Primary initial teacher trainees' perceptions of and perspectives on the role of the teaching assistant in English primary contexts

This article focuses on exploring initial teacher trainees' experiences and perspectives on the role of the teaching assistant (TA) in mainstream primary contexts. A backdrop of shrinking school budgets coupled with a ‘mainstream for all’ political agenda is contributing to growing uncertainty about the role of TAs in education. This article presents the results of a small-scale empirical study, involving 75 initial teacher trainees at the University of Cambridge. Trainees' perspectives regarding the roles/responsibilities that TAs have been seen to undertake and perceptions regarding the impact of the TAs they worked with were ascertained, with the aim of exploring how well current ITT content prepares students for an effective teacher/TA working relationship. Concept modelling was used as an analysis tool, to present visual representations of these perceptions. Trainees emphasised the administrative, pedagogical and pastoral roles that TAs were perceived to undertake and specifically highlighted the perceived ability of TAs to support students displaying needs relating to social, emotional and mental health. The findings highlight that the vague nature of current ITT content in relation to the role of TAs continues to serve as a barrier to students building coherent and consistent understandings of the successful deployment of TAs in English primary contexts.     

Evaluating a method for eliciting children's voice about educational support with children with speech,language and communication needs

This article reports the development and evaluation of a toolkit‐based approach to eliciting children's experiences of educational support, where the children in question experience speech and communication needs. The ‘Your Voice Your Choice’ approach was evaluated using a cross‐case analysis methodology, which represents a novel approach to critical examination of the effectiveness of such resources. We explored seven case studies within a critical realist framework. We found that the toolkit was effective at supporting most (although not all) of the children with speech and communication needs to explore their school learning and support experiences through a scaffolded emotion‐based ‘dialogue’, which was corroborated by observations and other data sources. The toolkit facilitated access to children's voice as they revealed how they felt across a number of relational, learning and support areas, which could be used by services to focus provision and consider how to better support children's social and emotional needs.     

Introduction

This special issue focuses on the role of context in scaling up educational change. The featured articles explore interventions from across the globe examining the central question of what facilitates scaling up an intervention, whether adopted externally or homegrown. Each of the articles address a unique set of factors that play a role in scaling up innovations and the mutual influence between local context and new or external interventions. The four articles focus on large-scale interventions and draw attention to the role of context—inclusive of culture, values, beliefs, traditional practices, and educator voice. The issue leaves readers with illustrative case studies, guiding questions, and lessons learned that can inform both practitioners and policymakers.     

Using Open-Source Videos to Flip a First-Year College Physics Class

Journal of Science Education and Technology - Flipped classrooms provide students the opportunity to collaboratively solve challenging problems in class with help and scaffolding available from...     

Sexual abuse and the grooming process in sport: Learning from Bella's story

Through a process of collaborative autoethnography, we explore the experiences of one female athlete named Bella who was groomed and then sexually abused by her male coach. Bella's story signals how the structural conditions and power relationships embedded in competitive sporting environments, specifically the power invested in the coach, provide a unique sociocultural context that offers a number of potentialities for sexual abuse and exploitation to take place. We offer Bella's story as a pedagogical resource for those involved in the world of sport to both think about and with as part of a process of encouraging change at the individual and institutional levels.     

Activity-related typologies and longitudinal change in physical activity and sedentary time in children and adolescents: The UP&DOWN Study

Background: Children and adolescents can be distinguished by different typologies (clusters) of physical activity and sedentary behavior. How physical activity ...     

Agreement among classroom observers of children's stylistic learning behaviors

Standardized and reliable rating scales have an important role in educational assessment and behavioral classroom intervention. The Learning Behaviors Scale (LBS) is a standardized behavior rating scale designed to report how individual students respond to classroom learning situations. This study investigated the interobserver agreement of the LBS with the use of linear and intraclass correlation methods. The methods jointly assessed the three salient aspects of observer judgments—severity level, rank order, and directionality. Participants were 72 students enrolled in special education programs as observed by 16 educators in eight self-contained classrooms. Both linear and intraclass coefficients were substantial (averages = .83 and .84, respectively). No significant observer effect was found. Moreover, the LBS produced comparable levels of differential learning styles for assessments of individual children. © 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.