A Matter of Expectation: The Transition from School to University English

This paper explores issues arising from a detailed study of the experiences of students, teachers and lecturers in managing the transition from school to university in the study of English. It outlines some key philosophical perspectives derived from Pierre Bourdieu and considers the extent to which it is possible to apply notions of ‘habitus’ and ‘reproduction’ to the study of English at A level and at university. Through the consideration of these philosophical issues, this paper offers an insight into students' experiences of transition and some of the difficulties they face as they become accustomed to the new learning environment of the higher education institution.     

A new framework for grading

Grading is one of the least liked, least understood and least considered aspects of teaching. After years of work, we have developed a grading system that is quite different from traditional and reformed approaches to grading and which meaningfully incorporates and integrates the collection of evidence, the evaluation of evidence, and the reporting of judgments about that evidence. This system satisfies the requirements of good grading system and answers many of the problems faced by more traditional methods by substantially changing the way in which grade information is aggregated, resulting in a final course grade that aligns qualitative evaluation with course learning objectives and carries direct qualitative meaning with respect to the course learning objectives.     

Development of children's knowledge about unconsciousness

Children of ages 5, 6, 7, 8, and 10 years, and adults were asked whether people who are sound asleep and not dreaming could or would: (1) see, hear, listen, notice, think, wish, pretend, and feel things (primary-consciousness activities), (2), know that they are asleep, and know whether they are or are not engaged in primary-consciousness activities such as perceiving and thinking (reflective-consciousness activities), (3) deliberately decide to or try to perform mental or physical actions (control activities). Results indicated that the recognition that people do not engage in conscious mental activities when unconscious is still developing during the late middle-childhood years. We speculate that a developing understanding of consciousness may assist the development of an understanding of unconsciousness and vice versa, and that sensitivity to the phenomenology as contrasted with the content of mental states may be a late acquisition in the theory-of-mind area.     

Out-of-school-time study programmes: do they work?

We analyse the prevalence and effectiveness of out-of-school-time (OST) study programmes among secondary aged students, focusing on their potential for reducing socio-economic gaps in educational achievement. Compared to several extant studies, including the only prior study for Britain, whose findings could be affected by heterogeneous participation in the programmes, our results derive from a rich dataset with multiple controls for social background, personal motivation, and school characteristics. We find that programme participation in England is relatively low among students from families with long-term unemployed parents and those in routine occupations. Participation is also lower outside London, and especially outside large cities. Our results show that OST programmes, as long as they are teacher-led, are moderately effective in improving the academic performance at the end of lower secondary education as measured by the GCSE total score. Teacher-led OST programmes compensate for previous social disadvantage. The policy implications include a focus on expanding programme availability and on incentives for participation, and attention to the regional disparities.     

For want of a better word: unlocking threshold concepts in natural sciences with a key from the humanities?

The process of identifying threshold concepts invites experts to reflect on their discipline in a new way with the ultimate goal of improving learning and teaching. During a workshop to identify threshold concepts in biochemistry, we asked a group of natural scientists to explore ‘signification,’ a threshold concept from the humanities, as a mechanism to push them out of their comfort zones and recall how it feels to experience learning from a student’s perspective. In addition to accomplishing this goal, we subsequently realized that signification could also help us uncover and remedy ways in which use of scientific terminology impedes learning in biochemistry. Using the results of a survey of university teachers that aimed at refining a list of possible threshold concepts, we present three scenarios to illustrate the challenges that teachers and students encounter when attempting to cement a label (the signifier) and a concept (the signified) into a coherent sign. Based on these findings, we propose that teachers can better explore threshold concepts if they carefully consider the role terminology plays in learning and teaching. Thus we describe the ‘terminological canyon’ through which university teachers must journey in order to produce effective learning and teaching activities related to the threshold concepts. While the work described here pertains to biochemistry, we believe the process and findings can be generalized to a broad range of disciplines.     

Young children's ability to differentiate appearance-reality and level 2 perspectives in the tactile modality

A key acquisition in the child's developing knowledge of the mind is the subjective-objective distinction, which includes a clear understanding that things may appear to be other than the way they really are (appearance-reality distinction) and may present different appearances to self and others (Level 2 perspective-taking). Previous studies using tasks involving visual appearances have found that most children do not show such understanding until 4 or 5 years of age. However, a conceptual analysis of tactile as compared to visual and other perceptual experiences suggested the hypothesis that this understanding might appear earlier if the appearances the child must identify are tactile rather than visual. This hypothesis was supported by the results of 3 studies. In Studies 1 and 2, 3-year-old subjects could correctly indicate, for example, that an ice cube they were feeling with a heavily gloved finger did not feel cold to that finger (tactile appearance for the self), did feel cold to the experimenter's ungloved or thinly gloved finger (tactile appearance for another person), and was a cold ice cube, really and truly (reality). In contrast, and consistent with previous research findings, they were much poorer at distinguishing between real and visually apparent object identity, number, and color. Similarly, in Study 3 they tended to perform better on tactile appearance-reality tasks involving the properties of number, wetness, and intactness than on visual appearance-reality tasks that involved these same properties.     

Who Coaches the Coaches? The Development of a Coaching Model for Experiential Learning

Innovative Higher Education - This study explores a case of coaching deployed in experiential, interdisciplinary, and project-based courses. This study follows coaching in two courses that operated...     

Interocular transfer of simultaneous but not successive discriminations in the pigeon

Pigeons were trained with one eye covered on each of two types of visual discriminations. They then were tested for interocular transfer with the previously covered eye. Transfer was shown by every pigeon trained on a simultaneous discrimination, while lack of transfer was shown by thesesame pigeons when trained on a spatial conditional (successive) discrimination. As opposed to the pigeon, animals with a larger proportion of ipsilateral (uncrossed) retinal fibers (e.g., cats) do show transfer of both discrimination problems. This difference in the decussation of the optic pathways may be a critical variable in interocular transfer in vertebrates. Furthermore, these studies demonstrate that interocular transfer in the pigeon depends upon the experimental paradigm.     

Spaces of influence: A framework for analysis of an individual’s contribution within communities of practice

Within our lives there are spaces of influence or opportunities in which the impact of an ‘influential other’ enables learning in ways that might not otherwise occur. This paper focusses on learning in terms of the learning of others, and in particular the professional impact of John Bowden. Building on the work of Vygotsky (1978 Vygotsky, L. S. 1978. Mind in society: The development of higher psychological processes, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.  [Google Scholar]), and Wood, Bruner and Ross (1976 Wood, D., Bruner, J. and Ross, G. 1976. The role of tutoring in problem solving. Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 17(1): 89–100.  [Google Scholar]), the notion of supported learning is revisited and extended. A range of actual stories involving Bowden as key influence are presented through which the term: spaces of influence is developed. The stories flow from varied contexts including those pertaining to research students, communities of practice around methodological positions steeped in qualitative methods, phenomenography, and a scholarly review network. Five spaces within a metaspace of influence‐action, explicit discourse, learning, practice development and trust are developed through the analysis of the stories. The paper pays tribute to the significant work of John Bowden, through the telling of embedded stories, the interweaving of theory such as Bowden and Marton’s (1998 Bowden, J. and Marton, F. 1998. The university of learning: Beyond quality and competence in higher education, London: Kogan Page.  [Google Scholar]) theory of learning for an unknown future, and through the development of the notion of spaces of influence that emerged from reflection here on Bowden’s contribution within communities of practice.