Deeper Self-Directed Learning for the 21st Century and Beyond

In this chapter, self-directed learning (SDL) and the competency to transfer knowledge between different contexts are positioned as essential competencies for the 21st century. Being able to transfer knowledge, especially between different contexts, has increasingly been indicated as essential competency for the 21st century. Transfer of knowledge and skills has however been neglected in SDL research. It is therefore argued that students should be deeper self-directed learners, who can take responsibility for their learning to obtain transferable competencies. Learners should be able to apply their knowledge and SDL skills to new and unknown situations in order to succeed in the 21st century and beyond. Social constructivist theory is suggested as theoretical basis for deeper self-directed learning (DSDL). In this chapter, the concept of DSDL will be defined, and various competencies associated with DSDL will be discussed. Finally, suggestions will be made to develop DSDL in education.

Cognitive vs. Social Constructivist Learning for Research and Training on the Angoff Method

This chapter aims to revitalize the use of the Angoff method in measuring students' performance in the educational contexts by offering guidance on the constructivist learning perspective that is more appropriate for training K-12 teachers. Specifically, it compares the cognitive and social constructivist theories and the Completely Structured Training (CST) and Partially Structured Training (PST) designs for conducting training on the Angoff method. The analysis argues for the relative efficacy of the cognitive constructivist perspective of the CST based on a breakdown of the cognitive strategies of the Angoff method judgments over the social constructivist perspective of the PST that emphasizes interpersonal interactions. The chapter concludes with recommendations for empirical comparisons of the quality of judgments based on the CST and PST models.

Using Learning Theories to Develop a Veterinary Student Preparedness Toolkit for Workplace Clinical Training

Learning theories are logically related statements designed to explain what should or could be aspired to in establishing ideal learning conditions. Multiple theories can inform our understanding of a single concept, in this case: veterinary workplace clinical training (WCT), which occurs just prior to students’ graduation as competent veterinary surgeons. The competency movement has strongly influenced reforms in veterinary education and is considered important. In reflection of this, the term “preparedness” is operationalised here as a measure of the likelihood that the veterinary student is going to be a competent learner and participant during WCT. Preparedness itself is therefore important because it directly impacts performance. Workplace clinical training is explored through the lenses of cognitivist, social constructivist and socio-culturalist learning theories and used to inform student preparedness characteristics in terms of their behaviours, personal attributes, knowledge and skills, and awarenesses to optimise learning and participation.

How adopters’ and foster carers’ perceptions of ‘family’ affect communicative openness in post-adoption contact interactions

This article explores the constructions of communicative openness following adoption. Data from three waves of interviews with six adoptive mothers and four foster carers were collected, transcribed verbatim and analysed in keeping with a social constructivist grounded theory methodology. The results show that the way ‘family’ is constructed can both facilitate and impede communicative openness. Those who hold a fluid, child-centred concept of family, are willing to construct it as different and can accept the ebb and flow of family membership intuitively and view such openness as a natural part of caring for children. Those with a more traditional, nuclear construction of family may associate adoption with fear, a sense of biological related competition and the need to control the controllable, all of which act as barriers to communicative openness. The study demonstrates that communicative openness is person and context sensitive and emphasises the need to think creatively and flexibly about the very nature of family.

Pengembangan Student Worksheet Model MORE Berbasis Teori Konstruktivistik Sosial Vygotsky di MAN 1 Pontianak

This study aims to develop student worksheets of good quality and effectiveness to improve students' knowledge competencies. The student worksheet developed refers to the MORE (Model-Observe-Reflect-Explain) learning model based on Vygotsky's social constructivist theory. This development research refers to the steps developed by Thiagarajan, namely the 4-D development model. Data collection techniques in this study using interviews, observation, and tests. The analysis technique used is descriptive quantitative. The empirical test of increasing knowledge competence uses the pre-experimental method with one group pretest posttest design. Data on knowledge competency improvement were analyzed using the paried sample t test. The subjects of this study were students of class X IPS 1 at MAN 1 Pontianak. The results of this study are as follows. First, the MORE student worksheet model based on Vygotsky's social constructivist theory has a very good quality. Second, the MORE student worksheet model based on Vygotsky's social constructivist theory is effective for use in history learning.

Influences and Outcomes of Social Constructivist Curriculum Implementation on Tutors’ Beliefs and Practices in Teacher Education Colleges in Tanzania

<p>Professional learning and development (PLD) has been one of the strategies for improving the quality of teachers and education by shifting the teaching focus from knowledge acquisition to knowledge construction/meaning-making. This research investigated the influences and outcomes of implementing a social constructivist curriculum on tutors' beliefs and practices as a result of their PLD experiences in Tanzania’s teacher education colleges. Specifically, the research investigated tutors in social science subjects (geography, history and civics) who responded to four questions: What are tutors’ understandings of a social constructivist approach to teaching? What are tutors’ beliefs about the role of social constructivist approaches (SCA) in teaching? Do tutors integrate social constructivist approaches in teaching, and if so, how this is achieved? What are tutors’ suggestions for future teaching of social science? The research employed a qualitative case study approach and nine social science tutors were purposely selected from three colleges of teacher education. Information was gathered through open semi-structured interviews, classroom observations, documents analysis, and reflective journals. Data were thematically analysed and presented in themes, tables, figures, photos, and graphs. Transfer of training, critical pedagogy and social constructivist theoretical lenses informed and maintained the researcher’s direction of research undertakings from proposal development to the final thesis report. Results indicated that a variety of PLD experiences shaped tutors’ understandings of SCA, which influenced their practices in transferring the knowledge constructed to the job. Tutors employed SCA in teaching by embracing socio-cultural and economic situations. The research indicated that contextual influences such as centralised education policies and curricular activities, PLD experiences, and contingent teaching challenges influenced tutors’ teaching beliefs in the implementation of SCA. Tutors’ practices and beliefs were constrained by the reform process in socio-cultural and economic situations in which tutors demonstrated limited pedagogical approaches. Moreover, the study suggested significant needs to improve the teaching of social science by changing classroom situations, class sizes, and leadership practices in policy development and implementation, all of which has implications for the education system to ensure sustainability of the transfer of training on job setting. The researcher recommended a continuum of PLD experiences on the job, increasing the relevance to the job setting for tutors’ training, considering the use of native languages for teaching, ensuring effective supervision and implementation of educational policies, and rethinking the system of education to address SCA grounded in indigenous values and norms. It was concluded that tutors, student teachers, and community ideologies should primarily inform policy development and implementation, not the Government alone. Similarly, it was recommended that international policy transfers to a country such as Tanzania should be critically examined before adoption (to a recipient country) so that it can be implemented effectively. This study contributed to existing literature, at national and global policy levels, for the adoption of SCA in non-Western settings, and demonstrated the use of different worldviews to understand the case.</p>

Influences and Outcomes of Social Constructivist Curriculum Implementation on Tutors’ Beliefs and Practices in Teacher Education Colleges in Tanzania

<p>Professional learning and development (PLD) has been one of the strategies for improving the quality of teachers and education by shifting the teaching focus from knowledge acquisition to knowledge construction/meaning-making. This research investigated the influences and outcomes of implementing a social constructivist curriculum on tutors' beliefs and practices as a result of their PLD experiences in Tanzania’s teacher education colleges. Specifically, the research investigated tutors in social science subjects (geography, history and civics) who responded to four questions: What are tutors’ understandings of a social constructivist approach to teaching? What are tutors’ beliefs about the role of social constructivist approaches (SCA) in teaching? Do tutors integrate social constructivist approaches in teaching, and if so, how this is achieved? What are tutors’ suggestions for future teaching of social science? The research employed a qualitative case study approach and nine social science tutors were purposely selected from three colleges of teacher education. Information was gathered through open semi-structured interviews, classroom observations, documents analysis, and reflective journals. Data were thematically analysed and presented in themes, tables, figures, photos, and graphs. Transfer of training, critical pedagogy and social constructivist theoretical lenses informed and maintained the researcher’s direction of research undertakings from proposal development to the final thesis report. Results indicated that a variety of PLD experiences shaped tutors’ understandings of SCA, which influenced their practices in transferring the knowledge constructed to the job. Tutors employed SCA in teaching by embracing socio-cultural and economic situations. The research indicated that contextual influences such as centralised education policies and curricular activities, PLD experiences, and contingent teaching challenges influenced tutors’ teaching beliefs in the implementation of SCA. Tutors’ practices and beliefs were constrained by the reform process in socio-cultural and economic situations in which tutors demonstrated limited pedagogical approaches. Moreover, the study suggested significant needs to improve the teaching of social science by changing classroom situations, class sizes, and leadership practices in policy development and implementation, all of which has implications for the education system to ensure sustainability of the transfer of training on job setting. The researcher recommended a continuum of PLD experiences on the job, increasing the relevance to the job setting for tutors’ training, considering the use of native languages for teaching, ensuring effective supervision and implementation of educational policies, and rethinking the system of education to address SCA grounded in indigenous values and norms. It was concluded that tutors, student teachers, and community ideologies should primarily inform policy development and implementation, not the Government alone. Similarly, it was recommended that international policy transfers to a country such as Tanzania should be critically examined before adoption (to a recipient country) so that it can be implemented effectively. This study contributed to existing literature, at national and global policy levels, for the adoption of SCA in non-Western settings, and demonstrated the use of different worldviews to understand the case.</p>

A Study of University Students in Japan: Learning and Application of Academic English Writing

<p>This study investigated Japanese first and second year undergraduate students learning English academic writing in their compulsory English composition courses in a Japanese university. The thesis takes a social constructivist approach to investigate the aspects of critical argument and writer identity in these students’ classes and their writing. The data for the study include classroom observations and teacher and student interviews, all conducted monthly throughout the academic year-long course. In total there were six courses, four teachers, and sixteen student participants. The observations were analyzed using an adapted version of Ivanič’s (2004) Discourses of Writing framework, which focused on aspects of identity construction in the writing classroom. The linguistic data included a selection of one major piece of writing from each student, analyzed using an adapted Appraisal framework within Systemic Functional Linguistics (Martin, 1997; 2000). In order to maintain a focus on writer identity in the analysis, Clark and Ivanič’s (1997) selves were identified through this analysis. In addition, the texts were analyzed for use of Casanave’s (2002) writing game strategies, in order to further establish the students’ approaches in writing their texts. The objective was not to generalize about how Japanese students learn to write academic English, but rather to provide, from a social constructivist, Western researcher’s perspective, an analysis of what happened in these students’ writing classes and how it affected their writing for those classes. Teachers’ general practices in the observed courses mainly focused on two aspects of writing: 1) as a communicative act (writing for a reader), and 2) as an exercise in critical thinking (developing a thesis). These two aspects emerged from the observation and interview data collection. The four teachers used very different approaches in designing their courses, and the students in the same classes responded in different ways, mostly depending on their ability to understand their teachers’ intentions and to form appropriate academic identities in an attempt to meet their teachers’ expectations. The analysis of the students’ written texts revealed that students often did not meet the teachers’ expectations of writing objectively and using a genre-appropriate voice as students often resorted to the same authorial voice to push their thesis. This investigation was designed to inform pedagogic practices for university teachers of academic English and curriculum designers in Japan to establish effective English writing courses. The rich description of classroom practices and resulting written texts and the focus on differences in cultural expectations between teachers and students provide significant contributions to this area of inquiry. The main pedagogical suggestions are standardizing course objectives and goals, assigning more reading as a part of writing, and teaching students how to write authoritatively.</p>

A Study of University Students in Japan: Learning and Application of Academic English Writing

<p>This study investigated Japanese first and second year undergraduate students learning English academic writing in their compulsory English composition courses in a Japanese university. The thesis takes a social constructivist approach to investigate the aspects of critical argument and writer identity in these students’ classes and their writing. The data for the study include classroom observations and teacher and student interviews, all conducted monthly throughout the academic year-long course. In total there were six courses, four teachers, and sixteen student participants. The observations were analyzed using an adapted version of Ivanič’s (2004) Discourses of Writing framework, which focused on aspects of identity construction in the writing classroom. The linguistic data included a selection of one major piece of writing from each student, analyzed using an adapted Appraisal framework within Systemic Functional Linguistics (Martin, 1997; 2000). In order to maintain a focus on writer identity in the analysis, Clark and Ivanič’s (1997) selves were identified through this analysis. In addition, the texts were analyzed for use of Casanave’s (2002) writing game strategies, in order to further establish the students’ approaches in writing their texts. The objective was not to generalize about how Japanese students learn to write academic English, but rather to provide, from a social constructivist, Western researcher’s perspective, an analysis of what happened in these students’ writing classes and how it affected their writing for those classes. Teachers’ general practices in the observed courses mainly focused on two aspects of writing: 1) as a communicative act (writing for a reader), and 2) as an exercise in critical thinking (developing a thesis). These two aspects emerged from the observation and interview data collection. The four teachers used very different approaches in designing their courses, and the students in the same classes responded in different ways, mostly depending on their ability to understand their teachers’ intentions and to form appropriate academic identities in an attempt to meet their teachers’ expectations. The analysis of the students’ written texts revealed that students often did not meet the teachers’ expectations of writing objectively and using a genre-appropriate voice as students often resorted to the same authorial voice to push their thesis. This investigation was designed to inform pedagogic practices for university teachers of academic English and curriculum designers in Japan to establish effective English writing courses. The rich description of classroom practices and resulting written texts and the focus on differences in cultural expectations between teachers and students provide significant contributions to this area of inquiry. The main pedagogical suggestions are standardizing course objectives and goals, assigning more reading as a part of writing, and teaching students how to write authoritatively.</p>