Sustainability of a Scale-Up Intervention in Early Mathematics: A Longitudinal Evaluation of Implementation Fidelity

Research Findings: We evaluated the fidelity of implementation and the sustainability of effects of a research-based model for scaling up educational interventions. The model was implemented by 64 teachers in 26 schools in 2 distal city districts serving low-resource communities, with schools randomly assigned to condition. Practice or Policy: Although a logical expectation would be that, after the cessation of external support and professional development provided by the intervention, teachers would show a pattern of decreasing levels of fidelity, these teachers actually demonstrated increasing levels of fidelity, continuing to demonstrate high levels of sustained fidelity in their implementation of the underlying curriculum 2 years past exposure. Different profiles of variables predicted separate aspects of sustainability.     

Sexualities of initial teacher education applicants in the Republic of Ireland: addressing the hidden dimension of diversity in teaching

While research and policy recommendations internationally have pointed to the need to diversify teaching populations with regard to ethnicity, social class background and, to a lesser extent, dis/ability, there is a paucity of research addressing sexualities as a diversity dimension in teaching. This article explores initial teacher education (ITE) applicants’ and entrants’ (N = 746) sexualities and the intersections of sexualities with other socio-demographic background variables and career motivations. The analysis suggests that the topic of sexual orientation caused high levels of discomfort among respondents and that sexual minority student teachers are underrepresented in ITE cohorts in Ireland. The socio-demographic and motivational profiles of our non-heterosexual respondents generally mirrored those of their heterosexual counterparts. Non-heterosexual respondents reported a stronger motivation to affect social change and lower levels of participation in religious services. Findings are discussed within the context of persisting cultural and institutional barriers for sexual minority (student) teachers in Irish schools and in ITE.     

To enter the castle of fear: engendering children's story writing from home to school at KS2

This paper describes a small‐scale writing project in which a class of KS 2 primary pupils were invited to import their own narrative interests into a task designed by their teacher and the researcher within the constraints of the National Literacy Strategy. By employing an adventure genre, based on problem and puzzle solving, pupils were encouraged to introduce familiar scenarios and characters from their favourite stories in books, comics, videos or computer games. The work produced has been analyzed to highlight the different ways in which boys and girls engaged with key aspects of narrative and how this enabled discussion of gendered literacy practices in which boys and girls held an equal stake. The author discusses the importance of developing strategies by means of which children's understanding and transformations of their preferred modes of narrative pleasures can be housed within the current literacy framework.     

Conceptions of Workplace University Education

This article examines how academic staff involved in the workplace supervision of students in vocational courses conceive of the workplace experience. Five conceptions have been identified which range from a view that the placement is about students picking up relevant skills in the workplace, to a view that the workplace experience is about giving students the opportunity to learn, to do and to question, by working collaboratively with the university and the workplace on relevant problems. The article suggests there is a relationship between these conceptions and the quality of student learning resulting from the experience. Where the workplace is seen as a simple picking up of skills there is least evidence of development and satisfaction. Where the experience is seen as an opportunity to help students engage with salient issues by working collaboratively with employers, there is most evidence of development and satisfaction. There is a clear parallel between this study of workplace supervision and the work of Prosser, Trigwell and Taylor [Learning and Instruction, 4, 217–231, 1994] on conceptions and approaches to teaching in the more conventional tertiary teaching setting of the lecture theatre.     

Teachers as metacognitive role models

This paper draws on data collected during a longitudinal collaborative project with teachers in England from schools and further education colleges. The project investigated ‘Learning to Learn’ in partnership with teacher–researchers with a focus on how metacognitive awareness can be improved by enquiring into creative combinations of pedagogy, environment and learners’ dispositions. The paper is an attempt to make clear the theoretical underpinnings of our belief that the project teachers were enacting something different, something metacognitive. We present a pragmatic model of metacognition development based on ideas collaboratively produced across the project. The five cycles of development are exemplified from the pedagogic and the professional learning perspective with quotes, vignettes and case study excerpts. We show a catalytic relationship between the pedagogies used by the teachers to develop their students’ metacognition and the teachers’ own learning and metacognitive knowledge and skilfulness.