Learning conversations: teacher researchers evaluating dialogic strategies in early years settings

Learning conversations, dialogic interactions with adults, are important opportunities for children to develop their thinking as well as their speech and language skills. This area of teachers' practice is informed by a well-established body of research evidence and professional guidance literature. The design and facilitation of this practitioner research project was framed by a metaphor for teachers' professional learning as ‘interplay’ between the vertical domain of public, published, knowledge and the horizontal domain of the teachers' practical wisdom. The teacher researchers used a framework based on the published literature to analyse video clips of their conversations with children in early years workplace settings. The study highlights the power of video analysis as a prompt for professional learning within a practitioner research framework. The use of conversation strategies by these teachers involves a balancing act between competing agendas within their workplace setting. In addition to mediating the strategies proposed by the research evidence base to suit their own early years workplace settings, in part by emphasising speech and language development, the teacher researchers identified a useful strategy, based on transportable identity, of ‘stepping out’ of being a teacher, for example by positioning themselves as a playmate or family member.     

EVELOPING CREATIVE ABILITIES AT THE UNIVERSITY LEVEL

Studies on the nurturing of creativity by university teachers are rare. In the present study 233 students from two universities, one ranked as one of the best in Brazil (University A) and another ranked low among Brazilian universities (University B) were asked to fill out an inventory designed to evaluate the degree to which different aspects related to creativity had been fostered by their university teachers. Students from University A, compared with those from University B, rated their teachers as providing significantly more favourable conditions for the nurturing of creativity. It was also found that students from the first half of their courses, compared with those from the second half, evaluated their teachers as nurturing significantly more different aspects of creativity. The results point to some characteristics of the learning situation that may contribute to the promotion of creative abilities. These characteristics should be implemented in the educational setting, in order to prepare students for the creative productivity that is necessary in all societies.

     

TRAINING TEACHERS TO TEACH FOR CREATIVITY

One of the misconceptions about creativity which prevail among teachers is the belief that it is present only in a small proportion of children. This leads to underestimation of the influence of school and society on the creative process. The creativity training program described here was designed with the main purpose of arousing teachers’ awareness of their own creative abilities and introducing basic concepts about creativity and how to nurture it into the school setting. Several studies were conducted to investigate the effects of this program on teachers’ creative thinking abilities and behaviour in the classroom. The results obtained indicated that the program was successful in developing teachers’ creative thinking and in helping them to learn the skills which are related to creative thinking and how to further it in the classroom.     

Advances in the Science of Assessment

Designing, developing, and administering assessments has remained fairly unchanged across the past century. However, recent developments in instructional technology, learning science theory, and advances in the design of assessments necessitate a newfound perspective on assessment. The objective of the present article is to review the topic of assessment in depth—past, present, and future. Specifically, we focus on the use of technologically rich learning environments that have spurred advances in student assessment, new methods and procedures from these advances, and consequently the need to consider implementing comprehensive assessment systems that provide rigorous and ubiquitous measurement of the whole student learning experience.     

Developing an equalities literacy for practitioners working with children,young people and families through action research

ABSTRACT

The Marginalisation and Co-created Education (MaCE) project was developed between the University of Southern Norway, VIA University in Denmark and the University of Cumbria in the UK and funded by Erasmus+. The project aims to co-create proposals to achieve an equitable and socially just education system through participative action research with ‘Early School Leavers’. This paper establishes a conceptual framework called ‘Equalities Literacy’ that evolved from the first action research cycle of the project. The framework is informed by the practice experience and theoretical knowledge of the international and interdisciplinary research team. It is applied to one youth narrative in this paper to illustrate its efficacy in revealing socio-cultural in/equalities. The Equalities Literacy framework is proposed to challenge and inform practice and further research. Further, the ‘Indirect Approach’ is introduced and located within action research as a participatory methodology that other researchers may wish to adopt.     

International

THE VOICE OF AMERICA: FROM DETENTE TO THE REAGAN DOCTRINE by Laurien Alexandre (Norwood, NJ: Ablex, 1989—no price given, ISBN 0-89391-465-7)

VIDEOCASSETTE RECORDERS IN THE THIRD WORLD edited by Douglas A. Boyd, Joseph D. Straubhaar and John A. Lent (New York: Longman, 1989—price not given, ISBN 0-8013-0196-3)

SPACEBRIDGES: TELEVISION AND US-SOVIET DIALOGUE edited by Michael Brainerd (University Press of America, 4720 Boston Way, Lanham, MD 20706—$13.50, paper, ISBN 0-8191-7433-5, with a hardback also available)

INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY AND GLOBAL INTERDEPENDENCE edited by Mereroo Jussawalla, Tadayuki Okuma, and Toshihiro Araki (New York: Praeger, 1989—$39.95, ISBN 0-313-26326-4)     

A quest for Cinergy: The war metaphor and the construction of identity

As organizations struggle to present a consistent identity to multiple and overlapping publics, metaphor provides one unifying possibility. This essay examines the case of an unlikely winner in a corporate dispute over control of Indiana's PSI Resources, arguing that PSI's consistent portrayal of its “enemy” as a savage, using the war metaphor's victimage ritual, contributed to a successful defense. In addition to demonstrating how metaphor pervaded one organization's discourse to present a consistent identity to stakeholders, the essay offers questions and conclusions about the efficacy and ethics of the war metaphor as a weapon of corporate persuasion, with a focus on the consequences of its polarizing nature.