Overcoming barriers to using precision teaching with a web-based programme

Precision Teaching (PT) is an evidence-based intervention, which research indicates is frequently not implemented following training, with few teachers using it in schools after training events. The web-based programme in this research focuses on word-level reading skills and targets blending and segmenting skills rather than whole word reading. This research, undertaken with 10 schools, explored whether a web-based PT programme would provide favourable implementation rates, and support the fidelity of the programme delivery. The study also measured the impact of the PT programme on word decoding and sight word reading using the Test of Word Reading Efficiency. Results suggest favourable implementation rates with 7 of the 10 schools implementing the programme. Full impact data for 34 children suggest that the programme has a positive impact on decoding (effect size 0.7) and sight word reading skills (effect size 0.6). A timed assessment provides evidence that fluency improved as well as accuracy. Gains were sustained at two-month follow-up.     

论课程领导与学校角色转变

课程领导是一种不同于课程管理的新的管理观，在课程领导的背景下，传统学校的工具型组织角色已经不能满足其要求，由工具型组织走向学习型组织是课程领导下学校角色转换的必然要求。     

Linking student evaluations to institutional goals: a change story

For the past 30?years, beginning with the seminal work of Herbert Marsh in Australia and New Zealand, institutions of higher education have developed internal practices and procedures to collect and analyse student evaluations of teaching and learning. However, the question remains: has this development resulted in the achievement of institutional goals that maximise learning across all teaching contexts? As is the case in many other countries, a recent review of Australian national student evaluation data failed to conclude that student evaluations have improved overall teaching. However, these data have made student perceptions of teaching and learning more salient in the minds of tertiary educators. Certainly, teaching staff are aware of the impacts of student evaluations on informed decision-making, such as the continuation or discontinuation of courses, and on their promotion processes. This paper will review student evaluation practices according to criteria used in change theories, such as the transtheoretical change model (TTM). TTM construes organisational change as a process involving progress through a series of five stages: precontemplation, contemplation, preparation, action and maintenance. This paper will focus on organisational and behavioural outcomes that can be linked to the use of student data. It will recommend strategies for better aligning evaluation results to the stages of change.     

论普遍整合型社会福利体系

不同地区的养老服务供给既有一般性特点,也有其特殊性。关注“村改居”社区中的养老服务体系,以广州市为例,描述和分析其具有鲜明特点的城乡混合福利体系,通过系统调研发现,“村改居”社区中的养老服务供给主体呈多元化,这与纯粹的城市社区和标准的农村村庄显著不同。“村改居”社区中的养老服务供给主体包括维持养老保险运作的地方政府、农村集体经济组织、居委会、社工机构等。其中,前两者提供非常独特的服务,具有明显的“村改居”的独特性;后两者则体现出城市社区的一般性。这一多元混合体系的形成和演变具有本地化的路径依赖,以及自上而下和自下而上的变迁动力。     

Student perceptions of the situational,institutional, dispositional and epistemological barriers to persistence

Ethnography was used to elucidate barriers to completion in natural resource sciences distance education. The aim was to increase understanding of those variables associated with persistence and withdrawal, particularly to discern better the role of disciplinary content in these phenomena. The courses provide exemplars of epistemological stances that are broadly relevant. Both withdrawal and persisting students experienced situational, institutional, dispositional and epistemological problems that posed barriers to completion. Elucidation of the epistemological problems makes it evident that course content itself cannot be ignored in any theoretical or practical consideration of distance education attrition.     

Faculty perspectives on programme curricular assessment: individual and institutional characteristics that influence participation engagement

Driven by issues of accountability, the assessment movement in higher education has gained significant momentum in recent years. However, successful implementation of assessment processes varies radically across institutions. A key issue is faculty engagement. This qualitative inquiry explored factors that impact faculty participation in a professional school assessment initiative in North America. Findings indicate that faculty knowledge, beliefs and attitudes toward assessment, and their perception of leadership, resources and work environment, interact with their decision to engage. Moreover, goal congruence between faculty and educational organisation affects behaviour regarding degree of engagement in programme and curricular assessment. Recommendations for creating a culture of assessment are highlighted.     

The effect of curricular reform on gross anatomy laboratory examination performance: An institutional analysis

Many medical schools have undergone curricular reform recently. With these reforms, time spent teaching anatomy has been reduced, and there has been a general shift to a pass/fail grading system. At Indiana University School of Medicine (IUSM), a new curriculum was implemented in fall 2016. The year-long human gross anatomy course taught in 2015 was condensed into an integrated, semester-long course starting in 2016. Additionally, the grading scale shifted to pass/fail. This study examined first-year medical student performance on anatomy practical laboratory examinations—specifically, among lower-order (pure identification) questions and higher-order (function, innervation) questions. Participants included medical students from a pre-curricular reform cohort (year 2015, 34 students) and two post-curricular reform cohorts (years 2016, 30 students and 2017, 33 students). A Kruskal–Wallis ANOVA test was used to determine differences of these questions among the three cohorts. Additionally, 40 of the same lower-order questions that were asked on gross anatomy laboratory examinations from medical student cohort year 2015 and year 2016 were further analyzed using an independent samples t-test. Results demonstrated that the pre-curricular reform cohort scored significantly higher on both lower-order (median = 81, p < 0.001) and higher-order questions (median = 82.5, p < 0.05) than both post-curricular reform cohorts. Additionally, when reviewing the selected 40 similar questions, it was found that the pre-curricular reform cohort averaged significantly higher (82.1 ± 16.1) than the post-curricular reform cohort from 2016 (69.3 ± 21.8, p = 0.004). This study provides evidence about the impact of curricular reform on medical student anatomical knowledge.     

From raising awareness to curricular change: moving towards equal opportunities in the secondary school

Schools are currently being asked to be in competition with each other and collaborate at the same time. The 1988 Education Reform Act and the Technical and Vocational Initiative (TVEI) seem to be promoting conflicting models of school development. This paper looks at the background to these policies and investigates how one TVEI cluster is responding to the challenge. The methodology includes the use of transcribed interviews and a reduction/display analysis method. The resulting conclusions show a great deal of support for collaborative ventures, but not a total rejection of competition. Other findings relate to cluster management and the effects of the nearby city technology college.     

西藏学前教育制度变迁研究

学前教育对于社会个体在人生初期的发展、以及民族和地区教育教学质量度的提高都具有重要的现实意义。影响西藏学前教育发展的两个关键历史事件事件是民主改革和改革开放。因此民主改革和改革开放可视作西藏学前教育发展的转折点,西藏的民主改革使西藏产生了正规的学前教育机构,随后虽然经历了人民公社时期的曲折发展,但在改革开放后,西藏的学前教育又走向了制度化发展阶段。本文主要探讨了西藏学前教育制度的变迁。     

Widening participation in higher education with a view to implementing institutional change

In this research informed perspective, I discuss some of the barriers students face during progression to higher education. A crucial role can be played by higher education institutions (HEIs) and other public bodies. I discuss some of the measures taken and critically evaluate these to show how these can be improved. In the absence of a centralised admission system and autonomy exercised by HEIs, it is not clear yet how these targets will be achieved. HEFCE and OFFA play a vital role, but there is further scope towards addressing equality and diversity. This paper discusses some of the ways forward.     

Universities and sustainable development: the necessity for barriers to change

In June 2015, the Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE) proposed a lighter touch quality assessment regime that would place greater reliance on institutions' own governance arrangements. In July 2015 the Minister for Higher Education announced a Teaching Excellence Framework (TEF) parts of which appear inconsistent with HEFCE's proposals. In August the Quality Assurance Agency for Higher Education (QAA) responded to HEFCE's proposals envisaging some developments to its present quality assessment arrangements. This article analyses the key issues and principles that will supposedly govern the design of a new quality assessment regime from 2017. It proposes points of reference against which to evaluate the proposals for that new regime; these are whether the approach to review that is adopted: a) differentiates between institutions on the basis of their capacities to manage their responsibilities; b) shows the regulator's willingness to trust institutions to discharge their responsibilities (with verification) and willingness by institutions to accept their responsibilities; c) adopts an approach to risk and its management that is forward-looking and enables pre-emptive actions to forestall negative outcomes; and d) makes greater use of metrics that are interpreted by experts qualified to make judgements on academic matters.     

Academic restructuring: Organizational change and institutional imperatives

A perennial challenge for universities and colleges isto keep pace with knowledge change by reconsideringtheir structural and resource commitments to variousknowledge areas. Reflecting upon changes in theacademic landscape of public higher education in theUnited States over the past quarter of a century, theauthor diagnoses a macro-trend whereby the dominantlegitimating idea of public higher education haschanged from higher education as a social institutionto higher education as an industry. Threeinterrelated mechanisms are identified as havingadvanced this process: academic management, academicconsumerism, and academic stratification.This pattern of academic restructuring reflects multiple institutional pressures. Whilepublic universities and colleges have increasinglycome to rely on market discourse and managerialapproaches in order to demonstrate responsiveness toeconomic exigencies, they may end up losing legitimacyas they move away from their historical character,functions, and accumulated heritage as educationalinstitutions. Thus, responsiveness to compellingeconomic pressures that dominate contemporaryorganizational imperatives in an attempt to gainlegitimacy in one dimension may result in loss for another.Wholesale adaptation to market pressures and managerialrationales could thereby subsume thediscourse about the future of colleges anduniversities within a logic of economic rationality ata detriment to the longer-term educational legaciesand democratic interests that have long characterizedAmerican public education.     

Restless teachers and institutional support for change 1

For the past 12 years the Panel on Research and Development of Instructional Resources of the Committee on Instructional Cooperation (CIC) has published an annual compendium of selected instructional/curricular changes in the Big Ten universities. A content analysis of 398 project summaries is the basis for the interpretive evaluations given in this article. College teaching is more varied than in former years and the discipline teacher generally needs professional assistance in the design of a project and in working out the procedures for evaluation. The position is taken that the resource structure of the university is more out of line with the demands of the time than is the reward structure.     

Addressing first- and second-order barriers to change: Strategies for technology integration

Although teachers today recognize the importance of integrating technology into their curricula, efforts are often limited by both external (first-order) and internal (second-order) barriers. Traditionally, technology training, for both preservice and inservice teachers, has focused on helping teachers overcome first-order barriers (e.g., acquiring technical skills needed to operate a computer). More recently, training programs have incorporated pedagogical models of technology use as one means of addressing second-order barriers. However, little discussion has occurred that clarifies the relationship between these different types of barriers or that delineates effective strategies for addressing different barriers. If pre- and inservice teachers are to become effective users of technology, they will need practical strategies for dealing with the different types of barriers they will face. In this paper, I discuss the relationship between first- and second-order barriers and then describe specific strategies for circumventing, overcoming, and eliminating the changing barriers teachers face as they work to achieve technology integration.     

Overcoming the barriers of distance: using mobile technology to facilitate moderation and best practice in initial teacher training

This case study describes the development process of a model using readily-available technology to facilitate collaboration, moderation and the dissemination of best practice in initial teacher training in the UK. Students, mentors, tutors and external examiners from a number of educational institutions in a UK, higher education-led Lifelong Learning Sector partnership (LLS) participated. The study explored the extent to which using group video-conferencing software and tablet computing had the potential to model best practice in giving feedback to students, in the setting of targets and in the joint observations of mentors and tutors based in separate institutions. A further area of investigation was the impact of the technology on the observation and moderation of teaching practice by external examiners. The study found that participants could identify a wide range of advantages of using the technology and also some disadvantages. The impact of the study was measured qualitatively via the students’ professional development record (PDR). The challenges involved in undertaking a multi-site study requiring Wi-Fi connectivity and involving participants from several institutions are described. The introduction of key information sets (KISs) related to employability creates an urgent need for HEIs to develop measures which enhance the employment prospects of all students.     

Achieving agri-environmental policy outcomes using models of institutional change

Abstract

Institutions involved in public policy and technological innovation are concerned with processes that influence the behaviour of people. This paper reports on research in the New Zealand dairy industry that is seeking to develop improved process models for managing change in a range of policy, industry and business contexts. The Practice Interplay Model was used to evaluate mediating methods for negotiating environmental and production outcomes within the context of a farm dairy effluent management case study. Significant misalignments between research, farming, extension and policy practitioners' expectations and perceptions of factors required for effective farm dairy effluent management were found. The combination of interactive workshops linked to quantitative verification and testing and follow-up interviews enabled a depth of investigation that was rich in information yet cost-effective in terms of research resources. The process used identified opportunities to change the actions of system participants and alignment between them. It enabled strategies to be agreed that would continually improve and strengthen the process of change. Further development and application of the Practice Interplay Model to policy problems, including the ongoing development of tools and techniques used within the methodology, has the potential to break though into a new policy-development paradigm in New Zealand.