Educational Insights
Asynchronous Session
Educator Well-Being: Strategies for Finding Balance View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Carol Laman, Misty LaCour
Educators are discovering that achieving work-life balance is becoming increasingly more difficult. A lack of work-life balance leads to educators becoming overwhelmed, teacher burn-out, and educators leaving the profession. This paper shares research-based strategies that educators can implement to achieve an appropriate work-life balance. The strategies support teacher well-being and happiness which ultimately leads to more effective teaching in the classroom. We consider the details of how to implement these strategies on a day-to-day basis to achieve a more balanced life, improve happiness, avoid burn-out, and become more effective in the classroom.
Don’t Throw the Colonial Text Out with Its Ideology!: Recruiting a Colonial Text to Do Decolonial Work on a University Academic Literacy Course View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Cloris Porto Torquato, Moeain Arend, Aditi Hunma
Since 2015, South African universities have undergone a major overhaul, with students nation-wide taking calling for a decolonised institutional ethos, and for curriculum reform to introduce texts and approaches that do not perpetuate colonial ideologies. This presented an opportunity for disciplines to shed untransformed ways of knowing, to consider more relatable ways of knowing. A glance at recent publications in the region reflects this impetus. It is in this climate that our academic literacy course, Writing across Borders, was launched in 2019 to foster critical reading, writing and researching practices, exposing students to diverse texts, including a history textbook prescribed during Apartheid era. Our use of this textbook presently could therefore be questioned. We argue however, that instead of throwing the colonial text out with its ideology, the text can be recruited for decolonial work, to reveal its problematic constructions of race and its contradictions. In this paper, we therefore model some of the class discussions around the history textbook, applying a Critical Discourse Analysis lens to it. This lens allows for a multi-layered analysis of the textbook, looking at its textual, discursive, social practices, and surfacing the asymmetries of power that created the conditions for social injustices in the colonial and post-colonial contexts. The analysis demonstrates that meaning does not reside in the text alone, but in how it is used to achieve its decolonial meaning potential, and to invite us all to unlearn our enduring racial biases. It thus offers us pedagogical possibilities by harnessing colonial texts differently.
From Teaching to Coaching in the Post-pandemic Classroom: Revisiting Learning Indicators for Immersive Higher Education View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Minhyoung Kim
This study explores how the COVID-19 pandemic has influenced the overall higher education landscape and challenged traditional methods of measuring learning motivations and assessing learning outcomes in light of these changes. It highlights the shift from traditional teaching methods to coaching approaches in college curriculum and instruction, emphasizing the need to reevaluate learning indicators in the post-pandemic era. As preliminary research, this study examines the development of two common learning indexes, namely the Composite Learning Index (CLI) and the European Lifelong Learning Indicators (ELLI) Index, both of which are thematically organized under UNESCO's four 'pillars of learning': Learning to know; Learning to do; Learning to be; and Learning to live together. This study investigates whether the specific indicators and measures within these index systems are still applicable for calculating progress in diverse modes of learning after the pandemic. Furthermore, this study suggests relevant measuring indicators for digital learning, which includes new literacies and ubiquitous platforms in higher education, aiming to empower college students to establish themselves as active learners through the effective utilization of coaching advice.
Scaling Innovations for Education Systems Change and the Instructional Core in Schools View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Nica Basuel
This paper examines relationships between the organization of education systems and processes of teaching and learning. Drawing on longitudinal, qualitative data from 15 teams scaling education innovations in 30 low- and middle-income countries over almost three years, we examine whether and how these innovations penetrate the instructional core. Through the lens of education systems transformation, we consider the effectiveness of scaling single-point education innovations within formal education systems. Our study addresses the shift from scaling to systems transformation as a new paradigm in education. We highlight the importance of innovations changing teaching and learning practices within the classroom, as they are considered ineffective otherwise. Within this context, our paper explores three key areas: (1) the engagement of formal system levers in scaling education innovations for impact, (2) the potential for scaling to drive system change and vice versa, and (3) the opportunities and barriers for both scaling and systems change to improve teaching and learning processes. By examining the interplay between education systems, instructional practices, and scaling in education, our study illuminates challenges and opportunities in scaling education innovations. As such, it contributes to a deeper understanding of how system-level changes can enhance teaching and learning outcomes.
Exploring Challenges and Motivations of Teachers during the Pandemic Era to Support Post-pandemic Pedagogy, Policies, and Strategies View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Crystal Ratican
This paper adds to the growing body of literature that explores challenges and motivations that teachers experienced during the pandemic era of teaching. The ongoing effects on the wellbeing and pedagogical approaches of educators needs to be identified through longitudinal studies. The current body of research examined the topic from a myriad of different aspects, with most studies focused not only just on the COVID-19 pandemic, but also had the focus toward primary level educators dealing with anxiety. This study examines the challenges that educators faced while trying to adapt to new technologies as a means of disseminating information, while exploring how can teachers’ perceptions during the pandemic can be leveraged to advance the current field of teaching after the pandemic. This study examined the positive aspects of teaching during a global pandemic. Results from 187 teachers throughout 14 school districts in northeast Ohio indicate that although the pandemic caused a significant disruption in the traditional dissemination of information found in a face-to-face classroom, there were several lessons that could be learned. The results of the study identifies new methodologies for educators in virtual or hybrid environments and the conclusion extrapolated qualitative data to recommend best practices moving forward in a post-pandemic world.
