A solution to exclusion

Abstract

A total involvement project in a mainstream upper school KEYW ORDS was initiated by a local education authority (LEA) as part of their behaviour restructuring of support for pupils with behavioural and emotional management; difficulties. The project was intended to meet the needs of a particular exclusion; LEA school which had a history of excluding difficult pupils. Initial evalu-behaviour ation of the project indicated that exclusion numbers have been support reduced, the school’s behavioural management structure has been improved, and a higher quality of support for pupils is offered at earlier stages. The project has highlighted a number of factors which are exemplars of good practice and has recently attracted research funding for a more structured evaluation via the DfES Best Practice Research Scholarship scheme. This account traces the early stages of the project, up to the first-phase evaluation, and is illustrated with examples of pupil case studies.     

Enhancing Undergraduate Research Experience Through a Food Science Research Project

Engaging undergraduate students in research has become increasingly important due to its potential benefits (for example, increased intention to pursue postgraduate study and enhanced understanding of theoretical knowledge). This study investigated whether a comprehensive food science research project that was incorporated into the laboratory component of an Experimental Study of Foods course would enhance student knowledge, confidence, and interest in research. A total of 84 students participated in two sections of the laboratory (2016, n = 39; 2017, n = 45). Scores for pre and posttests and questionnaires were used to determine if the differences in knowledge scores and ratings for confidence in doing research were significant. Knowledge scores indicated that participants were knowledgeable about research at baseline (2016, 7.31 ± 1.15; 2017, 6.89 ± 0.1.21; maximum of 10 points). Results of the t‐tests showed that the change in knowledge scores before and after the project was not statistically significant; however, the level of confidence in performing various research skills (for example, identify research questions, formulate hypotheses, design an experiment) significantly increased upon project completion. In general, students demonstrated favorable attitudes toward the research project at the end of this project. Qualitative responses were organized into three themes that related to the “input” (elements that made the project successful), “process” (how the project was conducted), and “outcomes” (reported gains or benefits) of the project. Recommendations were made in terms of mentorship, research guidelines and topics, and group culture to improve future projects.     

Behavioural objectives in a reading programme: An experiment

Maria Edgeworth was a nineteenth century novelist, primarily remembered for her adult and children's novels. Yet her book, Letters for literary ladies discussed the importance of science education for girls and in conjunction with her father, Richard Edgeworth, she wrote several treatises on education. Their book Practical education advocates an inquiry approach to teaching science and also using scientific practices, such as observation and data collection, to examine and plan children's education. They emphasised the importance and the role of experimentation, observation and critical thinking in the development of children's knowledge, skills and attitudes towards learning. However, the history of science education has to date ignored this seminal work and Maria's contributions to women's science education.     

The Use of Tape as a ‘Lead-Medium’

Mathematical circles in the schools of the Federal Republic of Germany are engaged in the examination and discussion of two proposed teaching reforms, the first concerned with the content of teaching and the second with its methods. The proposals stem from the 1968 Conference of Cultural Ministers, a subject of which was the establishment of ‘A Framework of Guiding Principles of Reform’. These principles provide for reforms in mathematics teaching in schools, to start in the school year 1972/73, and preparatory work has been going on in a number of places. The research includes a mathematical project on the theme: ‘Value of Digit Systems’, work on which has been carried out by the Institut für Film und Bild in association with the publishing firm of Ernest Klett.     

Backward design as a mobile application development strategy

Backward design is a well-established design strategy that has been used to produce educational curriculum for decades. While traditionally used to plan and create classroom-based curriculum, in this paper we explore the use of backward design as a design strategy for the development of an educational mobile application, BiblioTech? “CityHacks: In Search of Sleep.” We discuss the process from initial conception to launch and updates, as well as plans for future research.

     

Teaching for a Sustainable World: the Environmental and Development Education Project for Teacher Education

The social, economic, political and ecological imperatives of sustainable development outlined in ’Our Common Future, Agenda 21’ and ’Caring for the Earth’ have established a renewed agenda for environmental education which links it very closely with development education. Teacher educators in Australia have responded to the need to link environmental and development education and to raise the level of attention usually devoted to them in teacher education programmes. The ’Environmental and Development Education Project for Teacher Education’ has been the result. The project has involved 20 educators, drawn from 11 universities, government departments and NGOs across Australia, in writing and trialing a set of 18 3‐hour workshop modules on environmental and development education for use in pre‐service teacher education courses. These modules, published in the project manual, ’Teaching for a Sustainable World’, illustrate how environmental education and development education are related and provide practical assistance for teacher educators who wish to include these important fields in their programmes. An intensive dissemination programme in 1993‐94 involves workshops for all Faculties of Education in Australia.     

Individual differences in learning entrepreneurship and their implications for web-based instruction in e-business and e-commerce

This paper reports on outcomes from a White Rose Centre for Enterprise funded project Managing Innovation in the Digital Economy. This project aims to incorporate learning for enterprise into undergraduate and postgraduate curricula in information management and information systems. The paper presents results from a survey distributed to postgraduate information management and information systems students following completion of a module in E‐Business and E‐Commerce delivered by the Department of Information Studies at the University of Sheffield. The findings suggest that differences in levels of prior knowledge of business studies and in cultural background can impact on students’ acquisition of domain knowledge and intellectual and information research skills during collaborative development of a business plan. Implications of the results for web‐based instruction are addressed, by identifying teaching and learning strategies that support differential treatment of learners in terms of content and process. It is concluded that empirical investigation of individual differences within a student body can inform more effective methods for information systems and information management graduates to learn about and for entrepreneurship.     

In my life: youth stories and poems on HIV/AIDS: towards a new literacy in the age of AIDS

This article comes out of an HIV and AIDS prevention and education project with young people in two townships in the Western Cape of South Africa. As part of that project, a small anthology—In my life: youth stories and poems on HIV/AIDS—was produced and distributed locally as well as in several districts in other provinces. The avid consumption of In my life by local youth in Khayelitsha and Atlantis but also as far away as Durban in KwaZulu‐Natal speaks to the power of a youth‐to‐youth connection. In the article I examine some of the ways in which literacy is changing in the age of AIDS in an area of the world which has been ravaged by the AIDS pandemic.     

A whole-school approach to positive behaviour in a girls' secondary school

This article discusses the first cycle of a whole-school behaviour initiative at a girls' secondary school in Malta. The aim of the project was to develop, implement and evaluate a whole-school plan of action which promoted good behaviour and effectively responded to challenging behaviour. A three-day in-service programme at the school led to the development of a plan reached by consensus amongst the whole staff. Once it was negotiated with the students, it was put into practice, with regular and continuous monitoring by the staff and students. An evaluation half-way through the scholastic year, showed a decline in the number of exclusions from school and an overall improvement in students' behaviour. Feedback from staff, senior management and students suggested that there was more positive behaviour at the school following the introduction of the behaviour project. The article examines both the process and the outcome of the first phase of the project and concludes with at attempt to delineate the key processes which made this initiative work.     

Tactics or strategies? Exploring everyday conditions to facilitate implementation of an Indigenous graduate attributes project

In 2017 Universities Australia (UA), the peak body representing Australian universities released its Indigenous Strategy 2017–2020. The document unites universities together in common goals for Indigenous achievement, filling a notable gap in the Australian higher education landscape. The Strategy outlines a comprehensive plan for enhanced Indigenous outcomes in critical areas of higher education including student access and success, graduate research, and community engagement. This paper focuses on the implementation of Indigenous curriculum for all Australian university graduates which is a key aspect of the Strategy. The changing Indigenous higher education landscape invites the nuanced analysis that critical examination of universities, as organisations, might elicit. Drawing on de Certeau’s notion of tactics and strategies, the paper examines the policy and cultural climate of an Australian university which supports an Indigenous Graduate Attribute curriculum project.     

The Renewal of Science Teachers’ Knowledge: a pilot professional development project

This paper describes a pilot project for the professional development of science teachers, a major aim of which was to update teachers’ science content knowledge. The paper focuses on the rationale and background of the project, the model of inservice education, the arrangements for credentialling and recognising participating teachers, and the findings of the external evaluation of the initial stages of the project. It concludes with a summary of the features of the project which appear to be facilitating the achievement of its aims.     

Learning by Exploration in Mathematics Courses: a programme for student teachers

In order to adapt teacher education to new demands in mathematics classrooms, it is necessary to change the courses in mathematics at the university. Teachers’ beliefs about mathematics, learning and teaching has great impact on their teaching. At the University of Göteborg, a co‐operative project has been conducted in order to design a programme based on problem solving in courses taken by prospective Comprehensive School teachers (grade 4‐‐9). The main purpose of the project has been to make student teachers more reflective about mathematics as such, about learning and teaching. Another purpose of the project has been to use a teaching method in a university course‐‐a method which could be applied in a school classroom. The student teachers have worked co‐operatively in small groups of 3‐4 students and the educators role has been that of a facilitator. A preliminary evaluation indicates that student teachers have developed an insight into the complexity of learning and teaching, even though there are variations in this respect. However they still have difficulties in applying the method to teaching mathematics at school.     

Creating Robust Evaluation of ATE Projects

ABSTRACT

Funded grant projects all involve some form of evaluation, and Advanced Technological Education (ATE) grants are no exception. Program evaluation serves as a critical component not only for evaluating if a project has met its intended and desired outcomes, but the evaluation process is also a central feature of the grant application itself. Funders want to assure that their funding dollars are effective, and creation and implementation of a robust evaluation plan helps assure that project claims are met. Critically, evaluation plans help identify key implications for the field and provide feedback to interventions or project activities during the duration of the grant.     

Makerspace in STEM for girls: a physical space to develop twenty-first-century skills

Makerspace has been lauded as a new way forward to create communities, empower students and bring together enthusiasts of all ages and skill levels “to tinker” and create. Makerspace education has been touted as having the potential to empower young people to become agents of change in their communities. This paper examines how a Makerspace approach can capture the imagination and creativity of female primary school students, and engage them in integrated STEM-based projects. The study scaffolded female tertiary undergraduate students to mentor small groups of girls to complete a project in a STEM Makerspace situated in classrooms. The data generated and analysed from this study were used to determine how Makerspace STEM-based projects were enacted, how they engaged and supported the girls’ learning, and considers the future of a Makerspace approach as a way to progress integrated STEM education.     

Veivosaki-yaga: a culturally appropriate Indigenous research method in Fiji

This article reports on the development of a new culturally sensitive approach to collecting group discussion data in the Pacific: veivosaki-yaga. The new approach was developed during a project on Technical and Vocational Education (TVET) in multicultural Fiji. One challenge was to gain understanding from villages of parental attitudes towards TVET. While focus groups proved to answer the purpose for Indian Fijian parents, they were deemed culturally inappropriate for Indigenous Fijian parents. As a ‘de-colonising’ Pacific methodology, veivosaki-yaga was judged to offer a culturally appropriate framework. Arising from strategic communication conventions in Indigenous Fijian culture, veivosaki-yaga means ‘worthwhile discussion’ – of serious topics. It differs from the now well-known Pacific methodology approach of talanoa, which is based on much more informal and free-flowing discussion. This paper does not engage the findings of the original project as such, but seeks to convey the value of a culturally appropriate methodological approach devised therein. It contributes to the currently evolving literature on Pacific methodologies in the field of qualitative educational research.     

FAITH DEVELOPMENT IN OLDER ADULTS

This paper has two purposes: (1) To introduce the faith development paradigm of James Fowler and (2) to review a research project in which that paradigm was applied to older adults. Four hypotheses related to “normal” aging were examined in the research project, and no broad‐based support was found for any of the hypotheses. Agesense, a new variable studied in the project, is defined as the degree to which older persons were subjectively aware of changes in general, as they progressed through the periods of late‐middle age and old age. The subjects' agesense ratings were very closely related to their levels of faith development. Questions for further faith development research are included in this article.     

The Experienced Meaning of Working with a PhD Thesis

There is a variation in terms of how researchers perceive the nature of research work. Previous research has mainly looked at the members of academia who already have established themselves in the scholarly community. We aimed at exploring the ways in which doctoral students perceived their thesis project and further, the relations of such perceptions to well-being and study engagement. The participants were 669 doctoral students from medicine, humanities, and behavioral sciences from a Finnish university who answered a questionnaire, including both structured and open-ended questions. The analysis was conducted by triangulating qualitative and quantitative data. The results showed that students' perceptions varied, ranging from perceiving the thesis as a product to viewing it as a process of developing expertise. Further, the results indicated that perceiving work on the thesis as a process was most advantageous in terms of experienced well-being and study engagement.     

当今全民健身之误区及对策

自1995年颁布全民健身计划至今已有五个年头，全民健身计划的实施即将进入第二期工程阶段。在第一期工程阶段已取得了有目共睹的成就，但从一些资料统计发现也存在着不少问题，为了更好的完成全民健身计划的第二期工程，有必要对前阶段的工作进行总结。本文就从此入手，通过对1995年到1999年有关全民健身计划的报道，找出第一期工程前阶段存在的问题，并提出解决问题的对策。     

Scaffolding students' use of learner-generated content in a technology-enhanced inquiry learning environment

Having students inspect and use each other's work is a promising way to advance inquiry-based science learning. Research has nevertheless shown that additional guidance is needed for students to take full advantage of the work produced by their peers. The present study investigated whether scaffolding through an integrated support tool could bring about the desired effect. This tool was embedded in an online inquiry learning environment and outlined the steps in searching for information in peer-created concept maps. It also contained specific directions to assess the quality of the retrieved information. The effectiveness of this search guidance tool was investigated during an inquiry-based science project. Main results indicated that high school students who were supported by the tool (n?=?19) developed a more differentiated and interconnected conceptual understanding than students who did not receive this scaffold (n?=?23). However, the search guidance tool also seemed to put additional demands on students' self-regulatory abilities, and might therefore require some practice or regulatory support to reach its full potential.