1. |
- Bergdahl, Nina, 1971-, et al.
(author)
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Analysing Visual Representations of Adult Online Learning Across Formats
- 2022
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In: Universal Access in Human-Computer Interaction. User and Context Diversity. - Cham : Springer. - 9783031050398 - 9783031050381 ; , s. 3-14
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Conference paper (peer-reviewed)abstract
- The past years have triggered the established blended learning format to develop into other kinds of online teaching formats, with, for example, combinations of a/synchronous learning with more flexible (co-)location requirements for teachers and students. This has led to a renewed exploration of ways to ensure accessible and life-long learning through developed educational practices. Comparing online education formats can be challenging but is necessary. Building on case study methodology, the objective of this study was to explore online learning situations (n = 21): Asynchronous Distance Education (ADE) (n = 15) and (synchronous) Emergency Remote Teaching (ERT) (n = 6), to develop a method to systematically analyse and evaluate different formats of online education using engagement theory. To do so, a schema was developed through which visual representations of learning situations were analysed. Results show that visual representations of learning situations enable nuanced comparisons across different formats of online education. Analysis reveals that the format of education affects the conditions under which the teacher more readily facilitates student engagement and that asynchronous and synchronous formats support different nuances of engagement. © 2022 The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG
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2. |
- Gyllander Torkildsen, Lisbeth, 1971
(author)
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Bedömning som gemensam angelägenhet - enkelt i retoriken, svårare i praktiken. Elevers och lärares förståelse och erfarenheter
- 2016
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Doctoral thesis (other academic/artistic)abstract
- The thesis focuses on students’ understanding of assessment and their agency in assessment practices. It discusses assessment in relation to arrangements that shape students’ and teachers’ mutual assessment practices. The study is based on a development project in a secondary school, involving 25 students and 9 teachers. It uses an action research approach and was carried out between 2010 and 2014. The aims of the study were to generate knowledge (1) on students’ understanding of assessment and assessment practices, (2) on how arrangements shape students’ understanding and agency, and (3) on how arrangements shape students’ and teachers’ opportunities to develop assessment practices. The theoretical and analytical framework consists of validity theories and practice theories. Construct validity refers to empirically observable behavior that can be associated with theoretically explicable attributes. The construct is used to validate the relevance, use and consequences of assessment; here: accessibility and reciprocity of assessment practices (Cronbach & Meehl, 1955; Messick, 1989; Stobart, 2012). The theory of practice architectures (Kemmis, Wilkinson, Edwards-Groves, Hardy, Grootenboer & Bristol, 2014) explains how practices are shaped by cultural-discursive, material-economic, and social- political arrangements. Practices in a site are interrelated and interdependent. The study shows that students understand assessment on three hierarchically qualitative levels: performance, understanding and learning. Their understanding is linked to clarified goals, diagnosis, feedback and pre- conditions in the site. Students’ agency is shaped by the way teachers: clarify goals; arrange teaching, learning and assessment activities; enable the use of feedback to enhance learning; and by the way relationships, roles and responsibilities are negotiated. Communicative spaces may enhance students’ agency in assessment practices. Arrangements – like policy documents, assessment literature, local assessment policies and tools – shape teachers’ practices, thus enabling and constraining students’ and teachers’ development of reciprocal assessment practices. Assessment is a reflection of both students’ and teachers’ current practices. As a reciprocal concern, assessment requires collaboration between students and teachers. Furthermore, the reciprocal concern involves school leaders, officials in local school boards, politicians, policy writers and researchers. Reasonable consensus on assessment ought to be reached – based on students’ perspectives and rights – in order to strengthen students’ agency, learning and knowing. The thesis aims to contribute to knowledge on students’ understanding of assessment and on arrangements that affect students’ and teachers’ agency and opportunities to develop reciprocal assessment practices. It also shows how meta-practices and discourses affect local practices.
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3. |
- Gyllander Torkildsen, Lisbeth, 1971, et al.
(author)
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’If they’d written more…’ – On students’ perceptions of assessment and assessment practices.
- 2016
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In: Education Inquiry. - : Informa UK Limited. - 2000-4508. ; 7:2, s. 137-157
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- The focus of the current study is students’ perceptions of assessment and assessment practices. Assessment is understood as practices closely connected to the planning, enactment and evaluation of teaching and learning activities. The data derive from focus group interviews and dialogical meetings with students at a Swedish comprehensive school. Theories of assessment and validity are used as a framework to interpret and contextualise the data. An empirically developed interconnecting data analysis model is used as an analytical tool to connect students’ perceptions, assessment aspects and preconditions in a specific context. Our results indicate that students perceive assessment at different comprehension levels, categorised as performing, understanding and learning. Preconditions affect students’ possibilities of accessing assessment practices and using assessments to improve their performance. In this article we highlight the importance of taking student voice and preconditions into consideration when structuring accessible and meaning-making assessment practices that hold possibilities for enhanced learning.
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4. |
- Gyllander Torkildsen, Lisbeth, 1971, et al.
(author)
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Translating ideas for school development into changed leading practices
- 2017
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In: Nordic Educational Research Association (NERA) 2017, Copenhagen Denmark.
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Conference paper (other academic/artistic)abstract
- This paper draws on, and extends, insights from previous parallel case studies of leading and teacher’s professional learning conducted in Sweden, Norway and Australia. Previous studies examined the role of leading practices in the circulation and transformation of key educational ideas (Wilkinson, Olin, Lund & Stjernstrom, 2013). The research focused on how leading practices travel within and between educational sites, transforming the discursive, material and social conditions for learning and teaching practices in schools. Scandinavian new organisational literature, on how ideas travel globally, was used as a frame. The ongoing research focuses on new developments in organizational literature and translation studies, as well as research conducted amongst middle leaders in Norway and Sweden. This paper examines how key educational ideas circulate, are transformed and translated with varying degrees of success by middle leaders into educational practice. In particular, it analyses the process of translation, that is, how ideas travel, are made legible to individual practitioners, and translated into local practices. The focus is on the translator`s understanding and competence in the process of knowledge-transfer where he/she plays an active role. Røvik (2015) claims that there are certain rules that inform the translation processes and that these rules are contextually dependent. The rules thereby need to be developed and investigated at the local site. There has been sparse empirical research conducted on this issue as well as on the related issue of how different translations rules are “deliberately chosen or just followed” by translators. Insights into these questions have the potential to enhance understanding of how translations of ideas into local practices in local sites may be (mis)guided, (mis-)interpreted or (mis-)understood. Based on insights from translation theory and previous studies of middle leaders, we explore the following questions: •How do middle leaders ‘translate’ new ideas into leading practices? •How are middle leaders informed/influenced and inform/influence the translation process through their leading practices? Focus group interviews are being conducted with middle leaders (process leaders in Swedish schools and principals and development leaders in Norwegian schools) in two municipalities where new school development reforms have been implemented. Using middle leaders to support and enhance school development, is part of the reform. The new ideas is being translated through their ways of understanding and acting in the their schools. We will look for differences and similarities in the translation process expressed through the middle leaders’ ways of describing their role as leaders in the change processes. These descriptions will be compared with the general rules described by Røvik (2015), thereby addressing the lack of empirical work mentioned earlier. Translation theories have not been much used in Nordic education empirical studies, even though there are some exceptions (Lund & Moksnes, 2013; Røvik et. al. 2015). This study adds to this new body of knowledge, thereby contributing with a new perspective on questions on change processes in schools, making it possible to understand local variation and general rules as two sides of a coin.
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5. |
- Kemmis, Stephen, et al.
(author)
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Teaching as pedagogical praxis
- 2020
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In: Pedagogy, Education, and Praxis in Critical Times. Mahon, K., Edwards-Groves, C., Francisco, S., Kaukko, M., Kemmis, S., Petrie, K. (Eds.). - Singapore : Springer. - 9789811569258 - 9789811569289 - 9789811569265 ; , s. 85-116
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Book chapter (peer-reviewed)abstract
- This chapter reports findings of research into the practice of teaching conducted by members of the Pedagogy, Education and Praxis The (PEP) international research network, much of it using the theory of practice architectures as an analytical framework. Examples of teaching practices are given across education sectors from early childhood education and care, to primary and secondary schooling, to vocational education and training, and university education, as well as from community education. The theory allows us to see different kinds of teaching practices as they unfold in intersubjective space (semantic space, physical space-time, and social space) to engage learners in different ways and to produce different kinds of opportunities for learning. Much of the research on teaching presented in this chapter used close interaction analysis to show how teaching practices unfold in synchrony with learning practices, to give new insights into the interconnected ways learning drives teaching while teaching (also) drives learning. The chapter also suggests that, in many cases, teachers' teaching and students' learning are jointly necessary parts of a combined pedagogical practice.
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6. |
- Lund, Torbjørn, et al.
(author)
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Using translation theory to understand and improve reforms in schools
- 2018
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In: Redress. - 1039-382X. ; 27:1, s. 8-13
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Journal article (other academic/artistic)abstract
- Ongoing reforms are constantly influencing practices in schools. Schools have to adopt both national reform ideas and local school initiatives in order to meet new standards and demands and to develop new practices. New practices and ideas are expected to be transferred from contexts outside schools into schools and from one school to another. The schools’ unique contexts are rarely taken into consideration. Adopting ideas and implementing them in practice is a complex process, and the quality of the outcomes tend to vary. Sometimes schools succeed in implementing an idea in practice, with the desired outcome, but other times they are unsuccessful. This article introduces a theory that teachers can use in order to better understand and improve reform processes.
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7. |
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8. |
- Nehez, Jaana, 1974-, et al.
(author)
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Middle leaders translating knowledge about improvement: Making change in the school and preschool organisation
- 2022
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In: Journal of educational change. - Dordrecht : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 1573-1812 .- 1389-2843. ; 23:3, s. 315-341
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- This article deepens the knowledge of middle leaders’ impact on school improvement and organisation development. More precisely, it focuses on how middle leaders from comprehensive schools and preschools translated improvement strategies and tools from a municipal course on leading school improvement into their own organisations. It is based on interviews with middle leaders, teachers, and principals at two schools and two preschools. Translation theory is used as a theoretical frame. The findings show that the middle leaders translated improvement strategies based on local needs, and for several reasons: for clarification and reduction of roles and improvement areas; structuring improvement work; engaging and involving colleagues in school improvement; and developing a professional culture. When taking the role of translators, the middle leaders became central to progressing the developmental elements of local school organisations. The study recommends investing to provide middle leaders with improvement strategies and an understanding of translation theory to enable translations that aid the development of school organisations.
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9. |
- Nehez, Jaana, et al.
(author)
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På väg mot uppdrags- och processdrivna organisationer. Uppföljning av införandet av processledare i förskolor och skolor i Helsingborg : Towards new task and process driven school organisations. A follow-up study of the introduction of process leaders in pre- schools and schools in Helsingborg.
- 2017
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Reports (other academic/artistic)abstract
- In a previous report, 2013, results from questionnaires and interviews showed how a new middle leader role among preschool teachers and teachers had been implemented 1,5 years after a course focusing on leading processes. The course took place in one school district in the city of Helsingborg, Sweden. The present report tells the story of what has happened within the 13 schools and 13 pre- schools and with the 62 middle leaders three years after the first report. The middle leaders were originally called process leaders. Their main function was to stimulate and guide their colleagues in developmental work, in close co- operation with principals. They have been working as administrative assistants, mentors to colleagues, leaders of improvement projects and consultants for larger school development. During the years an emphasis on micro tasks to- gether with colleagues, have further developed to include an emphasis on macro tasks for the whole units. The preschools are all still using the process leaders, while nine of the schools have chosen other options. Some schools use first teachers (a government sponsored teacher role) as middle leaders instead. Some schools have stopped using middle leaders all-together since they do not fit principals’ view of an efficient and strict organisation. The staff at half the units do not consider process leaders as useful as before, while the staff at the other half of the units view them as just as or even more useful. Middle leaders are one facet of organisational change in the school district. The introduction of process leaders correspond with an increased tendency for staff to engage in different change projects. This coincides with the organising of a task and process driven organisation for both routine work and development. During interviews at four sites, we noticed and named the emergence of such organisations. Teachers are assigned tasks (communicated with the rest of the staff) directly from the principal. Most preschool teachers and teachers have had tasks within specific areas, in which they are resources for their colleagues. Middle leaders, more often than their colleagues, have coordinating tasks. The four sites show considerable improvements in staff attitudes in relation to cooperation, perceived job relevance of in-service training, developmental projects and evaluation, and most of all support when having problems in class and needing help in order to achieve change. There is also an increase in the perception of empowerment in work correlated with an increase in taking on tasks. This was registered by staff questionnaires, which also measured individ- ual teacher efficacy, and collective efficacy within staffs. Over the three years, these two measures have got a higher correlation, especially for preschool teach- ers. Thus, teachers let their own self-efficacy be more influenced by cooperative achievement at the sites, or vice versa. No special factor was especially outstanding in influencing collective effi- cacy. Instead, the numbers and direction of change played the most important role. Many negative changes in attitudes correlated with decreased collective efficacy. Both positive and negative changes correlated with no change in col- lective efficacy, while many improvements in measured factors predicated im- proved collective efficacy. What worked as enhancing or depressing on collec- tive efficacy seems to be a contextual and local affair. Certain generative mechanisms were found to have important impact on the emergence and growth of task and process driven organisations. The generative mechanisms are: staff opens for visibility, cooperation across borders, im- proved deliberative structure of meetings, better coupling between leadership and staff, getting staff ownership from many tasks and wide participation in activities, more systematic developmental processes, improvements visible for children and students, in-take of news from other sites and research. These mechanisms also express meaning to staffs’ use of the concept ‘process driven’. In many of these processes especially process leaders used artifacts and tem- plates learned during the course. Our analyses indicate that an important facet of task and process driven organisations were that a temporary developmental organisation was drawn up and modelled. Similar structures were not in place, or malfunctioned, in the operative organisation for routine work.
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10. |
- Nehez, Jaana, et al.
(author)
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Teachers translating new knowledge about middle leading in a school and a preschool
- 2018
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In: Redress. - 1039-382X. ; 27:1, s. 14-19
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Journal article (other academic/artistic)abstract
- In Swedish education, there is an ongoing shift from schools being organisations where teachers teach and head teachers lead to schools being more complex organisations with the ambition to distribute the leadership among both school leaders and teachers. Signs of this shift include new career positions for teachers such as lead teachers, facilitators and professional development leaders. Teachers with these roles have a formal or informal position as middle leaders, similar to what has happened in Anglo-American countries such as Australia and the US. However, the development in the Nordic countries is more recent. This recent shift is a consequence of an increased focus on international assessments and comparisons such as PISA and TIMMS tests. Local schools have to adapt to continuously changing conditions and constantly prove that they provide quality education in comparison with other schools and preschools. They are under pressure to update themselves continuously on best practice in education, and to respond to new political initiatives and the latest educational research. This tends to lead to an increased responsibility for both school leaders and teachers in middle leader positions. In this article, we look at the new kinds of leadership that have emerged in response to this context, that is, teachers in new middle leader positions whose job it is to develop schools educationally. This idea of middle leadership has travelled into the Swedish context and is now being translated differently by schools depending on their local context. Each author of this article has been involved in one municipality’s struggle to adapt to this situation. In the Swedish municipality of Helsingborg, the schools and preschools are organised into four different districts. In one district, the headteachers agreed to implement what they chose to call process leaders, who are teachers with a responsibility to lead various professional development processes at their schools and preschools. To support these teachers in taking on this new role, a course on professional development and school development was established by the municipal school development office. The course supported teachers in how to lead school-wide processes of professional development. Two professional strategic developers working at the local school board, with expertise in professional and school development and also teacher leadership, led the course. We focus on how the teachers at one school and one preschool translated some of the knowledge from the professional development course to their own teaching and leading practices. The emphasis is mainly on the contextualisation process, or on how ideas and tools from the course were taken up and translated in different ways into new practices at the school and preschool. Studying how ideas and tools are brought into practice is important in order to understand how to bring about changes in schools and preschools. However, despite a great deal of research in this area, the actual practices that support school-wide change, particularly when it comes to teacher leadership, are poorly understood. This article will hopefully help teachers and leaders understand how such change may work, using concepts of translation. Viewing the process of change as a translation makes the process leaders translators of new knowledge. When bringing the new knowledge into their school and preschool, they can use different translation rules for different purposes. They can copy, add, omit or alter the knowledge in the process of contextualising it into their own practice, leading to great diversity in outcomes. In this article, we will describe such processes in greater detail.
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