The under-attainment of ethnic minority students in UK higher education: what we know and what we don’t know

In UK higher education, ethnic differences in academic attainment are ubiquitous and have persisted for many years. They are only partly explained by ethnic differences in entry qualifications. They vary from one institution to another and from one subject area to another. This suggests that they result in part from teaching and assessment practices in different institutions and subjects. We do not really know whether ethnic differences in attainment are reflected in variations in the student experience. We do not know what factors are responsible for the ethnic differences in attainment that remain when differences in entry qualifications have been taken into account. Finally, we do not know what aspects of teaching and assessment practices are responsible for variations in the attainment gap.     

‘I’d like to know why’: cultural capital and MA in education students’ interpretation of feedback commentaries

This article discusses the results of an investigation into selected MA in Education students’ interpretation of feedback to their written assignments in a teaching and learning institution in the UK, using the framework of cultural capital and acculturation. A case study method was adopted to investigate four participants’ thoughts and experiences with feedback over a period of two semesters. Participants were asked to go through a think-aloud process while responding to feedback from tutors to their assignments. Results of the think-aloud were used as springboard for interviews conducted with students. The article argues that students’ diverse and variable interpretations of tutor feedback can be explained by Bourdieu’s notion of ‘connaissance’ or knowledge as cultural capital. Additionally, students were found to have subscribed to the ‘acculturation’ process modelled by tutors in feedback provision.     

do i know its wrong: children’s and adults’ use of unconventional grammar in text messaging

There is concern that the violations of conventional grammar (both accidental and deliberate) often seen in text messages (e.g., hi how is ya?!!) could lead to difficulty in learning or remembering formal grammatical conventions. We examined whether the grammatical violations made by 244 British children, adolescents and young adults in their text messages was related to poorer performance on tasks of grammatical knowledge, including translating grammatically unconventional text messages into standard English. We found that variance in the production of grammatical violations in naturalistic messages was inconsistently predicted by grammatical task performance. Specifically, primary school children who made poorer grammar-based spelling choices were more likely to make more grammatical violations in their everyday messages, and university students who failed to correct more grammatical errors in a given set of messages were also more likely to make such errors in their own messages. There were no significant relationships for secondary school students. We conclude that using unconventional grammar when texting is not a consistent sign of poor grammatical abilities, although there may be links between some aspects of grammatical skill and grammatical violations in text messages.     

‘What do they know of England who only England know’: a case for an alternative narrative of the ordinary in twenty-first-century Britain

Abstract

In 2017 it was 20 years since the publication of Assimilating Identities: Racism and Education in Post 1945 Britain. In this study a narrative was constructed which documents the experiences of Afro-Caribbean and Asian children and families within the English education system. It was a narrative that drew largely on the education archives of the local state. Some use was made of documentary evidence generated within the black community, including oral testimony. In the intervening years there has been a shift in history practice, including history of education, towards a broadening of the source material used in the construction of narratives, most notably the use of visual sources. These years have also seen a growing interest amongst historians of education in looking beyond schooling and investigating the educational experiences associated with other sites of learning: congresses, museums, heritage sites, libraries, community centres, etc. This paper aims to bring these two developments – research engagement with the visual and non-school sites of learning – into dialogue by revisiting the research agenda which shaped Assimilating Identities and addressing the question 20 years on: ‘What do they know of England who only England know?’     

‘I know how to read longer novels’ – developing pupils' success criteria in the classroom

Assessment for Learning (AfL) is an established learning and teaching strategy. The authors identify issues with the effectiveness of its application in the classroom. Having noted a theoretical shift from teacher-generated to pupil-generated success criteria, the authors were keen to explore how this could be realised in practice. They developed a model based on AfL principles, which they introduced to a class of Year 5 pupils. They found that, whilst pupils can identify their own success criteria, a number of issues need to be considered by the innovative teacher.     

When ‘we wish they knew’ meets ‘I want to know’

ABSTRACT

The tension between mandated curricula and students’ interests is evident throughout the history of science education. Societal expectations for student learning often lead to standards and curricula that leave little room for students to explore their own individual interests. Occasionally, however, an event can capture the interest of so many students that teachers feel compelled to respond. The Ebola outbreak of 2014 was such an event. This article discusses findings from a study of teacher decision-making; specifically, it explores how high school science teachers in the U.S. decided whether and how they should address Ebola during the 2014–2015 school year, when the Ebola outbreak in West Africa was at its peak. Approximately 2500 teachers of science responded to an online questionnaire that addressed their Ebola-specific instruction. In comparing the decisions of those who taught about Ebola and those who did not, the study found that teachers weighed various factors, in particular student interest but also curriculum standards, time, and availability of resources for teaching about Ebola. The article concludes with implications for future urgent health-related issues.     

Do they know what they know? Accuracy in teacher candidates' self-assessments and its influencing factors

Although self-assessing one's knowledge is an integral part of a teacher's professional development, little is known about the accuracy of teacher candidates' self-assessments. In particular, not much attention has been paid to their self-assessment accuracy assessed on an individual level. Using measures from research on metacognition, we investigated the accuracy and bias of 513 mathematics teacher candidates who were tested in and self-assessed their professional knowledge in the three core domains of mathematical content knowledge, pedagogical content knowledge and pedagogical knowledge. In addition, we examined the consistency of self-assessment accuracy across the three knowledge domains and its relation to personal characteristics such as cognitive ability, personality traits and occupational self-efficacy. Results showed that in all three domains of professional knowledge, most teacher candidates were either over- or underconfident in their knowledge and unaware of their strengths and weaknesses. Cognitive ability reduced the risk of being overconfident, whereas self-efficacy was predictive of overconfidence. The Big Five personality traits were not systematically connected to self-assessment accuracy, and variance in self-assessment accuracy is still to be explained by further research. We address shortcomings of measures that are commonly used in self-assessment research and advocate for the use of metacognitive methods in future studies that focus on teacher self-assessments.     

Coming to know within ‘healthy uncertainty’: an autoethnography of engagement and transformation in undergraduate education

This article is an autoenthnographic account of the yearlong journey of two undergraduates and their instructor when the traditional classroom structures associated with the banking concept of education were altered in an upper division class and follow-on research experiences. These changes focused on foregrounding students' experiences of the uncertainties inherent in the process of coming to know. Scaffolding this process within a context of ‘healthy uncertainty’ is described. Within this context, student engagement deepened allowing for generalization of knowledge and transformative personal experiences as the links between school and everyday life became more transparent.     

‘RE teachers do get drunk you know’: becoming a religious education teacher in the twenty-first century

In terms of the attention that they have attracted from researchers, and in comparison with teachers of other subjects, religious education specialists would seem to be a neglected and marginalized group. This paper looks at some of the reasons why this might be and also describes a study that is using a life history approach to explore what it is like to be a religious education teacher at the turn of the millennium.     

‘Settling in’

Abstract

This study examined the ‘settling in’ behaviour of newly enrolled children who entered an established preschool classroom. Settling in can cause emotional distress and behavioural problems in children. Thus, it is important to document the ways in which young children successfully adjust. The behaviours of the ‘new’ children were tracked across the school year and compared with ‘old children’, or those previously enrolled. Results indicated that new children did not differ from old children in terms of unengaged behaviour. While all children's socially interactive behaviour and social fantasy increased across the school year, the new children engaged in lower levels of these behaviours. Further, the signals they used to initiate social interaction were less sophisticated than those used by established children. Results are discussed in terms of the role of familiarity in supporting children's exhibition of competence. Implications for practice and policy are discussed.     

What do teachers know about dyslexia? It’s complicated!

Reading and Writing - In recent years, many states have passed laws requiring dyslexia training for teachers. Research suggests teachers hold both scientifically-based conceptions as well as...     

‘Next thing you know,her hair turned green’: absurdity and uncertainty in high-stakes teacher test space

This article explores what happens behind the closed doors and in the ‘black box’ of high-stakes educational testing. Our specific concern is licensure exams that are often gatekeepers into teacher education programs and the profession. Leveraging the spatial turn across critical social theory and other disciplines, we conceptualize the test space of these exams in order to account for the powerful reach that test companies have into teacher education and the ‘ideal’ restrictive space that test takers navigate. Against this conceptual background, we share findings from a larger qualitative study to illustrate how test takers ‘practice’ test space into something more manageable and familiar by leveraging various affordances presented to them. Overall, our study accounts for the spatial dimension of high-stakes educational tests and initiates productive ways to begin thinking about the structure and agency of these spaces.     

各种各样的know

说起know这个词,大概不用过脑我们就能说出它是"知道"的意思。不过,在不同的语句中这个词表达的意境也不尽相同,比如下面这些句子:1.To know everything is to know nothing.样样皆通,样样稀松。2.As if you didn’t know.明知故问。3.You never know.谁也说不准。4.You can ask Jack for help,he knows the business.你可以找杰克帮忙,他比较在行。5.Scientists     

‘Don't talk about what you don't know’: on (not) conducting research with/in Indigenous contexts

This article raises the recurrent question whether non-indigenous researchers should attempt to research with/in Indigenous communities. If research is indeed a metaphor of colonization, then we have two choices: we have to learn to conduct research in ways that meet the needs of Indigenous communities and are non-exploitative, culturally appropriate and inclusive, or we need to relinquish our roles as researchers within Indigenous contexts and make way for Indigenous researchers. Both of these alternatives are complex. Hence in this article I trace my learning journey; a journey that has culminated in the realization that it is not my place to conduct research within Indigenous contexts, but that I can use ‘what I know’ – rather than imagining that I know about Indigenous epistemologies or Indigenous experiences under colonialism – to work as an ally with Indigenous researchers. Coming as I do, from a position of relative power, I can also contribute in some small way to the project of decolonizing methodologies by speaking ‘to my own mob’.     

Do you know

A dragonfly(蜻蜓)has a life span(跨度)of 24 hours.蜻蜓的生命跨度是24小时。A duck's quack doesn't echo(回声),and no one knows why.鸭子的嘎嘎声没有回声,没人知道是为什么。A goldfish has a memory span of three seconds.金鱼的记忆跨度是3秒钟。A shark(鲨鱼)is the only fish that can blink(眨眼)with both eyes.鲨鱼是可以用两只眼睛同时眨眼的唯一的一种鱼。Do you know…     

recognize和know

请先看下面一道动词误用解析题: 你认识张先生有多久了? 误:How long have you recognized Mr Zhang? 正:How long have you known Mr Zhang? 析:recognize作“认识”解时,是非延续性动词,不能与表示一段时间的状语连用;know作“认识”解时,是延续性动词,可以与表示一段时间的状语连用。     

Consistency in teachers’ judgments

Professional teachers at first stage of secondary school were asked to assess the relative weights of five dimensions that in Italy must be considered when the final grades of students are decided. The teachers were also asked to give an overall evaluation of two samples of typical (i.e., students who record similar performances on all the dimensions) vs. atypical students (i.e., students who exhibit poor performance on at least one dimension and good or excellent performances on the others). The results show that the teachers shared a weighting scheme for assessment of the importance of the five dimensions. However, their overall evaluations were consistent with this weighting scheme only with reference to typical students. When the teachers evaluated atypical students, their judgements were highly inconsistent. The paper briefly discusses the implications of these findings.