Education & Pedagogy

This article develops a perspective on big data in education, drawing on a broadly liberal conception of education's primary purpose. We focus especially on the rise of so-called learning analytics and the associated rise of digitization, which we evaluate according to the liberal view that education should seek to cultivate individuality and proceed partly by way of experimentation and with an emphasis on civic education. Our argument is not that the use of big data is wholly out of place in education. Indeed, it might have significant value in pursuit of certain educational aims. Nevertheless, the liberal conception shows how education is distinct from other domains in which big data are being applied, in ways that suggest that considerable caution must be exercised when they are used in educational contexts.

In the last forty years, peace education has broadened its focus from primarily international peace and the prevention of war to an approach that encompasses social justice, environmental education, critical theory, and multicultural education. While this is a positive evolution in many respects, there is a danger in de-emphasizing the actual critique of war and militarism. This article looks at the reasons why peace education should revive its strong historical focus on problematizing war. There is a strong emphasis on how educators can implement this in the classroom by fostering an environment where students can critique both past and contemporary conflicts. This renewed focus is of special importance in our modern globalized world, especially in militarily powerful nations such as the United States.

This study investigates the effects of Digital Learning Material (DLM) including instructional clips, online guidance, structuring of content, and a collaboration tool on students' mathematics learning in Dutch vocational education. A pretest-posttest design was used. Apprenticeship students were asked to complete assignments and to discuss them with their peers and the online teacher. The results showed that DLM can enhance students' mathematics learning in vocational education. The learning enhancement was mostly due to the use of instructional clips and structuring of the content of the mathematics tasks. Elaborations of these results, implications, limitations and recommendations for further research are provided.

To understand the complexities of climate change on educator-visitor relationships, we compared educators' perceptions with audiences' expectations for informal science education institutions. Our findings suggest two disconnects: (a) a professional recognition that climate change education is related to institutional mission but a lack of intentional integration of this issue into programming and (b) a misalignment between what educators believe visitors "need to know" and what visitors say they "need to know." These findings indicate institutions' need to discuss how climate change topics integrate with ongoing education efforts and how to best approach messaging and support staff to meet audience expectations.

This article provides an analysis and discussion of the impacts of neoliberal, religiously conservative educational policies on early childhood education (ECE) in Turkey. After an introduction, the article is presented in four sections. The first section provides an overview of neoliberal, religiously conservative policies in the Turkish educational system since the 1980s. The second section presents a brief history of ECE. The third section reports on the impact of neoliberal, religiously conservative education policies on ECE, especially focusing on the last decade. The fourth section concludes with a discussion of the way in which ECE in Turkey is being approached as an economic and ideological education institution troubled by inequalities, rather than as one with a firm basis of equal rights in education.

This paper reports on a case study conducted in an American university investigating the role of feedback within a distance education environment. Based on data gathered from online and hybrid undergraduate students in a teacher education program and supported by existing research, we describe how we support online learners by implementing a feedback system that incorporates multi-draft formative assessments and various feedback strategies. We describe these strategies (i.e. explicit feedback directions and feedback surveys) as well as data from formative assessments to demonstrate the impact of clear expectations and feedback on student performance in distance education. We present recommendations for online feedback and propose a feedback model for further study.

This paper scrutinizes decentralization of education with reference to some countries around the world. We consider discussion on decentralization to be complex, critical and broad question in the contemporary education planning, administration and politics of education reforms. Even though the debate on and implementation of decentralization education can result from differences in ideological and philosophical backgrounds (McGinn & Welsh, 1999), in this scrutiny we begin by theorizing the concept, provides dimensions and goals of decentralization and demonstrate how decentralization has been implemented in some countries. Finally, conclusion is assumed in this debate as a summary and a conduit to further discussion and investigation of educational decentralization.

This article addresses the discourse on career and technical education (CTE) from a multiperspectival approach to challenge the persisting academic-vocational divide. The author illustrates the paradoxical rhetoric in CTE, then shares a personal experience, and draws on ethnographic research to reveal a different understanding of enabling human capacity to support racially and culturally minoritized youth. In the end, the author suggests that a push beyond the language of investment and skills embedded in educational reform becomes all the more important in preparing youth for the future. Implications for practice, research, and policy toward possibilities in urban education are also discussed.

The article presents an interpretive phenomenological approach (IPA) to preservice teachers' experiences of their current secondary teacher education programme (STEP) in Finland. The focus of the study is the millennial generation cohort in which new teachers comprise a key group to be studied because they will contribute to the future of education. Thirteen preservice teachers participated in the study. Their experiences are interpreted through the lenses of generation theory and contemporary teacher education research. The findings include three phenomenological themes that are core elements of STEP: time balance, reciprocal participation and meaningfulness. These themes are discussed and suggestions made for ways to transform teacher education to make it more relevant.

This paper describes a Networked Improvement Community comprised of a network of 13 states focused on improving coherence and equity in state systems of science education. Grounded in principles of improvement science adapted from healthcare, we are developing and testing resources for formative assessment in science, with the aim of developing systems where actors at every level of the education system are oriented toward a common vision for science, and where there is a common commitment to equity. The paper describes these strategies and implications of this work for district-level change efforts.

An exploratory study was conducted to examine the perspectives of teacher candidates (TCs) and mentor teachers (MTs) of a clinically rich model (CRM) implemented within a physical education teacher education (PETE) program as compared to a traditional model (TM) of student teaching. Survey questions were focused on participant's perceptions of the CRM compared to a TM of student teaching, including items on perceptions of the usefulness of the CRM in the preparation and implementation of the educative Teacher Performance Assessment (edTPA). The sample of 29 TCs and 28 MTs produced similar favorable ratings for the CRM relative to the TM on the evaluated characteristics.

Doctoral education evolves amidst changing international social and educational pressures. New programs emerge, while current programs re-evaluate educational processes. This literary meta-analysis reviewed national and international literature in order to understand what issues are currently debated within higher education. Results indicate three main categories: "Connection with Non-Doctoral Education Groups;" "Re-visioning the Doctoral Education Process;" and "Aligning Dissertation/Capstone Projects with Type of Doctoral Program." Within the categories, eleven themes also emerged. Implications of the study include expanded understanding for new and revised doctoral programs to remain aware of the increasing influence of industry upon education, with industry remaining the main employment location for most doctoral graduates.

This theoretical article explores an issue of developing education research competencies in mathematics teachers through their involvement in mathematics education research. We first argue that the development of education research competencies is beneficial for the teachers' professional growth. We then identify opportunities for mathematics teachers to develop education research competencies through different modes of research-practice partnerships. In the main part of the paper, we present a particular theoretical-organizational framework for large-scope teacher-researcher collaborations in educational research. The framework is called Teacher-Researcher Alliance for Investigating Learning (TRAIL), and consists of a set of theoretically laden premises, design heuristics, and provisional partnerships.

The Indigenized arts-based inquiry reported in this article addresses matters of equality in Finland's extracurricular arts education system, as experienced by Indigenous Sami artists, arts educators, scholars, and community leaders. Challenging national narratives of cultural homogeneity and egalitarianism, this research identifies aspects of this publicly-funded arts education system that function to create, or perpetuate inequality for Sami learners. Employing narrative and joik as analysis approaches, we reflect upon these processes of exclusion in order to envision new possibilities for this national arts education system to not only accommodate Sami learners, but to learn from and together with Indigenous arts, pedagogies, ontoepistemologies and ways of being to enhance equality for all.

While the UGC is committed to the cause of promoting gender equity through higher education and is in the process of reviewing the existing arrangements in the campuses of higher learning to ensure the freedom, safety and security of girls and women, the proactive role of teachers in solving the problems of gender based violence and other inequalities prevailing in the society is stressed in the article. The author substantiates the need for introducing Gender Studies components at UG and PG levels of education and the need for providing gender awareness/sensitization training programmes for teachers so as to equip them fully to meet the needs of the twenty-first century, especially in the context of ensuring gender justice.