Teaching the partial products algorithm with the concrete representational abstract sequence and the strategic instruction model

Elementary standards include multiplication of single-digit numbers and students advance to solve complex problems and demonstrate procedural fluency in algorithms. The ability to illustrate procedural fluency in algorithms is dependent on the development of understanding and reasoning in multiplication. Development of multiplicative reasoning provides the foundation for advanced mathematics and algebraic reasoning. For students who struggle in mathematics, instruction in multiplication algorithms should ensure conceptual understanding so that students have a foundation for success in advanced mathematics. The concrete representational abstract (CRA) sequence addresses conceptual understanding and the strategic instruction model (SIM) supports procedural knowledge. The current pilot study combined these methods to teach elementary students the partial products algorithm. Twelve students in grades four and five participated in the study, receiving instruction from teachers in their school during an intervention period. Within a pre-experimental design, using pre- and postintervention data, students showed a significant change in performance. The article will describe and show how teachers implemented the CRA-SIM interventions and discuss implications for practice.     

Critical corridor talk: Just gossip or stoic resistance? Unrecognised informal Higher Education leadership

This mixed methods paper considers whether or not invisible forms of morally resistant collegial leadership are progressively challenging policy and managerial quasi‐market instrumentalism in a minority of low trust dysfunctional situations in a stratified United Kingdom (UK) Higher Education system. A theoretical model of stoical critical corridor talk (CCT) is proposed, arising from selected empirical data and reflective observations in 2005–2017. The data demonstrated that resistant academic critique is increasingly questioning economically driven command and control authoritarianism. The model builds on the concept of critical being to consider whether or not CCT amongst academics provides informal stoical leadership to alleviate stresses exacerbated by poor management. The highly functioning criticality of negative capability facilitates self‐reflexive resistance against the false necessity of supposedly deterministic imperatives to validate policy‐driven audit‐based managerialism. Yet to foster trust, informal leadership needs to practise correct moral principles itself when resisting performativity in dysfunctional environments in which some overstep the acceptable roles of good management.     

Creating teacher capacity in Early Childhood Education and Care institutions implementing an authoritative adult style

The being together intervention intends to raise teacher capacity in Norwegian Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC) institutions and promote social and emotional development in preschoolers by implementing an authoritative (warm and predictable) adult style in the institution. An authoritative adult balances between building up high quality interactions with children, while at the same time having a predictable structure with clear norms and social expectations in the learning environment. The purpose of this study was to investigate what helped the ECEC institutions to successfully implement the program principles and core components, and what were the challenges. The staff groups of seven Norwegian ECEC institutions in different municipalities who took part in the innovation were interviewed at the beginning and before the end of the first year of implementation. Data analysis identified five success criteria in the implementation process; strong commitment to the authoritative adult style, strong focus on the implementation process, advanced support systems, highly involved leaders, and a collective orientation. These elements resulted in a shared vision and an academically grounded practice in the ECEC institutions. Staff members without formal professional training and a lack of written documentation in the ECEC institutions should be given more consideration in further improvement of the capacity building.