Breaking down buy-in: Can lessons from social psychology increase teacher use of proactive behavior management?

Disruptive student behavior poses significant challenges for teachers and is associated with negative student outcomes. Research shows that teacher use of empirically-based proactive behavior management (PBM) can improve student outcomes; however, research also indicates that teacher use of PBM is low. One prominent factor in teacher use of PBM is “buy-in,” or personal interest, agreement, and investment in the implementation of a practice. When teachers buy in to an intervention, they may be more likely to implement and maintain the intervention with fidelity. Yet, there is little empirically-based understanding of buy-in or strategies known to increase the buy-in of school staff. The purpose of this paper is to describe research from social psychology that may be useful in developing a theoretical framework for buy-in, as well as approaches to increasing teacher buy-in and use of PBM. Implications for incorporating strategies from social psychology into teacher professional development to increase buy-in and use of PBM are discussed.     

Changing practice by changing practice: Toward more authentic science and science curriculum development

Recent policy documents from the Ontario Ministry of Education called for teachers to present a more authentic view of the nature of scientific practice at all levels of education. Sadly, this call for substantial curriculum change coincided with severe cuts in the education budget. The authors describe how two teachers collaborated with a university‐based researcher/teacher educator to design and implement more authentic science in a Grade 7 classroom. The ways in which the teachers changed their views about science and science teaching, the anxieties they experienced, and the institutional constraints that impacted on their practice are discussed, and some more general features of the action research experience are described. © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. J Res Sci Teach 36: 521–539, 1999     

Priming institutional change through effective project management:A case study of the Chic project

This paper explores how learning and teaching innovations undertaken by externally funded projects, with a fixed remit and lifecycle, can be integrated successfully into institutional educational developments. The example and methods of one particular project, in embedding its work within and relating it to the context of wider, nationally-promoted educational designs, is utilized to illustrate the possibilities for fostering institutional change. Such change relies upon working to promote a climate whose norms support a culture of trust, where team-working can forge a broader ownership of innovation     

The history of citizenship education in England

The publication of the Crick report (1998) on citizenship education and the subsequent Order for implementing the compulsory status of the topic for Key Stages 3 and 4 have generated considerable comment. However, the historical background to this development has been only sketchily treated. This article attempts to provide a little more detail, to suggest a framework of analysis to illuminate the history and to indicate the relevance of this past experience for current work. The analytical framework is provided by the identification of five factors that have shaped the evolution of citizenship education in England. These are: the lack of central guidance and reliance on private initiatives; the extension of the franchise and the issue of maturity; social class and examination structures; war and peace; Empire and Commonwealth.