Training,Careers and Lives: a longitudinal study of a teaching dynasty

This paper is an account of a singular Anglo‐Welsh dynasty, the Adams family, the experiences of three generations of whose teaching members spanned 100 years of educational development in England and Wales, from the 1840s to the 1930s. It comprises first of all summarised biographical details of relevant members of the Adams family, of which a full history can be found in the writer's An Anglo‐Welsh Teaching Dynasty (Marsden, 1997). The second part of the paper offers generalisations drawn from this grassroots, longitudinal case study which provide critical comment on the work, personal lives and attitudes of individual members, in illustration of the living realisation of a century of educational effort. They hopefully serve to counter some of the attenuated and negative stereotypes of the teaching profession found in certain traditional histories of the profession and in some social theory imposed on educational history.     

University class size: Is smaller better?

This study investigates the relationship between class size and achievement at the college level. Recent meta-analyses have found a strong relationship between class size and student achievement, but few of the studies examined class size larger than 40 or university-age populations. This analysis examines a university's testing-center data-archives representing 305 sections from 24 different courses. Section sizes ranged from 13 to 1,006. A total of 16,230 test scores were analyzed. The results of this investigation reveal that at the college level, class size may be less important an influence on student achievement than some educators have thought.     

The National Diffusion Network: A career education bonus

Bill Guise is Assistant Director, Washington National Diffusion Network Facilitator Office.     

Assessing Multiliteracies and the New Basics

This paper addresses the skills and characteristics required of successful learners, workers and citizens in the knowledge economy. The authors trace the shifting commercial, technological and cultural conditions characteristic of this economy, and highlight the key qualities now required for individual success. Effective learners will increasingly need to be autonomous and self-directed, flexible, collaborative, of open sensibility, broadly knowledgeable, and able to work productively with linguistic and cultural diversity. While still prevalent, it is held that standardised testing and a 'back to basics' approach to curriculum are unable to promote and measure effectively these skills and sensibilities. Instead, a broader and more creative approach to curriculum and assessment is recommended. A 'new basics' is argued for at the level of curriculum, with correlative assessment techniques such as analysis of portfolios, performance, projects and group work.     

Infants' Reliance on a Social Criterion for Establishing Word-Object Relations

The language children hear presents them with a multitude of co-occurrences between words and things in the world, and they must repeatedly determine which among these manifold co-occurrences is relevant. Social factors—such as cues regarding the speaker's referential intent—might serve as one guide to whether word-object covariation should be registered. In 2 studies, infants (15–20 months and 18–20 months in Studies 1 and 2, respectively) heard novel labels at a time when they were investigating a single novel object; in one case the label was uttered by a speaker seated within the infant's view and displaying concurrent attention to the novel toy (coupled condition), whereas in the other case the label emanated from a speaker seated out of the infant's view (decoupled condition). In both studies, subsequent comprehension questions indicated that infants of 18–20 months registered a stable link between label and object in the coupled condition, but not in the decoupled condition, despite the fact that covariation between label and object was equivalent in the 2 conditions. Thus, by 18–20 months children are inclined to establish a mapping between word and object only when a speaker displays signs of referring to that object.     

Time,space and distance education

This paper challenges the lingering tendency to understand distance education in terms of the ‘real thing’, that is, face‐to‐face, classroom teaching. It critiques distance education's implicit theory of text, space and time, ontology and epistemology, and examines its connections to the current practice of teaching‐at‐a‐distance. These arguments are developed in response to the questions: who teaches? who is the student? and who or what is ‘distant’ in distance education? On this basis, drawing on the philosophy of critical realism, an alternative model of distance education is presented and its implications for course design, and the role of editing, are considered.     

Altered movement patterns but not muscle recruitment in moderately trained triathletes during running after cycling

Previous studies have shown that cycling can directly influence neuromuscular control during subsequent running in some highly trained triathletes, despite these triathletes' years of practice of the cycle-run transition. The aim of this study was to determine whether cycling has the same direct influence on neuromuscular control during running in moderately trained triathletes. Fifteen moderately trained triathletes participated. Kinematics of the pelvis and lower limbs and recruitment of 11 leg and thigh muscles were compared between a control run (no prior exercise) and a 30 min run that was preceded by a 15 min cycle (transition run). Muscle recruitment was different between control and transition runs in only one of 15 triathletes (<7%). Changes in joint position (mean difference of 3°) were evident in five triathletes, which persisted beyond 5 min of running in one triathlete. Our findings suggest that some moderately trained triathletes have difficulty reproducing their pre-cycling movement patterns for running initially after cycling, but cycling appears to have little influence on running muscle recruitment in moderately trained triathletes.     

‘Bowing from the heart’: An investigation into discourses of professionalism and the work of caring for students in further education

Since their incorporation in 1993, further education (FE) colleges in England have been responsible for their own staffing and, faced with funding constraints as well as recruitment and retention targets, some have introduced a new category of staff referred to here as ‘learning support workers’ (LSWs). Though their employment conditions and specific duties vary considerably, LSWs' work often includes providing individual care for students. In this small‐scale study, using semi‐structured interviews, the perceptions of some teachers and LSWs about the nature of their relationships with each other and with students are investigated. The study is set broadly in the context of debates about the impact of public sector reform on FE colleges and teachers. A discourse analysis approach is adopted in discussion of the data. The authors conclude that although they are differently positioned in relation to traditional discourses of professionalism, both teachers and LSWs are perceived to be carrying out what Hochschild termed ‘emotional labour’. The contradictory nature of emotional labour is also highlighted. Some of the implications of employing a new group of workers in FE are discussed.     

Using socio-dramatic play to support a beginning writer: ‘Daniel,the doctor and the bleeding ball’

This article reports on a case study of a young child (aged five) at a very early stage of his journey as a writer, evidencing ‘pre-alphabetic tendencies’, who has not yet internalised the construction of his name. Analysis of a ‘baseline’ piece of Daniel's writing demonstrates his awareness that the production of random letters conveys a simple message. However, Daniel does not recognise yet the relationship between spoken language and the corresponding grapheme–phonemes. At present he is not making the connections between his aural, oral and visual concepts of how words as text are constructed. In addressing the development of early years writing, the practitioner should be aware of the learning needs of the child as the child develops as an emerging writer in a highly complex problem-solving activity. The complexity of the structural and developmental processes needed to become a writer requires that the child is taught not within a predominantly whole-class structure with its demands for completion within fast-paced time limits. The emerging writer requires sustained recursive opportunities to engage with the experiences, which take the child from the steps of ‘mark making’ to the abstractions of written composition. The decision was made to use the strategy of socio-dramatic play as the framework for the intervention with Daniel. The use of a play/literacy connection (socio-dramatic play) serves to unlock and support the child's writing/spelling development. The child is being supported in his development by the teacher strategically easing the cognitive load, i.e. in this case, through scribing for the child.