Education

Linguistic, literary, and feminist studies define translation as a process of rendering a new version of an original with attention to context, power, and purpose. Processes of translation in the context of student-faculty co-inquiry in the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning offer examples of how this re-rendering can play out in the realm of academic development. In this article, translation serves as a conceptual framework that allows us to bring a fresh interpretation to the collaborative work of participants in a student-faculty pedagogical partnership program based at two colleges in the mid-Atlantic United States. We argue that faculty members and student consultants who participate in this program engage in processes of translation that lead to transformed perceptions of classroom engagement, transformed terms for naming pedagogical practices, and, more metaphorically, transformed selves. Drawing on data from an ongoing action research study of this program and on articles and essays we and other participants in the program have published, we use a form of narrative analysis as it intersects with the conceptual framework offered by translation to illustrate how, through their collaboration, faculty and students engage in never-finished processes of change that enable mental perceptions, linguistic terms, and human selves to be newly comprehended, communicated, and expressed. We touch upon what is lost in translation as well and the necessity of ongoing efforts to make meaning through collaborative explorations, analyses, and re-renderings. Finally, we provide examples of how the changes participants experience and effect endure beyond the time of partnership and in other realms of their lives.

“Students as Partners” (SaP) in higher education re-envisions students and staff as active collaborators in teaching and learning. Understanding what research on partnership communicates across the literature is timely and relevant as more staff and students come to embrace SaP. Through a systematic literature review of empirical research, we explored the question: How are SaP practices in higher education presented in the academic literature? Trends across results provide insights into four themes: the importance of reciprocity in partnership; the need to make space in the literature for sharing the (equal) realities of partnership; a focus on partnership activities that are small scale, at the undergraduate level, extracurricular, and focused on teaching and learning enhancement; and the need to move toward inclusive, partnered learning communities in higher education. We highlight nine implications for future research and practice.

Reptiles and amphibians are a diverse and interesting group of organisms. The four activities described in this article take students' curiosity into the realm of scientific understanding. The activities involve the concepts of species identification; animal adaptations, communication, and habitat; and conservation.

The authors provide activities through which teachers can share experiences in the outdoors with young children and teach them about herpetology, the study of amphibians and reptiles. Outdoor activities include observation, classification, and mapping. The authors also include activities for the classroom, including connections between the science projects and art.

Did you know that you can access more than 150 free online professional development workshops each week—and you don’t even have to leave the comfort of your home or school to attend them? Learn how to find, participate in, and start your own Twitter chats with this easy-to-follow FAQ.

This article explains the basics of Twitter, hashtags, and moderated chats. It will also detail why you should chat, who organizes them, how to participate, what to do if you miss a chat, and how to start one. There are also recommendations for various popular education-related chats that in which to participate.

While the microblogging service Twitter is increasingly popular among educators and offers numerous affordances for learning, its relationship with formal education systems remains complicated by generally ambivalent educator attitudes and institutional policies. To better understand the role Twitter plays in education, we conducted a survey of 755 K-16 educators that yielded quantitative and qualitative data concerning how and why the medium is used. Respondents reported intense and multifaceted utilization of the service, with professional development (PD) uses more common than interactions with students or families. Educators valued Twitter’s personalized, immediate nature, and the positive and collaborative community it facilitated. Many cited Twitter’s role in combating various types of isolation and described it as superior to traditional professional development. We finish by discussing implications for educators, researchers, and educational institutions.

The microblogging service Twitter has played an integral role in protest movements, democratic revolutions, charity fundraising, disaster relief, and has also been adopted by some
teachers for professional purposes. In order to better understand Twitter’s role in education, we conducted a survey of educators regarding their use of the service. This paper delves into the
data from the 109 English teachers who responded to the survey. These educators described frequent and versatile use of Twitter. Respondents provided a variety of examples of uses of
Twitter to communicate with parents and students, as well as specific learning activities that incorporated the service. However, Twitter was most popular among the teachers as a tool for
professional development. The respondents valued how Twitter facilitated resource and idea acquiring and sharing, and also praised the service for providing them a way to connect to other
educators beyond their local schools and districts.

Traditional, top-down professional development (PD) can render teachers mere implementers of the ideas of others, but there is some hope that the participatory nature of social media such as Twitter might support more grassroots PD. To better understand Twitter’s role in education, we conducted a survey of K–16 educators regarding their use of the microblogging service for professional purposes. Respondents described multifaceted and intense use, with PD activities more common than use with students and families. This paper delves into qualitative data from 494 respondents who described their perspectives on Twitter PD. Educators praised the platform as efficient, accessible and interactive. Twitter was credited with providing opportunities to access novel ideas and stay abreast of education advances and trends, particularly regarding educational technology. Numerous respondents compared Twitter favorably with other PD available to them. Members of our sample also appreciated how Twitter connected them to educators beyond their own schools and districts, with mention of exposure to both like-minded and diverse perspectives. Respondents described positive and collaborative professional activity facilitated by Twitter, and many noted how it helped them combat various forms of isolation. We conclude by discussing implications of the survey results for educators, researchers and policy-makers.

Twitter has demonstrated potential to facilitate learning at the university level, and K-12 educators’ use of the microblogging service Twitter to facilitate professional development appears to be on the rise. Research on microblogging as a part of teacher education is, however, limited. This paper investigates the use of Twitter by preservice teachers (N = 20) in a face-to-face undergraduate teacher education course taught by the author. The participants completed student teaching the subsequent semester, after which a survey was conducted to explore whether they had continued to use Twitter for professional purposes and why or why not. In reflections upon the fall semester’s experience, preservice teachers noted several benefits to the use of Twitter in the course, including support of resource sharing, communication, and connection with educators both inside and outside of the class. During the spring semester, the majority of participants stopped professional Twitter activity, with many citing a lack of time. Those who continued use in the spring most commonly did so to gather teaching resources. The majority of participants maintained a positive opinion of Twitter’s educational potential and indicated intentions to utilize it for professional purposes, including classroom applications, in the future.