Improving school attendance: can participation in outdoor learning influence attendance for young people with social,emotional and behavioural difficulties?

The link between good attendance in school and academic performance has been acknowledged for some time now. However, improving school attendance for young people with social, emotional and behavioural difficulties (SEBD) or pupils at risk of exclusion can be a challenging task for educational leaders. This paper begins with a discussion of earlier studies on outdoor learning and school attendance. It adds to the discourse by presenting findings from a one-year outdoor learning programme situated within an English special school for young people with SEBD. The research reported here is part of a larger study that used an action research design. The paper concludes that although improvements in attendance can be achieved, the factors affecting attendance are complex and that improvements may be restricted to programmes that utilise an outdoor learning approach rather than being achievable across the whole school curriculum.     

Talking about Science: the case of an electronic conversation

Abstract

This article explores the implications of the information and communications technology (ICT) requirements for initial teacher training in England and Wales from the viewpoint of modern foreign languages, as outlined in the Government's Circular 4/98. The authors highlight a number of issues surrounding the interpretation of the Circular and emphasise the need to develop critical evaluation skills in trainees. The importance of a departmental approach to ICT and to training is also discussed and the subject-specific content of the Postgraduate Certificate in Education course at one university is outlined. The authors conclude that whilst the directives of the Circular are far-reaching and comprehensive, appropriate pedagogical choices from the full range of resources remain the driving force in effective teaching and learning. ICT will take its place in the repertoire of the critical professional.     

CALCULUS STUDENTS’ AND INSTRUCTORS’ CONCEPTUALIZATIONS OF SLOPE: A COMPARISON ACROSS ACADEMIC LEVELS

This study considers tertiary calculus students’ and instructors’ conceptualizations of slope. Qualitative techniques were employed to classify responses to 5 items using conceptualizations of slope identified across various research settings. Students’ responses suggest that they rely on procedurally based conceptualizations of slope, showing little evidence of covariational reasoning. In contrast, instructors’ responses demonstrated a multi-dimensional understanding of slope as a functional property, which applies to real-world situations and plays an integral role in the development of key calculus concepts. While relatively diverse, the instructors’ responses seldom reported determining increasing or decreasing trends of a line from its slope. This conceptualization was used frequently by students and could help them better understand how slope ties to positive and negative derivatives. The most frequently used conceptualizations for students in this study align with past research findings on the emphasis of the secondary mathematics curriculum, supporting the possibility of cultural influences (academic and geographic) on individuals’ conceptualizations of slope. Thus, this study provides valuable insight into conceptualizations of slope and provides direction for future research on slope and the broader topic of cultural influences on mathematical meaning.     

Hugging the teacher: reading bodily practice in an Israeli kindergarten

This paper, based on an ethnographic study of an Israeli kindergarten, describes the practice of hugging, by the girls, of the teacher, and the latter's response to the girls' initiative. Based on Bourdieu's concept of habitus and the assumption that embodiment is crucial to social–cultural learning, the paper demonstrates the complex interweaving of social meanings that may be experienced through, and read into, the practice of hugging. By focusing on this single bodily practice, and endeavouring to reveal some of the richness of interpretation that emerges out of such a focus, the paper aims to show how the educational researcher, in setting out an array of possible readings, may provide teachers with innovative ways of seeing the routine practices of classroom life.     

Broadening the base of a technical communication program: An industrial/academic alliance

Developing alliances with industry may be one of the primary factors in creating a technical communication program that blends sound rhetorical theory and pedagogy with the discourse knowledge of technical communication practitioners. Creating an Advisory Board is one way to forge this alliance. This article describes how such a board was created, the influence it had upon program development, and the insights both industry and academia gained from this alliance. Although industry and academia are not the same, both had overlapping goals: to develop a symbiotic relationship that would provide students and faculty with the technological expertise practicing technical communicators could offer, but, at the same time, to provide a construct true to the missions of a liberal education.     

Balancing Optimal Assessment with Part-Time Faculty Participation: A Discipline's Dilemma

Part-time faculty need to be brought into the student learning outcomes assessment loop not only to help accreditation, but because they, like full-time faculty, can benefit from assessment. When part-time faculty are not participating in assessment, a sizable percentage of courses are being less effectively taught than they could be. In an attempt to increase part-time faculty in discipline-level assessment at Norco College, we experimented with several assessments that required varied levels of effort by part-time faculty. This piece discusses our experience. We found that peer mentoring and communication were better predictors of part-time faculty participation than stipends, adaptable assessment prompts, or administrative pressure.     

Professional Development and Instructional Practice: Conceptions and Evidence of Effectiveness

As with many districtwide reform efforts, the San Diego reform sought to improve classroom instruction by focusing on building the capacity of teachers. This article examines practices of teacher professional development in the district and their impact on literacy instruction. Through examination of the literature on effective professional development, school staff's conceptions of what makes professional development effective, and detailed data on professional development experiences from 100 elementary teachers, we explore the extent to which characteristics of effective professional learning align with what is actually taking place in schools. We also examine relationships between professional development characteristics and teachers' use of instructional practices that have been shown to predict student growth in reading comprehension. We find that professional development characterized by an emphasis on content and curriculum and that incorporates coaching is related to a higher frequency of this type of instruction.     

Instructional Leadership in Practice: What Does It Look Like,and What Influence Does It Have?

Literature on school reform has emphasized the need for principals to expand beyond their traditionally administrative role and become instructional leaders. This article examines the relationship between the practice of site-based instructional leadership and the professional development that teachers received in the context of a district-wide reform effort in San Diego City Schools. Using data from teacher surveys and school-based interviews, we find a connection between aspects of principal instructional leadership (coherent school-wide vision and leaders' engagement in instructional improvement) and selected research-based characteristics of effective teacher professional development (coherence and focus on content and curriculum). We conclude by addressing some of the tensions and limitations associated with a particular vision for site-based instructional leadership.     

Fluency Has a Role in the Simple View of Reading

The Simple View of Reading (SVR) suggests that the components of reading comprehension are decoding and linguistic comprehension. Given research that suggests that fluency is a separate construct from decoding and linguistic comprehension in fourth grade, the aim of this study was to examine the role of fluency in the SVR model. Analyses of data from 248 fourth-grade children explored whether the influence of fluency on reading comprehension is direct or whether fluency plays an indirect role on reading comprehension as a mediator or moderator of decoding. Structural equation modeling and latent regression analyses revealed that reading fluency plays a mediating role in explaining the relation between decoding and reading comprehension. This novel finding is placed in the context of studies that reported either a direct effect or no effect of reading fluency in SVR.