Response to Intervention in Middle Schools: Practices and Outcomes

Response to intervention (RTI) is advocated in elementary school as a system‐wide, multitiered model of academic and behavioral interventions. Middle schools have begun adopting RTI models based on these existing elementary models. This investigation into current middle school RTI practices describes technical aspects as well as some of cultural and contextual issues surrounding implementation. The study included multiple data collection procedures including surveys, discussion groups, phone interviews, and site visits. Although many schools reported substantial progress with implementation, they recognized rigorous implementation of RTI posed such on‐going challenges as changes in staffing, curricular realignments, very limited selections of screening and progress monitoring tools aligned with their curriculum, and scheduling of secondary and tertiary level interventions.     

Teacher Educators' Readiness,Preparation, and Perceptions of Preparing Preservice Teachers in a Fully Online Environment: An Exploratory Study

With a view to attracting more students and offering flexible learning opportunities, online teaching and learning is becoming increasingly widespread across the higher education sector. It is now found across a wide range of disciplines (e.g., business, health, psychology, accounting, information technology) and program levels (e.g., from associate degrees to doctorate degrees). Online delivery is also strongly represented in the teacher education sector at many universities. Research of online delivery in higher education generally and teacher education specifically has pointed to a range of benefits and challenges associated with this mode of learning. Within the teacher education literature, many aspects of the online preparation of teachers remain poorly understood. More specifically, there is scant literature on the experiences and beliefs of teacher educators in relation to their readiness and preparation for online teaching as well as their beliefs in relation to the appropriateness of online education for preservice teachers. This article responds to this gap in the literature and reports on an exploratory study that worked with academic staff, teaching in a fully online teacher education course, at a mid-size Australian university. Twenty-seven teacher educators completed a 34-item questionnaire that consisted of closed and open-ended questions. With regards to readiness and preparation for teaching online, the majority of teacher educators reported lacking confidence and competence in the technological and pedagogical skills required to teach online. By and large, the study participants were welcoming of individualized “at-elbow” support that seemed to abate some of their fears of online teaching. The teacher educators were generally divided on whether the online classroom was an appropriate method for preparing preservice teachers. This article concludes with several recommendations for consideration by teacher educators who work in an online environment and sets the stage for a more ambitious study.     

Tough acts to follow: the challenges to science teachers presented by biotechnological progress

The public controversies associated with biotechnological progress (genetic modification, cloning, and so forth) increasingly impact upon biology teaching in school; teachers find themselves engaged in discussions with pupils on value‐laden issues deriving from the social and ethical implications of the ‘new science’. The research described in this paper focused upon the thinking of a sample of 41 biology teachers as they endeavoured to implement the first year of the new Scottish Advanced Higher Biology course and to face the challenges associated with these controversies. Following questionnaire returns, the investigation employed semistructured, in‐depth interviews with 10 teachers and, separately, with their 61 pupils (17–18 years of age) and was part of a medium‐term to long‐term evaluation of a university summer school that had endeavoured to update these teachers on recent biotechnological advances. While teachers were found to be fairly positively disposed to handling discussion of such contentious matters, they were none‐too‐clear as to its precise merits and functions; many lack confidence in handling discussion. The research indicates that much needs to be tackled by way of professional development for science teachers now engaged in dimensions new to science teaching.     

Communicating in Education and Training

Abstract

This article maintains that the focus of learning and training at all levels is moving increasingly towards the individual ‐‐ how the individual learns and the influences of his or her environment on learning. It suggests that, among the increasing wealth of research into educational technology, the emphasis needs now to be placed on the learning process and the learning environment. But the learning processes and environments have to be seen as part of an educational scenario which is changing rapidly. Education at all levels, together with training at the adult level, and the resources devoted to these purposes will continue to be under direct challenge. To make learning more effective, the questions of contacts and connections by and with media must be examined and assessed. For effective communication the methods and the processes have to be matched to objectives. The article concludes that the rapidly changing technology of communications is helping to shift the balance from an emphasis on what has been largely a one‐way system of communication to one in which the individual learner is increasingly in control and in which the learning process itself, rather than the teaching system, has become the focus.