Effective partnership? Perceptions of PGCE student teacher supervision

In England and Wales, Initial Teacher Education depends upon a legal and contractual partnership between schools and higher education institutions in which teacher mentors are often trained to support student teacher development. This paper investigates the much less formal kind of partnership model that has evolved in Scotland, using one university's PGCE (Secondary) programme as a case study. Our research shows that the partnership is based on goodwill and relationships built up over time between university and school staff. However, school staff generally have only a weak understanding of the overall direction of the PGCE programme and they are uncertain about how best to fulfil their role in placement supervision. Partly in consequence, students find it hard to integrate school and university experiences and the quality of placement is very uneven. We identify scope for the development of mentoring skills among teachers and argue that current developments in Scottish education mean that this is a propitious time to begin to strengthen the links between school and university components of PGCE programmes.

En Angleterre et au Pays de Galle, la formation initiale des professeurs repose sur un partenariat contractuel et juridique entre les écoles et les Instituts de formation, c'est‐à‐dire que des professeurs sont formés en tant que mentors pour veiller au bon développement des étudiants. Dans cet exposé nous allons étudier un modèle de partenariat beaucoup moins formel qui s'est développé en Ecosse, en nous basant sur le cas d'étude du programme du PGCE (professeurs du secondaire) d'une université. Nos recherches montrent que le partenariat est basé sur de la bonne volonté et sur des relations bâties au cours des années entre l'université et les enseignants en collège. Cependant en général ces derniers n'ont pas une vision très claire de la direction globale du programme du PGCE et ne savent pas quelle est la meilleure manière de remplir leur rôle de superviseur durant les stages. En partie pour cette raison, les étudiants ont des difficultés à faire le lien entre leur expérience au collège et leur expérience à l'université et la qualité des stages est donc très inégale. Nous constatons donc qu'il faut que les professeurs soient mieux formés à leur rôle de mentor et que—en raison des développements qui ont lieu à l'heure actuelle dans le domaine de l'éducation en Ecosse—le moment est propice pour commencer à créer des liens plus étroits entre les composants universitaires et les stages en collège des programmes du PGCE.

En Inglaterra y Gales, la Educación Inicial del Profesor depende de la asociación legal y contractual entre los colegios y los institutos de educación superior, por donde enseñan a los mentores de profesores a apoyar el desarrollo del profesor en prácticas. Este artículo examina el modelo de asociación mucho menos convencional que ha desarrollado en Escocia, utilizando el programa de PGCE (secundario) de una universidad como estudio de casos. Nuestras investigaciones demuestran que la asociación se funda en la buena voluntad y las buenas amistades que se hace durante cierto tiempo entre la universidad y el personal docente del colegio. Sin embargo, el personal docente del colegio tiene solamente una comprensión floja de la dirección global del programa PGCE, y no está seguro de lo que podría hacer por lo bueno para desempeñar su papel durante la supervisión de la colocación. En cierto modo por consiguiente, los estudiantes tienen dificultades para integrarse en las experiencias del colegio y de la universidad, y la calidad de la colocación es muy desigual. Identificamos el campo de aplicación para el desarrollo de destrezas de mentores entre los profesores, y sostenemos que el desarrollo actual en la educación escocesa significa que ahora es un período propicio para empezar a consolidar las conexiones que hay entre los componentes del colegio y de la universidad en el programa de PGCE.

In England und im Wales, Ausgangslehrerausbildung hängt nach einer zugelassenen und Vertragsteilhaberschaft zwischen Schulen und Ausbildunganstalten ab, in denen Lehrermentors häufig ausgebildet werden, um Kursteilnehmerlehrerentwicklung zu stützen. Dieses Papier forscht die viel weniger formale Art des Partnerschaftssmodells, das sich in Schottland entwickelt hat mit dem PGCE (Sekundär) Programm von einer Universität als Fallstudie. Unsere Forschung zeigt, daß diese Partnerschaft auf dem Wohlwollen und Verhältnissen basiert, die Überzeit zwischen Universität und Schulestab aufgebaut werden. Jedoch hat Schulestab im Allgemeinen nur ein schwaches Verständnis der gesamten Richtung des PGCE‐Programms und sie sind unsicher über, wie man gut ihre Rolle in der Plazierungsüberwachung erfüllt. Teils infolgedessen, finden Kursteilnehmer es hart, Schule zu integrieren und Hochschulerfahrungen und die Qualität der Plazierung ist‐sehr ungleich. Wir kennzeichnen Bereiche für die Entwicklung von mentoring Fähigkeiten unter Lehrern und argumentieren daß gegenwärtige Entwicklungen im schottischen Ausbildungsmittel, daß dieses eine günstige Zeit ist anzufangen, die Verbindungen zwischen Schule und Hochschulbestandteilen der PGCE‐Programme zu verstärken.     

Evaluating the use of ICT in engineering education

This paper is based on an evaluation of a mixed mode course called Learning Numerical Methods for Partial Differential Equations from the Web. The authors discuss the impact of information communication technology (ICT) on the provision of tertiary education and cite the course as an example of how it can be used at the subject level. The course employed ICT in a number of different ways. The introductory part of the course was held in a specifically designed video-conferencing facility that had a range of ICT capabilities. The design of the room is critiqued as is the use that was made of it. Throughout the paper the authors emphasize the point that ICT is a powerful tool for teaching and learning but failure to plan, deliver and assess ICT-based courses on sound pedagogical grounds merely means that poor teaching and learning practices are disseminated more widely and more quickly. On the basis of our evaluation we propose a simple set of questions that can be used to evaluate the best use of ICT in engineering education.     

Structural Change,Leadership and School Effectiveness/Improvement: Perspectives from South Africa

This article comments on leadership within mainstream literature on school effectiveness/improvement, where it is almost always considered to be a factor of change. The article argues that systemic school improvement, particularly for disadvantaged children, is inextricably linked to wider social, economic and political conditions—in South Africa’s case, the political transition from apartheid to democratic government. These structural conditions and specific historical contexts are often glossed over in models of school effectiveness/improvement. Through an analysis of dysfunctional and resilient schools as a legacy of apartheid, and of the slow reconstruction of education in the post‐apartheid period, the article argues for the importance of political legitimacy and authority in school improvement. The article concludes by suggesting that states in transition require a different theoretical lens in order to understand the impact of wider social changes on schools. In such societies, the establishment of legitimacy and authority is a precondition for sustainable effectiveness and improvement, and this has implications for theorising the role of leadership in school change more generally.     

Methodological advances in educational effectiveness research

This paper describes a series of events observed in an English primary school over the period 1991‐1994. The events are taken as typical examples of school response to an externally¹ imposed innovation, namely, the assessment of pupils against the progressive learning scale in the national curriculum.² The patterns of events occurring in the school are tabulated together with the responses of teaching staff to the change events. The purpose is to inform teacher understanding of the significance of some events in the school's response to change. The claim is that focused reflective practice through reference to change events and types of teacher response are an important contribution to teacher understanding of the meaning of their ‘learning organization’. This practice heightens teachers’ collective awareness of the foci for change within their organization and establishes a vehicle for empowered teacher voice.

     

Cooperative Learning in Science: Follow‐up from primary to high school

This paper reports a two‐year longitudinal study of the effects of cooperative learning on science attainment, attitudes towards science, and social connectedness during transition from primary to high school. A previous project on cooperative learning in primary schools observed gains in science understanding and in social aspects of school life. This project followed 204 children involved in the previous project and 440 comparison children who were not as they undertook transition from 24 primary schools to 16 high schools. Cognitive, affective, and social gains observed in the original project survived transition. The implications improving the effectiveness of school transition by using cooperative learning initiatives are explored. Possibilities for future research and the implications for practice and policy are discussed.     

Decreasing inappropriate vocalizations using classwide group contingencies and color wheel procedures: A component analysis

Teacher referrals for consultation resulted in two independent teams collecting evidence that allowed for a treatment component evaluation of color wheel (CW) procedures and/or interdependent group‐oriented reward (IGOR) procedures on inappropriate vocalizations in one third‐ and one first‐grade classroom. Both studies involved the application of B‐C‐D‐C designs, with the initial B phase involving the application of independent group‐oriented punishment (IGOP) procedures that were applied in all classrooms at the respective schools and maintained across all phases of the studies. In Study I, the C phase involved that application of IGOP, IGOR, and CW; CW was withdrawn in the D phase and reinstated in the subsequent C phase. In Study II, IGOP procedures were supplemented with CW procedures (first C phase), then IGOR procedures were added (D phase) and withdrawn (second C phase). Results from the two studies converge and provide evidence that CW procedures are effective when applied with IGOP procedures and that supplementing them with IGOR procedures may have little classwide impact on inappropriate vocalizations. © 2010 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Resampling with Excel

Standard Microsoft Excel functions and the Excel Data Table facility are used in randomization applications using resampling with and without replacement.