The evolving role of the science department chair

Working from a historical perspective indicates that there are four periods over the last 170 years through which the role of the science chair has developed. This evolution has progressed from the administrative need to implement the agenda of the newly professionalised science of the nineteenth century, to a greater emphasis on the role of the chair as an instructional leader in the latter half of the twentieth century. The growing complexity of the role has also resulted in chairs becoming conflicted between their roles as specialist teachers and middle-level school administrators. From the earliest days of school science departments, the role of the chair has been heavily invested in two main areas. The first of these is a fealty to the discipline. The second is the need to attempt to balance the competing demands of the discipline, science education and educational reforms. Given the ongoing pressure for the reform of science education, the evolution of the role highlights the potential need for chairs to become actively engaged in maintaining links to the academic, professional, and school communities in which they serve.     

Nurturing learning or encouraging dependency? Teacher constructions of students in lower attainment groups in English secondary schools

‘Ability’ or attainment grouping can introduce an additional label that influences teachers’ expectations of students in specific attainment groups. This paper is based on a survey of 597 teachers across 82 schools and 34 teacher interviews in 10 schools undertaken as part of a large-scale mixed-methods study in England. The paper focuses on English and mathematics teachers’ expectations of secondary school students in lower attainment groups, and explores how low-attaining students are constructed as learners who benefit from specific approaches to learning justified through discourses of nurturing and protection. The authors argue that the adoption of different pedagogical approaches for groups of low-attaining learners to nurture them may in some cases be fostering dependency on teachers and cap opportunities for more independent learning. Furthermore, more inclusive whole-school learning-culture approaches may better allow for students across the attainment range to become independent learners.     

Global technologies,local practices

ABSTRACT

This special issue of Learning, Media and Technology contributes to a growing need, not only for critical accounts of digital education that resist the global, but also for a more diverse representation of the multiplicitous practices of teaching and learning with technology across the globe. It builds on important work that has examined open education initiatives in the Global South [Arinto, P. B., C. Hodgkinson-Williams, and H. Trotter. 2017. "OER and OEP in the Global South: Implications and Recommendations for Social Inclusion." Adoption and Impact of OER in the Global South, 577–592] and highlighted ‘missing voices’ in educational technology development [Davis, R. 2015. The Missing Voices in EdTech: Bringing Diversity into EdTech. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press]. It is through such critical enquiry that research can continue to cut through the discursive regimes of simplistic disruption and enhancement from a pervasive education technology industry. This means aligning research in this area, less with grand narratives that portray digital education as an external and universal force capable of radical transformation, and more with accounts that acknowledge an already-present political economy of educational technology, in which specific devices and applications succumb to everyday practices of negotiation, consumption, and resistance, particular to the contexts in which they manifest.     

Gender balance amongst educational psychologists: an attempt to explain the male minority

The Equal Opportunities Commission (EOC) has begun an investigation into why most jobs currently have a gender imbalance within their workforce. The latest in a series of updates has been published by the Association of Educational Psychologists (AEP) on gender distribution amongst educational psychologists. This may therefore be an opportune time to look at issues of gender balance within the population of educational psychologists (EPs). Currently males are in a minority throughout the study and practice of psychology. The small and diminishing proportion of male EPs appears to be seldom discussed within the profession. This paper attempts to evaluate a range of possible explanations for the lack of male EPs. The process of gender stereotyping was offered as one theoretical framework which might help guide further investigations into this much overlooked area.     

Using person response functions to investigate areas of person misfit related to item characteristics

Individual person fit analyses provide important information regarding the validity of test score inferences for an individual test taker. In this study, we use data from an undergraduate statistics test (N = 1135) to illustrate a two-step method that researchers and practitioners can use to examine individual person fit. First, person fit is examined numerically with several indices based on the Rasch model (i.e., Infit, Outfit, and Between-Subset statistics). Second, person misfit is presented graphically with person response functions, and these person response functions are interpreted using a heuristic. Individual person fit analysis holds promise for improving score interpretation in that it may detect potential threats to validity of score inferences for some test takers. Individual person fit analysis may also highlight particular subsets of items (on which a test taker performs unexpectedly) that can be used to further contextualize her or his test performance.     

Teacher tensions: expectations in a professional development institute

The purpose of this study was to better understand teacher tensions in professional development. The population under study was practicing mathematics teachers engaged in a week-long professional development institute. Data sources included observations, interviews, and teacher products (such as registration forms, surveys, journals, and notebooks). The data were analyzed to determine what tensions were evident in the institute and how those tensions arose. In this paper, we examine participants’ tensions in a professional development situation when their expectations did not match reality. We have done so by presenting a theoretical model of professional development based on an instructional rhombus that illuminates the actual and applicatory aspects of teachers’ professional development experiences. The main tensions expressed by the teachers were related to the content and pedagogy of the institute. This study points toward the importance of teachers’ expectations in professional development.