Telecommunications and an Alternative Practicum: collaborative entrepreneurship in teacher education

ABSTRACT

As in many schools of education, the Faculty of Education at the University of Alberta has initiated a number of collaborative projects with partnership schools in an attempt to remove the gap between the traditional, university‐based component of practicum courses, and the practice of the school‐based component. One model, described in this paper, uses telecommunications technology to deliver field‐based experiences. Technology‐based, inter‐institutional collaborative projects contain elements of innovation, that are usually managed with reference to change strategy processes described by Fullan (1982), Havelock (1973), Rogers (1983, 1986) ‐and others. However, these processes take time and planning and may actually mitigate against adoption and implementation of rapidly evolving technologies. In this paper, we argue that telecommunications technology‐based, collaboratively developed models of teacher education may be better served by entrepreneurial thinking than by carefully planned change strategies. One such project is described from initiation through implementation, and components of entrepreneurial partnering are suggested.     

BLENDED LEARNING IN ACTION: THE INFOSKILLS PROGRAMME AT MANCHESTER METROPOLITAN UNIVERSITY'S LIBRARY SERVICE

This paper describes the development of online information skills tutorials, using WebCT, within Manchester Metropolitan University's Infoskills Programme.     

Summation and configuration in patterning schedules with the rat and rabbit

Discrimination between a tone + light compound and its components in positive and negative patterning schedules was examined. In the positive schedule, reinforced compound presentations (C+) were intermixed with unreinforced component presentations (T?, L?). In the negative schedule, the compound was unreinforced (C?) and the components were reinforced (T+, L+). In Experiment 1, appetitive conditioning of rats’ anticipatory magazine responses was used, and in Experiment 2, aversive conditioning of the rabbit’s nictitating membrane response was used. Both experiments revealed that the positive patterning schedule consistently produced rapid acquisition of appropriate discriminative responding. The results of the negative patterning schedule were more complex. Specifically, the results of Experiment 1 demonstrated that naive rats initially showed rapid acquisition of the negative patterning discrimination. However, schedule reversals revealed that experience with the positive patterning schedule virtually abolished subsequent acquisition of discriminative responding under the negative patterning schedule. The results of Experiment 2 revealed that naive rabbits showed very slow acquisition of discriminative responding under the negative patterning schedule. The results are discussed in relation to the unique-stimulus hypothesis, a contextual encoding hypothesis, and a configural hypothesis.     

Developing teaching assistants’ skills in positive behaviour management: an application of Video Interaction Guidance in a secondary school

This paper reports an action research project in a school in the UK designed to investigate the impact of a brief Video Interaction Guidance (VIG) intervention in promoting skills of non-teaching staff in positive behaviour management. A summary of the literature in relation to VIG is provided before describing the project and data collected. Ten teaching assistants (TAs) from a secondary school took part in an intervention using VIG. The impact on TA skills and confidence was assessed using participant ratings of the specific target outcomes of the intervention using the Target Monitoring and Evaluation (TME) system. Participants’ experiences of the intervention were explored during a focus group discussion after the intervention had taken place. TME data suggested a positive impact on TA skills and confidence to support individual pupils, while thematic analysis of focus group data showed a number of themes relevant to the application of VIG in this context, including promotion of effective staff development.     

Violence in families of adolescent runaways

Adolescents who run away from home frequently give many reasons for their behavior, but rarely has an examination of physical maltreatment as a precipitating factor for leaving home been carefully conducted. The Conflict Tactics Scale, a measure of how families resolve conflicts, was completed by 199 adolescents who ran away to a youth shelter. Some 78% of the adolescents self-reported significant physical violence directed toward themselves by a parent in the one year prior to their running away. There were no significant effects of age or sex on the amount of physical violence. A comparison between runaway adolescents and adolescents labeled abused reveals no significant differences in at-risk child abuse scores. An argument is presented for crisis counselors and youth shelter workers to more carefully examine and treat family violence in adolescents who run.     

Understanding adult education in community contexts: A critical realist perspective

Third-sector community organisations are important sites for learning, especially for the most excluded groups in society. However, scant attention has been paid to the various factors shaping educational provision in community contexts, and how these interact to shape the provision available to marginalised populations. This article presents new evidence addressing this gap, through drawing on interview data from practitioners working in the UK homelessness sector. It identifies a range of factors shaping educational provision in these community contexts. These are: service user need and demand; staff roles and capacity; organisational purpose and structures; national policies; support from other adult education providers; non-governmental finance; and volunteers. With some modification, and placed within an overarching critical realist framework, it is argued that these findings are consistent with Boeren’s comprehensive lifelong learning participation model. The article concludes that so long as government policy and related funding continues to ignore and fails to support educational provision in these settings, it will remain piecemeal and highly contingent on the contribution of volunteers and short-term funding.     

The perceived benefits and problems associated with teaching activities undertaken by doctoral students

Postgraduate students involved in delivering undergraduate teaching while working toward a research degree are known as graduate teaching assistants (GTAs). This study focused upon the problems and benefits arising from this dual role as researchers and teachers, as perceived by GTAs at the University of Cambridge. To this end, GTAs at Cambridge were invited to participate in an online survey (n?=?153). Teaching is seen to offer a wide range of benefits to GTAs, including benefits to the GTAs’ own research, transferable skills development, career development and teaching skills. Time pressures emerged as the principal problem associated with the role. The data are consistent with findings from previous studies, while also providing further detail about the nature of the benefits and problems. In particular, additional insights are offered relating to benefits and problems associated with different teaching activities, and disciplinary differences.