Book Reviews

Perceptions of the role and efficacy of written feedback in teaching and learning among teaching staff in British higher education institutions have not been extensively researched. In the present study 48 lecturers in one university and from a cross-section of disciplinary backgrounds were interviewed with respect to their lived experiences with writing assessment feedback. Like most universities, theirs has a stated commitment to academic excellence by, among other things, ensuring timely and useful feedback on assignments. The findings suggest, however, that institutional policies and departmental practices related to formative assessment in this respect are not having the intended effect. Teachers have varied perceptions and beliefs about the purposes of written feedback, and are uncertain about what it achieves and what use students make of it. Far from enhancing written feedback, innovative practices and procedures have created new problems for teachers. There is a clear need for continuing research in this area.     

Book Reviews

The following books are reviewed.     

Book Reviews

Abstract

This article reports on the distribution of the use of graphic calculators over the whole secondary school population in a Local Education Authority (LEA) in the United Kingdom. Quantitative and qualitative census data on the extent and nature of graphic calculator use have been obtained. A feature of this project is in the use of a teacher research team to gather data naturalistically. This work was designed to augment previous work in this area by providing census details for an entire LEA and by including reasons why graphic calculators are not used. The authors found that the key factors which contributed to use were: expertise within mathematics departments; regard for graphic calculators as learning aides from mathematics staff and as information and communication technology from senior staff; a ‘critical mass’ of older/higher attaining students. Key factors which inhibited use of graphic calculators were: lack of time to learn how to use the calculator and how to teach with it; concern over recent examination restrictions; perceptions of computers being a resource priority     

Book Reviews

Books reviewed:
Catherine Marshall, Feminist Critical Policy Analysis: a perspective from post secondary education
John Elliott, The Curriculum Experiment: meeting the challenge of social change
Nicola Yelland, Gender in Early Childhood
Christine Tilstone, Lani Florian and Richard Rose, Promoting Inclusive Practice
Stanislas Dehaena, The Number Sense. How the Mind Creates Mathematics
Geoffrey Walford (ed), Doing Research about Education
Andrew Sturman, Social Justice in Education
Reynold Macpherson, Jim Cibulka, Ken Wong and David Monk, (eds), The Politics of Accountability: educative and international perspectives
Rob Halsall, Teacher Research and School Improvement
Tony Booth and Mel Ainscow (eds), From Them to Us: an international study of inclusive education
Carrie Paechter Educating the other: gender, power, and schooling
Keith Sullivan (ed), Education and change in the Pacific Rim: meeting the challenges     

Book Reviews

Abstract

Educators have invested considerable effort in developing environmental education programs that address students' knowledge, attitudes, and action competence regarding environmental issues. The authors explore the effectiveness of such programs in terms of both student learning outcomes and the intergenerational influence that results when students discuss their learning experiences with their parents and other community members. Six environmental education programs involving 284 students in Queensland schools, from Grades 5-12, were investigated. Students and their parents were surveyed and interviewed regarding their perceptions about the program, the program's influence on their environmental learning, and the extent and nature of discussions that the program stimulated between students and their parents. The authors draw conclusions about key features that should be incorporated into environmental education programs to encourage and empower students to bring about environmental change in their homes and communities.     

Book Reviews

Mentors responsible for student primary teachers on school placement were asked about the qualities they expected to see in their trainees. The key finding from an analysis of their responses was that although they were concerned with abilities relating to planning and teaching, the majority of responses were to do with student teachers’ personal attributes. Evidence from this small‐scale survey suggested that mentors believed that unless certain personal qualities and attitudes were present in student teachers, the process of teaching‐and‐learning was unlikely to be effective, however well planned and executed it was. The virtue of ‘being willing’ figured particularly strongly in mentors’ replies, raising difficult questions about the significance of relationships, character, and personality as determinants in teaching effectiveness. The implications for student teachers’ professional growth in demonstrating willingness through their positive response to mentors’ advice form a key element of the article.     

Book Reviews

Increased awareness and improved tests have contributed to the identification of rising numbers of dyslexic students entering higher education in the United Kingdom. Nearly half of these students are not diagnosed until they start their HE courses. Studies of experiences of dyslexic students diagnosed as children exist; however, there is little comparable information on dyslexic students diagnosed as adults.

This qualitative study explores the experiences of six students diagnosed with dyslexia after starting their Masters degrees. Their personal accounts were analysed using thematic analysis. The major themes identified were: ? Distress

? Self-doubt

? Embarrassment

? Frustration

? Relief

? Confidence

? Motivation

The findings revealed that being diagnosed with dyslexia as an adult can be cathartic or devastating depending on the individual’s current emotional status and personality. However, as they develop a deeper understanding of what dyslexia means and how it affects them as individuals, the diagnosis becomes a liberating revelation. Once the label is accepted, the individual can embrace the change in lifestyle that the diagnosis necessitates. This study provides a deeper understanding of the consequences of a late diagnosis and highlights the need for management approaches to be individually tailored to specific needs.     

Book Reviews

ABSTRACT

This article focuses on primary teachers’ beliefs about teaching and learning and in particular about their preferred ways of teaching; how they integrate National Curriculum requirements into their teaching programmes and their views about stereotyped ‘models’ of pedagogy. The authors conclude that learning and teaching are understood as highly complex and cannot be subsumed under one particular model. They suggest that most primary school teachers adopt an eclectic approach, but that frequently they are confused about the content of the mix or which approach might be most appropriately used in any particular context.     

Book Reviews

ABSTRACT

Student foundational knowledge of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) is formed in their elementary education. Paradoxically, many elementary teachers have constrained background knowledge, confidence, and efficacy for teaching STEM that may hamper student STEM learning. The association between teacher preparation to teach STEM and student achievement in STEM motivated the authors' professional development program. The authors created and implemented a professional development program to address K–5 teacher confidence for, attitudes toward, knowledge of, and efficacy for teaching inquiry-based STEM. Using data from 2 independent cohorts the authors found significant and consistent increases in pre- to postinstitute assessments of teacher confidence, efficacy, and perceptions of STEM. Further, they found increased participant attention toward linking STEM curriculum and instruction to learning standards. Implications and suggestions for future research are discussed.     

Book Reviews

The present study explored the relationships of preservice teachers’ levels of commitment to teaching and their beliefs and perceptions of teaching as a career. Participants were undergraduate students enrolled in a teacher education program at a major university in the southeast. Sixty‐seven preservice teachers completed a survey in which they rated the importance of 20 factors for influencing their choice of career. Additionally, among the survey respondents, nine students were selected from three groups of preservice teachers for in‐depth interviews: (1) students who were currently considering teaching as a career choice, (2) students who were undecided about their future teaching career, and (3) students who were no longer considering teaching as a career. Overall, findings from this study revealed that preservice teachers’ understanding of their goal of becoming teachers and interpretations of their motivation for teaching were unique, yet the types of influences on their career choices were similar across participants’ stories.     

Book Reviews

Abstract

This study was designed to determine the value of the Southern Region Cooperative Extension Program Leadership Network in the United States. Of particular interest was determining the value added by the network for individual extension administrators, their state organizations, and the southern region. The researchers conducted a series of focus groups and an electronic survey of the members of the Southern Region Cooperative Extension Program Leadership Network to determine the value of the network. The Program Leadership Network was found to provide great value for the vast majority of study participants at the individual, team, and organizational levels. This value included enhancing individual performance, encouraging critical thinking, catalyzing best practices, providing opportunities for leadership and skill development, enhancing the relationship between extension programmes, and serving as a think tank for regional and national initiatives. Extension and programme administrators in other regions and countries should examine leadership networks to determine if they are adding value to extension work. Development of a network similar to the Southern Region Cooperative Extension Program Leadership Network could improve individual, team, and organizational effectiveness. This is especially true for enhancing multistate, regional, and national programming. Extension systems and workers will find value in this study since the results indicate that networking of extension workers enhances personal, team, and organizational performance. A secondary value includes the increased number of multistate, regional, and national coordination of extension programming efforts.     

Book Reviews

Ronald Barnett and Anne Griffin (eds), The End of Knowledge in Higher Education
Donald McIntyre (ed), Teacher Education Research in a New Context, The Oxford Internship Scheme
Alan C. Kerckhoff, Ken Fogeiman, David Crook and David Reader, Going Comprehensive in England and Wales, A Study of Uneven Change
Paul Dowling, The Sociology of Mathematics Education: Mathematical Myths/Pedagogic Texts
Gary Thomas, David Walker and Julie Webb, The Making of the Inclusive School
Joan Stephenson, Lorraine Ling, Eva Burman and Maxine Cooper, Values in Education
Pat Sikes and Fazai Rizvi (eds), Researching Race and Social Justice in Education: Essays in Honour of Barry Troyna
David Hartley, Re-Schooling Society
Paul Black, Testing: Friend or Foe? Theory and Practice of Assessment and Testing
The Hillcole Group, Rethinking Education and Democracy: A Socialist Alternative for the Twenty-first Century
Peter Woods, Bob Jeffrey, Geoff Troman and Mari Boyle, Restructuring Schools, Reconstructing Teachers
Carol Hayden, Children Excluded from Primary School
Roger Crombie White, Curiculum Innovation: A Celebration of Classroom Practice
Audrey Osler, The Education and Careers of Black Teachers: Changing Identities, Changing Lives
Leonard Bickman and Debra J. Rog (eds), Handbook of Applied Social Research Methods
Tom Douglas, Change, Intervention and Consequence: An Exploration of the Process of Intended Change
Tony Edwards, Carol Taylor Fitz-Gibbon, Frank Hardman, Roy Haywood and Nick Meagher, Separate but Equal? A Levels and GNVQs     

Book Reviews

Whitman. By Edgar Lee Masters. Charles Scribner's Sons. 342 pp. $3.50.

Curriculum Guides for Teachers of Children from Two to Six Years of Age. By Ruth Andrus and Associates. Reynal and Hitchcock. 299 pp. $2.50.

Education and the Class Struggle. By Zalmen Slesinger. Covici-Friede. 312 pp. $3.00.

Educational Psychology. Edited by Charles E. Skinner. Prentice-Hall, Inc. 754 PP- $3.00.

High School English, Books One, Two, Three. By Henry Seidel Canby, Olive I. Carter, and Helen Louise Miller. The Macmillan Co. 337, 413, and 494 pp. $1.00.

Introduction to Modern Views of Education. By W. A. Saucier. Ginn and Company. 490 pp. $2.00.

Principles of Modern Education. By Frank W. Thomas and Albert R. Lang. Houghton Mifflin Co. 340 pp. $2.25.

Public Discussion and Debate. By A. Craig Baird. Ginn and Co. 400 pp. $2.00. Revised Edition.

Teaching Purposes and Their Achievement. By L. John Nuttall. Charles Scribner's Sons. 290 pp. $1.80.

The Beginning Superintendent. By Frederick E. Bolton, Thomas R. Cole and John H. Jessup. Illustrated. The Macmillan Co. 613 pp. $4.00.

The New Culture: An Organic Philosophy of Education. By A. Gordon Melvin. Illustrated. Reynal and Hitchcock. 296 pp. $3.50.

The Small High School at Work. By R. Emerson Langfitt, Frank W. Cyr, and N. William Newsom. The American Book Company. 660 pp. $2.75.

The Social Functions of Education. By Robert M. Bear. The Macmillan Co. 434 pp. $2.25.

A Woman of Washington. By Cornelius Vanderbilt, Jr. E. P. Dutton and Company. 282 pp. $2.00.

I Was a Probationer. By Corinne Johnson Kern. E. P. Dutton & Co. 314 pp. $2.50.

The Street of the Fishing Cat. By Jolan Foldes. Farrar and Rinchart. 308 pp. $2.50.

A Southern Treasury of Life and Literature. By Stark Young. Charles Scribner's Sons. 748 pp. $1.48.

Grand Tour. Edited by R. S. Lambert. Illustrated. E. P. Dutton and Co. 167 pp. $2.50.

Monticello and Other Poems. By Lawrence Lee. Charles Scribner's Sons. 92 pp. $2.00.

The Sixteenth Century. By Charles Oman. E. P. Dutton and Co. 247 pp. $3.00.

The Magic World of Music. By Olga Samaroff Stokowski. Illustrated. W. W. Norton. 197 pp. $2.50.

The Concept of Time. By Louise Robinson Heath. The University of Chicago Press. 236 pp. $3.00.

Fifty Million Brothers. A Panorama of Lodges and Clubs by Charles W. Ferguson. Farrar and Rinehart. 389 pp. $3.00.

Mobilizing for Chaos. The Story of the New Propaganda. Yale University Press. 231 pp. $2.50.     

Book Reviews

Handwrought Ancestors. By Marion Nicholl Rawson. Illustrated by the author. E. P. Dutton and Company. 366 pp. $5.00.

Brookings. By Hermann Hagedorn. Illustrated. The Macmillan Co. 334 pp. $3.50.

Death Valley Prospectors. By Dane Coolidge. Illustrated. E. P. Dutton and Co. 178 pp. $2.50.

Her Name Was Wallis Warfield. By Edwina H. Wilson. Illustrated. E. P. Dutton and Co. 117 pp. $1.50.

Pascal. By Morris Bishop. Illustrated. Reynal and Hitchcock. 398 pp. $3.50.

The Lives of Talleyrand. By Crane Brinton. Illustrated. W. W. Norton. 316 pp. $3.00.

The Man Who Built San Francisco. By Julian Dana. The Macmillan Company. 397 pp. $3.50.

A Student's History of Education. Revised Edition. By Frank P. Graves. The Macmillan Co. 567 pp. $2.50.

Bibliographies and Summaries in Education to July, 1935. By Walter S. Monroe and Louis Shores. The H. W. Wilson Company. 470 pp. $4.50.

Educational Psychology. Edited by Charles E. Skinner. Prentice Hall. 754 pp. $3.50.

Educational Statistics. By M. E. Broom. American Book Company. 318 pp.

Foundations of Curriculum Building. By John K. Norton and Margaret Alltucker Norton. Ginn and Company. 599 pp. $3.00

Remedial and Corrective Instruction in Reading. By James Maurice McCallister. D. Appleton-Century. 300 pp.

Schools for a Growing Democracy. By James S. Tippett, in Collaboration with the Committee of the Parker School District, Greenville, South Carolina. Ginn and Company. 338 pp. $2.00.

The Foundations of Modern Education. By Elmer Harrison Wilds. Farrar and Rinehart, Inc. 634 pp. $2.75.

The Ideal School. By B. B. Bogoslovsky. The Macmillan Company. 525 pp. $2.50.

The Marks of Examiners. By Sir Philip Harteg, E. C. Rhodes, and Cyril Burt. Macmillan and Company, Ltd. 344 pp. 8s 6d.

The Young Child in the Home. By John E. Anderson. D. Appleton-Century Company. 415 pp. $3.00.

Honourable Estate. By Vera Brittain. The Macmillan Company. 601 pp. $2.50.

Gaily the Troubadour. By Arthur Guiterman. E. P. Dutton and Company. 224 pp. $2.00.

Pamela's Daughters. By Robert Palfrey Utter and Gwendolyn Bridges Needham. The Macmillan Co. 479 pp. $3.50

A History of England. By C. E. Carrington and J. Hampden Jackson. The Macmillan Company. 803 pp. $2.40.

A New American History. By W. E. Woodward. Farrar and Reinhart. 900 pp. $4.00.

From Alley Pond to Rockefeller Center. By Henry Collins Brown. Illustrated. E. P. Dutton and Company. 299 pp. $3.50.

The Philosophy of Santayana. Selections from the Complete Works. Edited by Irwin Edman. Charles Scribner's Sons. 587 pp. $2.50.

Mexican Interlude. By Joseph Henry Jackson. Illustrated. The Macmillan Co. 232 pp. $2.50.

London. By Sidney Dark. Illustrated by Joseph Pennell. The Macmillan Company. 176 pp. $1.39.

Paris. By Sidney Dark. Illustrated by Henry Rushbury. The Macmillan Company. 139 pp. $1.39.

News from Tartary. By Peter Fleming. Illustrated. Charles Scribner's Sons. 381 pp. $3.00.     

Book Reviews

We are all scribblers now but scribbling is not regarded positively. Nevertheless, scribbling is described as one of four connected processes in a useful model of academic writing. These metaphors are frivolously summarised as scrabbling, scribbling, scribing and scrubbing. Frivolity is first presented as an antonym of academic seriousness. But it is also used positively in three other ways: (1) helping free academics from some of the more daunting and constricting aspects of academic writing; (2) challenging some of the dualisms that structure and confine our thinking and understanding; and (3) following Derrida, as a strategy to resist premature closure and to resist academic writing as a claim to certainty and transparency. The main body of the article then focuses on an analysis of the four metaphorical processes of scrabbling, scribbling, scribing and scrubbing.     

Book Reviews

This paper is about teaching and learning across the so‐called quantitative–qualitative divide in light of current debates in the US about the definition and quality of educational research. It draws on the author’s research and teaching experiences, her role in the redesign of qualitative methods coursework and participation in a school‐wide effort to improve doctoral training at Harvard Graduate School of Education. The paper explores institutional, cultural and psychological reasons for why the quantitative–qualitative divide persists, including researchers’ own anxieties. It is argued that epistemological tensions in educational research should be sustained and embraced rather than resolved in favor of one side over the other, as is too often the case. The author identifies how qualitative research departs from the quantitative model, placing distinct demands upon students who are learning the craft, and offers suggestions for what might help the process.     

Book Reviews

Books reviewed:
Michael G. Wyness, Contesting Childhood
Alex Kozulin, Psychological Tools: a Socio-Cultural Approach to Education
Jeni Riley and Roy Prentice (eds), The Curriculum for 7-11 Year Olds
John Loughran, Researching Teaching: Methodologies and Practices for Understanding Pedagogy
T.G.K. Bryce and W.M. Humes (eds), Scottish Education
Maureen O'Connor, Elizabeth Hales, Jeffrey Davies and Sally Tomlinson, Hackney Downs: The School That Dared to Fight
Peter Raggatt and Steve Williams (eds), Government Markets and Vocational Qualifications
John Beck, Morality and Citizenship in Education
G. Andrews, H. Kean and J. Thompson (eds.), Ruskin College:Contesting Knowledge, Dissenting Politics
Jon Prosser (ed), School Culture
H. Tomlinson, H. Gunter and P. Smith (ed), Living Headship: Voices, Values and Vision
A. Smithers and P. Robinson (ed), Further Education Re-formed
T.S. Popkewitz and L. Fendler, Critical Theories in Education: Changing Terrains of Knowledge and Poltiics
Peter Gordon and Denis Lawton, Royal Education: Past, Present and Future
D. Hill, P. McLaren, P. Cole and G. Rikowski (ed), Postmodernism in Educational Theory: Education and the Politics of Human Resistance
Pia Christenson and Allison James (ed), Research with Children: Perspectives and Practices     

Book Reviews

Books reviewed:
Ian Copeland, The Making of the Backward Pupil in England, 1870–1914
Harry Daniels and Philip Garner (eds), Inclusive Education: World Year Book of Education 1999
David Corson, Changing Education for Diversity
A. Mackinnon, I. Elgqvist-Saltzman and A. Prentice (eds), Education into the 21st Century: Dangerous Terrain for Women?
Peter Sutherland (ed), Adult Learning – a Reader
Nigel Blake, Paul Smeyers, Richard Smith and Paul Standish, Thinking Again: Education After Postmodernism
David Carr (ed), Education, Knowledge and Truth
Frank Coffield (ed), Why's the Beer Always Stronger up North? Studies of Lifelong Learning in Europe
Colin Richards, Neil Simco and Sam Twiselton (eds), Primary Teacher Education, High Status? High Standards?
Megan Crawford, Richard Edwards and Lesley Kydd (eds), Taking Issue: Debates in Guidance and Counselling in Learning
M. Woodhead, D. Faulkner and K. Littleton, Making Sense of Social Development
Jack Demaine (ed), Education Policy and Contemporary Politics
Sandra Acker, The Realities of Teachers' Work: Never a Dull Moment
John Holford, Peter Jarvis and Colin Griffin, (eds), International Perspectives on Lifelong Learning     

Audio-visual Techniques and Group Pedagogy

Group pedagogy, as defined by psycho-sociologists, might seem to some a specific pedagogic method, essentially clinical in tendency, and so exclusive of more ‘technical’, more ‘scientific’ points of view.     

Book Reviews

Though there is a well-established body of research in the field of teacher professional development, it is characterised by a real dearth of any detailed historical analysis. This paper seeks to address this gap, by offering a new historical analysis of a case study of the evolution of organised teacher professional development in England and Wales during the twentieth century. Its approach is hoped to open up the wider debate and to contribute to a fuller understanding of the basis for those questions and dilemmas about teacher professional development that have long exercised teachers, professional educators and policy-makers – questions which turn on fundamental issues of priorities and purpose, funding, scale of teacher engagement, control and reach. The paper is in three main parts. Firstly, the scope of the case study is outlined with key stages in the evolution of teacher professional development in England and Wales identified. Secondly, four themes from the data which characterised this evolution are discussed. These include the restricted engagement of teachers relative to the whole teacher population; limited funding; the highly centralised control over provision for teacher professional development through Her Majesty’s Inspectorate (HMI); and a highly selective and restrictive access to provision by teachers. It is argued that these key characteristics helped to shape a particular culture and ideology of teacher professional development which was dependent on a select cadre of elite teachers for the dissemination and modelling of what was regarded as good practice, so as to improve their colleagues’ performance – the elite excelled while the majority needed to be saved from mediocrity. The particular ideology underlying this model is conceptualised as one of ‘excellence and salvation’. Finally, it is argued that the key issues identified in this story (the restricted engagement of teachers; limited funding; highly centralised control; and ideologies of excellence) raise important generic questions for the field of teacher professional development more widely as well as framing future historical analysis of teacher professional development.