Sociocultural Perspective Of Learning Research Articles

Enacting a new physical education curriculum: a collaborative investigation

ABSTRACT Previous research shows that enacting a new curriculum is a complex process. Teachers can be enthusiastic and committed to new curricular objectives, but they can also experience frustration and disappointment. Scholars have suggested that teachers who perceive lack of support, or tensions between their personal philosophies and the educational principles underpinning a new curriculum, struggle to enact new curricula in line with their intent. Our purpose in this article is to illustrate how two Physical Education (PE) teachers experienced the enactment of a new official curriculum. An action research approach was used as design of the study. Researchers cooperated with two PE teachers for 18 months. The empirical material consisted of 50 sets of field notes from the two teachers’ teaching lessons, transcripts from one semi-structured qualitative interview with both teachers following the completion of the school year. The material also consisted of reflection logs produced by the teachers containing written notes about their experiences of the curriculum enactment. We used literature on educational change (Fullan, M., & Hargreaves, A. (1991). What's worth fighting fore? Working together for your school. Ontario Public School Teachers’ Federation) as our theoretical framework. Our findings show that the teachers experienced the curriculum enactment in contradictory ways. Shifting from previous PE practices that focused on sports activities and emphasized teacher instruction, to pedagogical practices informed by the new PE curriculum (including sociocultural perspectives of learning and assessment), led to uncertainty, surprise, satisfaction, as well as distrust. Our findings also showed that the teachers’ experiences of the enactment were influenced by perceived gender biases. We argue that teachers’ beliefs and the teaching culture were particularly influential dimensions regarding the two PE teachers’ experiences of the curriculum enactment. Practitioners and researchers attempting curriculum enactment in the future should pay careful attention to such dimensions, especially given that tensions and uncertainty often occur during any educational change.

Sociocultural ways of conceptualizing professional vision to support and study novice science teachers’ learning

ABSTRACT Professional Vision (PV) has been used in teacher education to interpret novice teachers’ learning in various educational contexts. To date, research has conceptualized this framework largely from a cognitive perspective of learning, overlooking the affordances of taking a sociocultural perspective. This theoretical paper aims to articulate the affordances of conceptualizing novice science teachers’ PV from a sociocultural perspective of learning, specifically drawing from its foundation (Goodwin, 1994). Four central affordances are considered: (a) teacher education pedagogies as supports for novices to develop their PV, (b) discourses as sources of evidence, (c) discursive practices as analytical lenses to study novices’ PV development, and (d) material representations as both learning and research objects. We ground our articulation of these affordances in examples of our work with novice science teachers when learning to plan modelling-based investigations (MBIs). We provide new insights into the design and study of learning environments that effectively sustain novice science teachers’ professional learning through practice.

How has the conceptualisation of student agency in higher education evolved? Mapping the literature from 2000-2022

ABSTRACT The objective of this article is to analyse the development and content of research in the global literature on student agency in higher education (SAHE) based on a bibliometric review of 224 articles published in the Scopus database during the period 2000–2022. VOSviewer, Excel, and Tableau software were used to analyse the texts. The review documented the growth trajectory and geographic distribution of the literature and identified the intellectual structure of SAHE. The findings show that the SAHE knowledge base has grown dramatically since 2017, particularly in the United States, Australia, and the United Kingdom. Five schools of thought emerged from the literature as the main pillars of agency, or individuals’ capacities to take actions to improve their lives (1): the socio-cultural approach of agency (2); the social cognitive framework of agency (3); feedback, assessment, and agency (4); students’ motivation and engagement; and (5) learning analytics, online education, and agency. The results show that student agency is framed within a constructivist and sociocultural learning perspective. Findings also demonstrate that agency has significant effects on personalising and increasing the dynamism and potential of academic experiences if students take an active role in managing their own learning.

Exploring the Impact of Ungrading on Student Learning

In most academic disciplines and schooling contexts, grading practices tend to vary by individual instructor preferences and habits. The field of Library and Information Science (LIS) is no different, with grading practices and norms varying even within a particular program. Despite these variations in assessment, a unifying factor across all fields is the understanding of learning itself, and there is a great deal known about how people learn, regardless of discipline/course/program (Bransford et al., 2000). Bringing insights from the Learning Sciences, this study aims to investigate the impact of ungrading on student learning. Specifically, we primarily employ a qualitative approach informed by a sociocultural perspective of learning and human development. Our in-progress research aims to understand how ungrading, which involves eliminating or minimizing grades in the assessment process, affects students' learning and their learning experiences in the context of two IT-focused asynchronous courses in a library and information science program master’s program in the southeast of the United States. To gather insights about students’ learning experiences, data collection methods will include semi-structured interviews, focus groups, and participant observation, with a particular focus on how students’ perceptions and experiences of ungrading impact how they learn. Pre- and post-hoc tests will be used to study learning mastery of course content. The findings will offer implications for research and practice related to how to best support LIS student learning, especially within the context of online, asynchronous, higher education courses.

Apprenticeship Learning and Adolescents’ Acquisition of Social and Cognitive Skills in Tailoring Workshops in Bamenda: Implications for Situated Learning

This study aimed at investigating situated learning and adolescents’ acquisition of social and cognitive skills in Bamenda in the North West Region of Cameroon. In this regard the researchers sought to provide answers to two important research questions namely: 1) How does modeling influence the acquisition of Social and Cognitive Skills in Tailoring Workshops in Bamenda?; 2) How does coaching influence the acquisition of Social and Cognitive Skills in Tailoring Workshops in Bamenda? The study anchored on three theories which are: Lave and Wenger’s (1991) situated Learning theory, Brown, Allan Collins and Paul Duguid’s (1989) Situated learning cognition and Vygotsky’s (1978) sociocultural perspective of learning. A concurrent nested mixed method design with the help of questionnaire and interviews was used for data collection from some 20 adolescent apprentices learning their trade at tailoring workshops in Bamenda. Findings of the study revealed that modeling influences adolescents’ acquisition of social and cognitive skills. It was also revealed that coaching had a significant influence on the acquisition of social and cognitive skills among adolescent apprentices. A number of recommendations were made to masters/expert tailors, apprentices and the government. As far as master/expert tailors are concerned, they should understand that learning within such an informal context does not always require direct instruction but that it is usually accidental. In this regard, the onus is on them to ensure that they demonstrate clearly the tasks they would eventually expect the novice apprentices to perform so that they can keenly pay attention, observe and eventually perform to the best of their abilities.

Early Second Language Learning and Arts Integration in Malaysian Multicultural Context: A Sociocultural Perspective

Participating in art activities benefits young children tremendously, especially in promoting young children’s language development. In Malaysian education system, English is learned as a compulsory subject in school from kindergarten level and it is a second language (L2) for most of the population. Art activities provide a language and discourse-rich environment for young learners to communicate. Interaction is the foundation of learning a language in the sociocultural learning perspective. The diverse language input during the art activities helps children to understand the abstract language instructions and meaning, hence, yielding language output. By integrating art activities in language classroom, it promotes languages development and enhances the understanding of cultures diversity that is exceptionally vital in Malaysian multicultural of which the understanding among the cultures is introduced at young age. In terms of the significance of cross-disciplinary in learning, this paper discusses the integration of art activities to optimize English as L2 learning experience especially the oral language among the young children in Malaysia through the lens of the sociocultural theory and how it promotes multiculturalism. Implications and suggestions for future research are discussed at the end of this paper.

How Communion and Agentic Beliefs Predict Technology-Supported Formal and Informal Learning

Recent pandemic circumstances facilitated a rapid shift to online learning. The home and school environments are now intertwined, so the connection of formal and informal environments is inevitable. The studies of online learning resources (OLR) use before the pandemic shed light on studies of pandemic school-home learning nexus. This paper examines the higher edu-cation situation before the pandemic. We discuss students’ use (N = 1323) of technology in learning in light of the role of educational technology, taking a socio-cultural perspective of learning in the broader context of formal and informal socio-cultural contexts and practices of interaction with humans and tools. An analysis of OLR identified three factors. The first two factors involved overlapping formal and informal learning, while the third was clearer collaboration and interaction for formal learning. The three factors were analysed using hierarchical regression to assess predictors for technolo-gy use, focussing on three factors. (1) Beliefs about learning with technolo-gy, examined within the two-dimensional structure of agency and commun-ion. (2) Self-regulated learning, which is critical for informal learning and al-so received significant attention in formal learning. Since it is claimed that teachers are not ready for integrating informal learning, we examined (3) teachers as role models as predictors of ICT use in learning. Finally, (4) since obstacles were among the primary critical factors in previous related studies, we examined whether they still have predictive power. The findings indicate that communion and agentic beliefs are the strongest predictors.

Learning Together Online: Insights into Knowledge Construction of Language Teachers in a CSCL Environment

Sociocultural perspectives of learning emphasise the role of social interaction and activity in the process of knowledge construction and foreground the social-cultural settings in which knowledge construction occurs. This paper examines how in-service language teachers co-construct technological pedagogical content knowledge (TPACK) in asynchronous discussion and explores two significant areas: 1) the critical elements of TPACK and 2) the process and strategies of knowledge construction. As such, the focus of the paper is placed on the type of knowledge that is considered significant by language teachers and the process of knowledge construction, with attention to the communicative strategies and resources. Online chats from 13 teachers are analysed using both thematic and sociocultural discourse analysis. The results indicate that TPACK mainly concerns the affordances of technology and methods to integrate technology from teachers’ perspectives. In the process of co-constructing TPACK, teachers use different communicative strategies to negotiate meaning and achieve mutual understanding. Various contextual resources are exploited to facilitate and mediate the process of knowledge construction. This paper highlights the significance of context in developing knowledge, the need for providing participants with training for communicative strategies, establishing ground rules in collaborative work, giving ownership of task or topic to the participants and the importance of social talk.

The benefits of an extensive reading programme implemented in two Foundation Phase classrooms in the Eastern Cape, South Africa

Background: This article reports on a responsive extensive reading programme (ERP), involving Grade 3 learners at two primary schools in the Eastern Cape over a duration of 20 weeks. Objectives: The sociocultural perspective of learning guided the implementation of the ERP which aimed at providing learners with opportunities to read books for pleasure in their preferred language. Method: Learners had a choice to talk about their reading in isiXhosa, their home language, or English, which is their first additional language. In supporting the long-term goal of being bilingual, learners were encouraged to see themselves as emergent bilinguals who have reasons to use both languages as young scholars and in future. Results: Data collected through a post-intervention questionnaire, learners’ reading logs and observations illuminated interesting findings which show that learners benefited from the ERP. Conclusion: The benefits of participating in the ERP were observed in the learners’ acquisition of new knowledge (cognitive benefits), transformation in their attitude towards reading (affective benefits), and they began to take agency of their reading (social benefits). Contribution: This study demonstrates the cognitive, affective, and social benefits of introducing learners to reading for pleasure as early as in the Foundation Phase.

Moving Beyond Peer Review of Teaching: A Conceptual Framework for Collegial Faculty Development

Over the past decades, peer review of teaching has become commonplace at many universities around the world. Though research on the topic is expanding, much of the literature is composed of qualitative studies that offer relevant empirical findings but often have limited foundations in theory. Using a framework synthesis approach, we synthesize the empirical findings of 48 qualitative articles on peer review of teaching into a comprehensive conceptual framework drawing on sociocultural perspectives of learning. We propose the term “collegial faculty development” (CFD) to encompass all practices that support faculty in developing their teaching quality by drawing on the expertise of their colleagues. Our framework conceptualizes the main elements of CFD and shows how different contextual, individual, and relational factors shape the way CFD unfolds. Based on these theoretical considerations, we discuss issues of intersubjectivity, materiality, and temporality as potential avenues for further research.

A Sociocultural Framework to Analyse M-Learning Options for Early Childhood Development (ECD) Practitioner Training

This article, a contribution to m-learning (mobile learning) research, centres on the motivation for, and development of, a suitable framework to analyse m-learning options for early childhood development (ECD) practitioners. Grounded in a sociocultural learning perspective, the framework was developed as part of a larger study into the feasibility of m-learning for ECD practitioners in the Penreach professional development programme in Mpumalanga Province, South Africa. Analysis of existing frameworks enabled the development of a new, modified framework to suit the Penreach context. Here we unpack the framework and explain its development. The new, modified framework aims to assist researchers, developers, and implementers by prompting consideration of five sociocultural learning features associated with m-learning in ECD, namely: device access, data affordability, authenticity, collaboration, and personalisation.

Blackboard Collaborated‑Based Instruction in an Academic Writing Class: Sociocultural Perspectives of Learning

Academic writing in higher education involves acculturation of discourse characterised by new and unfamiliar social, cultural and academic conventions which remain a huge challenge for instructors and students worldwide. This study aimed at investigating the use of Blackboard Collaborated‑Based Instruction to improve academic writing skills of second language writers. Drawing from Vygotsky’s sociocultural framework, this study is premised on online collaborative writing tasks which encourage peer feedback and the exchange of ideas that gives sense of an audience larger than one consisting only of the teacher. Data were collected through metacognitive reflective interview of eight first‑year students registered for a Bachelor of Education degree programme. The findings show that Blackboard Collaborated‑Based Instruction provided second language writers with an online learning community in which they collaborate and help each other in editing, revising, and improving their academic essay through peer feedback. The findings also provide an insight into how learning academic writing skills is facilitated by scaffolding between peers wherein Blackboard Collaborated‑Based Instruction serves as a mediator in students’ development of academic writing.

Empowering English Language Learners through Digital Literacies: Research, Complexities, and Implications

In the context of an increasingly global society and rapidly changing technology, English Language Learners (ELLs) need support to develop digital literacies to prepare for a future in which learning new technology is an intuitive process. In the past few decades, technological advances have been shifting how information is produced, communicated, and interpreted. The Internet and digital environments have afforded a broader range of opportunities for literacy practices to take place. Technology has transformed the social practices and definitions of literacy, which leads to transformative implications for the teaching and learning environments facing ELLs. Despite immigrants’ attraction to the US, the tension between the public school system and emergent bilingual students has garnered broad attention. There is a need for a more appropriate teaching pedagogy that embraces the cultural identities of ELLs, and empowers ELLs as critical consumers and producers of information. Though complex, the authors advocate for examining this issue using an asset perspective rather than a deficit lens. Using the sociocultural perspective of learning and critical theory, this paper aims to define and conceptualize ELL learning, establish a shared vision of digital literacies, and review the literature on how practices of digital literacies empower ELLs to become active learners. In the final section, implications and future research directions are articulated in order to move the digital literacy field forward.

Pedagogical knowledge for active-learning instruction in large undergraduate biology courses: a large-scale qualitative investigation of instructor thinking

BackgroundThough active-learning instruction has the potential to positively impact the preparation and diversity of STEM graduates, not all instructors are able to achieve this potential. One important factor is the teacher knowledge that instructors possess, including their pedagogical knowledge. Pedagogical knowledge is the knowledge about teaching and learning that is not topic-specific, such as knowledge of learning theory, classroom management, and student motivation. We investigated the pedagogical knowledge that 77 instructors who report implementing active-learning instruction used as they analyzed video clips of lessons in large active-learning biology courses. We used qualitative content analysis, and drew on cognitive and sociocultural perspectives of learning, to identify and characterize the pedagogical knowledge instructors employed. We used the collective thinking of these instructors to generate a framework of pedagogical knowledge for active-learning instruction in large undergraduate biology courses.ResultsWe identified seven distinct components of pedagogical knowledge, as well as connections among these components. At the core of their thinking, participants evaluated whether instruction provided opportunities for students to generate ideas beyond what was presented to them and to engage in scientific practices. They also commonly considered student motivation to engage in this work and how instruction maximized equity among students. Participants noticed whether instructors monitored and responded to student thinking in real-time, how instruction prompted metacognition, and how links were built between learning tasks. Participants also thought carefully about managing the logistics of active-learning lessons.ConclusionsInstructors who report using active-learning instruction displayed knowledge of principles of how people learn, practical knowledge of teaching strategies and behaviors, and knowledge related to classroom management. Their deep knowledge of pedagogy suggests that active-learning instruction requires much more than content knowledge built through training in the discipline, yet many college STEM instructors have little or no training in teaching. Further research should test this framework of pedagogical knowledge in different instruction contexts, including different STEM disciplines. Additional research is needed to understand what teacher knowledge is critical to effective active-learning instruction and how the development of this knowledge is best facilitated. Achieving widespread improvement in undergraduate STEM education will likely require transforming our approach to preparing and supporting undergraduate instructors.

Collaborative dialogue between complete beginners of Chinese as a foreign language: implications it has for Chinese language teaching and learning

ABSTRACT Collaborative dialogue has been seen as an important aspect of L2 learning. However, the extent to which collaborative dialogue contributes to learning depends very much on the context in which it takes place. Informed by a sociocultural perspective of learning, this study investigated the nature of the collaborative dialogue between complete beginners of Chinese as a foreign language (CFL) when engaging in task completion. Data were analysed by focusing on the occurrences, linguistic focuses, sources and resolutions of language-related episodes (LREs). Results indicated that beginners of CFL produced a large number of LREs, most of which focused on forms and were correctly resolved. However, variations in these LREs were also identified among learner pairs. It is suggested that beginners of CFL benefited from their collaborative dialogue. Meanwhile, it was highlighted that this benefit might be affected by different contextual factors such as proficiency, task, pair dynamics and individual learner difference, especially the linguistic features of Chinese language in this case. Finally, implications for CFL teaching and learning are discussed.

Teaching English as an additional language for social participation: digital technology in an immersion programme

ABSTRACT This paper analyses conceptualizations of digital technology use that are aligned with sociocultural pedagogies of language learning, proposing a framework for developing sociocultural language pedagogies through digital technology use and presenting the language education workshops offered for high school students as embodying the principles of such a perspective. The paper is grounded on a sociocultural perspective of learning. Data gathering occurred in the New Talents Program, which is the background of the instructional material developed for the immersion week “Digital technologies and English language learning”. We conclude by discussing some opportunities and challenges for sociocultural pedagogies of language learning through digital literacies.

Connecting to the outside: Cultural resources teachers use when contextualizing instruction

Abstract The aim of this article is to examine what resources teachers mobilize when contextualizing instruction. In this instructional method, teachers use students' everyday experiences as tools for teaching subject matter at school. Research has documented that contextualizing instruction can support classroom learning. However, we do not know very much about what types of resources teachers view as relevant in this kind of instructional work. In this article, we analyze video data of student-teacher interactions in 43 lessons, which were collected when following four lower secondary teachers over one academic year. The analysis is based on a sociocultural perspective of learning and teaching in which the focus of analysis is on what kind of everyday experiences teachers orient to when supporting students' participation. The findings show that the resources teachers orient to can be grouped into five categories: (1) teachers orienting to characteristics of the local community, (2) teachers orienting to examples from everyday practices, (3) teachers orienting to personal issues, (4) teachers orienting to concrete objects, and (5) teachers orienting to knowledge from travelling abroad. These categories show variation and multiplicity of resources that teachers use when contextualizing instruction, and the implications of this multiplicity are discussed in the article.

Music, social learning and senses in university pedagogy: An intersection between art and academe

Integration of music in an academic university teaching setting is an example of how artistic practice and competences have potentials to resonate beyond the immediate discipline. The article explores music activities as contributing to learning environments for university students, creating shared experiences in groups of diverse learners with different needs. The music activities are discussed in light of challenges in today's university concerning student diversity. Two empirical examples of experiments with music in university teaching at a Danish university are presented. Empirical data were collected by means of qualitative research methods (teaching logs and qualitative surveys) and analysed in a socio-cultural learning perspective. The first empirical example presents music as supporting students relate to each other in the classroom. The second example describes how music may support students' sensory awareness when practising qualitative research like fieldwork. Both examples imply interdisciplinary potentials of putting music into play in university pedagogy.

Developing Speaking Skills Using Virtual Speaking Buddy

This interdisciplinary study integrates ICT in education through the innovation of an interactive audio-based application as a tool to enhance English language speaking skills among less proficient students. Drawing on the sociocultural perspective of learning, the application named ‘V-Buddy’ has been developed and tested with a group of participants which consists of five primary school students and an English language teacher. The teacher was briefed of her role as a facilitator before the students were exposed to V-Buddy for eight weeks. Adopting one group pre-test and post-test experimental design as its methodology, the teacher was asked to evaluate the students' level of confidence to speak prior to and after their engagement with the V-Buddy. The teacher was also interviewed to obtain her feedback on V-Buddy whilst the students were asked to complete the Personal Report of Confidence (PRC). The analysis reveals that all the students developed higher confidence level after their engagement with V-Buddy and the teacher perceived it positively which suggests its potential to be used as a tool in developing speaking skills among less proficient students.

Participation as Pedagogy: Student and Librarian Experiences of an Open Access Publishing Assignment

Education for Instruction Librarians has traditionally centered upon the acquisition of practical classroom skills. While this approach has merit, from a sociocultural perspective of learning, student development emerges more completely through engagement with the communal activities and values that constitute professional practices rather than through the achievement of individual competencies. Drawing upon these understandings, this paper reports on the experiences of an Open Access writing assignment that was librarian-reviewed. The assignment was designed to build student participation within Instruction Librarian practices and communities. Focused upon the 19 student and 19 librarian-reviewer experiences (38 total) of the assignment, the survey-based methodology that is used in this study reveals a lack of communication between student and practitioner Instruction Librarians as well as the importance of the assignment to both student and librarian learning. These findings demonstrate that developing student access to professional practices and communities can be beneficial for students as well as for Instruction Librarians.