Educational Complex Research Articles

Teaching Cataloging in a Brave New World

This article examines teaching new catalogers “in” Resource Description and Access (RDA). An analysis of training courses (Anglo-American Cataloguing Rules, second edition [AACR2] and RDA) from the Courtauld Institute of Art is presented, focusing on publication, introductory material, and relationships. It is found that the change to RDA training is a complex mix encompassing content, structure, and pedagogy. “Teacher knowledge”—an education studies conceptual model—in particular, pedagogical content knowledge, is used as an additional analytical tool. Teacher knowledge helps explain why some training topics take longer to rework for RDA than others and how existing knowledge of cataloging remains useful even when teaching “novel” cataloging rules.

Reflections of a Peace Educator: The Power and Challenges of Peace Education With Pre-Service Teachers

This retrospective essay examines one long-standing peace and global education initiative for pre-service teacher candidates. The article probes the meanings of peace education and of global education embedded in the program, as well as the program’s apparent consequences: What understandings of peace education did the pre-service candidates in this program demonstrate, through their own words and the teaching plans they produced? What skills did the pre-service candidates seem to acquire in curriculum design? My reflections are based on my own experience as a faculty member and coordinator of the program, as well as retrospective understandings derived from ongoing examination of questionnaires, focus group discussions, interviews, and especially, almost 200 curriculum products (lesson and unit plans) created by pre-service candidates in a special “global cohort” and in the general pre-service population at the same university. The article provides a literature review of the main definitions of peace education, as well as the characteristics of peace pedagogy, and discusses two main challenges faced by the core faculty in this peace education program. In particular, teacher candidates’ understandings of peace education often seemed limited, especially in relation to their competence in developing curricula for other strands of global education. Second, teacher candidates often had difficulty acquiring the relevant knowledge base and teaching materials necessary for facilitating the complex pedagogies associated with peace education. I conclude with some observations about how our program’s pre-service teacher candidates seemed to understand and respond to the challenges of peace education.

Thoughts on a Pedagogy OF Complexity

There is now a developed and extensive literature on the implications of the ‘complexity frame of reference’ (Castellani & Hafferty, 2009) for education in general and pedagogy in particular. This includes a wide range of interesting contributions which consider how complexity can inform, inter alia, research on educational systems (Cochran-Smith et al., 2014; Radford, 2008) and theories of learning (Mercer, 2011; Fromberg, 2010), as well as work dealing with specific pedagogical domains including physical education (Atencio et al., 2014, Tan et al. 2010), clinical education and in particular the learning of clinical teams (Noel et al., 2013; Bleakley, 2010; Gonnering, 2010), and learning in relation to systems engineering (Thompson et al., 2011, Foster et al., 2001). This material has contributed considerably to my thinking about the subject matter of this essay which is not the implications of complexity for pedagogy but rather how we might develop a pedagogy OF complexity and, more specifically, a pedagogy of what Morin (2008) has called ‘general’ (as opposed to ‘restricted’) complexity. In other words how should we teach the complexity frame of reference to students at all appropriate educational levels?

Science ideals and science careers in a university biology department

In an ethnographic study set within a biology department of a public university in the United States, incongruity between the ideals and practice of science education are investigated. Against the background of religious conservative students' complaints about evolution in the curriculum, biology faculty describe their political intents for fostering science literacy. This article examines differences that emerge between the department's rhetorical commitment to improve science understanding amongst their students and the realities of course staffing and anxieties about promotion and tenure. Because tenure-track faculty are motivated to focus their careers on research productivity and teaching biology majors, other biology courses are staffed with adjunct instructors who are less equipped to negotiate complex pedagogies of science and religion. In practice, faculty avoid risky conversations about evolution versus creationism with religiously conservative students. I argue that such faculty are complicit, through their silence, in failing to equip their students with the science literacy which their own profession avows is crucial for a well-informed citizenry in a democracy.

An education in complexity: The role of contemporary art music

This paper provides some thoughts on the role of contemporary art music in the pedagogy of complexity. Today, theories of complexity are an area of thought that is largely established in the humanities and social sciences. They emphasize the importance of notions such as discontinuity, contradiction, non-linearity, multiplicity, randomness, and chaos in natural and cultural phenomena. The French epistemologist Edgar Morin, in a series of recent publications, has developed a pedagogy based on the theory of complexity. Contemporary art music contains a large repertoire of works, on which to build a pedagogy and didactics of complexity in music. The paper gives an example of use and didactic transposition of a piece, B.A.C.H. for solo piano (1970), by Italian composer Aldo Clementi.

Building Bridges: Constructing Social Enterprise Curriculum in the Humanities

Creating an innovative suite of courses within the Bachelor of Arts has required the development of a complex pedagogy, particularly when the needs of the context require an interdisciplinary approach. This paper, which utilises reflection on practice as its methodology, explores the Social Enterprise core stream which has been a significant element of study since 2008. While the paper deals with some of the particular circumstances of introducing practice learning to traditional theoretical disciplines, it is most concerned with the pedagogical strength of combining inquiry based learning with problem based learning, to lead to work integrated learning, and developing reflective practice to integrate all. Since 2008, the School of Humanities at Griffith University has incorporated a Social Enterprise signature experience into the Bachelor of Arts. Broadly, social enterprises are distinguished by their pursuit of community wealth in the marketplace to pursue their aims. They pursue a triple bottom line of social, economic and environmental prosperity. Griffith University is located in South East Queensland, Australia and is well regarded as both a research university and for its development of highly innovative programmes. Approximately 40, 000 students are enrolled over five campuses. In the Bachelor of Arts, we also use the verb form, 'socially enterprising' to invite our students to be innovative, creative and empowered, regardless of the economic sector where they find employment. Thus our work at Griffith University is underpinned by a pedagogical ethic and imperative to excite our students about their own prospects for being a part of change, based on a thorough and ongoing engagement with people and organisations in the 'real world' who are already moving and shaking. This has meant that a curriculum has had to be developed which both presents the underlying issues and the third sector approaches and interpolates these studies into a multi-disciplinary context. This signature experience consists of six semester-long units, presented sequentially, and includes a third year professional placement in the Third Sector. The final semester capstone subject enables students to both reflect upon their experience of the degree and to plan and manage a showcase event. The first year units focus upon the development of communication and critical thinking skills, and the introduction of critical issues relevant to the Third Sector such as human rights and social justice. Alongside an initial exploration of the history and practice of the Third Sector, these first year courses are designed to incite a broader awareness of the reason for choosing a life that contributes to the wider community. The second year units are concerned with the consolidation of an ethical foundation and developing skills required in the workplace in this field.

The ongoing development of mathematics teachers’ knowledge and practice: considering possibilities, complexities, and measures of teacher learning

The professional learning of mathematics teachers is an area of central concern in the field of mathematics teacher education. Researchers in mathematics teacher education strive to understand changes in teachers’ knowledge and practice over time and in different contexts. Much of the research in our field aims to document, understand, and measure the impact of opportunities for teachers to learn through diverse experiences ranging from coursework to practice-based professional learning communities. The three articles in this issue of the Journal of Mathematics Teacher Education (JMTE) contribute to this body of scholarship by reporting about important questions and issues emerging from professional development activities in three countries. Each article builds on previous work in mathematics teacher education in significant ways and, through the insights each provides, opens the door for further research about teacher learning. Two of the articles in this issue provide analytic accounts of the possibilities and complexities of teachers’ joint observation and discussion of practice. Alf Coles’s reflection on a video-based discussion group and Takeshi Miyakawa and Carl Winslow’s account of an ‘‘open lesson’’ reveal the potential for teachers to learn together through the development of shared knowledge about mathematics teaching. This potential is striking when we consider that much of teachers’ daily work occurs in the privacy of individual classrooms. It was beyond the scope of either of these studies to examine or measure changes in teachers’ knowledge or practice; instead, the researchers focused on exploring what might be the educative aspects of teachers’ practice-based discussions. Yet, it is natural to wonder about the impact of such professional development activities on the knowledge and practices of participating teachers. Yasemin Copur-Gencturk and Sarah Lubienski shift our focus to the measurement of the impact of coursework on teachers’ mathematical knowledge. Through their examination of the types of changes that two commonly used instruments detected in teachers’ mathematical knowledge during graduate courses, these authors provide some evidence for theoretical distinctions among certain components of teachers’ mathematical knowledge.

Representações Sociais e Educação: Panorama dos Estudos Desenvolvidos pela Cátedra Unesco sobre Profissionalização Docente

This paper seeks to present an overview of current studies developed by researchers from different institutions associated to International Center of Studies on Social Representations and Subjectivity - Education (CIERS-ed) hosted in Fundacao Carlos Chagas, which turned to psychosocial background of social representations theory, while articulate with others approaches, aiming to think about the complexity of teacher's work. The investigations brought in here, under the Unesco Chair on Professional Development of Teachers based on CIERS-ed, reveals, as theoretical instrument and methodological, the social representations theory has been allowing a psychosocial study of education and also enable the understanding of the built of teacher's subjectivity and, above all, the power of changeful of education.

Participation as a pedagogy of complexity: Lessons from two design projects with children

As a pedagogical strategy in urban design and planning education, participatory projects prepare university students to deal with complex situations. However, little has been said about how these projects can foster reflexivity and awareness of complexity among participants. Drawing on the qualitative analysis of the material produced throughout two participatory projects with children, this article shows changes concerning students’ representations of the design problem, the designer's role and the design process. The analysis suggests that the students replace their initial instrumental, deterministic approach with the acknowledgement of children's intentionality, thus instilling an ethical engagement and a vision of design as a multidimensional reflexive process. Through these adaptations, students prepare for the complexity of professional practice. By documenting these experiences, the article highlights the value of participatory projects as a pedagogical strategy in urban design and planning.

Reflections on a primary school teacher professional development programme on learning English through Process Drama

This article documents the authors’ reflections on a teacher professional development programme conducted in 38 Hong Kong primary schools on the teaching of English through Process Drama. The authors draw upon the views of school principals, subject panel head teachers, English teachers, students and parents in focus group interviews to examine the learning and teaching experiences at the heart of the Programme. These reflections focus on how Process Drama can enhance second language acquisition by accommodating more affective factors in learning, by stressing creativity and by shifting the didactic discourse in the classroom to one that is more authentic and less threatening and which encourages increased amounts of student talk. The authors describe how, based on the focus group interview data, a piece of Verbatim Theatre was created and used as a stimulus to elicit deeper reflective responses to the Programme. They also reflect upon the level of understanding of Process Drama's complex pedagogy and artistry demonstrated by those teachers new to it and consider what further research might help the long-term implementation of drama in Hong Kong classrooms.

Towards a complicated conversation: teacher education and the curriculum turn

Historically, research in teacher education has played a practical role deriving its questions directly either from ‘the doing’ of teacher education and/or having sought to directly improve ‘the doing’ of teacher education. As a result, a tendency towards moral, intellectual and institutional parochialism has confined both the promise and purpose of research. It is argued that the field of teacher education might look towards curriculum theory as a possible antidote to parochialism. Curriculum theorising invites consideration of teacher education as a cultural object, nested in layers of meaning that require interpretation and critique. Drawing inspiration from the few scholars whose work is located at the interstices of teacher education and curriculum theory, this article suggests that a curriculum turn is characterised by (1) an attention to language, what it is up to and what it makes of aspiring teachers and their teacher educators; (2) a focus on the fragility of human experience as it is lived in teacher education; and finally (3) a search for new and provocative relations between the social and (teacher) educational worlds. The upshot of a curriculum turn in teacher education research is an emphasis on the significance and complexity of teachers’ work, and the value of teacher education; the recovery of teacher education as an educational project; and an enrichment of the questions that the profession asks of itself.

Skin pedagogies and abject bodies

How does the beauty industry ‘narrate the skin’? What does it teach women from different cultural groups about the female body? How does skin function as a site where female subjection and abjection are produced and reproduced? In this paper we examine the skin industry pointing to its extreme commodification of the female body and to the inexcusable pressure this places on females of most age and cultural groups. We focus on two examples. Firstly, we show what the skin industry teaches girls and women about both their skin colour ‘problems’ and desirable practices of whitening and, secondarily, tanning. Secondly, we consider what the cosmetic surgery industry teaches us about female bodily ‘imperfections’ linked to certain ethnic and racial groups and the necessary ‘remedies’. Overall we show how the socio-cultural normalization of perfect skin is a product of a range of contemporary and enduring social and cultural forces overlain by complex pedagogies of power, expertise and affect.

Racism, ‘race’ and ethnographic research in multicultural Italy

This article is divided into two parts: in the first one, after mentioning episodes of violence against immigrants, the author discusses the issues of ‘race’ and racism within the debate on immigration and diversity taking place in Italy. Pointing out a number of relevant indications and reflections that qualify such debate, she argues that the concern of Italian researchers, educators and citizens about the resurgence of racism must be understood with reference to the historical, philosophical and scientific perspectives that aimed to disunite humanity, on the one hand; on the other, in the light of Italy's history of racist ideology and its impact on education, during Fascism. Both research paths justified exclusion and exploitation of populations on the basis of a naturalistic classification whose null denotation has been definitely proved by recent biological and genetic evidence. In the second part, and with regard to contemporary times and changes brought about by immigration to Italy, the author presents and comments Italian legislation on the education of immigrant children and underlines how it views diversity as a resource and an asset that can promote mutual respect and intercultural dialogue in multicultural classrooms. However she warns about the risk of naturalising ethnic and cultural diversity and fixing the new pupils and students, as well as their families, to predetermined cultural ‘scripts’. Acknowledging that the perspective of anthropology of education and the ethnographic approach are of relevance in understanding the complexity of teacher–pupils and peer interaction in a multicultural classroom as well as the influence of the cultural rules and habits of the school on learning by immigrants' or Roma children, she supports her view through ethnographic research conducted among Sikh youth in the North and among the Roma in a Turin school. Her conclusions stress the intellectual contribution of ethnographic research to a thorough questioning of ‘race’ and ‘racial’ theories and of naturalisation of cultures.

Teachers’ professional knowledge construction in Assessment for Learning

This article attempts to unpack the complexity of teachers’ professional knowledge construction in Assessment for Learning (hereafter, AfL). It presents a qualitative study of a school‐based AfL Project which took place in a secondary school in Hong Kong. Thirty lessons video‐recorded in the AfL Project and nine teacher interviews conducted after the Project were analyzed. The findings enrich our understanding of professional knowledge construction in four aspects: (1) personal nature of teachers’ practical knowledge construction in contrived situations; (2) confined integration of AfL into pedagogical content knowledge in terms of ‘skill progression that accompanies experience’; (3) more sophisticated integration of AfL into pedagogical content knowledge as ‘practicalizing theoretical knowledge’; and (4) reflection, conscious deliberation, and ‘theorizing practical knowledge’ associated with more sophisticated professional knowledge integration. Implications for enhancing teachers’ professional learning are discussed.

Mentoring two student teachers: mentors’ perceptions of peer placements

Research on peer placements suggests that partnering two preservice teachers with a mentor provides a better, more supportive context for learning to teach. As extant research has focused more on student teachers’ development, less is known about mentors’ perceptions and experiences. This qualitative study focuses on seven mentor teachers who have mentored one–three years in peer placements to provide a textured understanding of their perceptions and experiences. Results indicate: (a) peer collaboration provides important pedagogical scaffolding that helps student teachers plan and implement complex pedagogies; (b) peer–mentor observation helps student teachers feel more efficacious about their developing practice; (c) sharing responsibility for instruction and distributing roles and resources enables mentors to better meet the needs of student teachers and students; and (d) effective peer placements require mentors to conceptualize their work in different ways. Professional development recommendations are also provided.

THE ROLE OF SCHOOL COUNSELOR IN ALLEVIATION OF OCCUPATIONAL ANXIETY OF PRESCHOOL TEACHERS

The complexity of teachers’ work, the ever increasing demands of their role and the special conditions of their work environment are the cause of their work related anxiety.The School Counselor (SC) can contribute to alleviate all occupational anxiety by means of support and leadership.The aim of our project is to investigate the level of work related anxiety of preschool teachers, the factors contributing to this, as well as the contribution of the SC to its minimization. Finally, we portray the profile of the desirable leading figure of the-School Counselor, his/her role, and characteristics, as such are described by preschool teachers.

ELEMENTARY SCHOOL TEACHERS' ATTITUDES TOWARD DIFFERENT SUBJECTS

This study investigated the favorite subject to teach and enjoyment of teaching of 490 elementary school teachers (K–5) from two rural school districts in the southeastern United States. Reading and language arts were consistently ranked among the favorite and most enjoyed subjects to teach, whereas science and writing were consistently ranked among the least favorite and least enjoyed subjects to teach. However, the complexity of teachers' attitudes was evidenced by interactions with grade level and attitude measure that existed with mathematics, writing, and social studies. Further, primary-level teachers, compared to upper elementary teachers, were found to be more subject generalists in terms of their relative enjoyment for teaching all subjects. Implications for teacher preparation and policies related to elementary school teaching assignments are discussed.

The complexity of teachers’ conceptions of assessment: tensions between the needs of schools and students

Teachers’ conceptions of assessment are important as they shape their usage of assessment practices. This study used a phenomenographic approach to examine the various purposes a sample of 26 New Zealand teachers ascribed to assessment. Seven purposes were discussed: compliance, external reporting, reporting to parents, extrinsically motivating students, organising group instruction, teacher use for individualising learning, and joint teacher‐student use for individualising learning. This study showed that teachers held complex conceptions of assessment and described using different assessments for differing purposes. It highlighted how teachers must consider divergent stakeholder interests when selecting assessments for students, balancing the needs of the society, the school, and the pupil. The data emphasised the particularly strong tension between what teachers feel is best for students versus what is deemed necessary for school accountability.

Exploring classroom assessment practices: the case of teachers of English as a foreign language

The research investigated the factors which underlie the perceptions and usage of alternative assessment procedures among EFL teachers in Israel. The research was conducted within the framework of an earlier model by Hargreaves and colleagues comprising four perspectives – technological, cultural, political and postmodern – to account for teachers’ assessment practices and beliefs. The sample included 113 EFL teachers who responded to a self‐report questionnaire. The model’s four perspectives were validated using a two‐stage factor analysis. Results show that the predominant factor related to the usage of alternative assessment is the technological one, followed by the cultural and postmodern perspectives. The political perspective yielded mixed results. The findings highlight the complexity of teachers’ assessment practices reflecting not merely a testing approach but a social and educational paradigm encompassing micro constraints (technological), macro influences (political), ideologies and commonly‐held beliefs (cultural) as well as evidence of critical pedagogy (postmodern).

The Apparent Conflict between Commitment to the Development of the Profession and the Imperatives of the Academy

This article gives an account of research that compares the practices of social work educators in England with those of academics working as educators on professional courses for nurses, teachers and doctors. It includes a framework for analysing professional education work, which conceptualises the educators as second order practitioners. The findings of the study show that similar missions, composed of four elements—teaching in higher education (HE), research or scholarship, contribution to the original professional field, and service to the university—underpinned professional practices. Other similarities across the four groups included: engagement in complex pedagogies; struggling to engage in ‘valid’ research; and perceptions that their departments had low status in HE. The study shows the tensions created for professional educators when they attempt to meet the imperatives of both HE and their original professional fields. The findings illuminate generic issues about what is termed second order practice, and indicate directions for developing social work education.