Pedagogical Engagement Research Articles

Dendrites as Objects of Care and Speculation

Abstract The University of Göttingen is well known for its Academic Museum, a teaching collection founded in 1773 to attract new students and to enhance its reputation. Roughly forty years earlier, around the time of its founding, this University’s collections environment was less robust. The two most popular collections from this early period were mineralogical and paleontological. Although they only rarely figure in formal institutional histories, they were sites of substantive pedagogical engagement. In this article, I consider the status of figured stones, especially dendrites, as teaching tools and their appeal as sites of lessons about care, use, fruitfulness and productivity that helped link the pursuit of “worldly wisdom” (Weltweisheit) to the study of the natural world. I explore the speculative dimensions of recovering pedagogical work with academic collections found in households, a task I argue is especially important in light of the labor students were encouraged to perform as they consumed the collections available to them as reservoirs of possibility, resources and energy.

Critical pedagogical engagement with Muslim geographies

In this commentary, I delve into critical pedagogical engagement with Muslim geographies and the Dīn of Islam, daring to go beyond the decolonial. I begin with an exploration of Sidaway's (2023a) discussion of ‘decolonising Muslim Geographies’ in the context of the pedagogical engagement of a female Muslim teacher of geography. I will develop an argument which will encourage critical geographers to ‘learn’ from Muslim geographies in deep and meaningful ways through the rich influential and intellectual traditions within the Dīn of Islam. My reflections will directly respond to Sidaway's call for a possible paradigm shift within the parameters of Eurocentric thinking to share Islamic epistemologies embedded in my own pedagogical approach. This will encompass rich and diverse intellectual traditions of Islam and geographical understanding of the concept of al-Mizān (balance) for the world that we all share.

Exploring Chinese EMI lecturers’ pedagogical engagement through the lens of culturally informed positive psychology: An intervention study

This research is situated in the context of English Medium Instruction (EMI) teaching in higher education. The importance of lecturers' skilled implementation of engagement strategies to enhance students' learning is acknowledged. However, literature identifies a need for theoretically informed professional development (PD) programs to improve EMI lecturers' pedagogical engagement. In light of the identified concerns and issues, an intervention, drawing on a pedagogical engagement framework informed by positive psychology, was implemented and reported in this paper. The intention of the study was to contribute to the development of Chinese EMI lecturers' engagement portfolios. A group of twenty-five EMI lecturers in a South China university participated in the study. Through analysing their pre- and post-intervention teaching data and a focus group discussion, it was found that the quality of their cognitive engagement, and the quality of their emotional and behavioral engagement episodes in practice were noticeably improved. It can be concluded that an intensive intervention through a theoretically informed engagement framework contributes to EMI lecturers' pedagogical commitment to students' cognitive learning, and psychological investment in learners’ well-being. However, cultural and institutional factors somewhat constrained the participants from fully embracing the workshops, impacting their perception and post-intervention practice.

Negotiating local linguistic and epistemic realities through critical language pedagogy (CLP) in Pakistan

ABSTRACT With critical pedagogy (CP), teachers and students are empowered to disrupt the dominant ideological structures that tend to dehumanise people and impose oppressive historical consciousness upon them as historical subjects. Inspired by CP, over the last three decades critical language pedagogies have been conceptualised to promote social justice and counter privileged ideologies. This study examined university teachers’ pedagogical engagement with students’ local multilingual resources and epistemologies in the Remedial English classes at Pakistani universities. The study made use of theoretical insights such as coloniality, raciolinguistic perspectives and critical scholarship on multilingualism. Findings suggest that some teachers maintained the linguistic and epistemic hierarchy that favoured English, American/British accent, Anglo-western literature and culture, while other created multilingual and epistemic spaces where students’ local languages, nativized English varieties, culture and values could find a place. Furthermore, the Remedial English course perpetuated a gap between word and world by ignoring students’ contemporary concerns, such as discursive (values, culture) as well as material (unemployment, corruption, human rights, environmental degradation, etc.) factors. Some teachers’ use of bottom-up agency to counter foreign literature and a monoglossic model of instruction suggests how some teachers with a critical pedagogical attitude can empower their students to reclaim their historical and social roots.

Pedagogy and politics

I want to address the political element in the pedagogical engagement. Too often the business of teaching is presented as somehow independent of political influence or implication. When ERO talked about ‘delivering the curriculum’, the terminology reflected a very neo-liberal view that the curriculum was something different from the process of teaching and that teachers should be regarded as functionaries putting out there something decided by others. In this paper I want to look at the political element of pedagogy, both as a question of Foucault’s ‘conduct of conduct’, and as a process inseparable from the very political elements of sexism, racism, classism that pervade our society and are therefore inescapable in our classrooms. In considering the element or racism or ethnicism I will look at the ontologies we bring to our work, and how they might differ. Ultimately I will bring Levinas into the story, to help to consider how our teaching can be politically and ethically aware.

Using photovoice to engage students in a non-major microbiology course.

In the past decade, it has become increasingly difficult to engage and encourage critical thinking and deeper learning in students who participate in higher education, particularly in non-major subjects. Photovoice is a participatory action research methodology that has been used in community-based research in many different areas including social science, health science and education. In this study, photovoice was used as a pedagogical tool in a third-year BSc Bioscience non-major microbiology module at Dundalk Institute of Technology. In order to ascertain if photovoice was an effective way of engaging these students, a qualitative descriptive methodological approach, in the form of a focus group, was employed. Six of the 13 students who took the module participated in the focus group, reporting a positive experience overall of using photovoice. Further analysis of the focus group data resulted in the overarching theme of choice, with creativity and critical thinking and research skills as sub-themes to emerge. These findings suggest that photovoice is an effective way to engage students in microbiology as a non-major subject. However, as it was a small sample size, future research would need to use a larger cohort of students to provide further evidence of using photovoice as a pedagogical engagement tool for non-major subjects.

Becoming Ecological: The Contribution of Collaborative a/r/tography to Generalist Primary Teachers’ Agency in Arts Education

Internationally, it is widely acknowledged that many generalist primary teachers (GPTs) enter the teaching profession with a paucity of arts practice and pedagogic skills. Many perceive a lack of confidence, competence, and community to change this, particularly in regional and isolated teaching contexts. As a means to address this, this article considers the value of engaging in collaborative a/r/tography as a means of developing more creative ecological approaches to teacher professional development and learning. A multimodal storied assemblage of four primary teachers’ experience of engaging in collaborative a/r/tography is explored, and through diffractive analysis, the authors surface the intra-acting affective agents that enable metho-pedagogic learning possibilities. Specific ways in which collaborative a/r/tography works to foster GPTs’ curricula and metho-pedagogic sensibilities, as well as a sense of creative ecology, are addressed. Speculation as to the ways in which collaborative a/r/tography fosters GPTs “becoming ecological” in relational practices and processes of curriculum enactment and pedagogical engagement is offered thereby contributing to understandings of the generative capacity of a/r/tography as a framework for developing teacher agency and change.

Compassion and equity-focused clinical genomics training for health professional learners.

There remains an urgent need for expanded genomics training in undergraduate medical education, especially as genetic and genomic assessments become increasingly important in primary care and routine clinical practice across specialties. Physician trainees continue to report feeling poorly prepared to provide effective consultation or interpretation of genomic test results. Here we report on the development, pilot implementation, and evaluation of an elective offering for pre-clinical medical students called the Sanford Precision Health Scholars Immersive Learning Experience (PHS), which was designed leveraging genetic counseling expertise as one means to address this need. This 9-week course, piloted in Fall 2021 at UC San Diego, afforded students the opportunity to build technical skills and competencies in clinical genomics while identifying, addressing, and engaging with pervasive health disparities in genomics. Interactive exercises focused students' learning on strategies for empathic and compassionate patient interactions while supporting the application of concepts and knowledge to future practice. Upon completion of the course, participants reported increases in confidence related to skills required for clinical genomics practice. Drawing on learnings from this pilot implementation, recommendations for refining the program include deepening pedagogical engagement with ethical issues, expanding the offering to trainees across health professions, including pharmacy students, and incorporating an optional experiential learning component. Educational offerings, like PHS, that are designed with the input of genetic counseling expertise may ease pressures on the genetic counseling profession by building a more genomic-literate healthcare workforce that can better support efforts to expand access for patients.

The need for First Nations pedagogical narratives: epistemic inertia and complicity in (re)creating settler-colonial education

ABSTRACT The purpose of this conceptual paper is to posit a possible reason why non-Indigenous educators are seen to be ‘cautious’ in their pedagogic engagement with First Nations perspectives in curriculum, why interventions and programmess around reconciliation and truth-telling have limited traction in affecting change in school culture, and why the Australian education system is constructed to be, and remains, largely hostile to First Nations Peoples and perspectives. Despite several decades of studies exploring these phenomena and concerted efforts to ‘fix the problem’, there has been a systemic failure to shift discourses and practice beyond the completely absent, tokenistic, or superficial inclusion of First Nations narratives in Australian education. We argue that power-knowledge relations of settler-colonial discourses are fundamentally at play and that by examining how disciplinarity and settler-colonial frameworks of knowledge control operate in education, we conceptualize a possible reason to the pedagogical challenges faced in the decision-making and integration of First Nations narratives in curriculum.

Understanding the role of learning communities of practice within a degree apprenticeship to enhance inclusive engagement

PurposeBuilding on the concepts of learning communities of practice, the paper aims to evaluate their application within degree apprenticeships (DAs) to support pedagogic engagement and inclusive education within a university setting.Design/methodology/approachA case study of an existing B2B sales degree apprenticeship reviewed relevant programme documents and evaluated apprentice learner experience through an anonymised online survey.FindingsThe study found that sales apprentices had a reflexive awareness of how learning communities operated within this context and raised some valuable insights about their perceptions of inclusive education. These communities have differing dynamics that value engaging with workplace professionals, peers and university. Apprentices prefer tuition that accommodates their shared interests as employee learners within an occupational role. Issues surrounding inclusive education are seen as integral to the experience of being an apprentice.Practical implicationsPost-Covid engagement could be used to frame more effective social learning for work-integrated practice and programme teams could advocate for a greater integration of DAs within institutional settings.Originality/valueThis research indicates that B2B sales degree apprentices see themselves as operating within distinctive learning communities of practice that support their work-integrated (WIL) studies in higher education. The paper recommends programme teams provide more collaborative engagement within learning communities to support inclusive education goals.

From McDonaldization to place-based experience: revitalizing outdoor education in Ireland

ABSTRACT Outdoor education in Ireland, as in many countries, takes place in a variety of physical locations ranging from urban to wilder, minimally human influenced environments. Irish public outdoor education providers have traditionally placed little emphasis on cultural understandings of the places where learning occurs. Moreover, outdoor education commonly demonstrates characteristics of a McDonaldized experience as opposed to a place-based experience. This paper explores two topics that may help to explain why place is not to the fore in teaching and learning in Irish outdoor education practice: historico-cultural relationships with the land, and the impact of the rationalisation of place on outdoor education. We approach this conversation from the belief that places, as well as people, can teach and that a more conscious pedagogical engagement with place encourages deeper, richer learning experiences. We conclude this paper by outlining how a more place-focused practice may be developed in (Irish) outdoor education.

Primary Student and Teacher Game Based Learning Engagement: The Problem and the Challenge

Teacher and student engagement are critical factors that have a significant impact on the learning process. The use of educational games has been shown to make learning more interactive and fun, while also promoting a sense of motivation and engagement among students. This paper aims to investigate the factors that influence student and teacher involvement in game-based learning and how to minimize the potential problem during the classroom intervention. In this preliminary study, we employ a literature review method to find the correlation between teacher and student perspectives in games, and how game-based learning potentially can improve this engagement. Research has found that teacher and student engagement are crucial factors in the learning process and that teachers play a vital role in promoting student engagement. Students who view games as relevant to their learning goals tend to be more engaged and motivated to learn. When teachers view games as a valuable tool for teaching and learning, they are more likely to incorporate them into their instruction and create opportunities for students to use them. This, in turn, leads to increased student engagement, motivation, and learning. Additionally, the use of games in the classroom has the potential to enhance the learning experience for both teachers and students. A key purpose for this review is to provide a framework that teachers might use to construct effective classroom engagement pedagogies.
 Keywords: teacher and student engagement, educational game, game-based learning

Teaching social network analysis

Despite innumerable empirical applications of social network analysis reported in management scholarship, peer-reviewed transactions on pedagogic engagement with this field are scarce and inadequate. Management education is at best evasive when it comes to discussing or teaching social network analysis. Simplistic applications, with superficial interpretations of results, are compounded by methodological ambiguities and obfuscations, as well as by misattributions and terminological misascriptions of some consequence. This paper considers a deliberated incorporation of social network analysis into management education. It identifies criteria for suitable textbooks, delineates content that is methodical in its facilitation of studious endeavors, and argues for the adoption of a didactic process of classroom experiential/problem-based learning. In view of the synergistic advantage to be gained by coupling the analytical preciseness of social network analysis with the methodological dexterity of management, the pedagogic strategy is purposely aimed at revealing exploratory possibilities, advancing conceptual understanding, sharpening analytical attention, exercising interpretive adroitness, and thus offering a sound intellectual and practical skill-set for understanding human networks, undertaking social network analysis, and/or underwriting the claims and recommendations of third-party experts in the field.

The value produced in lending strategic problems as live cases in futures education

Strategists often employ consultants to gain insights from futures thinking. An alternative source is the lending of challenges to executive education participants. Here we assess the value derived by organisations who lend strategic challenges as live cases to business schools for the purpose of teaching scenario planning. We draw on data from 22 live cases spanning almost a decade. Lending organisations reap benefits commensurate to those expected of scenario planning in a cost-effective manner and over a short time-span. However, given the value drawn is dependent on critical reflection on behalf of stakeholders, it is important to set clear expectations and carefully manage the pedagogical engagement. This paper contributes to the literatures on rigour and relevance of knowledge co-production for futures education and the future of education. It offers practical guidance on how to improve the effectiveness of lending live cases in executive education.

Implementation of Public Engagement Pedagogies in a Dutch University: From Individual Lecturers Towards an Institutional Approach

There is an increasing demand for universities to respond to societal needs with a broad range of societal actors. Accordingly, the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam (VU Amsterdam) aims to implement community service-learning (CSL) throughout its undergraduate and master’s programmes. Taking a broad conceptualisation of CSL as an approach to public engagement that seeks an integration between classroom-based learning activities and community-based activities, we interviewed lecturers (n=23) who are at the forefront of adopting CSL at VU Amsterdam about their experiences. Through the analysis of those experiences, we report in our findings valuable lessons on how a university may make the transition from individual and isolated public engagement initiatives towards an institutional approach. To further institutionalise public engagement pedagogies, there is a need to create a shared vision on CSL, to widely implement adequate reward and recognition structures for lecturers, and to implement different forms of institutional support for coordination and management of partnerships with community partners. A centralized office can assist with capacity building and knowledge sharing about how to design and assess CSL activities that promote students’ competences (including soft skills) and benefits to the community, while considering students’ readiness levels and incorporating adequate ethical standards.

Students’ interactive engagement, academic achievement and self concept in chemistry: an evaluation of cooperative learning pedagogy

This study evaluated the effectiveness of interactive engagement pedagogy, specifically, cooperative learning pedagogy in improving students’ academic achievement and academic self-concept in chemistry. A pre-test, post-test, non-equivalent, control group quasi-experimental design was adopted. The study was in senior secondary schools in one of Nigeria's North-central states. The focus was on senior secondary school class two (SS2) students of comparable academic abilities and a mean age of 15.42 years. The sample was 244 students. The chemistry achievement test on water (CATOW) and students’ academic self-concept questionnaire (SASQ) were the instruments used in data collection. The CATOW was validated by experts while the SASQ was an adapted instrument that was already validated. The reliability coefficients were 0.82 determined with Kuder–Richardson's formula 20 for the CATOW and 0.78 determined with Cronbach's alpha for the SASQ. Mixed methods of data analyses were employed in the study, involving mean, standard deviation, analysis of variance, independent sample t-test, analysis of covariance, and Pearson's correlation statistics. The results show that interactive engagement pedagogy (cooperative learning strategy) improved the academic achievement and academic self-concept of the students in chemistry more than the conventional (lecture) method. The study also found a positive linear relationship between academic achievement and the academic self-concept of the students in chemistry. The implication was for the chemistry teachers in developing nations to structure the learning environments to be more learner-centered, and activity-based by creating cooperative and collaborative learning platforms that will help in improving students’ academic achievement and self-concept. The study recommended that chemistry teachers desist from using teacher-centered pedagogies for lack of provisions for students’ active engagement in the teaching–learning process. This study is novel because it evaluated the effectiveness of interactive engagement pedagogy (cooperative learning) in improving students’ academic achievement and self-concept in chemistry in a developing nation and also identified some of the reasons for the lack of implementation of innovative pedagogies and possible remediation in developing nations, especially in Africa.

A comprehensive overview of artificial intelligence and machine learning in education pedagogy: 21 Years (2000–2021) of research indexed in the scopus database

The utilization of AI (artificial intelligence) and ML (machine learning) in education pedagogy will undoubtedly enhance transformative changes in academic pedagogical engagements. Most interestingly, they are perceived to transform traditional instructional activities into digitized and seamless ones for effective and efficient education. To further explore the discourse, this study tries to elucidate the dramatic rise in trends and the constant evolution of AI and ML in education pedagogy applying a bibliometrics analysis. Historically, since the emergence of AI, its influence, functions, and applications have been transcending from one form to another in the sequence of artificial intelligence (simple level of AI) to applied artificial intelligence, to machine learning, and to deep learning. From our study outcome, numerous scholars predicted that AI and ML will continue to transform beyond their current state to more sophisticated tools.A bibliometric analysis was performed with the extracted articles on artificial intelligence, machine learning, and education pedagogy from the Scopus database. The downloaded data were analyzed with bibliometrics research tools such as VOSviewer (Var 1.6.6) and R packages. For this study exploration, a total of one thousand, one hundred and thirty-eight (1138) documents were authored by two thousand, eight hundred (2800) researchers and published in six-hundred and thirty-five (635) journals from 2000 to 2021, with 5.984 as the average citations per document from sixty-two (62) countries.Our study concluded that school administrators should promote the use of AI and ML devices to promote quality pedagogical services in the academic environment. Most especially, education policymakers are advised to promulgate policies that will support the acceptability and usability of artificial intelligence and machine learning in academic environment.

A developing realist model of the pedagogical affordances of ICTs

This article sets out the eWits model of the pedagogical affordances of ICTs. These are inherent properties of computer technology that constitute possibilities for teachers to act to enable learning in classroom contexts. The model is informed by Gibson’s realist theory of the psychological affordances of objects. We challenge interpretivist notions of affordance: while teachers recognise ICT affordances and activate them in pedagogical practices, these acts of recognition do not constitute them. Affordances are powers and potentials in the technology, and exist whether or not they are recognised and actualised by a teacher. On this understanding, we put forward a typology of ICT affordances that can be read in contrasting directions. First, it models a hierarchy of technological potentials, sourced initially in the capability of tools themselves, which afford a succession of action possibilities for teachers, from technological literacy, to the representation and recontextualisation of knowledge, to pedagogical engagement with learners. Second, it reveals how recognition of these affordances by teachers is manifest in pedagogical decision-making in the ongoing knowledge construction that characterises classroom activities. Our consolidation of the model is described, as we have developed it in the course of our own research work.

Exploring Engaged Spirituality through Martial Arts

In this article, through a carnal and participant approach to ethnography, we consider the pedagogical repertoires of Boxe Popolare (a style of boxing codified by Italian leftist grassroots groups) and Odaka Yoga (an innovative type of postural yoga blended with martial arts elements). We provide a close reading of what we call the pedagogies of engagement cultivated by these two practices, appreciating how their underlying spiritual philosophies are internalized in self-reflective projects oriented towards societal transformation. Our analysis draws from Pierrre Bourdieu’s dispositional sociology and the concept of “body pedagogics”. With regards to this framework, we explore the physical-spiritual apprenticeship to Boxe Popolare and Odaka Yoga in relation to the rise of a series of engaged dispositions, which bring practitioners to conceive of their own transformation as a way to encourage social change and support social justice programmes. More specifically, we emphasize the ritual dimensions of these practices, their forms of commitment, and finally their ambivalences regarding contemporary neoliberal governmentality and societal transformation. We conclude by reflecting on how the neoliberal character of contemporary martial activities, too often simply assumed, is socially reproduced—in practice— via specific processes of knowledge transmission; and calling for more attention to the overlaps between different social fields.

A Dialogical Artmaking Space: Cultivating a Pedagogy of Listening in Early Childhood Art Education

Early childhood educators have been encouraged to pedagogically engage with children, materials, and their given environments. However, neither dialogue nor the creation of a space for practicing the pedagogy of listening have received considerable attention. This article describes a phenomenological research study that aimed to examine the pedagogical engagement of early childhood educators in an artmaking space. I observed art/drawing events of young children and two early childhood educators in two different early childhood centers and interviewed the educators to gather and explore narratives that could become part of the phenomenological reflection and understanding of the phenomena under review. The study’s findings highlight the potential of drawing and artmaking as pedagogical tools in early education, and they also offer insights into how and why early childhood educators might practice radical dialogues with children within a pedagogy of listening.