The collaborative curriculum at the school without walls: Empowering students for classroom learning

Various research and writings are used to frame a major issue in U.S. schooling: Our schools apparently do little to change power relations between the students of our elite families and those of the minorities and of low socioeconomic status (SES). The authors use situated cognition as an instructional strategy; curriculum designed for depth—not coverage; and student responsibility and choice as a theoretic rationale for a collaborative curriculum design in which power is shared by teachers and students to provide equal educational opportunity. After setting the organizational context at a School Without Walls (SWW), a public, urban high school in Rochester, New York, the authors describe how such a collaborative curriculum works. Data both from SWW student outcomes and from a national study on school restructuring are employed to support the efficacy of this collaborative curriculum in providing a schoolwide, student-centered context and equal opportunity for students. It is my belief that perhaps the most significant dimension in the conservative/progressive continuum [in public education] revolves around the matter of faith in the educability of humanity. At one end of the continuum is the faith that only a very small number of people can be expected to be well educated.... At the other end of the continuum is the idea that all people are capable and desirous of living a life of meaning and that all can be educated to be free and responsible. This is the position that refuses to accept inherent inequality of people.... It therefore becomes the task of educators to provide the conditions under which all people can express their full human potential. (Purpel, 1989, p. 10)     

How young people respond to learning spaces outside school: A sociocultural perspective

This article focuses on educational enterprises outside the formal sector, such as museums, botanical gardens and interactive science centres. International research is drawn on to illuminate how design, culture, educational strategies and settings combine to affect the way in which young people respond to experiences on offer, leading to analysis of the impact of such settings in promoting learning, and the likely implications for those who staff such venues. Aikenhead’s concept of the educator as ‘culture broker’ is developed to suggest ways in which learning might be best supported. It envisages a shift from ‘delivery’ strategies targeted at large groups towards approaches which focus on what learners choose to know about using dialogue between children and ‘known and trusted people’. Analysis of observed responses in various settings is undertaken from a sociocultural perspective using the notion of communities of practice. Implications for the roles of education managers and their staff in further research are developed.     

From learning to labour to learning for marginality: school segregation and marginalization in Swedish suburbs

In this article, using data from ethnographic research, we try to present some glimpses of the way education is described as an experience and possibility ‘from below’, by pupils who grow up and study in schools in the most segregated and territorially stigmatized suburbs on the outskirts of our major cities. What we feel they describe is an experience of schooling for surviving the social and economic consequences of curtailed citizenship in a post‐industrial society rather than one of schooling that offers possibilities of integration and full citizenship or social transformation. Our findings have significant policy implications in this respect. Sweden has historically pursued projects aimed at educational inclusion but has recently taken a significant turn toward neo‐liberalism and educational consumerism, since which time various disadvantaged groups have become increasingly concentrated compared with others in under‐achieving schools in an economically threatened public sector. The article discusses some aspects and possible consequences of this development.     

Thinking outside the box: imagination and empathy beyond story writing

It is sometimes assumed that the strongest opportunities for developing imagination and empathy through children's writing lie in narrative starting points, whereas other less obviously literary writing forms are more readily associated with functional literacy. Consequently, writing regarded as non‐literary is rarely analysed with these qualities in mind. This paper presents an exploratory, textual analysis of children's letter‐writing texts, which aims to identify and describe the uses of imagination and empathy. It is suggested that imaginative strategies were integral to this textual construction and that the significance of imagination and empathy in writing development is worthy of further exploration.     

Clinical Supervision: Lessons From the Literature

Several characteristics of supervision research create barriers to drawing inferences about which models of supervision are better than others, or even if supervision is effective in improving trainees' overall levels of therapeutic effectiveness. There are important lessons to be learned from the supervision research. This article discusses some of the lessons that were judged especially important.     

Lifelong learning: beyond the rhetoric of retention

Initially, this study of the attrition of adult Māori students in a Tertiary Institute was undertaken to determine whether the factors in the literature explaining attrition/retention in tertiary institutions were relevant to Māori students and whether the literature covered all the factors. The main finding was that they mostly did apply. Research published subsequently raised other issues that led to the conclusion that we need to reframe the concept of attrition/retention and accept that a certain level is inevitable. This suggests that it is time to turn our attention to strategies that ease the exit and return of Māori students to tertiary education institutions if they have to withdraw for any reason. At the same time, those of us in the tertiary education sector must continue to find ways to improve the quality of educational experiences for Māori students.     

Authentically assessing graduate teaching: outside and beyond neo-liberal constructs

In this paper, we challenge the current focus on ‘best practice’, graduate teacher tests, and student test scores as the panacea for ensuring teaching quality and argue for ways of thinking about evidence of quality beginning teaching outside and beyond the current neoliberal accountability discourses circulating in Australia and other countries. We suggest that teacher educators need to reinsert themselves as key players in the debates around quality beginning teaching, rather than being viewed as a source of the problem. To enable teacher educators to assume accountability for quality beginning teachers, we propose the framework of a capstone teacher performance assessment—a structured portfolio called the Authentic Teacher Assessment (ATA)—and examine examples of these assessments through the lens of critical discourse analysis. As a measure of ‘readiness to teach’, the ATA is compared with supervising teachers’ assessments of preservice teachers. We argue that structured portfolios that include artefacts derived from preservice teachers’ practice in classrooms along with graduate teacher self assessments provide a stronger accountability measure of effective beginning teaching and demonstrably address the current anxiety regarding ‘evidence’. We suggest that such an approach should be reliable enough to be ‘read’ by external assessors (and moderated across other teacher education institutions). Rigorous research on a national basis is called for in order to develop and implement a structured portfolio as rich evidence of graduates’ quality and readiness to teach.     

From in-service teacher development to school improvement: factors of learning transfer in teacher education

In-service teacher development programs are perceived as a common way to foster school improvement. Nevertheless, program evaluation to date ends with the assessment of acquired knowledge, skills, and motivation, frequently disregarding the actual learning transfer and its conditions. This study aimed to investigate how individual and situational factors interact and contribute to learning transfer in an in-service teacher development program. We tested a transfer model derived from human resources development research. One hundred and twenty-nine teachers aged 25–62 years (87% female), participating in an in-service development program, were surveyed three times during the program. Results of path analyses suggest that not only especially individual factors are critical for learning transfer in the context of school improvement, but also that program and environmental factors have important effects. They moderated the effects of the individual factors.     

Skills, standards, and disabilities: How youth with learning disabilities fare in high school and beyond

Learning disabled youth in the Child and Young Adult samples of the NLSY79 are more likely to graduate from high school than peers with the same measured cognitive ability, a difference that cannot be explained by differences in noncognitive skills, families, or school resources. Instead, I find that learning disabled students graduate from high school at higher rates than youth with the same cognitive abilities because of high school graduation policies that make it easier for learning disabled youth to obtain a high school diploma. The effects of these graduation policies are even more remarkable given that I find evidence that learning disabled youth have less unmeasured human capital than observationally equivalent youth as after high school they are less likely to be employed or continue on to college and earn less than their observationally equivalent non-learning disabled peers.     

校外美术教育之我见

校外教育是实施素质教育的重要途径,是增强学生道德践能力和社会适应能力的重要载体。校外教育的教育功能不可忽视,校外教育在人才教育培养上的独特作用是不可替代的。它不仅能培养学生美术兴趣,发展特长,锻炼能力,提高素质修养,而且能调适青少年的良好心态。     

Voices behind the walls: female offenders and experiential learning

This research highlights the learning of female offenders on a 20-day tailor-made experiential adventure education course (Women in Action) delivered by Outward Bound New Zealand. The aims of the course were to increase self-awareness, to develop an understanding of the concept of choice and self responsibility, to improve communication skills and to effectively influence others. Twenty-seven women were interviewed immediately after the course and 14 of these, three months post-course. Most women indicated that their self-confidence had increased and they had become more self-aware. Key factors in facilitating learning opportunities for the women were the instructors and the course environment both physical and social. The holistic course approach provided physical, creative, emotional and reflective opportunities, enabling all the women to develop personally. The challenge of applying their learning on return to prison was highlighted by some participants.

Never did I think that

My life could be changed

In so many ways.

But the challenges I've faced

From being here Lord I Know

That I can make it.

Cos I gotta keep on

Moving on in life

Won't let my spirit fall

Walk on walk on.

Some people tell me

I'd never change.

But now I've seen the light

More clear in every kind of way

I'm alive today

No more worries on my shoulders

I'm gonna make it

Oh yes I am.

Cos I gotta keep on

Moving on in life

Won't let my spirit fall

Walk on walk on.

(Poem by T - Women in Action participant)

     

Musical collaboration outside school: Processes of negotiation in band rehearsals

This paper presents a study of a series of band rehearsals run by five young people as they practised for a gig together: preparing new songs as well as developing their existing sets. The analysis specifically explores the ways in which the band members collectively develop and evaluate their musical ‘works in progress’. Their interactions were distinctive: with evidence of emotive, highly critical and sometimes conflictual dynamics in places. Within and through such processes the band members constructed a musical ‘shared knowledge’ which resourced the negotiation of their emergent band identity.     

Setting the scene: Measurement and learning beyond the mainstream

To contextualise the debates in this issue, the introduction problematises terms and approaches to the measurement of non-mainstream learning, at different levels of analysis and in different parts of the world. Mindful of the issues to be addressed in the papers to come, it introduces narratives of inclusion, intervention coherence and management styles, before examining their implications for the achievement of cross-national understandings of what may be the new mainstream of educational processes and effects. It concludes by outlining the contributions in this issue.     

Education accountability in Hong Kong: Lessons from the school management initiative

In March, 1991, the Hong Kong Government launched a scheme entitled the School Management Initiative. As suggested by the sub-title, “Setting the Framework for Quality in Hong Kong Schools,” the concern was for quality education. In September, 1991, 21 aided secondary schools took part in a pilot scheme. The schools were asked to set up a framework for accountability. This chapter reports how the teachers in the pilot schools responded to these changes. It was found that teachers who were involved in school administration were more favorably disposed to the changes. The remaining half of the teachers who were not involved in school administration were less enthusiastic. Both groups of teachers complained about the heavy increase of work load and reported that the accountability framework failed to make any impact on the quality of teaching.     

Coming alive in school math and beyond

In spite of ever-increasing efforts, the failure of schools to help children learn mathematics in a relevant and useful manner continues. We know that the enforced rote learning is a direct cause of this, so we try to promote better teaching methods. But having given up on the children, believing most of them incapable, we continue teaching everything with drill and testing, thus ensuring the continued rote learning and confirming our beliefs. Thus the children's power of thought, vitality and responsibility remain wiped out.A strong shift in attitudes of students to I can explore, I can control my study and learning is not difficult to obtain, and we have seen many examples of this, with excellent results. In any community where there is sufficient concern, cooperation and communication, this can be achieved. The need is to let better ways come in in little bits, not by trying to stop standard methods. We describe some ways in which such a process may be carried out.     

Cooperative learning in science: intervention in the secondary school

The use of cooperative learning in secondary school is reported – an area of considerable concern given attempts to make secondary schools more interactive and gain higher recruitment to university science courses. In this study the intervention group was 259 pupils aged 12–14 years in nine secondary schools, taught by 12 self‐selected teachers. Comparison pupils came from both intervention and comparison schools (n = 385). Intervention teachers attended three continuing professional development days, in which they received information, engaged with resource packs and involved themselves in cooperative learning. Measures included both general and specific tests of science, attitudes to science, sociometry, self‐esteem, attitudes to cooperative learning and transferable skills (all for pupils) and observation of implementation fidelity. There were increases during cooperative learning in pupil formulation of propositions, explanations and disagreements. Intervened pupils gained in attainment, but comparison pupils gained even more. Pupils who had experienced cooperative learning in primary school had higher pre‐test scores in secondary education irrespective of being in the intervention or comparison group. On sociometry, comparison pupils showed greater affiliation to science work groups for work, but intervention pupils greater affiliation to these groups at break and out of school. Other measures were not significant. The results are discussed in relation to practice and policy implications.