The international classroom is presumably a far more effective learning environment for the acquisition of intercultural competence when students receive adequate training to make the most of their intercultural encounters. This paper provides a summary of the intercultural training taught to first-year students of an international programme in The Hague University of Applied Sciences. The purpose of the paper is to investigate how the students respond to this intercultural training as well as what signs of intercultural awareness they show after completing the course. The findings were obtained via qualitative methods such as semi-structured interviews, observations and student homework assignments. Overall, students evaluate the training positively. Furthermore, students show some awareness of the necessary ingredients for effective intercultural communication in the international classroom as well as of the challenging nature of this communication due to cultural diversity. Finally, this paper provides recommendations from the facilitators on stimulating intercultural learning in the international classroom.
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This study shows how learner initiatives are taken during classroom discussions where the teacher seeks to make room for subjectification. Using Conversation Analysis, subjectification can be observed when students take the freedom to express themselves as subjects through learner initiatives. Drawing on data from classroom discussions in language and literature lessons in the mother tongue, the authors find that learner initiatives can be observed in three different ways: agreement, request for information, counter-response. A learner initiative in the form of an agreement appears to function mostly as a continuer and prompts the previous speaker to reclaim the turn, while the I-R-F structure remains visible. In contrast, making a request for information or giving a counter-response ensures mostly a breakthrough of the I-R-F-structure and leads to a dialogical participation framework in which multiple students participate. Findings illustrate that by making a request for information or giving a counter-response, students not only act as an independent individual, but also encourage his peers to do so.
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Seven college lecturers and two senior support staff were interviewed during 2021 about their experiences teaching in hybrid virtual classrooms (HVC). These technology-rich learning environments allow teachers to simultaneously teach students who are in class (on campus) and students who are joining remotely (online). There were two reasons for this choice: first, ongoing experimentation from innovative teaching staff who were already using this format before the COVID-19 pandemic; secondly, as a possible solution to restrictions on classroom size imposed by the pandemic. Challenges lecturers faced include adjusting teaching practice and lesson delivery to serve students in the class and those online equally; engaging and linking the different student groups in structured and natural interactions; overcoming technical challenges regarding audio and visual equipment; suitably configuring teaching spaces and having sufficient pedagogical and technical support to manage this complex process. A set of practical suggestions is provided. Lecturers should make reasoned choices when teaching in this format since it requires continued experimentation and practice to enhance the teaching and learning opportunities. When external factors such as classroom size restrictions are the driving force, the specific type of synchronous learning activities should be carefully considered. The structure and approach to lessons needs to be rethought to optimise the affordances of the hybrid virtual and connected classroom. The complexity of using these formats, and the additional time needed to do it properly, should not be underestimated. These findings are consistent with previous literature on this subject. An ongoing dialogue with faculty, support staff and especially students should be an integral part of any further implementation in this format.
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This article focuses on improving the instructional quality of student teachers in elementary education. We developed a coaching approach involving classroom observation and appropriate lesson preparation and feedback templates. Using an untreated control group design with pre-test and posttest (n = 198), we answered the question ‘whether student teachers who learned to teach with the new coaching approach achieved a higher level of pedagogical and didactical teaching skills compared to student teachers who did not receive this approach’. The effect variable used was the observation instrument ICALT. We compared the average scores of the control group and the experimental group on the posttest (ANCOVA). The differences found on the posttest, after controlling for the confounding variables, were significant on all ICALT scales. These effect sizes are medium on the scales; ‘Safe climate’ and ‘Clear instruction’ and large on the scales; ‘Classroom management’ ‘Activating pupils’ ‘Adaptive teaching’ and ‘Teaching learning strategies’.
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The purpose of this paper is to explore how experienced teachers learn informally, and more specifically, how they learn through the activities they undertake when teaching classes. Regarding these activities we studied four aspects: behaviour, cognition, motivation and emotion. During one year, data were collected through observations of and interviews with four experienced teachers. For the analysis we used Eraut’s distinction into three types of learning which differ in the degree of consciousness that is involved. We found several activities that represented each of these types of learning. The findings demonstrate how cognitive, affective, motivational and behavioural aspects are interrelated in classroom teaching and that learning from classroom teaching occurs at several levels of awareness. Hence, we argue that a theory of teacher learning should account for activities involved in the alignment of behaviour to plan and for the role of motivation and emotion. The findings suggest that fruitful development of the quality of teaching requires more attention for the relation between teachers’ cognition, emotion, motivation and behaviour, and for promoting teachers’ awareness of their implicit beliefs and behavioural tendencies.
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Poster presentatie op conferentie Background: Assessments of functional communication skills of children with cerebral palsy (CP), classified with the Communication Function Classification System (CFCS), often differ between the child's school teacher and the speech language therapist (SLT). Assessment by the SLT is usually based on observations in a clinical setting, which may not be representative of the functional communication skills in daily life. This study evaluated the inter-rater agreement of the CFCS assessed by the school teacher and SLT before and after observation of a communicative situation in the classroom. Methods: Functional communication of 35 children with CP (4 to 18 years; 26 with Alternative and Augmentative Communication, AAC) was classified by the own SLT and teacher using the CFCS. SLT's performed two assessments: the first without additional instructions and the second after observation of the child during a communicative situation in the classroom. For both assessments of the SLT inter-rater agreement on CFCS-level between SLT and teacher was determined using Cohen's weighted kappa statistics. Results: For the whole group, inter-rater reliability was 0.6 before observation in de classroom and 0.7 after observation. In the group without AAC weighted K was 0.67 for both assessments. In the group with AAC weighted K increased from 0.2 to 0.61. Interpretation The increased inter-rater agreement of CFCS classification between teacher and SLT after observation in the classroom, especially for children with AAC, emphasizes the need for professionals to base their CFCS assessment on observation of functional communication in everyday situations.
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Even though classroom discussion is considered an essential element of citizenship education, research indicates that pre-vocational students have fewer opportunities to practice with these discussions than their pre-academic peers. To provide more insight into pre-vocational teaching strategies to facilitate citizenship-related classroom discussions that allow for variation in familiarity with discussion, we analyzed observations of plenary discussion moments during 26 lessons at three Dutch secondary schools. Classrooms less familiar with discussion seem to benefit from a focus on structural aspects of discussion and avoiding strict content regulation, whereas classrooms more familiar with discussion profit from reflection on both process and content.
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Several bachelor courses of Inholland University of Applied Sciences experimented with the possibilities of the online synchronous classroom. Two platforms were used; Zoom video conferencing and Barco Virtual Classroom. As research group, we conducted exploratory observations as this experimentation unfolded during several of these sessions. Interviews were held with some teaching and technical staff. Organisational, technical and pedagogical factors regarding the delivering of flexible education were examined. During the observations of this emergent practice, some patterns became visible. This report contains a first description of the seven phases when initiating the online classroom.
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The journal was a forum for the work of both theorists and practitioners of philosophical practice with children, and published such work in all forms, including philosophical argument and reflection, classroom transcripts, curricula, empirical research, and reports from the field. The journal also maintained a tradition in publishing articles in the hermeneutics of childhood, a field of intersecting disciplines including cultural studies, social history, philosophy, art, literature and psychoanalysis.
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This paper proposes and showcases a methodology to develop an observational behavior assessment instrument to assess psychological competencies of police officers. We outline a step-by-step methodology for police organizations to measure and evaluate behavior in a meaningful way to assess these competencies. We illustrate the proposed methodology with a practical example. We posit that direct behavioral observation can be key in measuring the expression of psychological competence in practice, and that psychological competence in practice is what police organizations should care about. We hope this paper offers police organizations a methodology to perform scientifically informed observational behavior assessment of their police officers’ psychological competencies and inspires additional research efforts into this important area.
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