Conference Agenda

This study aims to analyze the effect of gender gap determinants and biases on collaborative work among students from public and private universities in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields, which are crucial areas for sustainable development in Chile and the world.

The main research question of this paper is: How do the determinants of the gender gap and gender biases influence collaborative work among male and female students from public and private universities in STEM university careers in Chile?

The literature has highlighted gender stereotypes as a shared set of beliefs about the attributes characteristic of members of a social category (Greenwald & Lai, 2020). These stereotypes of agency (associated with men) and communal traits (associated with women) are internalized early on and affect identity, interests, self-efficacy, and motivation in formal and informal learning environments(Fine, 2018; Meltzoff & Cvencek, 2019). Thus, the issue of the gender gap in STEM poses significant challenges for women, as they are hindered by misconceptions about their creative abilities, limiting their access to those careers. Stereotypes describe and prescribe, affecting human behavior and well-being (Etheridge & Spantig, 2022), as individuals constantly adapt to the norms attributed to them by society, leading to group interactions that either enhance or inhibit collaborative work in biased environments.

As a methodology, this study employs a student-centered mixed-methods design. This allows for a comprehensive understanding of the research topic, considering both qualitative experiences and quantitative measurements. The instruments used include semi-structured interviews; psychometric scales on factors of the gender gap, mental health, and university well-being; the Implicit Association Test (IAT), and a collaborative work task. These instruments have been carefully selected to capture diverse perspectives and gather relevant data for a comprehensive investigation.

The findings of this interdisciplinary study in educational research explore the impact of gender biases on collaborative work within university environments. The results reveal that implicit gender biases and factors related to the gender gap negatively affect collaborative performance. The study highlights the importance of promoting equity, inclusion, and social justice in educational systems to foster sustainable development. Ultimately, this research deepens our understanding of how gender stereotypical beliefs influence collaborative endeavors.

The purpose of this poster session is to generate a discussion about how school leaders can create environments that enable staff and students to act together to create community within their school.

This poster session links to the individual paper titled ‘Re-imagining School Leadership around an Agential Ethic of Care’. The two submissions complement each other, and could also be considered in isolation. This poster has been created against the back-drop of the climate crisis and other urgent global challenges that require us to learn to work, and live, together (UNESCO, 2015; Leadbeater, 2016; Booth, 2018). Like the paper, it holds that school environments can function as important relational, emotional and ethical learning spaces, as well as offering invaluable sources of support and relationship growth for both staff and students.

The first part of this poster draws upon my first year of doctoral study, in which I critiqued and combined agency, care and community, to introduce an agential ethic of care as a promising ethical bedrock for participatory school environments. An agential ethic of care elevates our capacity to act together in care, and my research considers emergent possibilities from collaborative caring in schools (Noddings, 2012; Higham and De Vynck, 2019; Owis, 2022).

The poster will then draw upon initial findings from the first term of a Participatory Action Research (PAR) project in a school in England. This PAR project will begin by inviting staff and students to reflect collectively on agency, community and care within their school, before co-creating a team of researchers to research, and act, together in care. The poster will invite discussion around how we might learn from the lived experiences of care, community, and agency, within English state school environments. It will also invite discussion around the barriers to and opportunities for co-creating community that have emerged from the first term of this project.

The poster seeks to engage leaders, researchers and policymakers in a collaborative discussion around what community might look like in our schools, and why co-creating community is important. Drawing upon queer theory, this discussion invites us to re-think together what ‘good’ in education actually means, and to recalibrate our system around the moral imperatives of the present day (Ahmed, 2010; McCann and Monaghan, 2019; Higham, 2021, 2021; Tannock, 2021; UNESCO, 2021, 2021). In our discussions by the poster, we will reflect, interactively, upon what a school environment that enables and empowers school populations to live, care, and act together, might look or feel like. We will then reflect together on how researchers, practitioners and policymakers might implement our collective re-imaginings. Our collaborative discussions will feed into the paper session on this theme.

Indigenous students require positive school environment where meaningful learning ought to be there to minimise myriad challenges. Therefore, Orang Asli student’s school environment should be culturally responsive and equipped with students centred activities or providing constructively designed curriculum and pedagogy. This study sought to extend the knowledge of culturally responsive school leadership practises which relevant and responsive to Orang Asli students through the lens of theoretical framework crafted by Muhammad Khalifa (2018) titled Culturally Responsive School Leadership. The aim of the proposed study is to examine and to understand the real-world application of leadership practices that are relevant and responsive to Orang Asli students in Malaysia. This study will also include the often-voiceless voices of Orang Asli students, parents and community leaders to gain a deeper understanding of the process and experience of engaging in culturally responsive school leadership. The study will explore (1) how do school leaders, teachers, parents and community leaders envision culturally responsive school environment; (2) what do the school leaders and teachers perceive as supporting or hindering the progress of Orang Asli schools towards creating a culturally responsive school environment; (3) how do the students perceive their teachers practices in the classroom align with their culture; and (4) to what extent, do teachers and students demonstrate culturally responsive behaviors' in the classroom. A basic qualitative study with is the proposed research design for this study, and the data will be collected through semi-structured interviews, focus group interviews and classroom observations. This qualitative research is designed to gain in-depth knowledge about how is the principal’s leadership is culturally responsive towards the school environment that will improve the quality of education received by the Orang Asli community in Malaysia hence reducing the dropout rates in Orang Asli schools.

Abstract

Government-funded normal student's university education struggles to meet expectations. We used content analysis and interviews to collect data. Research found that the core problem lies in the lack of clarity of the subjects of the undergraduate training process for those with multiple roles, and the clarification of the main responsibilities may effectively solve the problem.

Aims and Objects

1.How to improve the university education and career planning of state-funded normal students?

2.What skills does the training program convey that government-funded normal students should develop?

3.What are the shortcomings of the current training system and how to improve it?

Data and Methods

1.Data source: Six normal universities directly under the Ministry of Education in China selected 102 training programs for publicly-funded normal students, covering 15 subjects.

2.Methods: Content analysis method and Interview method.

Results and Finding

- Government-funded normal students' self-positioning dilemma: is it a comprehensive exploration for students? Or is it teacher specific skill development?

1.The number of general electives is insufficient and the subjects covered are limited.

2.The proportion of teachers and students in professional skills class is high, and the practice time of single students is limited.

3.The educational practice time is short, and the educational technology practice is insufficient.

Analysis and discussion

1.Governments: strengthen student aid and increase the allocation of funds for teacher education.

2.Universities: reduce the capacity of practical classes, and clarify the ideas of general education + professional courses + teacher education characteristic courses.

3.Internship institutions: set up internship training programs to provide more open classes and internship teaching opportunities.

Conclusion

The deep reason for the dilemma of cultivating Government-funded normal students, who also assume three roles simultaneously: undergraduate students, normal students and students of specific majors, is that the main body is unclear, and the effective clarification of the main responsibilities of schools, colleges and internship institutions is the way to solve the problem.

The purpose of this study is to identify how the role of Cooperating Teacher (CT) as mentor can be used most effectively to support the student teacher (ST) in their school placement and promote teacher learning for both the CT and ST and contribute to the development of democratic pedagogical partnerships between schools and Initial Teacher Education (ITE) providers.

Research questions:

What form should the role of the Ct as a mentor take in order to best support teacher learning?

How can this role be supported and developed through democratic pedagogical partnership between teachers and ITE providers?

What are the implications for the role of CT as mentor if they also take on the role of assessing the student teacher?

Perspectives

The role of mentoring is being examined through the lens of social constructivist theory and an interpretivist stance has been adopted to understand and evaluate the role of CT as mentor during ITE. Particular emphasis is placed on theorists Vygotsky, Lortie, and Brookfield to explore the role of the mentor as a more knowledgeable other, the effect of mentors on the reflective practice of the student teacher, and the potential of the role to overcome teacher isolation and foster teacher learning through collaborative practice.

Methodology

This qualitative, intervention based, study is underpinned by the principles of educational design research (EDR) and seesk to build capacity in CTs to mentor STs on their school placement and to support CTs to act as “in-house” assessors of STs through a mentoring module tailored to the needs of CTs in Ireland.

Methods

Initial survey to create a profile of the purposive sample.

Semi-structured interviews

Policy content analysis.

Expected or preliminary results

The research will likely highlight the importance of supporting and developing the role of CTs as mentors through democratic pedagogical partnerships between teachers and ITE providers.

The study is expected to examine the implications of CTs taking on the additional role of assessing STs. Preliminary results may suggest that careful consideration should be given to ensure that the dual role does not compromise the mentorship relationship and that appropriate support and training are provided to CTs for fair and effective assessment.

Importance

The role of mentoring in the continuum of teacher education has been firmly established over the past decade in Ireland through its inclusion as a cornerstone of policies published by the Teaching Council. However, the role of CTs is frequently “ad hoc, under-resourced and under-utilised” (Farrell, 2020), there is a hesitancy of teachers to formally assess student teachers (STs) that they also work alongside (Smyth et al, 2016), and conceptually the role of mentor is highly contested.

Connection to the conference theme

This research acknowledges the complementarity and synergy between ITE and CPD for teachers. By exploring the role of CTs as mentors, the study recognises the importance of ongoing support and development for both STs and CTs, highlighting the need for a cohesive and comprehensive approach to professional education.

Objective and Focus

Fostering whole-person formation is a fundamental responsibility of PK-12 schools across secular and religious, public and private school sectors (Mansilla & Schleicher, 2022). Internationally, faith-based schools provide important models of how to organize teaching and learning in manners that explicitly embrace this responsibility. This roundtable paper presents a research practice partnership (RPP) with three networks of Catholic schools in the United States with espoused commitments to whole person formation.

Framework

The goal of this RPP is to develop materials to support educators across public and private sectors in developing innovative and transformative approaches to critical formation. The concept of formation captures the purposes of education broadly construed as holistically promoting students' growth. This includes attending to academic, socioemotional, and ethical, moral, and spiritual dimensions of personhood (Wortham et al., 2020). When shaped by critical consciousness - both personally (Jacobson & Mustafa, 2019) and systemically (Seider & Graves, 2020) - schools’ efforts in formation confront inequity, marginalization, and oppression.

Methods and Evidence

This RPP engages twelve focal schools in three networks: the Two-Way Immersion Network of Catholic Schools (TWIN-CS), the Nativity-Miguel Coalition (NMC), and the Jesuit Schools Network (JSN). TWIN-CS comprises over two dozen elementary schools fostering bilingualism and biliteracy (AUTHOR, 2019). NMC comprises fifty middle schools enrolling students from low socioeconomic backgrounds and supporting them through high school and college (Fenzel & Monteith, 2008). JSN comprises ninety middle and secondary schools with commitments to global partnerships; diversity, equity, and inclusion; and inquiry and creativity (Jesuit Schools Network, n.d.). Evidence includes archival documentation, surveys, interviews, and observations.

Findings

Preliminary findings suggest that the foundation for fostering critical formation is articulating a coherent, expansive philosophy of education. The coherence provides grounding for members of the school community. Being expansive encourages attending to the whole person - attending to intellectual, social and emotional, physical, and spiritual dimensions. In each of the three networks, we see a clear articulation of a holistic approach that reflects the particular focus of the network.

A second preliminary finding is that fostering critical formation entails strategically embedding this philosophy of education throughout the teaching and learning environment in a purposefully fractal manner. This fractal pattern infuses the philosophy into the teaching and learning environment in an intentional way- from the classroom instruction to the co-curricular activities to the informal spaces. This fractal pattern also applies across stakeholders - from students to educators to families.

Significance

This RPP encourages educators to interrogate how schools and school systems articulate and pursue their purpose and how leadership develops a shared understanding of this purpose among all stakeholders. It suggests that to advance critical formation, schools and school systems should explicate a robust mission and create processes and policies that enact it. Core practices from schools in this project - such as the use of rituals and the explicit partnership with families and community members - can be adapted to public, secular contexts.

Connections to Conference Theme

This project models how to catalyze professional learning across school sectors.

In primary education, students develop both academic, social and emotional skills. Throughout education, students should acquire skills to manage ups and downs in life, also known as life skills. Life skills can be considered as a part of school effectiveness and improvement for professional development for teachers and school leaders because this focus highlights the school’s mandate to educate and form students as future active citizens in a diverse world. Developing life skills equips students to manage personal and practical challenges in everyday life and life in the future. In Norway, ‘life skills’ was recently implemented as an interdisciplinary topic in the curriculum to prevent increasing mental health issues among children and young people (Ministry of Education and Research, 2017).

There is limited research about life skills in primary education in a Norwegian context, therefore the purpose of the study is to identify, map, review, and summarize existing research on this topic, both in a national and an international context. The aim is to explore existing research related to definitions and understandings of life skills in primary education. An inclusive learning environment is a significant precondition when teaching students about life skills. Therefore, another aim is to investigate what perspectives related to inclusion and diversity are included in the definitions and understandings of life skills. The research question is: How is ‘life skills’ defined and investigated in research? The study utilized a qualitative research design, with a scoping review as a data collection method. To analyze the data, a thematic analysis was conducted to categorize the different definitions and understandings related to life skills in primary education. The preliminary results show that ‘life skills’ is a complex concept including many different aspects. The findings imply that the life skills term in a Norwegian context differs from the international understanding of the term. Results suggest that the life skills term in the Norwegian curriculum is linked to long-term prevention work and lifelong learning, rather than the international understanding leaning more towards life skills as a short-term solution against problem related behavior.

Research on definitions and understandings of life skills in primary education can contribute to high quality teaching and learning in a way that promotes holistic pedagogy through interdisciplinary thinking. Leveraging research and data on life skills enhances professional education by outreach to teachers, school leaders, and other stakeholders, with a main focus on students’ learning and well-being.

We believe “ownership of learning” to be a key concept in improving individual or collective learning and development of students, teachers, and school leaders. Therefore, the research group developed various active forms of discussion that will support the posterpresentation at ICSEI 2024. The group is highly interested in the public’s response to the concept definition, the model and presuppositions concerning “ownership of learning”.

The international congress ICSEI 2024 provides us with a unique possibility to accelerate and intensify our research and to start an international community for ownership of our student in the school all over the world. The model will be shared, refined and improved in the poster session. The group is also, very much looking forward to collect new ideas and insights from other participants. It is a matter of mutual receiving and sharing of ideas. We invite participants in our poster stand to discuss how Policymakers, Politicians, Practitioners; students, teachers, school leaders/principals can work together to enhance the development of ownership in their schools. This tool can be helpful to start the conversation with your students, teacher, school organization and researchers about ownership. We hope we can start with an international community about ‘We Own The School’. Goal is to share and learn from each other about organizing ownership for students in our different schools and different parts in the world.

See also our English website: www.studentownership.com

During the first stages of our research the team refined the definition and the taxonomy of ownership model with the characteristics of the six types of schools. They examined behavior of students, teachers and the organizational properties to be able to evolve the model into a tool to enhance the understanding of the concept of ownership of learning. The next stage focuses on the ownership experience of the student. It aims to measure the qualitative aspects of the personal experience of ownership. Here characteristics derived from aspects of “deep learning”, “flow” or a “growth mindset” is used. Eventually, this is related/connected to the school-type that the student is engaged in. The Research question: What is the relationship between the various types of ownership in schools (as perceived by all stakeholders in the school) and the ownership experienced? The research uses a variety of instruments; for example, in-depth interviews, quantitative data collection and the analysis of relevant information before and after playing the game. A research likes this brings about the issue of subjectiveness. The experience of the ownership of learning is difficult to measure. Our questionnaire for students is a crucial tool which we will triangulate with the game and in-depth interviews. We will combine the quantitative and qualitative aspects of research to establish the connection between individually experienced ownership of learning and the characteristics of the indicated type of school.

The focus of our SOL foundation has been on educational culture. During previous ICSEI sessions we were able to share our thoughts and practices on how to identify the educational culture of a school or a school system. Using the theoretical framework of John Macbeath, we developed a table game that can be played by all the participants of the school community: students, teachers, and school leaders. The game is not only an excellent tool to stimulate a debate on ownership, but it also generates data about how the whole school community thinks about ownership of learning. Is the school a formal, a pragmatic, a strategic, an incremental, a competent or a cultural school? The result of the game is then used to produce graphs and charts that help the specific school define the direction it wants to follow.

OECD (2020) point at teachers and institution leaders are at the heart of high-quality Vocational education and training (VET). Companies needs skilled labor, at the same time VET-schools have major challenges in recruiting VET-teachers to educate and train skilled workers. In a report for 2021 OECD states: Teachers in VET need to have a unique combination of pedagogical and industry-specific skills and knowledge that allow them to effectively teach vocational theory and practice to students. Moreover, as students in VET are often more diverse than in general education programs, VET teachers play a key role in motivating students and overcoming barriers to learning. Leaders of VET institutions manage complex organizations that often involve close ties with local stakeholders and require smart investment in tools and technologies for teaching a diverse set of VET program. The paper is based on a project involving four countries; Norway, Finland, Germany, and Turkey, and aims to create a research-based model to recruit and retain VET teachers in school.

The aim of the project it to develop new and innovative models to recruit new teachers and enhance the attractiveness of being a VET teacher. The model will also benefit industry/companies in their work with supervising their apprentices and recruitment of future labor.

The model is based on review of literature on recruitment, education and retention of VET-teacher (In English, Norwegian, Finnish, German and Turkish journals), network mapping, survey and previous experiences among the four partners. The model is developed in Norway, and will be adjusted to other countries context in the next phase of the project.

Steps in developing the model:

• Selection of partner institution – focusing om recruitment and in-service education within; building and construction, and technical and industrial production.

• Establishing a cross-sectoral group for the development of the model

• Use networks as a consultative body to test model and implementation opportunities and the willingness to enter into this type of co-operation on the recruitment and training of new vocational teachers.

• Refine model based on feedback

The paper will present a model based on collaboration in a school-university-companies-partnership, and how they facilitate that skilled workers in companies can be recruited and qualified for part-time positions as vocational teachers and at the same time have a large part of their position in the company. This creates a win-win situation for all partners. The outcome for the companies is skilled workers who have pedagogical competence that contributes to better supervision of apprentices in their own company. The school get VET-teachers who are constantly updated on what is happening in the profession. Teacher education facilitate in service training adapted to the everyday life of the skilled workers who are recruited into part-time positions as vocational teachers. Vocational students in schools will have direct relations to working life because more teachers have positions both as teachers in schools and skilled workers in companies.

The Project is directly linked to the theme of the conference - seeking quality professional education in the context of school effectiveness and improvement, within VET-education.