Learning with and from: positioning school students as advisors in pre-service teacher education

This article reports on an innovative pedagogical approach within the Learning Partnerships program in which school students help to ‘teach the teachers’ within pre-service teacher education. Classes of school students join with classes of pre-service teachers to provide input on how teachers can enhance school students’ engagement and wellbeing. The article draws on data collected from 125 students (aged 13–16) and 120 pre-service teachers in these workshops. Findings generated from a mixed methods study combining pre-workshop focus groups (n = Students: 38, Teachers: 33) and post-workshop focus groups (n = Students: 69, Teachers: 15) and post-workshop surveys (n = Students: 96; Teachers: 101) demonstrated that the workshops were mutually beneficial for both students and pre-service teachers. Participants found that workshopping together enhanced their belief in the possibility of positive student–teacher relationships. The pre-service teachers reported greater confidence in communicating with young people about the issues that affect student engagement and wellbeing. The school students reported that they were more willing to use teachers as a source of help. Implications include the need for increased attention to a ‘third space’ for learning in teacher development which provides opportunity for learning with and from young people about how to foster their engagement and wellbeing.     

WOWW: a solution orientated approach to enhance classroom relationships and behaviour within a Primary three class

A Working on What Works (WOWW) approach was utilised over six sessions in a mainstream Scottish primary class to enhance classroom relationships and behaviours. The aim of the intervention was to manage everyday classroom problems within a natural classroom environment. WOWW incorporates positive psychology and implements a solution-focused approach. The quantitative results illustrated an improvement in the teacher ratings and class ratings for the class goals set by the class teacher, and helped the teacher to feel more confident in her class. From the qualitative comments, class teacher and pupils reported a positive experience of WOWW and noticed a difference within the classroom. In summary, WOWW influenced a positive change to relationships and behaviour within the classroom.     

Framing gender identity and sexual orientation: media influence on young men who have sex with men’s health

Sex education takes place in a wide range of contexts including through the media. Media use among young men who have sex with men is high and gender identity and sexual orientation are topics often integrated into today’s media. Little is known about young men who have sex with men’s perceptions of how the media frames messages about gender identity and sexual orientation and the implications these messages have on HIV prevention. A greater understanding of young men who have sex with men’s perceptions of media framing about gender identity and sexual orientation is needed to ensure prevention efforts reach those most impacted by HIV. Focus groups were conducted with forty-two African American men who have sex with men, aged 18–21, living in the Southeastern USA. Thematic analysis revealed that participants reported using the Internet and television to access gender identity and sexual orientation information. Participants felt that the media’s framing of gender identity and sexual orientation only worsened HIV-related stigma and discrimination. Findings illustrate the important role that media can play in educating about gender identity and sexual orientation and the implications this framing has for HIV prevention.     

Rethinking academic literacies. A conceptual development based on teaching practice

Academic Literacies, the most influential conceptual framework for writing practitioners at UK universities, is closely related to widening participation. At the same time, writing support is often justified with the argument that written communication is among the most important employability skills for graduates. While these concepts are often used simultaneously, their underlying premises are not necessarily congruent. This paper reflects on a writing intervention that highlighted the difficulties that can arise from a seeming ‘pick and mix’ use of these two frameworks, Academic Literacies and writing as an Employability Skill. Based on this analysis of the practice of teaching writing at a post-92 university, it establishes the need for an expanded, theoretical framework for writing support.     

Efficacy of a Self-Monitoring Tool for Improving the Quality of the Language Environment in the Preschool Classroom

Research Findings: This study evaluated the impact of a self-monitoring intervention on preschool teachers’ use of language and on children’s language growth. Nineteen classrooms from Santiago de Chile participated (10 intervention, 9 control). Twice a week, intervention teachers filled out a checklist to monitor the language stimulation they offered children. Research personnel used the checklists to elaborate a monthly summary of the language opportunities offered to each child in that month and discussed this information with teachers. Results revealed a significant advantage for intervention teachers in frequency of book readings and word discussions but not on children’s language growth. Dosage analyses showed that children identified by the self-monitoring device as receiving more language-learning opportunities improved significantly more from beginning to end of the school year in receptive vocabulary. Practice or Policy: Contextual barriers such as large numbers of children and unawareness of the impact of some language interactions can prevent teachers from engaging in important practices. Reminding teachers of the importance of those practices and helping them monitor their frequency may be a low-cost way of improving language opportunities for children in contexts where more intensive professional development is not possible.     

Can Explicit Instruction in Social and Emotional Learning Skills Benefit the Social-Emotional Development, Well-being, and Academic Achievement of Young Children?

This study investigated the effect of a social and emotional learning skills curriculum, the You Can Do It! Early Childhood Education Program (YCDI), on the social-emotional development, well-being, and academic achievement of 99 preparatory and grade 1 students attending a Catholic school in Melbourne, Australia. One preparatory and one grade 1 class were randomly chosen to receive structured lessons in YCDI, delivered by their classroom teachers over a period of 10 weeks, while the remaining preparatory and grade 1 class served as the control group. The lessons were designed to teach young children confidence, persistence, organisation and emotional resilience. The educational program consisted of explicit, direct instruction lessons drawn from the YCDI Early Childhood Curriculum taught three times a week, supported by a variety of additional social and emotional teaching practices. The results indicated that YCDI had a statistically significant positive effect on levels of social-emotional competence and well-being for the preparatory and grade 1 students, a reduction in problem behaviours (externalising, internalising, and hyperactivity problems) for the grade 1 students, and an increase in reading achievement (decoding text) for the lower achieving grade 1 students. These findings are discussed with regard to issues concerning the role of explicit instruction in social and emotional learning for the early years.     

Formative assessment for all: a whole-school approach to pedagogic change

Scotland's Assessment is for Learning initiative (AifL) seeks to introduce a co-ordinated national system for assessment in schools. Formative assessment is a major plank in this. The initiative has moved beyond its pilot phase and it is intended that it will be adopted by all Scottish schools by 2007. This article draws upon the case-study of a primary school that has adopted a whole-school approach to enacting the formative assessment principles of AifL since 2004. It utilizes Margaret Archer's social theory to analyse and explain the processes of change that have underpinned the development of formative assessment in the school. The article argues that meaningful change in schools can be stimulated by encouraging socio-cultural interaction among practitioners, via the impetus provided by a central initiative combined with the creation of spaces for dialogue and the extension of professional trust and autonomy.     

Voice,identity, and the organizing of student experience: managing pedagogical dilemmas in critical classroom discussions

The current paper explores the discursive complexities of teaching and learning in inclusive, critically oriented classrooms. It argues that to accomplish the ontological goals of higher learning, we need to focus on the construction of student voice, or the ability to be considered in and have influence on teaching and learning. The paper further explores the relationship between having voice and the interactional negotiation of identities and relationships among students and teachers. It is suggested that teaching and learning through inclusive, critically oriented classroom discussions is bound in the organizing of complex social experiences, and requires teachers to navigate at least three inherent pedagogical dilemmas lesson management, emotion labor, and structure.     

Chemistry teaching objectives in Italian secondary schools

Responses to a written beliefs test for 178 eighth grade students and interviews with a subset of the students are analysed to investigate students' beliefs about the tentativeness of scientific knowledge and about the autonomy and strategies appropriate for science learning. These three dimensions of beliefs are salient because they align with the image of science teaching promoted by current reform movements. Analyses focus on change in beliefs and relationships among dimensions of beliefs and between those beliefs and students' understandings of science concepts. Results show that students' beliefs do not change much during the one-semester course. Students who view scientific knowledge as tentative also try to understand science. Autonomous students do not hold the most productive learning strategies, though students with low autonomy develop significantly less coherent understandings of science concepts. Instructional implications focus on potential roles of teachers and technology in promoting productive beliefs about scientific knowledge and science learning. Implications for individualized instruction follow classroom-level implications.     

The Use of Representations and Argumentative and Explanatory Situations

This paper discusses the use of non-verbal representations in a modelling-based science teaching context, in which argumentative and explanatory situations occur. More specifically, we analyse how the students and teacher use representations in their discourse in modelling activities, and we discuss the relationships between the functions of these representations and the demands of the explanatory and argumentative situations that exist in that classroom. The data were collected by video recording all the classes in which a teaching sequence about intermolecular interactions was used—a topic which the students had not previously studied. In the activities, the students had to create, express, test, and discuss models in order to understand the difference between intermolecular and interatomic interactions, as well as their influences on the properties of substances. Initially, we selected excerpts of the recorded classes in which a non-verbal representation was used. Then, we used criteria to identify the argumentative and explanatory situations (previously defined), and we created categories for the functions of the representations that were used in order to analyse all the identified situations. The analysis supports conclusions indicating the relevance of the use of non-verbal representations in the construction, use, and defence of explanations. As the defence of explanations was the main context in which argumentative situations occurred in this study, our conclusions also indicate the contribution that representations make towards changing the status of the students' explanations.