NIE NTU Paper Presentation at AERA

Objectives

This paper critically examines the complex interplay between centralised/de-centralised governance mechanisms and infrastructures for educational improvements across a small national system, and networked learning configurations that can facilitate or challenge system improvements. Perspective(s) or theoretical framework The paper draws on Douglas’s Cultural Theory (1992,1996) and Learning Sciences’ theories on infrastructuring (Penuel,2019; Bielaczyc,2006). Furthermore, recent work into Research-Practice Partnerships have begun to shift attention away from educational infrastructures that are developed to support partnership processes, towards infrastructuring (i.e.,how practices shape infrastructures). Infrastructuring takes on a relational and praxeological perspective on infrastructures as cooperative activities and socio-cultural-technological-political arrangements that create “conditions that support educators in making innovations into working infrastructures for organizing learning activities” (Penuel, 2019, p.660).

Data Sources & Methods

Singapore’s two decades of education research funding to improve schools and classroom practices have resulted in a rich database of findings on what works for educational improvement and under what contexts. Case study methodology along with interviews with key actors in the cases, and document analysis are used to critically examine and map them to the theoretical frameworks of Cultural Theory and infrastructuring. 3 case studies of funded research studies are presented along with analysis of the governance structures that aim to exploit system resources or explore networked learning configurations for sustainable system improvements. The first is a large-scale longitudinal classroom-based study into teaching and learning in Singapore schools, with a hierarchical partnership model driven by top-down needs from the centralised government. The second is a self-sustaining Research-Practice Partnership that thrives through bottom-up school needs. The third draws on different partnership processes to spread school innovations.

Findings and Conclusions

We argue that the cases align to the Cultural Theory’s dimensions, and can shed light on how social-cultural-technological-political configurations, such as networked learning and governance structures, may generate different, often messy, partnerships between schools and researchers. This goes against the Singapore government’s equity imperative to provision all schools equally with educational innovations as a system resource – either all schools should benefit from the exploitation of such an innovation, or none at all. Using March’s (1991) distinction of exploitation and exploration, system innovation in a small state with limited resources tend to prioritise exploitation processes rather than open opportunities for exploration of innovations that can diffuse through schools more organically. We discuss how the researchers engage in infrastructuring processes with policymakers to exploit partnerships with unequal power consequences, or with schools to explore, messy, contingent partnerships that are potentially sustainable under certain conditions. Implications are made on how small systems with national priorities for school improvement efforts have to be ambidextrous in managing exploitation and exploration mechanisms to generate a self-sustaining innovation ecology.

Significance of the Study

The study will highlight how small systems can encourage broader networked learning partnership approaches that can lead to wider improvements at the within-, across- and beyond-school levels. Importantly, the study seeks to demonstrate how such partnerships can become “collaborative efforts […] to humanize and democratize the field of education research” (Penuel et al,2020,p.663)

Mixed methods research (MMR) can support understanding of inclusion of individuals with disabilities in schools and communities. In this systematic review, we explored how MMR focused on disability across special education, general education, and disability studies in education (n = 115 studies). We specifically examined the studies explicitly considering individuals with extensive support needs (ESN) (n = 68 studies) in this literature to highlight (a) study participants, (b) the presence of theoretical and/or conceptual framing for the research, (c) the goals/aims of the research studies, (d) the purposes for mixing, and (e) the data generation methods. We discuss patterns in the data that reflect differences across subfields, presumptions of competence, and ways ableism shapes research studies.

Objectives:
Recent national assessment policies were implemented by the Singapore Ministry of Education to promote the use of formative assessment to enhance student learning and shift schools away from a high-stakes examination culture that is deeply entrenched in Singapore society (Cheah, 1998). Such policies include teacher professional development, developing teacher networks, and creating opportunities for teachers and students to use formative assessment practices to strengthen learning while reducing examination pressure. An enhanced professional learning policy was introduced to further support teacher learning through the provision of learning infrastructures and resources, within- and across-schools. Such professional learning extends earlier policy in an attempt to develop schools into learning organizations in which assessment results drive reflection and improvement. This paper examines the impact and consequences of these policies by drawing on a large-scale classroom-based longitudinal study in primary and secondary schools. The analysis critically examines the relationships between national assessment reforms, teacher learning, shifts in assessment practices, and system changes in the wake of global assessment policy shifts.

Theoretical framework:
The analysis employs the notion of a “contact zone,” defined as a space where “cultures meet, clash, and grapple with each other, often in contexts of highly asymmetrical relations of power” (Pratt, 1991, p. 34). We depict schools as sites of contestation regarding the values of education and assessment priorities, with teachers playing out system tensions through resistant and creative strategies around assessment practices. Theories on policy layering and policy shifts are utilised to examine the consequences of policy instruments on the implementation process (Thelan, 2004).

Data Sources, Methods and Evidence:
The paper will draw from a critical policy analysis of Singapore’s educational and assessment reforms as well as empirical findings from the CORE Research Programme (CORE), a large-scale, multi-level, multi-methodological, classroom-based study documenting changes to teaching and learning in schools from 2004 to 2022.
Findings and Conclusions: CORE’s long-term examination of system changes shows the tenuous relationship between policy enactment and classroom pedagogical events, and their mediating processes and consequences for teachers and students (Hogan et al, 2013). Specifically, a complex picture of assessment changes occur in schools, indicating that teachers who were further from high-stakes examinations, had more power to innovate. In other words, proximity to high-stakes testing years shaped teachers’ agency and identity to innovate classroom practices. This creates a bifurcated landscape that exposes students and parents to complex identity work in recognising assessment priorities at the same time that teachers have to negotiate nuances of policy implementation and navigate deeply entrenched societal and individual beliefs about the value of education, schooling and assessment. A culture of hierarchical policy rollout to schools, while having the best intentions, may unwittingly constrain opportunities for collaborative problem solving and system improvement, especially when infrastructuring attempts (Penuel, 2019) do not go deep enough to create pedagogical coherence in schools.

Significance:
The paper sheds light on the complex interplay between system-level reforms, teacher learning structures, opportunities and challenges, and teachers grappling in the contact zone between well-intentioned national imperatives and entrenched sociocultural beliefs.

The present study explored the effects of an SRL strategy-based writing intervention program on Chinese university English-as-a-foreign-language (EFL) learners’ writing performance and self-regulated writing strategy use. A quasi-experimental design was employed with 97 third-year English-major students. The experimental group (n = 39) received a 12-week intervention designed on a framework conceptualized according to Zimmerman (2000) and Pintrich (2004). The control group (n = 58) received a regular business-as-usual writing course concurrently. Data were collected with Questionnaire for Self-regulated Writing Strategies (QSRLW) and writing tests. ANCOVA results revealed a significant intervention effect on writing performance with a sustained effect one month later, and significant effects on participants’ use of the target strategy types. Pedagogical implications are discussed.