I was a classroom teacher for 23 years, for the last 14 of these I worked half time at Monash university, I then worked full time at Monash for 18 years. I co-founded and led the 30 year long Project for Enhancing Effective Learning (PEEL) which became a network of thousands of teacher researchers in hundreds of schools working to improve how their students were learning.
International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education, 2003
... Without her story, the difficulty did not resonate with practice and so was uninteresting. Ho... more ... Without her story, the difficulty did not resonate with practice and so was uninteresting. However, the exception again was Rachael she recalled Kerry's story clearly and was interested in the statements just discussed. ... Page 12. 864 JOHN LOUGHRAN ET AL. ...
... Much has been written about PEEL (eg Mitchell & Baird, 1985, 1986; Baird & Mitchell, ... more ... Much has been written about PEEL (eg Mitchell & Baird, 1985, 1986; Baird & Mitchell, 1986; Baird et al, 1987; Mitchell, 1989, 1994; Baird & Northfield, 1992; Loughran, 1999), but although the project has involved teachers in collaborative action research, it has generated only a ...
This paper reports the first term's progress of an aetion research projeet at a lVle... more This paper reports the first term's progress of an aetion research projeet at a lVlelbourn tligh Sehoo[ where the first author teaehes part-time. The projeet applies more ~'idely earlier work of the seeond author. In this work, Baird identifieda range of r~oor learning strategies ...
The current round of basic education curriculum reform in China is considered by many to be the m... more The current round of basic education curriculum reform in China is considered by many to be the most radical and wide-reaching. However, very little is known about education reform at the school level. Here we document and discuss some of the challenges and ...
... as a way to consider children's' learning of science, in particular the writings of... more ... as a way to consider children's' learning of science, in particular the writings of Driver (Driver, Guesne, & Tiberghien, 1985), Osborne (Osborne & Freyberg ... Stephanie and Siobhan were students who had not really grasped the concepts of changes in state or the new vocabulary ...
... Baird and Mitchell (1986) describe the teacher's experiences in the first year of th... more ... Baird and Mitchell (1986) describe the teacher's experiences in the first year of the project, andBaird and Northfield (1992) the products and insights gained from it to date. ... Research in Science Education, 20, 11-20. BAIRD, JR, & MITCHELL, IJ (Eds.). (1986). ...
International Handbook of Self-Study of Teaching and Teacher Education Practices, 2004
The origins of this chapter lie in persistent reports of di3culties that proposals for practition... more The origins of this chapter lie in persistent reports of di3culties that proposals for practitioner research in education encounter with institutional review boards (IRB) and the frustration of teacher researchers at the inappropriateness of the ethical protocols for their genre of research. The discussion is restricted to what is defined as insider research and to the ethical issues associated with IRB processes. The chapter analyses the ethical issues in different forms of practitioner research in education and contrasts these with those that are important in the bio-medical domain in which many standard protocols originate. The starting point for this analysis is the ethical parameters that already exist in the workplace of teachers and teacher educators. These provide a basis for a discussion of consent issues that facilitates decisions about what should and should not be part of the consent process. The discussion considers separately the ethics associated with the intervention, data collection and data reporting phases of practitioner research. In most cases, the ethical problems and dilemmas are associated with the last of these. The chapter concludes with a set of questions designed to provide a framework for decision-making in this area.
Edproj, a project team of faculty from the departments of computer science, software development ... more Edproj, a project team of faculty from the departments of computer science, software development and education at Monash University (Australia) investigated the quality of teaching and student learning and understanding in the computer science and software development departments. Edproj's research led to the development of a training program to prepare postgraduate students for their role as teachers. Budget cuts led to the development of the Tutor Training Program, which began in 1996 with the following objectives: (1) to share teaching techniques; (2) to improve tutors' teaching skills; (3) to make tutors aware of the main ideas put forward in lectures; (4) to increase the level of student participation; and (5) to promote tertiary level study skills. The Tutor Training Program drew on the experience gained from Edproj's research in the previous year, which led to insights into barriers to student learning, a bank of strategies for promoting better learning, and a fun...
Summary There are already a number of important criteria upon which topics for inclusion in scie... more Summary There are already a number of important criteria upon which topics for inclusion in science curricula should be selected and sequenced. We have recommended two additional criteria: the topic's potential for effecting conceptual change, and its potential for generating metacognitive training. Among other things, Science curricula should foster intellectual development. Such development is often a slow process of change, where
... insights and dilemmas from a collaborative practicum project Gaalen Erickson, Jolie Mayer-Smi... more ... insights and dilemmas from a collaborative practicum project Gaalen Erickson, Jolie Mayer-Smith and Alberto Rodriguez, University of British Columbia, Peter Chin, Queen's University, Canada,Ian Mitchell, Monash University, Australia ... In D. Schön (Ed) The Reflective Turn. ...
International Conference on Computers in Education, 2002
In most introductory programming courses tasks are given to students to complete as a crucial par... more In most introductory programming courses tasks are given to students to complete as a crucial part of their study. In this paper, a set of guiding principles is presented for designing programming tasks aimed to elicit metacognitive behaviours in first year students. The main source of data gathered for this study is provided by first year programming students that studied
The current round of basic education curriculum reform in China is considered by many to be the m... more The current round of basic education curriculum reform in China is considered by many to be the most radical and wide-reaching. However, very little is known about education reform at the school level. Here we document and discuss some of the challenges and ...
DESCRIPTION Paper presented at the Australasian Science Education Research Association Annual Con... more DESCRIPTION Paper presented at the Australasian Science Education Research Association Annual Conference, (July 2014). Melbourne, Victoria. Abstract In 2007 a team from Monash developed the Science Continuum to connect teachers with research on students’ prior views in many science topics. One aspect of this was the development of “critical teaching ideas” that often reworked what came from the domain into forms that were more sensitive to common prior views. This construct informed a collaborative action research group of teachers who set out to explore how teachers sharing their pedagogical purposes with their students could facilitate more metacognitive learning. Sharing pedagogical purposes thus included developing and sharing “Big Ideas” and building students conceptions of and support for the idea that there was always one or more big ideas linking and providing purposes for classroom activities. The teachers developed big ideas and key skills about content, about their domain...
DESCRIPTION Paper presented at the Australasian Science Education Research Association Annual Con... more DESCRIPTION Paper presented at the Australasian Science Education Research Association Annual Conference, (July 2014). Melbourne, Victoria. Abstract In an era of Standards and teacher accountability, the question of how to determine pedagogical expertise has become all the more important. Shulman introduced the construct of pedagogical reasoning to describe teachers’ thinking as they plan and reflect on ways of making content material pedagogically powerful. His work is much cited, but rich descriptions and analyses of the pedagogical reasoning of expert (as distinct from merely experienced) teachers are rare. This session reports issues and early data from a new project in this area. The project has had two stages, both involving collaborative teacher research. A pilot project, involving teachers skilled at promoting metacognition, revealed that the teachers’ pedagogical reasoning involved a constant interplay between (at least) four foci, framing and sequencing “big ideas”, genera...
International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education, 2003
... Without her story, the difficulty did not resonate with practice and so was uninteresting. Ho... more ... Without her story, the difficulty did not resonate with practice and so was uninteresting. However, the exception again was Rachael she recalled Kerry's story clearly and was interested in the statements just discussed. ... Page 12. 864 JOHN LOUGHRAN ET AL. ...
... Much has been written about PEEL (eg Mitchell & Baird, 1985, 1986; Baird & Mitchell, ... more ... Much has been written about PEEL (eg Mitchell & Baird, 1985, 1986; Baird & Mitchell, 1986; Baird et al, 1987; Mitchell, 1989, 1994; Baird & Northfield, 1992; Loughran, 1999), but although the project has involved teachers in collaborative action research, it has generated only a ...
This paper reports the first term's progress of an aetion research projeet at a lVle... more This paper reports the first term's progress of an aetion research projeet at a lVlelbourn tligh Sehoo[ where the first author teaehes part-time. The projeet applies more ~'idely earlier work of the seeond author. In this work, Baird identifieda range of r~oor learning strategies ...
The current round of basic education curriculum reform in China is considered by many to be the m... more The current round of basic education curriculum reform in China is considered by many to be the most radical and wide-reaching. However, very little is known about education reform at the school level. Here we document and discuss some of the challenges and ...
... as a way to consider children's' learning of science, in particular the writings of... more ... as a way to consider children's' learning of science, in particular the writings of Driver (Driver, Guesne, & Tiberghien, 1985), Osborne (Osborne & Freyberg ... Stephanie and Siobhan were students who had not really grasped the concepts of changes in state or the new vocabulary ...
... Baird and Mitchell (1986) describe the teacher's experiences in the first year of th... more ... Baird and Mitchell (1986) describe the teacher's experiences in the first year of the project, andBaird and Northfield (1992) the products and insights gained from it to date. ... Research in Science Education, 20, 11-20. BAIRD, JR, & MITCHELL, IJ (Eds.). (1986). ...
International Handbook of Self-Study of Teaching and Teacher Education Practices, 2004
The origins of this chapter lie in persistent reports of di3culties that proposals for practition... more The origins of this chapter lie in persistent reports of di3culties that proposals for practitioner research in education encounter with institutional review boards (IRB) and the frustration of teacher researchers at the inappropriateness of the ethical protocols for their genre of research. The discussion is restricted to what is defined as insider research and to the ethical issues associated with IRB processes. The chapter analyses the ethical issues in different forms of practitioner research in education and contrasts these with those that are important in the bio-medical domain in which many standard protocols originate. The starting point for this analysis is the ethical parameters that already exist in the workplace of teachers and teacher educators. These provide a basis for a discussion of consent issues that facilitates decisions about what should and should not be part of the consent process. The discussion considers separately the ethics associated with the intervention, data collection and data reporting phases of practitioner research. In most cases, the ethical problems and dilemmas are associated with the last of these. The chapter concludes with a set of questions designed to provide a framework for decision-making in this area.
Edproj, a project team of faculty from the departments of computer science, software development ... more Edproj, a project team of faculty from the departments of computer science, software development and education at Monash University (Australia) investigated the quality of teaching and student learning and understanding in the computer science and software development departments. Edproj's research led to the development of a training program to prepare postgraduate students for their role as teachers. Budget cuts led to the development of the Tutor Training Program, which began in 1996 with the following objectives: (1) to share teaching techniques; (2) to improve tutors' teaching skills; (3) to make tutors aware of the main ideas put forward in lectures; (4) to increase the level of student participation; and (5) to promote tertiary level study skills. The Tutor Training Program drew on the experience gained from Edproj's research in the previous year, which led to insights into barriers to student learning, a bank of strategies for promoting better learning, and a fun...
Summary There are already a number of important criteria upon which topics for inclusion in scie... more Summary There are already a number of important criteria upon which topics for inclusion in science curricula should be selected and sequenced. We have recommended two additional criteria: the topic's potential for effecting conceptual change, and its potential for generating metacognitive training. Among other things, Science curricula should foster intellectual development. Such development is often a slow process of change, where
... insights and dilemmas from a collaborative practicum project Gaalen Erickson, Jolie Mayer-Smi... more ... insights and dilemmas from a collaborative practicum project Gaalen Erickson, Jolie Mayer-Smith and Alberto Rodriguez, University of British Columbia, Peter Chin, Queen's University, Canada,Ian Mitchell, Monash University, Australia ... In D. Schön (Ed) The Reflective Turn. ...
International Conference on Computers in Education, 2002
In most introductory programming courses tasks are given to students to complete as a crucial par... more In most introductory programming courses tasks are given to students to complete as a crucial part of their study. In this paper, a set of guiding principles is presented for designing programming tasks aimed to elicit metacognitive behaviours in first year students. The main source of data gathered for this study is provided by first year programming students that studied
The current round of basic education curriculum reform in China is considered by many to be the m... more The current round of basic education curriculum reform in China is considered by many to be the most radical and wide-reaching. However, very little is known about education reform at the school level. Here we document and discuss some of the challenges and ...
DESCRIPTION Paper presented at the Australasian Science Education Research Association Annual Con... more DESCRIPTION Paper presented at the Australasian Science Education Research Association Annual Conference, (July 2014). Melbourne, Victoria. Abstract In 2007 a team from Monash developed the Science Continuum to connect teachers with research on students’ prior views in many science topics. One aspect of this was the development of “critical teaching ideas” that often reworked what came from the domain into forms that were more sensitive to common prior views. This construct informed a collaborative action research group of teachers who set out to explore how teachers sharing their pedagogical purposes with their students could facilitate more metacognitive learning. Sharing pedagogical purposes thus included developing and sharing “Big Ideas” and building students conceptions of and support for the idea that there was always one or more big ideas linking and providing purposes for classroom activities. The teachers developed big ideas and key skills about content, about their domain...
DESCRIPTION Paper presented at the Australasian Science Education Research Association Annual Con... more DESCRIPTION Paper presented at the Australasian Science Education Research Association Annual Conference, (July 2014). Melbourne, Victoria. Abstract In an era of Standards and teacher accountability, the question of how to determine pedagogical expertise has become all the more important. Shulman introduced the construct of pedagogical reasoning to describe teachers’ thinking as they plan and reflect on ways of making content material pedagogically powerful. His work is much cited, but rich descriptions and analyses of the pedagogical reasoning of expert (as distinct from merely experienced) teachers are rare. This session reports issues and early data from a new project in this area. The project has had two stages, both involving collaborative teacher research. A pilot project, involving teachers skilled at promoting metacognition, revealed that the teachers’ pedagogical reasoning involved a constant interplay between (at least) four foci, framing and sequencing “big ideas”, genera...
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Papers by Ian Mitchell