Pedagogical Relationship Research Articles

Empowering students in curriculum design and pedagogy: Perceptions of pharmacy students as partners; A qualitative study.

The concept of "Students as Partners" (SaP) in curriculum design and pedagogy marks a significant shift towards relational pedagogical approaches in higher education. This study explored pharmacy students' perceptions of the SaP approach, focusing on their involvement in curriculum design and the perceived benefits and challenges of such partnerships. A qualitative research design was employed, utilising one-on-one interviews with pharmacy students at a university in Malaysia. Participants were selected through purposive and snowball sampling. Data were collected using a semi-structured interview guide and analysed using thematic analysis. Thematic analysis revealed five core themes: student involvement in curriculum design, perceived benefits in students as partners, challenges in active learning environments, suggestions to improve relational pedagogy, and empowerment through student involvement in curriculum design. Students mentioned that the relationship as partners with educators will be beneficial and mentioned challenges, such as hierarchical barriers and communication issues. They suggested increased training and support, more frequent feedback mechanisms, and clearer communication channels to foster effective partnerships. Students perceived that their engagement could lead to significant changes in their academic journeys. This participatory approach aligns with outcome-based educational goals and enhances the overall learning experience by making the content more relevant to students' needs and aspirations. The SaP approach has transformative potential in higher education.

Surveillance Digitisation, Performativity, and Teacher-Student Relationships in a Blended Learning Setting

Abstract This study investigates how digitized surveillance technologies impact teacher-student relationships in a blended learning environment at a UAE university. Using semi-structured faculty interviews, it examines the effects of tools such as plagiarism detection, class recordings, and learning analytics on trust and engagement. The findings reveal tensions between institutional goals of academic integrity and active participation and the unintended consequences of fostering performative behaviours and eroding relational trust. Teachers report that surveillance mechanisms promote compliance over genuine learning, reshaping their roles and interactions with students. Despite these challenges, educators employ strategies of resistance, prioritising human connection and relational pedagogy to counteract the dehumanising effects of constant monitoring. This study contributes to postdigital scholarship by exploring the complex entanglements of technology, pedagogy, and trust, emphasising the need for critical and human-centred approaches to digital education.

‘You almost feel like you’ve got a friend, somebody who’s backing you up’: exploring the building blocks of trust within a relational pedagogy approach to academic development

ABSTRACT As academic developers, we rely on colleagues’ trust to a considerable degree. In this study, we explore how a person-centred approach to academic development, grounded in relational pedagogy, both relies upon and builds trust between staff and an academic development team. We discuss empirical data – from colleagues with whom we have worked – on their definitions of trust in relation to academic development, and the practices, orientations, and behaviours they see as conducive or inhibitive to trust. We conclude that, rather than ‘trustworthiness’ being seen as either an innate or credentialled quality, trust in the academic development space can be engendered and sustained through consistent, intentional practices that involve an awareness of perceived hierarchies, perceptions of risk, vulnerability, benevolence, and reciprocity.

A SYSTEMATIC REVIEW OF EMPIRICAL STUDIES ON THE IMPACT OF ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE ON UNIVERSITY STUDENTS’ WRITING SKILLS

The massive proliferation of GAI has evoked a surge of interest in education and a heated debate among educators, researchers and stakeholders about promising benefits and potential threats that may radically transform the landscape of the pedagogical relationship between teachers and students. Emergent AI technologies are perceived to be alarming since they could contribute to passive learning that may hinder critical thinking and deskill the students in the writing classroom. Hence, it is important to seek understanding of how evolving technologies influence students’ learning of writing via current research studies. This systematic review of literature aims at synthesizing empirical studies to highlight the patterns of the impact of AI on the students’ writing, and underscoring any challenges and limitations. A total of seven empirical studies were identified based on a literature review search across a research database. Qualitative and mixed-methods designs were selected, showcasing the employment of several data collection methods. The findings highlight three dominant themes: advancing the students’ writing skills across multiple components; generating content, timely feedback and feedforward, and ethical considerations and fear of loss of authentic writing style. The results suggest that though GAI can enhance the students’ writing skills in academic settings, it can also result in undesired limitations, challenges and ethical issues that should be addressed by academic institutions to ensure the ethical, responsible use of GAI.

Динамика педагогических взглядов на обучение и воспитание театральными средствами в контексте их исторической обусловленности

In the context of the mass development of school theaters, it becomes relevant to comprehend the tasks and methods of theatrical pedagogy in relation to children's theatrical creativity. The regularities of the formation of methods and pedagogical views on teaching and upbringing by theatrical means in the historical logic of their origin are considered. The study uses problem-chronological, historical-pedagogical and comparative-historical methods of literature analysis. The conclusion is made about the synergetic effect of using theatrical techniques in various pedagogical contexts. The problem of unpreparedness of the mass teacher for the use of theatrical developments is revealed. The solution of the problem is proposed through systematic purposeful theatrical and gaming activities of teachers in the conditions of methodical work of the school.

Un/learning racism in the business school: Recovering embodiments of the hidden curriculum for re-humanising management education

Contributing to a growing number of studies that interrogate management learning from the vantage of race, this article engages the concept of the ‘hidden curriculum’ to explore the concealed, informal and relational pedagogies of the business school that shape and govern racist educational settings. Beyond describing these processes, we share a self-investigative method that presents a description of the second author’s time as a student at a British business school. By co-writing and then sharing this story with the reader, we highlight how the process of unlearning evolves in relation with learnt racial knowledges. Unlearning racism requires a collective and individual re-imagining of humanness whereby the racial categories of the non-human/Black person are fully shattered within as well as through persistent and courageous method-making among members of our scholarly community.

Latin American framework for faculty development in health education

Purpose This study aims to develop and establish a comprehensive framework for faculty development in health sciences in Latin America. This initiative enhances teaching methodologies and elevates the quality of learning experiences. Materials and methods The methodology included a qualitative approach using an initial questionnaire, interviews, and group discussions. 1836 professionals from 16 Latin American countries participated, providing a broad and diverse perspective. Results Five key dimensions were defined: learning facilitation, evaluation and feedback, innovation and research, managing educational processes, and empathetic and socioemotional pedagogical relationships. The framework identifies seven progressive levels of teacher development, emphasizing ‘catalytic performances’ as critical drivers for continuous improvement and reciprocal influence within the educational system. Conclusions The Latin American framework offers a detailed structure adapted to the region’s particularities, highlighting the importance of advanced pedagogical competencies and teacher-student relationships. Its holistic and progressive approach is relevant and applicable in the Latin American context, providing a guide for professional development in health sciences.

Mus(ick)ing on pedagogical relations as the art of encounter

This article comprises a lyrical exposition of the ‘in-betweenness’ that underlies pedagogical relations and musical practice. The latter comprises making, performing, teaching, and indeed listening to music, phenomena encapsulated in the term ‘musicking’, first coined by the musicologist Christopher Small in 1999. Improvisatory practice is inscribed into the very process of writing as a means of mainstreaming the power of connection; and troubling the notion of seeking as the hallmark of ‘poor pedagogy’ (Masschelein, 2010) or weak education (Ingold, 2018). Drawing inter alia on a scintillating improvisational performance by the musician Bobby McFerrin, we argue that pedagogical relations, construed as the art of encounter, are about finding rather than seeking. Finding implies experiencing a sense of connection, ‘that feeling of landing in the present tense’, of being immersed in whatever occupies you, paying close attention to the details of experience’ (Tempest, 2020, p. 5). This is a far cry from education in a major key, the secure territory of understanding that is premised on codified knowledge that pre-empts attention or marginalises it altogether. We draw on examples from music education to explore the deleterious effects of power dynamics. We end with a rallying cry for education as a common chorus.

Secondary School Teachers’ Intuition Towards Transformative Techno Pedagogy (TTP) in Capital Complex of Arunachal Pradesh

One of the modern trends of pedagogical approach is "transformative techno pedagogy” which motivates teachers to help pupils avail of opportunities that are based on "transformative techno pedagogy," it prepares pupils with logical thinking, critical & analytical thinking skills, as well as comprehensive understanding to build the potential to become social and emotional beings as a whole (Levitt,2008) as well as mastery over the content through the implementation of various dimensions of TPACK. As a result, implementation of transformative techno-pedagogy in the 21st century becomes significant. Transformative techno pedagogy related strategies are mandatory to implement in regular classroom settings for effective teaching. Thus, the current study is an attempt to find out Intuition of secondary school teachers towards Transformative Techno Pedagogy (TTP) in relation to gender and qualification. For this purpose, Descriptive cum survey method has been used by the researchers. Data were collected randomly form the target population and selected 200 secondary school teachers from Capital Complex of Arunachal Pradesh. Data was collected by using a self-developed intuition scale. Data was analysed through statistical techniques such as frequency, percentage, Mean, Standard Deviation (SD), Standard Error of Mean (SDE), & 't' test. The result of study reveals that teachers are having average level of intuition regarding Transformative Techno Pedagogy (TTP). The Study also reveals that there is significant difference found between Male and female secondary school teachers and on the other hand there is no significant difference was found based on qualification.

Therapeutic-Use-of-Self as Relational Pedagogy in Occupational Therapy Education: A Qualitative Description Study.

Amid growing calls for relational teaching approaches in higher education to improve student learning outcomes and student and educator well-being, a need remains for effective relational pedagogies. Therapeutic-use-of-self (TUS) is an occupational therapy skill that centers the client-occupational therapist relationship, yet there is a dearth of research exploring its application as a pedagogy. This presents an opportunity for a widely used occupational therapy skill, TUS, to be adapted as a much-needed relational pedagogy. Objective. We explored the experience of TUS as a relational pedagogy in occupational therapy education from educator and student perspectives. Method. This qualitative description study borrowed from the evocative methodology of collaborative autoethnography. We, six researcher-participants, across two Canadian entry-to-practice occupational therapy programs, engaged in five discussions exploring the relationship between participant stories and contexts. Reflective memoing and reflexive thematic analysis were applied for analysis. Findings. Four themes were described: (a) education as transaction, (b) authenticity in learning, (c) experiencing TUS, and (d) relationship as resistance. Conclusion. With an emphasis on authenticity, empathy, power equity, and critical reflexivity, TUS challenges status quo approaches to education. Although neoliberalism challenges the feasibility of relational pedagogy in higher education, TUS holds promise as a relational and critical pedagogy.

Participatory Digital Mapping, Dynamic Data, and Children’s Emergent Science Argumentation About Local Socio-Ecological Systems

Abstract Over the last two decades, there has been an increasing focus on spatial technologies in teaching and learning, revealing the potential to support new forms of youth sensemaking across varied settings and modalities. Recent scholarship has shown the possibilities of participatory digital mapping technologies, enabling young people to collect data within community settings and create interactive data-rich maps about complex phenomena and processes that build from their local expertise and inquiries. Yet to date, these technologies and related pedagogies remain less researched within K-5 educational contexts. In this article, we examine the most recent iteration from a multi-year design research project that centered 5th grade students’ learning about socio-ecological systems by engaging in participatory digital mapping to study their schoolyard soil ecosystems underfoot. We examine the possibilities of centering digital participatory map making as a basis for modeling and argumentation in elementary science. Analyzing whole class discussion video within the 10-week curriculum, we show how children authored their collective maps in numerous ways, making visible their social and ecological knowledge of the schoolyard, as well as their experiences defining, producing and visualizing qualitative and quantitative data. As part of this broader design-based research project, we find that children were able to reason about complex socio-ecological systems across spatial, temporal, and relational dimensions in inventive ways, often considered out of reach for elementary aged students, while also expanding what could count as data and what ways of knowing were valued within the science classroom. Implications for science education, place-based education, and emerging geospatial technologies are discussed.

‘I love my class family’: Writing Realities and Relational Pedagogies

AbstractAsset‐based and relational pedagogies highlight the centrality of meaningful relationships and authenticity in teaching and learning. Foregrounding children's lived experiences, interests, and ways of knowing provides a focus for teachers to be responsive, both relationally and pedagogically. Writing workshop, as conceived in the 1980's by Donald Graves and Lucy Calkins, is a longstanding curricular structure that encourages young writers to engage with multiple tools and resources, including peers, as they compose. Through writing conferences and authors’ chairs, young writers attend to the practice of composing on paper/screen as well as how their message may be received. This study analyzes children's writing samples to underscore the presence of (a) writing identity, (b) critical literacy, (c) culturally sustaining pedagogy, (d) translanguaging, and (e) intertextuality. Chilldren's interactions with tools, peers, and others provide fertile ground for understanding the critical role of a humanizing and relational approach to teaching and learning. The following questions guide this study: (1) How is a writing realities framework reflected in young children's compositions? (2) What do children's writing artifacts reveal about relationality?

Educating the ingenium: On Spinoza’s perfectionism and the pedagogical relation

This essay (written in response to Steven Nadler’s article in this issue) seeks to interrogate the promise of Spinoza’s perfectionism for education. It does so by first establishing Spinoza’s perfectionism as a striving toward the intellectual love of God, occasioning an investigation of the relation Nadler sets up between Spinoza’s and Maimonides’ perfectionist schemes, and then evaluating the educational currency of such a striving. It is argued that while Spinoza’s highest good is difficult to construe as a widely attainable educational aim, it allows for two different educational pathways, where one focuses on the reeducation of passions via narratives adjusted to the ingenia of students and the other on attaining the highest good. At a glance, these two pathways come across as radically different in their setup, but they are aligned insofar as the stability of the community (agreeability) is a precondition for the striving for intellectual perfection. In parallel, this tracks how a pedagogical relation – being necessarily asymmetrical from the outset – can evolve into a relation of mutual friendship once the striving for perfection is identified and accepted as a common goal.

Book Review: Gravett, K. (2023) Relational pedagogies: connections and mattering in higher education. London: Bloomsbury

Book Review: Gravett, K. (2023) Relational pedagogies: connections and mattering in higher education. London: Bloomsbury

EXAMINING UNIVERSITY TEACHERS’ AND STUDENTS’ AWARENESS & ACCEPTANCE ABOUT CULTURALLY RESPONSIVE TEACHING

This research examines awareness and acceptance of culturally responsive teaching (CRT) amid university teachers and students, aiming to elucidate its implications for educational practice and policy. This qualitative study seeks to explore the awareness and acceptance of CRT among university teachers and students, shedding light on the nuances of their perceptions and experiences. Through thematic analysis of participant interviews, this study explores how CRT is understood & integrated into teaching practices across diverse disciplines. Findings show that varying levels of awareness among educators, highlighting importance of professional development & institutional support in promoting effective CRT implementation. Student viewpoint underline effect of culturally related pedagogy on engagement and academic performance of teachers. Ultimately, research underscores CRT's potential to foster inclusive learning environments & prepare students for diverse global contexts, leading to debates on equity and social justice in education. Thus, by exploring knowledge, acceptance and execution of CRT in educators & students of university, this research pinpoint strengths and weaknesses of implementing CRT principles into university teaching and learning endeavors.

Compassion in higher education: fashion or future for relational pedagogies?

ABSTRACT This comment paper offers critical reflections on compassion as a core concern in contemporary higher education, positioned in the context of hybrid and relational pedagogies. The pernicious effects of neoliberal ideology and policy upon academic teaching practices and students’ learning experiences have been compounded by the COVID-19 pandemic. This paper problematises the concept and role of compassion in higher education to highlight the risk of it becoming a ‘buzzword’ or fashionable ‘flavour of the month’ solution that fails to adequately address underlying systemic problems. It challenges the discourse of compassion and associated language of suffering when applied to students and reveals the ‘underside of compassion’ as a mode of power. Conversely, from the perspective of academic staff, this paper draws attention to research undertaken during the COVID-19 pandemic which shows that staff suffering needs to be acknowledged, voiced and heard. It advocates against overly simplistic and uncritically positive approaches to addressing the paradoxical nature of compassion in higher education. This paper concludes by arguing that cultivating critically compassionate learning cultures and campuses will: (a) enable relational pedagogies to thrive and (b) support the development of a more diverse, equitable and inclusive future for higher education.

Mentoring research projects in the Croatian higher education document framework

PurposeApproaching mentoring from the theoretical tradition of continental pedagogy and contrasting it to the neoliberal organization of the academy, this paper aims to analyze how the Croatian higher education document framework constructs mentoring graduate and postgraduate students' research projects.Design/methodology/approachThe analysis of 50 national- and university-level documents, which were coded using an adapted strategy described by Saldaña (2014), was guided by the following research questions. 1. Which elements of the mentor’s activity in guiding the research projects of graduate and postgraduate students are addressed by the relevant Croatian higher education documents? 2. Which elements of the graduate and postgraduate students’ activity in conducting research projects are addressed? 3. Which structural dimensions of mentoring these research projects are addressed?FindingsThe results point to the construction of mentoring as a pedagogical relationship based on guidance, support and dialog and also signal the processes of quantification of education and responsibilization of individuals.Practical implicationsThe results can be used in the critical revision of the documents as well as in supporting mentors in their professional roles.Originality/valueThis is the first analysis of the Croatian higher education document framework focused on mentoring students’ research projects.

Pedagogical Guidelines for School Religious Education in the Context of Rural Education

This work presents pedagogical guidelines for School Religious Education (SRE) in rural contexts. The need to evolve from more traditional teaching practices and to move toward a more pluralistic approach that considers the socio-cultural particularities of students is explored. The aim of this article is to reveal experiences that are considered successful for teaching based on interfaith and intercultural dialogue. The method of the study is qualitative, and the design is Grounded Theory. The participants are teachers from rural schools in the La Araucanía Region in Chile. For data collection, semi-structured interviews were applied to religion teachers. The results fall into four dimensions/categories: an intercultural interfaith approach, active-reflective methodologies, experiential pedagogical relationships, and significant contents. The findings reveal that it is necessary to establish links between SRE and the educational community through active methodologies to promote interfaith dialogue and mutual understanding. This article proposes that SRE teacher training institutions should design study programs based on the religious and cultural diversity present in today’s society.

Sustainable Learning Design

This article presents the results of a case study of eight undergraduate science modules on factors for sustainable Learning Design interventions. Using a mixed-methods approach involving educator interviews, statistical data, screening of learning designs based on a furthered learning design model (STREAM), student surveys, and an efficiency assessment based on the concept of Efficient Learning Design, a total of six factors for sustainable Learning Design in the context of science higher education related to the educator perspective and the actualised learning designs are identified. The article concludes that in addition to the direct factors such as the number of enrolled students and repetition of modules, the educators’ consideration for the institutional cost-benefit perspective, their perceived usefulness of technology-enhanced learning and buy-in of its related pedagogy, the students buy-in of technology-enhanced learning, and a consistent structure with online activities, reflection exercises, and feedback are significant underlying factors for efficient and sustainable Learning Design.

Authentic assessment as relational pedagogy

ABSTRACT This article troubles a pervasive concept within higher education studies: authentic assessment. Authentic assessment is well-established within higher education, and yet its common usage leaves it limited in possibility. Often understood as a practice focused on tasks, where assessments represent a ‘reality’ beyond universities, authentic assessment praxis has missed engaging with wider literature exploring authenticity as an emergent quality connected with being and becoming. In this article, I first consider the utility of concepts in education, and then spotlight a change in how authentic assessment is being understood. I then move to explore how relational pedagogies might offer further insights into how assessment can be conceptualised and enacted, sketching shapes for thinking differently about authenticity in assessment. Extending the exciting conversation that is redirecting praxis, I argue that thinking with theory can help us think and enact assessment in a more meaningful mode, where assessment becomes a relational, ethical, act.