Cold comfort in the primary school

This paper contributes to the debate about conceptualising policy research by considering Howell's (1990) call that researchers reveal the ‘principle of choice’ which guides the selection of topics, strategies and resources in research. Specifically, it addresses the question of what information must be made available to other researchers so that there can be productive continuing conversations’ (Ball 1994:174) about policy research and its conceptualisation. An examination of the policy sociology literature indicates that the specification of the ‘principle of choice’ requires discussion of the intellectual resources deployed in the research and a consideration of the processes of intellectual work which render these resources meaningful. This specification is then applied in relation to my current research, the ‘Social Organisation of Education Practice’ (soep) project to investigate the changing relationship between education and training in Australia. The products and processes of intellectual work that have constituted the principle of choice in my own research are outlined and justified. The way this principle of choice has shaped the conceptualisation of the soep project is discussed and attention drawn to the practical limits of explicit conceptualisation and justification in research. The paper concludes by affirming the importance of making the principle of choice explicit but queries how this can be done in shorthand.     

Reading research in the primary classroom

This paper attempts to show the importance of the interface between research findings and classroom practice. The writer demonstrates how the judicious use of research has informed the decisions made about reading in three schools of which she has been Head teacher. Two key influences have been an understanding of child development, and what that says about all learning, and the messages about learning to read conveyed by the psycholinguists. The link is made between these influences on learning and the context of overall ‘school effectiveness'. The central tenet in practical terms is the concept of the ‘literate environment'. In defining this term she recognizes the key role of parents and teachers as both ‘models’ for reading and supporters in the learning process. The component parts of the literate environment are described at length before finally the suggestion is made that perhaps it is time for there to be a less mechanistic type of reading research.     

浅谈小学作文指导

在小学作文指导中必须根据作文题目的具体要求围绕重点进行指导。小学作文中,多数是以写记叙文为主,经常运用的表现方法是记叙和描写。在指导写作中除指导具体的写作内容外,还包括指导学生正确运用词语、正确使用标点符号、正确的书写格式等。作文教学中的指导是学生学出有特色的文章的关键。     

Investigating pupils' questions in the primary classroom

The paper presents the findings of a coding system applied to the questions generated by primary school pupils to a narrative text. The coding schedule proved consistent across university and teacher researchers. The results and discussion centre on the question type and the degree of understanding displayed by pupils. Suggestions are put forward for the use of a community of inquiry approach to question generation as a means of empowering pupils and allowing the speaking and listening requirements of the National Curriculum to be met in a holistic manner.     

Observing justice in the primary school classroom

Justice-related situations are a part of students? everyday life. In order to test the antecedents, correlates, and consequences of (in)justice in school, valid measures of justice are needed. To our knowledge, this is the first study to develop an observer low inference rating instrument that can be applied to measure justice in the primary classroom. In two pre-studies, justice-relevant situations in the classroom were extracted and observable indicators for these situations were developed. In the main study, this instrument was used to observe 208 primary school students with regard to their experiences of justice or injustice. In addition to this, other measures of justice were developed to examine the convergence between observer low inference ratings of classroom justice and high inference rating instruments for teachers, students, and external observers.Factor analyses and correlations between the different indices of the observer low inference rating and the high inference rating items suggested that incidents of justice and injustice in the classroom do not tend to co-occur frequently. Teachers do not appear to have a general tendency to treat a child more or less justly across a large number of situations.The findings suggest that a comprehensive assessment of classroom justice requires a multi-method approach where the justice ratings of students, teachers and external observers are all taken into consideration.     

Harnessing the power of film in the primary classroom

This paper explores one way that teachers can develop creativity within potentially limiting confines and pressures of curriculum guidelines. The researcher considers the inclusion of film as a creative, engaging and effective strategy for teaching reading using data from a small‐scale research project. Hypotheses are based on analysis of activities that use moving image as an alternative text to printed books. During the project's teaching sequence, children are familiarised with film as a moving image, ideas are captured, the teacher demonstrates the use of techniques in meaning making, before the children finally show their understanding through their work. In this instance, the children were involved in making their own films, acting as directors, film crew, sound technicians, illustrators and narrators. As the partial purpose of the study was to explore the practical logistics of developing a creative teaching style within a structured curriculum, tight timings were an essential aspect of the validity of the work. All the teaching was completed within the normal hourly lesson for literacy, and the basic structure of lessons was maintained – an introduction with whole‐class work, followed by individual/paired or group work and concluded with a plenary. The researcher values the creative use of film as a powerful experience in itself and the study aimed to substantiate these beliefs by exploring both the accessibility and the results of harnessing the power of film within literacy teaching.     

历史人物在小学历史教学中的作用

历史人物在小学历史教学中的作用是非常多的,它可以对学生进行爱国主义教育,可以对学生进行刻苦学习的教育,严谨治学的教学,还可以对学生进行高尚品德和美好情操的教育,同时还可对学生进行追求真理、树立远大理想的教育。     

对残疾人运动员在初级选材中的研究

针对目前我国在残疾人运动员初期选材方面的研究还比较薄弱的问题,本文采用文献资料法、观察法和实践研究,对云南省红河州残疾人运动员进行初级选材的现状进行综合分析,残疾人初级训练层次是让一个普通残疾人成为运动员的选材研究,目前这方面的研究还处于空白。因此,提出对残疾人初级选材的研究,旨在完善残疾人选材模式,以此促进我国残疾人运动员选材的科学发展。