Constructing a Sense of Purpose and a Professional Teaching Identity: Experiences of Teacher Candidates with Disabilities

Abstract

Using grounded theory, we examined the ways in which undergraduate teacher candidates with disabilities developed a sense of purpose and constructed professional identities. Our findings suggest K-12 experiences with advocacy as well as exclusionary school experiences influenced their emerging professional identities. Resistance to a deficit view of disability was central to teachers’ professional identities and influenced their desire to become “change agents” in their future professions. We describe collegiate experiences that affirmed or presented roadblocks to their career path.     

The global classroom: advancing cultural awareness in special schools through collaborative work using ICT

This paper reports research on cross‐national collaboration through Information and Communications Technology (ICT) within the statutory curricula of 10 special schools in Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland. Working in north–south paired classes, the pupils carried out joint tasks using asynchronous computer conferencing and videoconferencing. The full spectrum of learning difficulty and disability was represented amongst the participating pupils. Interviews were conducted to elicit the views and experiences of the teachers in the 2002/03 cohort. The main aims were to discover whether cultural awareness developed through joint tasks using the two technologies, if computer conferencing improved literacy and ICT skills, and if videoconferencing enhanced oral communication. The results showed that cultural awareness developed as far as cognition allowed, when pupils in partner schools became aware of similarities as well as differences. Those with sufficient keyboard ability benefited from computer conferencing and ICT competence improved, but the much preferred medium for collaborative, inter‐school work was videoconferencing. All but the most dependent pupils could participate, and valuable, transferable social and communication skills were acquired.     

Developing inclusive schools: the pivotal role of teaching assistants in promoting inclusion in special and mainstream schools in Northern Ireland

This paper focuses on the vital part played by teaching assistants in developing inclusive practices in Northern Ireland schools. In the case of mainstream schools, this means assisting with the integration of pupils with learning difficulties in regular classrooms. In the case of special schools, teaching assistants are required to have the knowledge and skills both to cope with children and young people who have a broad range of intellectual, physical and emotional difficulties, and to promote inclusion and participation beyond the school environment. However, the teaching assistant's position with respect to qualifications, professional development, conditions of employment and career structure, considering the greatly increased and varied demands placed upon them, has not been satisfactorily resolved at national level over some 30 years. By obtaining the views of practitioners in special and mainstream schools in Northern Ireland, the paper shows that the twin needs remain of improving teacher training and in-service training in the management of other adults in the classroom, and of enabling teachers to clarify fully the roles and responsibilities of the teaching assistant to promote an inclusive learning environment.     

Control over noxious events and choice

Three experiments are reported assessing whether rats prefer controllable over uncontrollable aversive shock. In Experiment 1, subjects chose between escapable and inescapable shock while relative shock duration varied parametrically. In Experiment 2, subjects again chose between escapable and inescapable shock, but duration was held constant and equal. The final experiment gave subjects a choice between avoidable and unavoidable shock under several signaling conditions. Choice behavior proved sensitive to relative shock duration and to predictability of shock but not to controllability of shock.     

A DEMONSTRATION MODEL: OUTREACH CONTINUING EDUCATION FOR RURAL GERIATRIC HEALTH CARE PROVIDERS

This article describes an outreach continuing education program designed to increase the knowledge and skills of licensed practical nurses employed in long‐term care facilities in 26 rural southeast Georgia counties. The program used a modular self‐directed approach and was heavily supported with audiovisual materials. Four independent learning activities made up each of the nine modules. After pilot implementation of the curriculum, nonnurse health care providers asked to enroll in the course. Upon completion of the course, participants earned certificates as specialists in long‐term care of the elderly as well as continuing education credit.     

Establishing and maintaining high-performing leadership teams: a primary perspective

This article reports on the findings from a study into high-performing leadership teams in English primary schools. The schools, in the sample, received ‘outstanding’ Office for Standards in Education (Ofsted) grades overall, and for leadership and management, in their most recent school inspection. The evidence suggests that developing a successful primary school leadership team takes time, commitment and continuity. The development of leaders requires a deliberate approach to build individual capacity and team unity. Effective team working takes time to develop and that ‘quick fix’ solutions to inadequate team work are inappropriate.     

Competition and reform of the New Zealand tertiary education sector

The purpose of this paper is to use an historical approach to examine the changing nature, size and diversification of education and training in New Zealand. In particular, attention will be concentrated on the impact of the introduction of competition into the New Zealand tertiary education industry since 1989. It will examine the relationship between the various tertiary education institutions as well as the relationship between these institutions and the demands of both students and industry.     

Amalgamations and the Changing Costs of Victorian Colleges of Advanced Education during the 1970s and 1980s

The purpose of this paper is to analyse the change in average costs per student and student/staff ratios of a selection of Victorian Colleges of Advanced Education that were involved in the 1981/82 round of amalgamations. The results are compared to the average costs of some colleges that were not involved in amalgamations at this time in order to determine if there is any evidence from this limited data that the mergers achieved economies of size and scope.