Competence in Science — enhancing the self image of students

This paper reviews the role of mentors in developing the self‐image of pre‐service science teachers on a post graduate programme.     

Supporting new school leaders: findings from a university‐based leadership coaching program for new administrators

Administrators need intense support in their early years in their jobs to master the demands of the position and to emerge as effective leaders for their schools. This article reports on a leadership coaching program offered by a university to support graduates as they transition to new school leadership roles. First year research results of the Program for New Principals indicate that all of the program participants felt that the coaching program was a positive addition to the induction experience for new administrators. New principals viewed coaching positively and emphasized that it is both a valuable and unique form of professional development. Both coaches and new principals cited personalized support as one of the coaching model's most significant assets. The results should inform the development of a model of leadership coaching for new administrators.     

School Organization and Persistent School Absenteeism: An Introduction to a Complex Problem

This article is concerned with the development of provision for pupils in a comprehensive school with special educational needs. Its main focus is on the organization and administration changes which were undertaken in connection with the recommendations of the Warnock Report, the 1981 Education Act and the development of knowledge and expertise within the school in helping such pupils.

It concentrates on five aspects: the communication of information about those pupils within the school, the curriculum available to them in the upper school, the deployment of staff, the name of the department to best fit its changing role in the school and the issues which need to be taken into account in monitoring those developments.     

Chasing joint work: administrators’ efforts to structure teacher collaboration

ABSTRACT

Although the benefits of teacher collaboration have been touted, school administrators often struggle to foster productive collaboration at their sites. This study takes a deep dive into teachers’ interactions to understand how administrators’ efforts to engineer collaboration play out in teachers’ relationships. Analysis of qualitative interview and observation data with a social network lens provides a nuanced understanding of teachers’ formal and informal interactions at two schools. Findings make clear why leaders are unlikely to build effective collaborative cultures without noticing and building off of the relationships teachers have built within their existing contexts. Overly regulated meetings impacted both formal and informal relationships between teachers, and productive collaboration during formal meeting time could not be sustained in teachers’ informal networks when other structural obstacles intervened. Few teachers were able to overcome either of these constraints to engage in meaningful collaboration, although the efforts of some provide insight for promoting collaborative cultures. This study provides insights for how leaders might notice and capitalise on existing relationships as well as on sometimes unintended structures to support teachers’ join work.     

A journey of self‐discovery: an intervention involving massage,yoga and relaxation for children with emotional and behavioural difficulties attending primary schools

This study reports on an intervention involving massage, yoga and relaxation delivered to young children with emotional and behavioural difficulties. Children (n = 126) were invited to participate in the Self‐discovery Programme (SDP) with parental consent. A total of 107 children aged 8–11 years completed the SDP and all measures. Children were allocated to a Control (n = 54) or Intervention (n = 53) group. The results indicate that children in the Intervention group showed improvements in self‐confidence, social confidence, communication and contributions in class. Children in the Intervention group were noted by teachers to use skills learned on the SDP during the school day.     

DNA as a Work of Art: Processes of Semiosis between Contemporary Art and Biology

When A Genomic Portrait – Sir John Sulston by Mark Quinn appeared in the London National Portrait Gallery's exhibition in 2001/2, the ensuing public controversy over its portrayal raised a number of questions about the representation of a publicly known figure. Because the portrait was the Gallery's first contemporary commission using specialised, scientific procedures in its creation, a number of issues arose surrounding its authenticity. How questions of authenticity are answered depends upon how the viewer reads aspects of scientific coding as it functions within the artistic domain. This is a form of visual literacy that depends on the viewer's ability to lift the veil that operates between coding systems and the context of their use. Literacy in this case is built upon the relationship between visual interpretation and ascribed systems of meaning within the context of their recontextualisations. By playing with the intersections between artistic and scientific discourses, the authors investigate how the representation of identity functions as a polysemy across different semiotic domains. Using visual semiotics to examine the intersections between sign systems across these domains, some of the communication aspects of how new modes of art function in present‐day communities are provoked. By illustrating the complexity of this process as a part of transforming expert knowing into pedagogical practice, support is given for improving teacher education in the arts and cultural domain.     

The influences of guiding cues on motor skill autonomy in rats

How does the effectiveness of guiding cues influence the development of motor skill autonomy? We utilized two sets of guiding cues (lights vs. reversed-lights conditions) that differed in their effectiveness to control a left–right leverpress sequence in rats. We separately measured the development of stimulus control by panel lights on guiding-cues trials and the development of stimulus control by practice cues on no-cue probe trials within the same sessions. Accuracy in the presence of the guiding cues was acquired faster in the lights condition than in the reversed-lights condition, but subjects in the reversed-lights condition were more able to complete the skill autonomously than those in the lights condition. Throughout acquisition, control by guiding cues and practice cues developed at the same rate in the reversed-lights condition, but control by practice cues (autonomy) developed at a slower rate than did control by guiding cues in the lights condition. At the end of training, subjects that had been exposed to the reversed-lights condition displayed higher levels of autonomy than did those exposed to the lights condition. The less effective guiding cue (reversed-lights) produced greater levels of autonomy than did the more effective cue (lights), even though control by this guiding cue developed more slowly. Thus, guiding your child by the hand too much may reduce his or her ability to complete the task independently. We discuss the similarity to prompt dependence in children with learning disabilities and transfer of stimulus control.     

Orthography and the development of metalinguistic reflection in Portuguese primary school pupils / Ortografía y desarrollo de la reflexión metalingüística en alumnos portugueses en primaria

Abstract

Linguistic awareness is crucial in learning literacy. This project has a two-fold aim: to develop the students’ ability to think about language in order to write with accuracy and to lead teachers to promote students’ discussions about their writing difficulties. The study is part of a two-year action-research project developed in primary schools from the Lisbon area, with experimental and control groups. The starting point of the project was the analysis of the problems students of third and fourth grades showed in their writing. The scope of the project includes dictation tasks within an interactionist approach, favouring grammatical discussions leading to the observation and manipulation of linguistic data.