Section archive - Theories & Approaches

This article reports on a programme which applied the conceptual framework of critical transformative dialogue, developed as a part of the health profession to the context of teacher education. The programme applied the processes of critical transformative dialogue in the development of a series of core skills of teaching with first-year pre-service teachers. Participant feedback following professional placement indicated their acknowledgement of the value of engaging in critical transformative dialogues as a tool for professional learning. The participants responses indicated an appreciation of the opportunities provided to rehearse and engage in dialogue and reflection to support the development of core practices. These rehearsed skills were described as making the participants feel more able to contribute to the overall educational experience of the children in the pre-service teachers’ placement classes.

This study investigated the acceptance of virtual worlds as a learning space. In this study, the effect of perceived usefulness (PU), ease of use and perceived enjoyment on the behavioural intention (BI) of students to use virtual worlds, as well as the relationship among the variables were examined. The findings from this study highlight important issues related to acceptance and adoption of virtual worlds. First, the results contribute to the literature by defining virtual worlds as a mixed system with both utilitarian and hedonic value. Virtual worlds can focus on the productive use of a system to increase learning as well as the prolonged use to provide fun and enjoyment.

This research focuses on aspirations for an M-level teaching profession within one densely populated government region – the English West Midlands – from the perspectives of key stakeholders. In particular, teachers’ perceptions regarding aspirations for an M-level profession are generally overlooked and neglected in academic literature. This article contributes to addressing this gap in academic literature by highlighting teacher perceptions, alongside the perceptions of HEIs. Findings show that aspirations for an M-level teaching profession in England received an overwhelmingly positive response from these key stakeholders in this government region. Clearly, all respondents were overwhelmingly in favour of an M-level teaching profession. However, there were also concerns around an M-level profession in the manner in which it was being implemented.

The “Learning in Depth” program is a simple but radical innovation, which was first implemented in Canada in 2008/2009 and is now being used in a dozen countries with many thousand students. The purpose of the program is to ensure that every student becomes an expert on something during schooling.