The conflicts and contradictions of working in a mass higher education system

Education must be a force for opportunity and social justice, not for the entrenchment of privilege. We must make certain that the opportunities that higher education brings are available to all those who have the potential to benefit from them, regardless of their background (DfES, 2003 Department for Education and Skills. 2003. The Future of Higher Education, London: The Stationery Office. Cm 5735 [Google Scholar] : 67).

We will continue to widen participation in higher education and encourage students of all backgrounds with academic potential to go to university (Queen’s Speech, 15 November 2006).     

Criteria Referenced Marking of Written Assignments

The paper discusses the marking of written assignment and reports the results of the first step of an action research project conducted at the Hong Kong Polytechnic University. Lecturers marked students' written assignments first without an espoused criteria and the second time using a criteria referenced assessment form. The two sets of marks are compared and correlation and agreement between the scores are presented. The results show that the range of the marks is greater and the distribution of the marks is closer to the normal distribution when the assessment form was used. The difference between the two sets of marks was statistically significant (p < 0.05) though the correlation of the scores was good (r = 0.84). The paper discusses possible reasons for the results and also looks at individual students' marks.     

LINKÖPING: 33RD MEETING OF THE COUNCIL OF EUROPE COMMITTEE FOR HIGHER EDUCATION AND RESEARCH

The 33rd Meeting of the Council of Europe Committee for Higher Education and Research (CHER) was held in Linköping (Sweden) from 12 to 14 May 1976. The main points of discussion were the following: - the position of modern language lectors abroad;

- the setting up of advisory committees for medical and pharmaceutical edu.cation;

- multi-media distant study systems;

- admission to tertiary education (early selection at secondary-school level, attitudes of students and parents as a result of new admission rules, role of working life experience in admission, consequences for higher education resulting from new admission rules);

- financial aid to students;

- education in science and technology and research careers (attitudes to the study of science and technology, ageing of the research population);

- teacher education (creation of an association for teacher education in Europe, current trends);

- situation of and trends in tertiary education;

- progress report of the Secretariat . (special project mobility, equivalence of diplomas, curriculum re- o form and development);

- CHER programme of work for 1977 and 1978.

     

Katsushika Hokusai and a Poetics of Nostalgia

Abstract

This article addresses the activation of aesthetics through the examination of an acute sensitivity to melancholy and time permeating the literary and pictorial arts of Japan. In medieval court circles, this sensitivity was activated through a pervasive sense of aware, a poignant reflection on the pathos of things. This sensibility became the motivating force for court verse, and through this medium, for the mature projects of the ukiyo-e ‘floating world picture’ artist Katsushika Hokusai. Hokusai reached back to aware sensibilities, subjects and conventions in celebrations of the poetic that sustained cultural memories resonating classical lyric and pastoral themes. This paper examines how this elegiac sensibility activated Hokusai’s preoccupations with poetic allusion in his late representations of scholar-poets and the unfinished series of Hyakunin isshu uba-ga etoki, ‘One hundred poems, by one hundred poets, explained by the nurse’. It examines four works to explain how their synthesis of the visual and poetic could sustain aware themes and tropes over time to maintain a distinctive sense of this aesthetic sensibility in Japan.     

Wuwei (non-action) Philosophy and Actions: Rethinking ‘actions’ in school reform

This inquiry aims to enrich conversation regarding school reform. The author asks about what other discourses are possible when the action-oriented question of how to ‘act’ is a major approach to ‘fix’ current educational problems. Drawing from Taoist philosophy of wuwei (non-action), the author provides a frame to review current school reform movement. Political philosophy of wuwei highlights non-interference or non-intervention governance. Laozi discusses his theory of governance that a sage leader should take and explicates the paradox of non-action: By not doing, everything is done. The paradox of wuwei complicates dialogues in the field of curriculum theory by opening spaces for taking effortless actions in the midst of standardization and accountability reform movement.     

Curriculum Studies and Education for Teaching

This article is the second of two papers by Michael Golby on Curriculum Studies, the first of which appeared in Education for Teaching, 100, Summer 1976.     

Examining mentors' practices for enhancing preservice teachers' pedagogical development in mathematics and science

Mentoring is too important to be left to chance (Ganser, 1996 Ganser, T. 1996. What do mentors say about mentoring?. Journal of Staff Development, 17(3): 36–39.  [Google Scholar]), yet mentoring expertise of teachers varies widely, which may present inequities for developing preservice teachers' practices. Five factors for mentoring have been identified herein: personal attributes, system requirements, pedagogical knowledge, modelling, and feedback, and items associated with each factor have also been justified in context of the literature. An original, literature‐based survey instrument gathered 446 preservice teachers' perceptions of their mentoring for primary teaching. Data were analysed within the above‐mentioned five factors with 331 final‐year preservice teachers from nine Australian universities responding to their mentoring for science teaching and 115 final‐year preservice teachers from an urban university responding to their mentoring for mathematics teaching. Results indicated similar Cronbach alpha scores on each of the five factors for primary science and mathematics teaching; however percentages and mean scores on attributes and practices aligned with each factor were considerably higher for mentoring mathematics teaching compared with science teaching.     

Charles Sturt University Extended Practicum Program: Deliberative and Serendipitous Learning

Two recent trends in teacher education in Australia have been partnerships and internships or extended practica. Both of these trends are underpinned by a recognition of the importance of site‐based learning as part of teacher education and professional development. Whilst many extended practicum programs in Australia are in their infancy, it is worth examining the grounds on which they were established and the opportunities they provide for the participants. This paper is concerned with an Extended Practicum Program (EPP) that is based on a partnership between Charles Sturt University in Wagga Wagga, the New South Wales Department of School Education (NSW DSE) and the New South Wales Teachers Federation (NSW TF).     

Giving feedback after a lesson observation

Student teachers spend a large proportion of their ITT course teaching classes on their own. It has always been an expectation, and now more formally an entitlement, that they will be observed on some of their lessons and given feedback during a de‐briefing session. In order to explore the nature and quality of the feedback given to students a number of tutors and mentors have been videoed giving feedback to students after observing them teach. The focus of the research is on the style which the tutors and mentors adopt and the interactions between themselves and students. Encouraging reflective practice requires facilitative interactions for which counselling skills are invaluable.     

Imagined Authority: Blackboard Jungle and the Project of Educational Liberalism

The 1955 movie Blackboard Jungle portrays the efforts of high school teacher Richard Dadier to overcome his students’ resistance to the regime of the school At the same time, Blackboard Jungle inaugurated the use of rock and roll in movies, thereby heralding the emergence of a distinct youth culture. Representations of youth and schooling were uniquely suited to capture the anxieties that arose out of American familial, economic, and political conflicts in the 1950s. By synthesizing matters of male and state authority in an ambivalent blend of rebellion and social control, Blackboard Jungle articulated the ambiguities of the liberal ideology that schooling and the state more broadly could simultaneously insure individual freedom and contain social conflicts. Blackboard Jungle’s gendered narrative was mirrored in academic research into the causes of juvenile delinquency, in differing career paths for men and women educators, and in attacks on progressive curricula. By combining an examination of the film's narrative and visual technique with an analysis of its reception, this article explores the liberal ideology which has shaped American schooling.     

Mature student experiences in teacher education: widening participation in Greece and England

In the context of the growing number of mature students entering higher education in Europe, this study breaks new ground in comparing the personal and professional identities of mature student teachers in Greece and England. Using an analytical model of student success by Zepke and Leach (2008 Zepke, N. and Leach, L. Linking soft skills and student engagement in second chance education. Paper presented at the Comparative Education Society of Europe (CESE) annual conference. July7–10, Athens, Greece.  [Google Scholar]), the research sought to identify the factors affecting the progress and development of 30 mature student teachers (15 in each country). It was found that individual motivation and prior experience were assets in the development of the student teachers, while peer and family support were vital success factors. In the English context, the importance of institutional support from university and school-based tutors was also strong. Barriers included financial difficulties and domestic responsibilities, which had a particular impact on mature women students. Some recommendations to improve institutional support for mature student teachers are made in conclusion.     

Beyond Rote-Memorisation: Confucius’ Concept of Thinking

Confucian education is often associated with rote-memorisation that is characterised by sheer repetition of facts with no or little understanding of the content learnt. But does Confucian education necessarily promote rote-memorisation? What does Confucius himself have to say about education? This article aims to answer the above questions by examining Confucius’ concept of si (thinking) based on a textual study of the Analects. It is argued that Confucius’ concept of si primarily involves an active inquiry into issues that concern one’s everyday life, promotes inferential thinking, and facilitates self-examination. Far from advocating rote-memorisation, Confucius highlights the need for us to take ownership of our own learning, engage in higher order thinking, and reflectively apply the lessons learnt in our lives.     

Beginning teachers and inclusive education: frustrations,dilemmas and growth

Scholars report desirable outcomes for all participants in classrooms where diverse learners are welcomed members. Data suggest teachers leave the profession early because of the demands of their work made increasingly difficult by the diverse range of students, lack of assistance to support the diverse range of student needs and the resulting burnout. This paper presents qualitative data from six beginning teachers, juxtaposed with the author's personal narrative, to illustrate the ongoing problems beginning teachers face, contending with political, historical and cultural barriers when teaching students with diverse learning needs. Despite policy advances and mandated courses in inclusive education in initial teacher education, beginning teachers are overwhelmed by the magnitude of teaching diverse learners in contemporary classrooms. Of note in the data are the preservice teachers’ fluid conceptions of inclusive education. The polarity of success and failure of inclusive education is re-envisaged through Deleuze and Guattari's [(1987 Deleuze, G., and F. Guattari. 1987. A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia. Trans Brian Massumi. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press. [Google Scholar]). A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia. Trans Brian Massumi. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press.] rhizome. The data illustrate the challenges and messiness of learning to become an inclusive educator. It is important to listen to the experiences of beginning teachers given the value of supportive classroom environments for students with diverse needs and the impact creating these environments has on beginning teachers’ longevity in the profession.     

Fighting to Educate Our Own: Teachers of Color,Relational Accountability,and the Struggle for Racial Justice

Abstract

Research demonstrates that many teachers of Color enter schools committed to challenging injustice, yet often face barriers to accomplishing this goal. This article presents emergent themes from a qualitative study with 218 self-identified, racial justice-oriented teachers of Color. Using Wilson's (2008 Wilson, S. (2008). Research is ceremony: Indigenous research methods. Halifax, Canada: Fernwood. [Google Scholar]) indigenous cultural framework of relationality and relational accountability to analyze our data, we introduce the concept of community-oriented teachers of Color to describe the accountability these teachers have towards students of Color and their communities. We found that despite their connections, insights, and successes with students, hierarchies of ontology (ways of being) and epistemology (ways of knowing) within schools that promote individualism served to isolate and marginalize community-oriented teachers of Color and, thus, limited their ability to advance racial justice.     

More than a place to teach: exploring the perceptions of the roles and responsibilities of mentor teachers

The purpose of this study was to shed light on mentor teachers’ perceptions of their roles and responsibilities and to contrast their understandings with a normative view of mentoring (Goldsberry, 1998 Goldsberry, L.F. 1998. “Teacher involvement in supervision”. In Handbook of research on school supervision, Edited by: Firth, G.R. and Pajak, E.F. 428–462. New York: Macmillan.  [Google Scholar]; Hawkey, 1997 Hawkey, K. 1997. Roles, responsibilities, and relationships in mentoring: A literature review and agenda for research. Journal of Teacher Education, 48: 325–335. [Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]). We hypothesized that the mentor teachers’ perceptions would likely differ from established conceptions of this construct, a difference that has significant implications for mentor preparation and university collaboration. Participants, 264 teachers who were serving as mentors to pre‐service teachers, were asked open‐ended questions designed to allow the mentors to describe the ways in which they envisioned their role. Follow‐up telephone interviews were conducted with 34 randomly selected mentor teachers to further determine the relative value they placed on different aspects of mentoring. The results of this research confirm that mentoring is a complex construct and that the perceptions held by mentors may be influenced by the kinds and quality of mentoring experiences they have had. Implications for the appropriate selection, preparation, and support of mentor teachers are discussed.     

A mixed methods comparison of teachers' lunar modeling lesson implementation and student learning outcomes

The authors compare three teachers' adaptations and implementation of a lunar modeling lesson to explain marked differences in student learning outcomes on a spatial-scientific lunar assessment. They used a modified version of the Practices of Science Observation Protocol (P-SOP; Forbes, Biggers, &; Zangori, 2013 Forbes C., Biggers, M., &; Zangori, L. (2013). Investigating essential characteristics of scientific practices in elementary science learning environments: The practices of science observation protocol (P-SOP). School Science and Mathematics, 113, 180–190.[Crossref] , [Google Scholar]) to identify ways in which features of inquiry were emphasized in each classroom. Additionally, classroom communities of practice were categorized as task-based or practice-based (Riel &; Polin, 2004 Riel, M. &; Polin, L. (2004). Learning communities: Common ground and critical differences in designing technical support. In S. Barab, R. Kling, &; J. Gray (Eds.), Designing for virtual communities in the service of learning (pp. 16–52). Cambridge, MA: Cambridge University Press.[Crossref] , [Google Scholar]). The authors found that student learning outcomes were related to the fidelity with which the teachers implemented the lesson. Teachers with higher P-SOP scores fostered more of a practice-based learning community than task-based one, which also paralleled greater student learning gains. Although the students' scores did not differ by teacher on the preassessment, they did differ significantly on the postassessment, indicating that the curricular choices and learning communities developed by the teachers impacted what students were able to learn.     

The Effects of Message Framing and Visual Image on Persuasion

This study examined the joint effects of message framing (gain vs. loss) and visual image (image vs. no image) on persuasion as it related to the use of dental floss and the use of sunscreen (N = 252). For both topics, the results revealed a Frame × Image interaction effect on fear. The interaction was such that the presence (vs. absence) of an image produced more fear in the loss-framed conditions. The corresponding results for gain-framed messages were inconsistent. Covariance analyses showed that fear mediated the effect of the interaction on persuasion, whereas dominant cognitive response did not.

[Supplementary materials are available for this article. Go to the publisher's online edition of Communication Quarterly for the following free supplemental resources: sunscreen and flossing messages of gain-visual and loss-visual.]     

THE CHESTER CASE

Broad (1999) Broad, B. 1999. “Facing our professional others: Border crossing in teacher education”. In Preparing a nation's teachers: Models for English and foreign language programs, Edited by: Franklin, P., Laurence, D. E. and Welles, E. B. 373–379. New York: The Modern Language Association of America.  [Google Scholar] observed that “troubled borders crisscross the geography of teacher preparation in English” (p. 373), calling for collaboration where preparation is a university responsibility (Gregorian, 2001 Gregorian, V. 2001. Teacher education must become colleges' central preoccupation. August172001. The Chronicle of Higher Education, pp.B7–B8.  [Google Scholar]). This research documents a three-year complex case study that addressed the question: What happens when English, education, and high school faculty cross borders to prepare secondary English teachers to teach in urban schools? This study looked at faculty mentors and preservice teacher mentees as they collaborated on multi-leveled projects to improve teacher preparation of secondary English teachers. Interventions included collaborative seminars, collaborative mentoring, and individual mentoring of preservice English teachers by English, education, and high school faculty. Results indicate that interventions challenged biases of stakeholders, enhanced the quality of teacher preparation, and revised instructional practices of university English and education faculty and preservice teachers. Results indicate that mentees incorporated suggestions made by mentors that reinforced pedagogical content knowledge. Most mentees regarded content mentors favorably, noting that their focus of observation was different from those of clinical supervisors and cooperating teachers. English and education mentors assimilated changes in personal pedagogy based on observations and discussions with urban high school teachers. Such discussions also challenged personal beliefs about urban students and schools. Content mentors also adjusted syllabi to include materials used in high school curricula. The implication of this study is that “crossing borders” improves and alters how university faculty can better prepare preservice teachers.     

‘Getting the pieces together’: negotiating the transition from pre-service to in-service teacher

For beginning teachers to make the transition to full professional membership they need to increase their professional knowledge of the art and science of teaching. This paper explores the difference in knowledge growth between beginning teachers who commence teaching in fragmented teaching situations in the first two years of teaching, and their colleagues who have stable, secure and continuing employment during this time. This paper argues that the employment context in which beginning teachers take up their profession has a significant, but hitherto largely unacknowledged, effect on the capacity of teachers to develop the craft of teaching (Elbaz, 1983 Elbaz, F. 1983. Teacher thinking: A study of practical knowledge, London: Croom Helm.  [Google Scholar]); on their continuing commitment to the profession; and on their self-confidence and self-image as teachers It is concluded that long-term, secure employment in one school, with full responsibility for a class of students and access to effective mentoring, is necessary if beginning teachers are to move beyond ‘survival’ to developing competency in the first two years of teaching.