Government Workers Adding Societal Value: The Ohio Workforce Development Program

ABSTRACT This case study illustrates the application of Mega—adding measurable value for all stakeholders including society—as the central and ultimate focus for needs assessment. In this case, two needs assessment studies were conducted within a five‐year period (1999–2003) with the State of Ohio's Workforce Development (WD) program. An initial needs assessment based on Mega outcomes—high quality of life for Ohio taxpayers and public employees though the services they provide—was conducted in 1999, identifying shared strategic goals to focus management‐labor partnership initiatives. A Mega‐centered data collection matrix was used as the basis for discussions with stakeholders in order to determine the key areas of Ohio's Workforce Development to be included in the study. In 2003, a follow‐up needs assessment based on the same data collection matrix was designed to determine the improvements made since that time, the areas with the most critical performance gaps, demographic changes, and future trends affecting Workforce Development beneficiaries and stakeholders.     

Skiing, Cheese Fondue and Swiss Watches: Analogical Discourse in Vocational Training Interactions

When trainers or teachers in the field of initial vocational education explain abstract notions, refer to technical objects or emphasize the specificities of technical skills, they often call forth concepts and practices different from those that are directly salient in the training situations in which they engage. The aim of this paper is to contribute to a better understanding of the empirical realities associated with such phenomena by promoting a discursive and interactional approach of what we propose to term “analogical discourse”. Considering that analogies are performed and shared trough language and speech, we propose that concepts and methodological tools borrowed from the field of linguistics can be profitably applied to the analysis of analogical discourse. Not only can they reveal the dynamic and collective nature of analogies as they are performed, disseminated and sometimes negotiated amongst participants, but they can also help reflect about the complexities of vocational learning as it takes place in specific material, practical and socio-cultural environments. From that standpoint, the paper proposes to see analogies not only as related to conceptual development and cognitive dimensions of learning, but as a substantial contribution to the social, cultural and relational dimensions of it.     

Focal event,contextualization, and effective communication in the mathematics classroom

The aim of this article is to develop analytical tools for studying mathematical communication in collaborative activities. The theoretical construct of contextualization is elaborated methodologically in order to study diversity in individual thinking in relation to effective communication. The construct of contextualization highlights issues of diversity in collaborative activities as it emphasizes how students may struggle differently with a learning activity. The interaction of students (12 to 13 years old), playing a specifically designed dice game, is used as an example for illustration. The article shows how accounting for the focal events of the interlocutors, and the contexts in which they contextualize these events, help in organizing our thinking about mathematically effective communication in collaborative activities.     

Inter‐professional work and expertise: New roles at the boundaries of schools

The findings discussed here are based on five case studies and a small survey (n = 46) of how secondary schools are responding to demands that they collaborate with other services to intervene to prevent the social exclusion of children and young people. The case studies revealed a new space of action opening up around schools where practices were being shaped by ‘welfare managers’ who were employed by schools and were undertaking responsive work with vulnerable children and young people and the other services who were also supporting them. At the same time heads of year and/or heads of school and form tutors were increasingly focusing on children's achievement in school. The changes in roles and responsibilities were encouraged by workforce remodelling and changes in criteria for teachers’ salaries. However, focusing primarily on the work undertaken by the welfare managers, the article draws on cultural‐historical activity theory analyses of relational agency and distributed expertise to question whether welfare managers can undertake the work required in the new space of action without attention to the development of their core expertise.     

Teaching together and learning together – Primary science student teachers’ and their mentors’ joint teaching and learning in the primary classroom

This paper focuses on what and how primary science student teachers and their mentors learn from planning and reflecting together on each other’s science lessons for pupils aged 7–9. The student teachers had had training in scientific knowledge, but only brief experience of teaching. The mentors were well experienced in the pedagogy of teaching and mentoring, but did not feel confident about their science content knowledge and the teaching of science. Throughout the process of teaching and reflecting together the student teachers and the mentors expressed several specific examples of their joint learning.     

Backstage accounting in preschool: analysing dealing with complaints as ‘rehearsing away’ professional knowledge

Citizens of modern societies must trust a broad range of systems and professionals. When distrust arises, professionals are expected to be accountable. This paper draws on conversational material from a preschool team meeting. When a preschool work team prepares to meet a parent who has complained about their recurring neglect to change her child’s nappies ‘in time’, they are found: (1) to carefully review the encounter with the client, (2) in a team-building fashion, to select suitable accounts to offer ‘front stage’ and (3) to internally justify their selection of accounts. Our results indicate that work team members who engaged in backstage rehearsal author the organisation for building trust and, simultaneously ‘rehearse away’ what should remain the organisations’ secrets. Communicating the intent to satisfy was deemed more important than was using evidence from their professional knowledge base.     

Differences in novice and experienced teachers’ perceptions of planning activities in terms of primary instructional tasks

This study was aimed at investigating differences between novice and experienced teachers’ perceptions of planning activities for developing teacher education students’ professional skills by focusing on promoting of identified ill-developed skills. The teachers’ thinking about instructional planning was conceived as teachers’ decision-making for implementing primary teaching tasks in the planning, delivery, and reflective phases of instruction. This model served as a basis (or framework) for the identification of potential variables of planning skills and developing of items for a teachers’ questionnaire. Fifty-eight experienced and 55 novice teachers from Estonian schools of general education were surveyed. It was revealed that novice teachers did not apprehend events that may undermine reaching long-term instructional objectives and they focused more on the achievement of immediate objectives and the teaching of obligatory content in comparison with experienced teachers.     

Efficient sample preparation in immuno-matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization mass spectrometry using acoustic trapping

Acoustic trapping of minute bead amounts against fluid flow allows for easy automation of multiple assay steps, using a convenient aspirate/dispense format. Here, a method based on acoustic trapping that allows sample preparation for immuno-matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization mass spectrometry using only half a million 2.8 μm antibody covered beads is presented. The acoustic trapping is done in 200 × 2000 μm² glass capillaries and provides highly efficient binding and washing conditions, as shown by complete removal of detergents and sample processing times of 5-10 min. The versatility of the method is demonstrated using an antibody against Angiotensin I (Ang I), a peptide hormone involved in hypotension. Using this model system, the acoustic trapping was efficient in enriching Angiotensin at 400 pM spiked in plasma samples.     

Attentional focus effects on sprint start performance as a function of skill level

Abstract

Several researchers have demonstrated that an external focus of attention (about movement’s effects) during movement execution allowed better performances and learning of various motor tasks than an internal focus of attention (about movement itself). However, attentional focus effects have not been studied in tasks requiring explosive actions preceded by fast reaction time to a signal, such as a sprint start. We hypothesised that the beneficial effect of external focus of attention would be observed in the different stages of the sprint start (i.e. reaction time, block clearance and running) for both expert and novice sprinters. Novice and expert sprinters performed sprint starts followed by a 10 m sprint under three conditions: external focus instructions; internal focus instructions; and neutral instructions. The reaction time and the running time were significantly shorter in the external focus condition than in the internal focus condition, for both expert and novice participants. These results confirm the beneficial effect of an external focus of attention on the speed of movement execution. Moreover, they revealed that attentional focus influences movement preparation. Several hypotheses are proposed to account for these results, with reference to the processes that could be responsible for the observed effects.