. Virtual laboratories were used to help accomplish these goals. This study aimed to evaluate the use of virtual laboratories embedded in the program and determine if such experiences helped reach the program's goals. A survey was used to measure students' perceptions of the virtual labs. Results indicated that students perceived they gained content knowledge, obtained research skills, and considered entering science and cancer-related careers. The decision to incorporate virtual laboratories into the ACTION programming during the COVID-19 pandemic was a sound instructional choice. Evidence provided herein gives researchers and program developers information necessary to consider using virtual labs in their programs.

Providing Context for Identifying Effective Introductory Mechanics Courses

Research-based assessments (RBAs) measure how well a course achieves discipline-specific outcomes. Educators can use outcomes from RBAs to guide instructional choices and to request resources to implement and sustain instructional transformations. One challenge for using RBAs, however, is a lack of comparative data, particularly given the skew in the research literature toward calculus-based courses at highly selective institutions. In this article, we provide a large-scale dataset and several tools educators in introductory physics courses can use to inform how well their courses foster student conceptual understanding of Newtonian physics. The supplemental materials include this dataset and these tools. Educators and administrators will often target courses with high drop, withdrawal, and failure rates for transformations to student-centered instructional strategies. RBAs and the comparative tools presented herein allow educators to address critiques that the course transformations made the courses “easier” by showing that the transformed course supported physics learning compared to similar courses at other institutions. Educators can also use the tools to track course efficacy over time.

Engineering students’ perceptions of teaching: teacher-created atmosphere and teaching procedures as triggers of student emotions

ABSTRACT The engineering education field has concentrated more on rationality and knowledge than on emotions, even though the latter are important in students’ learning processes and in the engineering profession. This study examined engineering students’ descriptions of the roles of teaching in their perceived emotions. A qualitative thematic analysis was conducted on data from interviews with 26 engineering students. The results show that students’ emotions are influenced by their perceptions of 1) a teacher-created atmosphere, such as teacher interest, enthusiasm, emotions, and encouragement, and 2) teaching procedures, such as course arrangements, lectures, public performances, and active learning. The findings call for more attention to the nuances of student – teacher relationships in engineering classrooms, as they can affect the ways in which students experience teaching procedures, as well. These results can help engineering educators better understand students’ teaching-related emotions and make instructional choices that enhance student emotions that are conducive to learning.

Fostering an entrepreneurial mindset: A typology for aligning instructional strategies with three dominant entrepreneurial mindset conceptualizations

Entrepreneurship education in higher education institutions (HEIs) increasingly aims at fostering an entrepreneurial mindset (EM) in students. However, large heterogeneity exists in conceptualizations of EM. This is a challenge for educators as it is difficult to develop instructional strategies to foster students’ EM when there is no clarity about what this mindset is. The purpose of the article is to address this challenge. It does so by analysing and synthesizing current literature in the field of entrepreneurship education in HEIs and develops a taxonomy that depicts three dominant conceptualizations of EM, their theoretical origins and the type of attributes typically associated with each conceptualization. The article goes beyond the integrative literature review by reflecting on the consequences for the design of entrepreneurship education of the simultaneous existence of these three dominant conceptualizations. The author develops a typology for aligning instructional strategies with the EM conceptualizations and thus contributes to practice by providing a better understanding of how to achieve coherence between learning outcomes and instructional choices. The article advances the field’s conceptual knowledge about EM and thereby facilitates future theory generation.

Mathematicians’ beliefs, instruction, and students’ beliefs: how related are they?

It is generally accepted that teachers’ beliefs impact their instructional choices, but characterizations of that relationship are limited in college settings. Furthermore, examinations of instructor beliefs, instruction, and student beliefs together in one setting are rarely described. Based on interviews with two Algebra instructors, classroom video from three units of instruction, and survey and interview data from students in the classes, this paper examines instructors’ stated beliefs, ways these beliefs manifested in their teaching, and students’ beliefs across the course. Both instructors made curricular choices clearly aligned with their stated views of the nature of mathematics, learning, and teaching. Day-to-day instructional choices reflected these stated beliefs as well, but the difficulty of material and tensions with other beliefs like the importance of interactivity manifested. Characterizations of the interactivity of classes and placement of the mathematical authority in class are provided through descriptive and quantitative measures. These characterizations of instruction provide nuanced portrayals of classroom norms and changes in those norms throughout the semester. Furthermore, subtle shifts in student beliefs about teaching and learning are noticeable, suggesting students’ beliefs about teaching and learning mathematics can be influenced even by modest changes in instructional practice.