Developmental outcomes of children in classes for special educational needs: results from a longitudinal study

This longitudinal study investigates the differences in cognitive and socio‐emotional development and academic achievement between children educated in special education classes (N = 37) and regular classes (N = 37). The study is retrospective. The first measurement point was while children were attending play‐oriented kindergarten and no decision about their education had yet been made. The second measurement point followed after 2 years of schooling. Comparing carefully matched groups, no differences in executive functions (EFs) were found before beginning school. Children assigned to special education had poorer language, fine motor skills and a lower pre‐academic self‐concept, self‐regulatory skills and social integration. Notably, every fourth child in special education was an immigrant, 9% of whom later attended regular classes. After 2 years of schooling in either setting, the groups differed significantly in academic achievement, EFs, fine motor skills and cognitive self‐regulatory skills. However, it was not – as school officials had intended – that children in special education classes had caught up, except in regard to their academic self‐concept and social integration.     

Drama: narrative pedagogy and socially challenged children

Melanie Peter, Senior Lecturer in Education and Early Childhood at Anglia Ruskin University, argues that the ability to engage in narrative stems from early interactive play formats and is essential for perceiving patterns and sequences in life – the fabric of social understanding. Developing themes set out in her earlier work, this article presents a rationale and developmental model for drama as narrative pedagogy. Whether narrative impairment is a cause or consequence of their difficulties, hard-to-reach or socially challenged children – exemplified by those with autism – characteristically show a limited spontaneous play repertoire, which necessarily hampers their development. However, through a play-tutoring approach in drama, especially by the teacher-in-role, significant gains may be noted. Melanie Peter uses case studies to illustrate an emerging triad of competencies that contribute to enhancing social understanding: more effective communication, greater sensitivity in interaction and creative problem-solving. The generative pedagogical dimensions support a developmental framework for using drama to explore cultural values and issues embedded in stories, towards greater narrative identity and more effective participation in a social world.     

“They made me feel like a teacher rather than a praccie”: sinking or swimming in pre-service drama education

Support, professional guidance and modelling of teaching practice offered by quality mentor teachers are important components in preparing teachers for the profession. Yet research confirms the impact of poor mentoring on pre-service teachers’ developing pedagogy. This paper reports findings from a qualitative study with pre-service drama teachers and their mentors as a way of better understanding how mentoring impacts their developing pedagogy, in a learning area that is highly interactive and relational. Data comprised of observations of planning and teaching, participant interviews, journals and field notes representing five pre-service drama teachers’ experience of mentors during an extended teaching practicum. These data revealed the considerable variance and disparities in mentoring styles and quality and the repercussions for the pre-service drama teachers. The discussion addresses the implications of these findings in light of those mentor attributes identified as most conducive to creating competent and confident beginning drama teachers.     

The development and initial validation of a questionnaire of inclusive teachers’ competency for meeting special educational needs in regular classrooms in China

The aim of this study was to develop and validate an instrument of inclusive teachers’ competencies for teaching students with special educational needs in China. Data were obtained from a preliminary and large-scale investigation in Beijing. The primary analyses included exploratory factor analysis and confirmatory factor analysis. The findings indicated that Chinese inclusive teachers’ competency is underpinned by four factors: teaching and instruction; communication and cooperation; attitudes and beliefs; and reflection and development. The four-factor model was obtained with satisfactory reliability and validity. The validated questionnaire generated a theoretical understanding of inclusive education teachers’ competency in China. In addition, the findings of the study provided knowledge that will allow for the development of professional standards and teacher education programmes for inclusive education.     

Drama as an Experiential Technique in Learning How to Cope with Dying Patients and their Families

This paper discusses a teaching experiment in which participation and observation of a drama helped first year nursing students to consider ways of dealing with death and dying. Workshops included dramatised scenarios of critical incidents demonstrating different peoples' experiences of the death of a fictional patient in hospital. Two nurse teachers performed a two-part drama about the experiences of a patient just diagnosed with terminal cancer. Live performances were presented to large groups of students and followed by small group discussions. Drama as a teaching method was well received, and the combination of drama and group discussion was considered very effective by students, who requested more similar sessions. Drama appears highly satisfactory for achieving learning in the affective domain, and can be added to teaching methods for improving communication skills and coping strategies with nursing students who will be caring for the dying. However, further research is necessary.     

Implementing co-teaching with paraprofessionals to provide pre-Kindergarten students with special rights access to dual language

The purpose of this study was to examine how paraprofessionals and other service providers participate in co-teaching with a certified special education pre-Kindergarten teacher during dual language (DL) instruction. The study took place in two DL special education preschool classrooms located in an urban public school district in the southwestern US. The district enlisted paraprofessionals as lead Spanish instructors when the lead teacher was not bilingual in Spanish and English to implement the DL programme effectively. Participants were one special education teacher, two paraprofessionals and one teaching artist, who participated in a year-long professional development programme to employ drama strategies to develop children's Spanish and English literacy skills and promote inclusion. Findings indicated that the participants utilised multiple co-teaching models to collaborate and meet the needs of their students during English and Spanish instruction. Through co-teaching, all educators had opportunities to take lead and supporting roles in instruction.     

Enhancing fluent and flexible thinking through the creative drama process

The purpose of this study is to examine whether flexible and fluent thinking skills, two important elements in divergent thinking, can be enhanced through creative drama process. The research was conducted on 30 subjects, 15 in an experimental group and 15 in a control group. Each group consisted of 9 females and 6 males. All subjects were postgraduate students, and the average age was 25. Flexibility and fluency were assessed through “circle drawing” and “alternate uses of objects” sub-tests. Both groups were given an initial pre-test. Then the experimental group attended a 10-week creative drama course, 3 h a week. A week after drama process was completed, a post-test was applied to both groups. Determining the pre-test and post-test score differences of the two groups, the one-way MANOVA analysis with a 2 × 2 design was applied. The results show that creative drama process can help enhance the two important aspects of divergent thinking, fluency and flexibility, in adult groups.     

网络环境下教师专业化发展的策略探究

教育信息化背景下,各国都在教育改革中全力探索采用新模式和新途径来推进教师专业发展.我国传统教师专业发展模式存在诸多不足.因特网具有资源丰富、更新及时、交互多样、通讯快捷、学习自主、时空不限等特征,能为教师的专业发展提供一个良好空间.依托网上学习支持平台,教师学员可以经过自主学习、专题学习、案例研讨、实践教学、主题研讨与问题解决、反思教研、修正教学实践等环节,经历认识——实践——反思——再认识——再实践——再反思的不断循环往复,主动地提高自身专业化水平.     

基于英语戏剧表演的大学英语教学模式实证研究

英语戏剧表演以面部表情、手势、动作等为载体进行语言交流,它既能激发学生学习英语的兴趣,提高学生英语交际能力,又能使学生更好地了解英语国家的文化,所以被看成是一种行之有效的英语教学模式。本文结合英语教学理论与教学实践,从理论和实证两方面探讨了这种教学模式应用于大学英语教学的可行性,并分析了对英语教学的典型意义。     

Beyond ‘what works’: understanding teacher identity as a practical and political tool

Drawing on previous research that focused upon the formation and mediation of teacher professional identity, this paper develops a model for conceptualising teacher professional identity. Increasingly, technical-rational understandings of teachers’ work and ‘role’ are privileged in policy and public discourse over more nuanced and holistic approaches that seek to understand teacher professional identity – what it is to ‘be’ a teacher. This article seeks to offer an alternative view, presenting the idea that an understanding of the processes by which teacher professional identity is formed and mediated is central to understanding the professional learning and development needs of teachers and advancing a richer, more transformative vision for education. I argue that instrumentalist notions of teachers’ work embedded in neo-liberal educational agendas such as those currently being advanced in many western countries offer an impoverished view of the teaching profession and education more broadly, and suggest that the concept of teacher professional identity holds the potential to work as a practical tool for the teaching profession and those who work to support them in the development of a more generative educational agenda.     

Identifying configurations of perceived teacher autonomy support and structure: Associations with self-regulated learning,motivation and problem behavior

Grounded in self-determination theory, the aim of this study was (a) to examine naturally occurring configurations of perceived teacher autonomy support and clear expectations (i.e., a central aspect of teacher structure), and (b) to investigate associations with academic motivation, self-regulated learning, and problem behavior. Based on person-centered analyses in a sample of high school students (N = 1036), four different perceived teaching configurations emerged: high autonomy support – clear expectations, low autonomy support – vague expectations, high autonomy support, and clear expectations. The teaching configuration characterized by perceived autonomy support and clear expectations was related to the most positive pattern of outcomes, whereas the opposing teaching configuration related to the most negative pattern of outcomes. The two remaining groups fell in between. The discussion focuses on the compatibility of teacher autonomy support and teacher structure.     

话剧项目教学法在沟通类课程中的应用初探

在沟通类课程的教学过程中,由于该课程本身存在实践及应用性强的特点,对教学实施及效果评价造成了一定的困难。通过在教学设计、实施、评价环节引入“话剧项目教学法”,使学习不简单局限于识记,而是在对课程内容解构后,重新编排,根据不同的沟通理论技巧,选择不同的话剧项目节段,将理论学习融入话剧项目。再通过话剧形式让学生将所学理论展示出来,教师与其他学生作为话剧观众,构成“沟通观察共同体”,对不同学生在沟通中存在的问题提出改进意见,从而帮助学生将理论学习融入应用,并进行教学效果测评。     

Fostering uncertainty tolerance in anatomy education: Lessons learned from how humanities,arts and social science (HASS) educators develop learners' uncertainty tolerance

Uncertainty tolerance, individuals' perceptions/responses to uncertain stimuli, is increasingly recognized as critical to effective healthcare practice. While the Covid-19 pandemic generated collective uncertainty, healthcare-related uncertainty is omnipresent. Correspondingly, there is increasing focus on uncertainty tolerance as a health professional graduate “competency,” and a concomitant interest in identifying pedagogy fostering learners' uncertainty tolerance. Despite these calls, practical guidelines for educators are lacking. There is some initial evidence that anatomy education can foster medical students' uncertainty tolerance (e.g., anatomical variation and dissection novelty), however, there remains a knowledge gap regarding robust curriculum-wide uncertainty tolerance teaching strategies. Drawing upon humanities, arts and social sciences (HASS) educators' established uncertainty tolerance pedagogies, this study sought to learn from HASS academics' experiences with, and teaching practices related to, uncertainty pedagogy using a qualitative, exploratory study design. Framework analysis was undertaken using an abductive approach, wherein researchers oscillate between inductive and deductive coding (comparing to the uncertainty tolerance conceptual model). During this analysis, the authors analyzed ~386 min of data from purposively sampled HASS academics' (n = 14) discussions to address the following research questions: (1) What teaching practices do HASS academics' perceive as impacting learners' uncertainty tolerance, and (2) How do HASS academics execute these teaching practices? The results extend current understanding of the moderating effects of education on uncertainty tolerance and supports prior findings that the anatomy learning environment is ripe for supporting learner uncertainty tolerance development. This study adds to growing literature on the powerful moderating effect education has on uncertainty tolerance and proposes translation of HASS uncertainty tolerance teaching practices to enhance anatomy education.     

Interpreting a Community of Practice Perspective in Discipline-Specific Professional Development in Higher Education

Through this study we explored a community of practice framework applied to faculty professional development at a mid-size state university in order to examine the issues unique to discipline-specific professional development in higher education. Through content-focused professional development activities conducted by the authors, several key areas were identified that point to challenges in building a faculty community of teaching practice: (a) the need for a culture of professional development, (b) developing old-timers and recruiting newcomers, (c) the need for teaching scholars to coordinate professional development, (d) challenging the “culture of service”, and (e) the need for a language to mediate thinking about practice. Maria Blanton  received a Ph.D. in Mathematics Education from North Carolina State University. She is currently a Senior Executive Research Associate in the Kaput Center and an Associate Professor in the Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics Dept at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth. Her research interests focus on applications of sociocultural theory in understanding teaching and learning mathematics in both elementary grades and higher education. Despina Stylianou  received an Ed.D. in mathematics education from the University of Pittsburgh. She is Associate Professor in the Department of Secondary Education at the City College of New York. Her research interests are in the area of mathematical cognition; her work explores the mathematical skills, sensibilities, and habits of mind and action that are critical to doing, learning, and using mathematics proficiently.     

Men in limbo: former students with special educational needs caught between economic independence and social security dependence

Individuals in their mid-thirties are expected to be employed and economically independent. However, people with disabilities and health problems – for example, former students with special educational needs (SEN) – may have problems in this domain of adult life. In Norway, individuals with SEN frequently rely on social security and support measures from the Norwegian Labour and Welfare Administration (NAV). This article is based on the narrative analysis of life course trajectories of seven young adult males over a period of 17 years – from their enrolment in upper secondary school with special needs teaching whilst in their teens to their participation in various NAV programmes whilst in their mid-thirties. The life course approach, with an emphasis on transitions and trajectories, has been used as the theoretical framework for analysing the presented data. The hope is that, taken together, these seven stories provide a deeper insight than one individual story could offer. We find that both social structures and the earlier life course affect one’s opportunities for joining the labour market.     

‘That's not treating you as a professional’: teachers constructing complex professional identities through talk

Public debates about the role of teachers and teacher performance place teachers at the center of a range of national and local discourses. The notion of teacher professional identity, therefore, framed in a variety of ways, engages people across social contexts, whether as educators, parents, students, taxpayers, voters or consumers of news and popular media. These highly contested discourses about teachers' roles and responsibilities constitute an important context for research on teachers and teaching, as researchers and educators ask how changes to the teaching profession affect teacher professional identity. This article investigates the identity talk of three mid‐career teachers in an urban, public school in the USA, to better understand how the teachers used language to accomplish complex professional identities. Research approaches to teacher identity often focus on teacher narrative as a key tool in identity formation. The analysis presented here extends our understanding of language as a resource in teacher identity construction by using discourse analysis to investigate how speakers use implicit meaning to accomplish the role identity of teacher. The analytical lens draws on an interdisciplinary framework that combines a sociological approach to teacher as a role identity with an investigation of language as a cultural practice, grounded in the ethnography of communication. The analysis focuses on how teachers use specific discourse strategies – reported speech, mimicked speech, pronoun shifts, oppositional portraits, and juxtaposition of explicit claims – to construct implicit identity claims that, while they are not stated directly, are central to accomplishing teacher as a role identity. The analysis presented here focuses on the particular implicit role claim of teacher as collaborator. Findings show that, in their identity talk, the teachers strategically positioned themselves in relation to others and to institutional practices, actively negotiating competing discourses about teacher identity by engaging in a counter discourse emphasizing teachers' professional role as knowledge producers rather than information deliverers, collaborative, rather than isolated, and as agents of change engaged in critical analysis to plan action. Awareness of how these counter discourses operate in the teachers' conversation helps us better understand the cultural significance of identity talk as a site for the negotiation of the significances for the role identity of teacher. In addition, the notions of role identity and implicit identity claims offer an accessible way to talk about the complexity of teacher identity, which can be helpful for increasing awareness of the importance of teacher identity in teacher education and professional development, and in bringing teachers' voices more prominently into the debates over education.     

Mindfulness‐based SEL programming to increase preservice teachers’ mindfulness and emotional competence

Eighty‐seven preservice teachers, some of whom had preschool teaching experience, were randomly assigned to an intervention that included training in breathing awareness meditation infused with social‐emotional learning (n = 43) or a control group that received training in (n = 44) in breathing awareness meditation only. Both groups showed an increase in mindfulness from pre‐ to posttest. However, as expected, dimensions of emotional competence improved more significantly for preservice teachers in the intervention group. Increases were also greater for participants with teaching experience. Both groups also increased in the belief that classroom misbehavior would result in negative cognitive and social costs to children, but a larger increase was observed for the intervention group. Implications for teacher preparation are discussed.     

Science through Drama: A multiple case exploration of the characteristics of drama activities used in secondary science lessons

Over 20 years of research into the use of cross‐curricular drama in secondary science has indicated that this medium enables learning of affective, cognitive and procedural knowledge. To date, academic research has tended to frame successful drama pedagogy as resulting from a Drama‐in‐Education approach, incorporating extended role plays and simulations of social events. By contrast, research has rarely focused on the scope and context of drama which is devised and used by real people in real situations. Indications from non‐academic literature and informal education practice suggest that there is a gap in our knowledge between research and classroom practice. This study focused on teachers’ own drama activities in five science lessons taught across schools in Cambridge, Kent, and Hertfordshire. Their classes spanned the ages of 12–16 in the subjects of chemistry, biology, and physics. This study explored the drama forms, teaching objectives, and characteristics by which drama was perceived to enable learning in Science. The findings revealed that drama activities were used to convey a variety of topics that have not yet been recorded in academic literature, and revealed a greater scope for the teaching abstract scientific concepts through mime and role play. These activities were perceived to develop students’ visualisation through a range of modalities, which included embodied sensation and anthropomorphic metaphors. Some features reflected the development of thought experiment skills. A pedagogic model was produced based on different levels of interactive talk and multimodal communication.     

‘He knows he is safe; you are the safety net’. Key adult intervention with children with attachment difficulties: the TAs perspective

Children and young adults who are ‘looked after’ can present teachers and teaching assistants with a variety of day-to-day classroom challenges and a range of complex behaviours due to adverse childhood environments. This group of vulnerable young people have very complex social and emotional behaviours that require a considered approach of support and interventions. The types of interventions deployed in schools, however, may depend on staff knowledge, staff self-confidence, and interpersonal skills to support the child's learning and complex behaviours. An example of an intervention is the key adult intervention programme, which is purported to develop staff knowledge and self-confidence when working with looked after children. training in key adult intervention occurred at a special school, which had a high percentage of looked after children, situated in an East Midlands town. The purpose of the study was firstly to support the children through in-depth knowledge development for supporting staff, and secondly to investigate staff confidence and understanding of the needs of looked after children. In addition, supporting factors of the key adult intervention and a discovery of any barriers to its implementation were sought. Using a mixed methods approach, data were collected from participating staff using questionnaires and focused conversations. Qualitative data were analysed using Cresswells six-step process. Findings suggest that the key adult intervention is an effective means to support staff confidence and understanding and offer support for looked after children. Recommendations for future practice include increased training and support for teaching assistants, teachers and the school community as a whole. In addition, targeted professional and emotional support for the teaching assistants deployed, and increased communication between senior leaders and teaching assistants is crucial. The current research, therefore, adds to existing literature by providing an evaluation of the key adult intervention within a special school setting with evidence gathered from teaching assistants.     

Student–teacher closeness and conflict in students with and without special educational needs

Teachers play a key role in creating effective conditions for students to succeed in school. The quality of student–teacher relationships is consistently associated with social, emotional, behavioural and academic adjustment, and this is even more relevant for students with special educational needs (SEN), considering these students’ emotional, social and learning vulnerabilities. This study aimed to examine the associations between students’ externalising and internalising behaviour, social skills and academic performance, and teachers’ perceptions of conflict and closeness in their relationships with students with and without SEN. Data regarding 360 students in Year 3, Year 5 and Year 7 (169 students with SEN) were collected. Teachers (n = 74) reported on the student–teacher relationship and students’ social skills, behaviour problems and academic performance. Special education teachers (n = 38) provided information regarding the diagnosis and profile of functioning of students with SEN. Results showed that teachers’ reports of students’ social skills and externalising problems were the strongest predictors of closeness and conflict. Internalising problems and SEN status also predicted decreased closeness, despite smaller effects. Taken together, findings support the importance of professional development opportunities focusing on facilitating teachers’ relationships with students with perceived challenging behaviour.