Using technology to explore mathematical relationships: a framework for orienting mathematics courses for prospective teachers

The technological revolution that has finally permeated K-12 education has direct implications for modern teacher educators whose “Hippocratic oath” is to best prepare future teachers for twenty-first-century classrooms. The goal of this article is to suggest that the heart of sound technological implementation is to encourage students to use whatever tools are available to explain the mathematical relations that underlie what they observe on the screen. We suggest ways in which Mishra and Koehler’s construct of Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge may be customized to provide a framework for guiding prospective teachers’ efforts to develop and assess lesson plans that use technology in novel and effective ways. Data are presented in the form of two contrasting case studies to illustrate the differing degrees to which prospective mathematics teachers leveraged technology to teach themselves and their future students to explain the mathematics behind various topics.     

The Slosson as a predictor of Wide Range Achievement Test performance

This study investigated the efficacy of predicting academic achievement as measured by the Wide Range Achievement Test, using the Slosson Intelligence Test For Children and Adults as the predictor. Ninety-five children referred for psychological evaluations in a five-county area in southeastern Nebraska were given both instruments, and a regression analysis was conducted where the Slosson IQ scores were separately regressed on Reading, Spelling and Arithmetic standard scores from the Wide Range Achievement Test. The results indicated that the Slosson IQ significantly predicts Wide Range standard scores. Derived regression equations are reported.     

“Brains before ‘beauty’?” High achieving girls,school and gender identities

In recent years educational policy on gender and achievement has concentrated on boys' underachievement, frequently comparing it with the academic success of girls. This has encouraged a perception of girls as the “winners” of the educational stakes and assumes that they no longer experience the kinds of gender inequalities identified in earlier studies. However, trying to balance academic achievement with being seen as a “proper girl” presents girls with difficult challenges, particularly in terms of being accepted and approved of by classmates and securing the attention of teachers. This paper explores the views of a group of high achieving 12‐ to 13‐year‐old girls who indicate that being regarded as “clever” continues to be negotiated within acceptable frameworks of femininity.     

Re/theorising gender: female masculinity and male femininity in the classroom?

Recent gender theorising has been enlivened by post‐structuralist accounts of gender as ‘disembodied’; the reading of gender performances as distinct from sexed bodies. However, there has been little application of such theoretical positions to empirical analysis in gender and education. This article employs two such positions – that of ‘female masculinity and male femininity’, and that of ‘gender monoglossia and heteroglossia’ – to data raised from a research project on high‐achieving pupils. It is argued that although cases of female masculinity and male femininity are identified, such labels can usefully be applied to only a very small number of pupils, and even here there are profound problems in the conceptual application. The concept of gender heteroglossia appeared applicable to a far larger number of pupils. It is argued that this latter concept offers a less rigid application, that can incorporate analysis both of continuing patterns of gender inequality (as reflective of gender monoglossia), and of individual, gender‐transgressive (heteroglossic) performances.     

The influence of the Creative Learning Assessment (CLA) on children's learning and teachers' teaching

This paper describes the development and use of the Creative Learning Assessment (CLA) as a means of evidencing, supporting and promoting children's creative learning in arts‐based contexts. The research team at the Centre for Literacy in Primary Education (CLPE) worked with a group of teachers in inner‐city Lambeth primary schools to develop an assessment system to record the impact of a creative curriculum on children's achievement and to enable schools to justify a broad‐based provision. The Assessing Learning and Communication in Creative Learning Contexts project, funded by CfBT Education Trust (CfBT), aimed to offer teachers a view of creative learning development and a framework for teacher assessment. It set out to provide a close focus on the learner and a valuable source of information for curriculum planning. This article discusses the effect of working with the CLA on children's learning and on teachers' practice through a case study of one project school, and the implications for schools and classrooms from the perspectives of the researcher and the teacher.     

永随我心

许多次,我们并不确信一定能做成某事,纸面上的显示毫无意义,内在的感受才是真的心情。     

Gender,popularity and notions of in/authenticity amongst 12‐year‐old to 13‐year‐old school girls

This paper draws on data from a research project investigating gendered identities and interactions of high‐achieving students in Year Eight in England (12–13 years old), particularly in relation to students’ ‘popularity’ amongst their peers. As part of this study 71 students were interviewed from nine different schools in urban, rural and small town locations. From an analysis of participants’ conceptions of the characteristics of ‘popular’ and ‘unpopular’ students, this paper looks in depth at notions of in/authenticity and how it is perceived and judged in relation to the self and others. In particular, the paper focuses on the genderedness of such discourses of in/authenticity as constructed by these students, and relates such concerns to theorizations of ‘impossible’ femininity.     

Teaching manfully? Exploring gendered subjectivities and power via analysis of men teachers’ gender performance

The notion that teachers’ classroom behaviour and interaction with pupils may be predicted on the basis of their gender underpins recent controversial campaigns to recruit more male teachers in the UK. Teachers’ performances of gender are explored in this article, which draws on three cases from a larger study to analyse the ways in which teachers ascribed male produced their gendered subjectivities in the classroom and in interviews. Findings highlight the extent of diversity in male teachers’ practice and in their constructions of gendered subjecthood, hence providing evidence to question assumptions that male teachers teach, or relate to pupils, in particular ways due to their identification as male. The analysis emphasizes the fluidity and complexity of gender, including the (novel) identification of ‘male femininity’ in male teacher performances. Yet while supportive of the argument that gender is not necessarily tied to sexed bodies, the paper illustrates how embodiment can constrain or facilitate access to, and exercise of, particular gendered discourses, with consequences for power positions. It also highlights how these processes can result in the consolidation of particularly powerful subjectivities, somewhat testing Foucauldian perceptions of power as ‘never localized’. Hence the paper presents a challenge both to education policy makers and to theorists of gender and power.