Pedagogical Dilemmas Research Articles

Physical education teachers’ perceptions of the successes, constraints, and possibilities associated with implementing the sport education model

ABSTRACT Background: There have been calls for research that provides a description of how physical education teachers persist in integrating student-centred pedagogical models, such as Sport Education (SE), in their professional practice [Hastie, P. A., and T. Wallhead. 2016. ‘Models-Based Practice in Physical Education: The Case for Sport Education.’ Journal of Teaching in Physical Education 35 (4): 390-399]. Specifically, more information is required on how physical education teachers navigate the contextual challenges that schools provide to deliver the core structural features of SE. This study adds to the existing literature in this domain by using social media as a novel platform to explore an international sample of physical education teachers’ perceptions of implementing SE. Purpose: The aim of this study was to investigate the range of dilemmas physical education teachers face when integrating SE into their curricula. Method: This qualitative research was completed through conducting a Twitter #chat with fifty-two physical education teachers who self-identified through their participation in the #chat as having an interest in SE. An inductive content analysis was used to analyze the data, grounded in Windschitl’s (2002) dilemmas framework. Findings: The main benefits/successes of the physical education teachers’ use of SE were related to pedagogical dilemmas. However, several conceptual, pedagogical, cultural, and political constraints affected physical education teachers’ implementation of the model. A conceptual shift was needed to embrace a student-centred modality of instruction, however, the associated student learning outcomes related to this shift were viewed positively. Contextual challenges such as existing curricular structures and available resources often led to a pragmatic (and modified) version of SE manifesting in practice. Conclusions: Using Twitter enabled the capture of the realities of physical education teachers’ practice with SE, suggesting they were interpretatively pragmatic in adapting the model to their situated context.

Decolonizing Development Education and the Pursuit of Social Justice

Decolonization has become a popular discourse in academia recently and there are many debates on what it could mean within various disciplines as well as more broadly across academia itself. The field of international development has seen sustained gestures towards decolonization for several years in theory and practice, but hegemonic notions of development continue to dominate. Development is a contested set of ideas and practices that are under critique in and outside of academia, yet the reproduction of colonial power structures and Eurocentric logics continues whereby the realities of the global majority are determined by few powerful institutions and a global elite. To decolonize development's material and discursive powers, scholars have argued for decolonizing development education towards one that is ideologically and epistemologically different from dominant narratives of development. I add to these conversations and posit that decolonized ideologies and epistemologies have to be accompanied by decolonized pedagogies and considerations of decolonization of institutions of higher education. I discuss the institutional and critical pedagogical dilemmas and challenges that exist, since epistemological, methodological, and pedagogical decolonizations are influenced by institutional politics of higher education that are simultaneously local and global. The paper engages with the concept of critical hope in the pursuit of social justice to explore possibilities of decolonizing development praxis and offers suggestions on possible pathways forward.

Code-Switching: Demythologizing Preconceived Notions and Addressing Pedagogical Dilemmas in the EFL/ESL Instructions

The study investigates the myths of conversational code-switching that have all been established connections with EFL/ESL learning. Thus, extreme code-switching that largely affects students' EFL/ESL learning emanates from misconceptions. Particularly, at the university level, these misconceptions are believed to be longstanding and sowing seeds of skepticism from using English. The purpose of the study is therefore to minimize the likeliness of code-switching. In spite of its pros and cons, students recognize it as always advantageous; however, this hasn't been proven true. The objectives of this study are then ultimately to investigate the myths that force students to enthuse code-switching. Moreover, it is to analyze teachers' pedagogical dilemmas in the area and the relationship between students' myths with their gender. Thus, this trendy practice needs to be shifted at least in the universities. For this investigation the study uses sixty-two(n= 62) first year students and six (n=6) EFL/ESL teachers. In effect, mixed-method (i.e., qualitative followed by quantitative) has been used to interpret data findings. Moreover, the study utilized three instruments: closed and open-ended questionnaire with unstructured interviews. The SPSS software has been used to compute the data of the closed-ended questionnaire. Based on the exploratory sequential analysis, the finding there fore indicate teachers are under persistent pressure from the dichotomous theoretical views, i.e., for vs. against code-switching. They indicate that students largely code-switch during oral communication due to lack of vocabulary. Moreover, students male, 33 % and female, 62.5 % believe that good teachers code-switch or explain the lesson in their L1 during EFL/ESL instructions. Finally, the study ends with recommendations and educational implications: teachers should bestow intellect, patience and expertise by respecting linguistic rights in the act of enhancing FL/SL proficiency.

Pedagogical dilemmas among Bedouin-Palestinian peace educators in Israel

PurposeThe purpose of this study is to learn how minority peace educators grapple with dilemmas related to their involvement in peace programs.Design/methodology/approachA total of 15 male teachers, members of the minority Bedouin community in Israel, all peace educators, provided their reactions to three dilemmas, addressing various facets of the strained relations of their community with the Jewish-Israeli majority, as influenced by the Israeli–Palestinian conflict.FindingsThe responses to these dilemmas suggest that when it comes to questions of the identity of these teachers as members of a marginalized community, their responses considerably diverge. This is not the case when it comes to their identity as peace educators.Originality/valueThis suggests that if the aim is to bring peace educators, members of minority groups in conflict zones, to harness their potential to bring about positive change, their peace activist identities must be strengthened.

Setting by numbers: datafication processes and ability grouping in an English secondary school

ABSTRACT With the rise of accountability policies since the early nineties, the daily operation of English schools has profoundly changed. Through the in-depth analysis of ability grouping practices in one English secondary school, this paper aims to explore how the accountability shift and datafication impacted the practice of student grouping and students’ experience of education. The paper documents how an English secondary school which had fully endorsed the comprehensive ideal gradually shifted from mixed ability teaching to a rigid system of hierarchically arranged attainment-based grouping structure over a period of decades, and explores the pedagogical dilemmas that data-driven governance generates. The paper concludes that the school’s data-driven practice creates an environment of competition and an experience of incessant insecurities for the students which unsettlingly echo the culture of the late neoliberal labour market.

Climate change skeptics teach climate literacy? A critical discourse analysis of children's books

This critical discourse analysis examined climate change denial books intended for children and parents as examples of pseudo-educational materials reproduced within the conservative echo chamber in the United States. Guided by previous excavations in climate change denial discourses, we identified different types of skepticism, policy frames, contested scientific knowledge, and uncertainty appeals. Findings identify the ways these children's books introduced a logic of non-problematicity about environmental problems bolstered by contradictory forms of climate change skepticism and polarizing social-conflict frames. These results pose pedagogical dilemmas for educators, environmental advocates, and communication experts interested in advancing understanding and action in the face of rapid climate change.

Letters to Colleagues: A community of practice for navigating and reshaping identity

This article discusses outcomes from a study of Letters to Colleagues, a visual and verbal letter-based method of dialogic exchanges as means for spurring deep reflection and professionalism in preservice art educators. Reflective practice heightens educators’ learning or consciousness of identity – ‘who they are and who they might become as educators’. This article shares Letters to Colleagues, narratives within a community of practice employed in a university teacher preparation programme with aims to further preservice art educators as reflective practitioners. In the processes of Letters to Colleagues preservice art educators regularly tracked aha moments and wonderings from fieldwork that in turn encouraged visual (e.g. drawings, paintings, digital media, etc.) and verbal conversations and reflections with self and others about their multiple identities, personal philosophies, pedagogical dilemmas and decisions, and when necessary resolved internal and external conflicts. Letters to Colleagues utilizes reciprocity and accountability among peer colleagues’ letter writing and meaning making where the social whole and the individual constitute each other. The findings support Letters to Colleagues as ongoing reshaping of art educators’ adjustable identities. In the process a social discipline emerges within the community of practitioners transforming meanings back and forth from intersubjectivity and intrasubjectivity.

Science Teacher Inquiry Identity: A Comparative Duoethnographic Study of Canada and Ethiopia Viewed Through a Bourdieusian Lens

Globally, science teachers have been tasked with developing new pedagogies that incorporate inquiry-based and problem-based teaching strategies. In this article, we focus on a duoethnographic study of two teachers (the authors of the article). One of the authors teaches high school science in Canada, and the second has taught high school science in India and Ethiopia. We share our remarkably similar stories, which began with unaddressed pedagogical dilemmas and which, because of a lack in professional development opportunities, culminated in our return to graduate studies in science education. Drawing on the theoretical constructs of Bourdieu, we present our narratives as a study of how we negotiated the current science curriculum reform discourses that have shaped our professional identities. Our struggle to transform our professional identities has provided us with valuable insights as we work with preservice, novice, and in-service teachers to develop the reform-based pedagogies of inquiry-based and problem-based teaching.

Teaching multilingual learners in Canadian writing-intensive classrooms: Pedagogy, binaries, and conflicting identities

In this article, we attempt to bring new analytic lenses (Canadian, European, from applied linguistics and sociolinguistics) to the fields of composition and second language writing in North America. Specifically, we focus on the challenges that linguistic diversity poses to instructors teaching Writing Intensive (WI) classes at West Coast University (WCU) in Vancouver, Canada. First, we highlight aspects of the rich and varied multi-/plurilingualism of students at the university. We then look at how writing to learn, a cornerstone of Writing Intensive Learning, can present particular challenges to multilingual students who write in English as an additional language and who may lack the necessary proficiency in academic literacy to learn through writing. We present excerpts from interviews with eight WI instructors from different disciplines at the university, in which they describe their understandings of multilingualism, pedagogical responses to linguistic diversity in their classes, and perceptions of their roles as WI instructors. In their responses, participants described a number of pedagogical dilemmas, conceptual binaries, and conflicting professional identities. In our conclusion, we highlight an institutional backdrop that challenges the professional identities of WI instructors, and close by considering the implications of our findings at institutional level and in the writing-intensive classroom.

Conceptualising Gender Studies: Curriculum and Pedagogy

This article draws upon the experience of inhabiting the disciplinary space of Gender Studies (GS) as faculty in a newly founded social science and humanities university, Ambedkar University Delhi (AUD). It attempts to formulate the challenges in and potential for giving shape to this specialised discipline in a neo-liberal context. It grapples with some of the complexities of the originary moment and how they have affected the discipline. Issues and linkages with Women’s Studies also foreground some of the tensions that have characterised our brief disciplinary history. These themes are explored by drawing upon the experience of curricular review and design of the Master’s programme in GS and the pedagogical dilemmas that constantly crop up in this age of celebration of ‘difference’. The first section focuses on the larger context of higher education in which a university like AUD was set up along with a discussion of the specific context of the location of GS within AUD. The second section looks at the various transactions and negotiations needed to run the GS programme.

Constructivism in the third space: challenging pedagogical perceptions of science outreach and science education

ABSTRACTInformal opportunities for young people to engage with science have increased in response to declining uptake in science and a shortage of science graduates. This paper is set in the context of the recent introduction of science at primary level in Ireland and the existence of a great number of science outreach programmes, in particular from universities to support this sector. The recent movement to change science pedagogy in schools towards a focus on inquiry and constructivist methods commands discussion around pedagogical practice in both spaces (education and outreach). Building on the authors’ research which embraced a qualitative approach to ascertain participant perception of constructivism and understanding of conceptual and pedagogical dilemmas within science education, this paper reports a singularly quantitative insight, carried out in parallel, to facilitate a more formal and standardised comparison within and between populations and to allow generalisation to the larger population. A Constructivist Learning Environment (CLES) survey of both primary teachers (N = 148) and science outreach practitioners (N = 81) in Ireland was conducted, eliciting multiple dimension perceptions, in terms of pedagogical choice and comparative differentiators regarding sex, school size, outreach frequency in the classroom, role of outreach practitioner within their institution, outreach experience of the outreach practitioner. Results challenge beliefs presented in the literature about a deficit of science pedagogy amongst primary level teachers and therefore questions the role of science outreach in this relationship. This study provokes the necessity for a discussion of the third space, arising from the juxtaposition between science outreach and education.

Learning Management Systems Adoption Conundrums; Technological and Pedagogical Dilemmas that arise for Higher Education

Technology is used in many higher learning institutions for a multitude of reasons including distributing learning materials, organizing group projects, calculating grades, facilitating online discussions, turning in homework, creating class content, etc. When these separate technologies merge in one place, it is called a Learning Management System (LMS). Implementing an LMS in Higher Education can enhance a learning environment and assist in deploying pedagogy in a positive and efficient way while engaging students. However, there are dilemmas that arise that can hinder the solution that the technology seeks to solve. This paper discusses the divides created by the pedagogical and technological interests of LMS adoption in higher education and outlines future research needed for more successful implementation and subsequent continued use. In a sea of options, the solutions that are strongest include individual customization flexibility and have strong peer support; these are the ones that seem to last.

Cultural Flows and Pedagogical Dilemmas: Teaching with Collaborative Learning in the Chinese HE EFL Context

AbstractThis study makes a qualitative inquiry into the use of collaborative learning in Chinese higher education (HE) EFL classrooms with its focus on students’ experience. It seeks to reveal the dilemmas encountered by considering the cultural aspect of teaching and learning within the Chinese context. Drawing on data sources from 60 students’ written reflections, 2 groups of post-hoc interviews and the researcher’s field notes, the study reveals that: 1) the use of collaborative learning conflicts with students’ formed learning behaviors and grammar-oriented exams; 2)

Transforming technocratic practitioners’ thinking toward responsible management of land-related conflicts: experience from eastern Ethiopia

The article presents analysis of the epistemological, pedagogical and methodological processes and dilemmas that unfolded during our efforts to transform the conceptions and understandings of our participants’ thinking about ways of managing land-related conflicts. The paper reports our evaluation of the thinking and perspectives that guided our interventions and how we dealt with the situational challenges we encountered. It reports what we did to emerge out of the dilemmas we encountered in our efforts to help others think over and learn from their situations. The educative value of our efforts and encounters for other similarly situated practitioners and change agents will be stated at the end. We emphasise the educative potential of establishing links between contexts and thinking processes toward transformative and critical learning.

Pre-service teachers’ questions about the profession during mentoring group conversations

The use of mentoring group conversations as a tool to support pre-service teachers’ professional development has become more common. However, there is still a lack of research that shows how conversations are used to develop knowledge. The present paper is based on ethnographical observations of mentoring group conversations, and describes how pre-service teachers who participate in an obligatory mentoring model use their conversations as an arena in their search for professional knowledge. Three areas were focused upon during the conversations: the teachers’ role and teaching practice, conditions for professional development and conditions related to the profession. The pre-service teachers mainly used conversations to question, discuss, share and reflect over pedagogical and didactical dilemmas related to teaching activities in the classroom and to their own as well as other teachers’ behaviour and attitudes in different situations. The paper provides an insight into how a mentoring model can contribute to professional preparation.

Professional role expectations and related feelings when solving pedagogical dilemmas: a comparison of pre- and in-service teachers

This study investigated teachers’ professional identity development. Using Dialogical Self Theory and a socio-cultural semiotic mediational perspective, we focused on pre- and in-service teachers’ communication of professional role expectations and related feelings when solving pedagogical dilemmas to reveal aspects of their professional identity construction. Data were collected from 102 pre- and 90 in-service teachers by asking them to solve seven pedagogical dilemmas. We report: (1) how pre- and in-service teachers solved pedagogical dilemmas in terms of communicating professional role expectations and related feelings; (2) how pre- and in-service teachers differed in the feelings they reported and the solutions they gave when solving pedagogical dilemmas; and (3) how the communication of professional role expectations and feelings was related to pre- and in-service teachers’ work experience. Finally, we discuss the implications of our study for initial and continuing teacher education programmes.

Conceptual, pedagogical, cultural, and political dilemmas of implementing a constructivist workshop approach to teaching literacy

Approached as an epistemology, implementing a constructivist workshop approach to literacy can challenge the traditional paradigm of teacher-focused instruction and transform to one where students construct knowledge together and learn through active engagement in authentic reading and writing. This study illustrated how two third-grade teachers managed the conceptual, pedagogical, cultural and political dilemmas they encountered when they began implementing a constructivist workshop approach to literacy. This study validates the disquiet and discomfort teachers may feel as they utilize new curriculum, illustrates that a workshop approach requires an understanding/articulation of personal and curricular pedagogical and epistemological foundations, and encourages administrators to recognize that teachers need time and space to take risks and reflect on their work.

Danse en EPS : les dilemmes du guidage vers la création

This research aims to understand how the physical education teachers manage their students to perform a dance choreography. The educational procedures studied for this artistic practice are the uses and the designs of the demonstration, and the teacher’contributions to compose and to create. The study is based on fourteen semi-structured interviews with teachers whose levels of expertise varied. The results show that the teachers’and pupils’demonstrations meet many functions, but arouse reluctances despite their proven use. For creation, the processes are guided by pedagogical dilemmas between autonomy and constraints. What implicitly means the art varies according to the teachers’level of expertise.

Orchestras and community wind bands in Brazil: Encounters of contrasting music practices and their pedagogical dilemmas

Abstract The work discusses pedagogical dilemmas related to band courses offered to community bands by schools of music, governmental agencies, music festivals, foundations and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) in Brazil. Even though these courses are for bands, most of their educators belong to the classical conservatory practice and teach its manner of playing to the bands’ instrumentalists. This article relates a multiple case study of three community bands of the Para State. The study focuses on the manner of clarinet playing in these bands. It considers the instruments and accessories, the didactic approaches, the instrument technique and the performance characteristics. It points out that the clarinetists’ manner of playing is common among community bands and yet very different from the approaches employed in the classical conservatory practice. The sonic characteristics of this manner of playing have cultural values and meanings that are part of the bands’ identities. Thus, the study opens up a discussion on what pedagogical postures coordinators and teachers may have in band courses when these two contrasting music practices meet.

Sophia's funds of knowledge: theoretical and pedagogical insights, possibilities and dilemmas

Children's interests and thinking emanate from their daily lived experiences in their families, communities and cultures. This paper substantiates the view that the construct of ‘funds of knowledge’, understood through the lens of ‘cultural repertoires of practice’, provides an analytical tool for early years teachers to interpret their observations of, and conversations with, young children. The paper reports findings from a qualitative case study in early childhood settings of children's interests and thinking. The methods included participant observation, interviews with teachers and children and gathering of pedagogical documentation. This paper specifically draws on and problematises the funds of knowledge and related gendered thinking that a young Chinese girl revealed through her interests and practices. It argues that although the construct of funds of knowledge provides an authentic conceptual framework to guide and justify teachers' pedagogical decision-making, it should not be accepted uncritically. The concept may raise some issues for teachers' responses to children's thinking and relationships with diverse families. Teachers and researchers have future work to undertake to understand children's complex cultural knowledges and positionings in an increasingly globalised world.