The spaces where we teach are more than containers for learning. They are active and influential forces shaping how students engage, think and grow. Yet most teachers have never been supported to evaluate whether their spaces are actually working, or shown how to make them work better. Making the Most of Your Learning Environment: A Guide for Teacher-Led Evaluation of Spaces and Practices changes that. Drawing on nearly two decades of research by the Learning Environments Applied ...

This book presents and discusses the results of the ‘Plans to Pedagogy’ (P2P) project that was implemented across 13 diverse Australian and New Zealand schools, each with a unique school context and specific learning environment issue. The project employed a participatory approach, where academic researchers partnered with school leaders and staff in each school to co-design, implement, and evaluate research targeting the school’s chosen issue. It explores and analyses the case studies fro...

This open access book focuses on how the design and use of innovative learning environments can evolve as teaching practices and education policies change. It addresses how these new environments are used, how teachers are adapting their practices, the challenges that these changes pose, and the effective evaluation of these changes.The book reports on emerging research in learning environments, with a particular emphasis on how teachers are transitioning from traditional classroom...

This book considers the cognitive nature of courses connected with ICT or using ICT as an integral part of the course, including some views on the associated learning and teaching styles. Which factors lead to learning outcomes and are these intended or fortuitous? Factors may include ones specific to particular subject areas and their relationship with ICT, motivation associated with ICT usage, the interest which teachers, pupils and students who enjoy using ICT bring to the learning cont...

A teacher's job is to create an environment where our students' engagement in learning proceeds towards an intended direction. In order for this to occur, we must form a bridge between the teaching of material in the classroom and how the learning of that information is being processed and manipulated by our students. The only way we can do this effectively is through the process of assessment. Recent theoretical history on how to effectively establish and implement assessment strategies i...

There has been a recent focus on how practitioners can engage with continuing professional learning and development. This book is written to support and help busy social workers in front line practice, as well as those in leadership and management roles, to achieve the key aims of continuing professional development (CPD) in a post-qualifying social work context.There are sections on how to engage with CPD at an appropriate level, understanding complex thinking and practices and de...

Assessment in higher education is an area of intense current interest, not least due to its central role in student learning processes*. Excellence in University Assessment* is a pioneering text which contributes to the theory and practice of assessment through detailed discussion and analysis of award-winning teaching across multiple disciplines. It provides inspiration and strategies for higher education practitioners to improve their understanding and practice of assessment.The ...

The Department of Health requires students on the social work degree to undertake at least 200 days in direct practice learning during their course. Practice learning often raises great anxieties for students, agencies and those who supervise and assess it. This book tackles those anxieties, explaining the ways the experience can deliver a unique learning opportunity for the student. It is ideal for students undertaking or about to undertake practice learning, student supervisors and pract...

An ever-widening gap exists between how students and schools use communication technology. Using Network and Mobile Technology to Bridge Formal and Informal Learning introduces new methods (inspired by 'pedagogy 2.0') of harnessing the potential of communication technologies for teaching and learning. This book considers how attitudes towards network and mobile technology (NMT) gained outside the school can be shunted into new educational paradigms combining formal and informal learning pr...

Design Pedagogy explains why it is vital for design students that their education helps them construct a ’passport’ to enter the professional sphere. Recent research into design teaching has focused on its signature pedagogies, those elements which are particularly characteristic of the disciplines. Typically based on core design theory, enlivened by approaches imported to the area, such work has utility when it recognizes the visual language of designing, the media of representation used,...

Regardless of the field or discipline, technology is rapidly advancing, and individuals are faced with the challenge of adapting to these new innovations. To remain up-to-date on the current practices, teachers and administrators alike must constantly stay informed of the latest advances in their fields. Teacher Training and Professional Development: Concepts, Methodologies, Tools, and Applications contains a compendium of the latest academic material on the methods, skills, and techniques...

′Mike Lambert′s book is a useful source of information, helping to create and shape your research methods project. The book contains detailed chapters with easy to follow guidelines, tips and suggestions ensuring help at every step of the way from start to finish′Alexander Miesen, student, Amsterdam University of Applied SciencesIn this basic guide, step-by-step advice is presented in a clear way and chapters take the reader through the entire process, from ...