Complexity and Curriculum: A process approach to curriculum-making

It is argued that the complex learning with which higher education institutions are concerned is best promoted by coherent curricula. However, curriculum coherence is not widespread. Outcomes-led rational curriculum planning offers one way of creating coherent curricula, but it is argued that, despite its appeal, it is a poor approach to adopt. An alternative, process model of curriculum creation is described and claims are made about the advantages it can have as an approach to planning coherent learning programmes.     

Teacher Verbal Feedback Directed Towards Secondary Pupils with Challenging Behaviour and its Relationship to their Behaviour

There is a body of evidence that has linked teachers’ verbal feedback to pupils with pupil behaviour. In this study teacher verbal behaviour that was directed towards those pupils that the teachers had nominated as being especially difficult to teach was examined. A series of lessons was observed in a secondary school. The quality and quantity of teacher verbal feedback directed to the class as a whole and to the designated pupils was recorded, as was the on‐task behaviour of the pupils. It was found that the designated pupils were less on‐task than their peers and were more likely to ‘shout‐out’ in lessons. However, they were found to behave appropriately in well run lessons, where on‐task rates were high for all pupils. Teachers tended to give more attention to the designated pupils in the form of positive feedback directed towards their work, but also negative attention directed towards their behaviour. A positive relationship was found between teachers’ use of positive feedback and on‐task rates of the designated pupils. The results are discussed both in terms of the strategies used by teachers but also the effect that labelling of the pupils might have on the behaviour of the teachers and the pupils themselves.     

The effects of contingency avoidance on programmed student achievement

If it is assumed that student failure in the classroom situation is the result of inadequate performance skills rather than a lack of ability, then the attention of the educator should more properly be directed at teaching the student to develop effective methods of studying. The present experiment employed a Programmed Student Achievement (PA) procedure which required that the student evidence 100% mastery of discrete units of material. Two PA contingencies which differed in the intensity of the consequence of failing to evidence mastery were used, testing the hypothesis that the PA effect is analogous to avoidance conditioning. In addition, generalization of the effect of PA on performance in courses taken concurrently was evaluated. The performance of PA students was found to be significantly superior to that of control students on both weekly quizzes and major exams; however, performance under the two experimental contingencies did not differ. Additionally, the PA effect did not generalize to performance in other courses. The implication of these data for an avoidance hypothesis account of the PA effect is discussed.     

ON THE PUBLIC AND CIVIC PURPOSES OF EDUCATION

A bstract .  In this review essay, Kathleen Knight Abowitz discusses three recent books related to democratic public life and schooling: Susan H. Fuhrman and Marvin Lazerson's The Public Schools , Walter C. Parker's Teaching Democracy: Unity and Diversity in Public Life , and Kevin McDonough and Walter Feinberg's Education and Citizenship in Liberal-Democratic Societies . Abowitz details how each text is inspired by meanings of liberal democracy that evolved during the Enlightenment era, in which individual rights were constitutionally coded and equality came to be a powerful social and educational ideal, and how each book also takes up different sorts of Enlightenment traditions of public life and education, attempting to revitalize their meanings for public education today. Yet while these books are inspiring and instructive in numerous ways, they are also notable for the issues they fail to take into theoretical account, particularly the colonization of public spheres by the private and market-based spheres of commerce, and the ways in which increasing ecological crisis calls for new ways of conceiving our political and educational frameworks.     

‘We're all in this game whether we like it or not to get a number of As to Cs.’ Design and technology teachers' struggles to implement creativity and performativity policies

Education reform in England has seen many policies and initiatives introduced by central government. This article discusses two such policies, performativity and creativity. Performativity has been central to the government's agenda of raising standards and includes monitoring mechanisms such as Office for Standards in Education (Ofsted) inspections, performance management and school league tables, all of which are used to measure or judge the value or worth of a school or individual teacher. At the same time as policies on performativity have been implemented, policy makers have introduced a number of policies to encourage creativity in education. This article foregrounds teachers of design and technology (D&T) at secondary level (11–16 years), describing how they struggled to implement both strategies. Teachers valued creativity and thought it was an important part of the subject, but the pressure to be seen to be performing and getting favourable positions in school league tables and Ofsted inspections meant the teaching of D&T became rather formulaic, which allowed very little opportunity for creative learning. Individual interviews were conducted with 14 D&T teachers across six schools and an open‐ended email survey was conducted with a further 17 D&T teachers from 15 schools during the preliminary phase of a research and intervention project. In addition, 69 D&T teachers across eight schools completed a questionnaire at the start of the main intervention period. Data from 126 student interviews across six schools are used to support the teacher data outlined above.     

The effects of instructional method upon the acquisition of inquiry skills

This study investigated the effects of Guided Discovery vs. Didactic methods of instruction upon the acquisition of certain inquiry skills. At the same time, the effects of method on the attainment of factual-conceptual achievement was assessed. Hypotheses of no interaction of the methods variable with the learner variables—sex, measured intelligence, creativity, interest in science, general scholastic achievement, and science achievement—were also tested. The sample consisted of 140 8th-grade students. The duration of the experimental unit was six weeks. The subject matter was the same for each, “Early Man in America.” The results favored the Didactic group for the factual-conceptual achievement and the Guided Discovery for the acquisition of inquiry skills. However, in the latter there was an interaction of method with levels of measured intelligence and achievement.