Hesitant hopes: How a comprehensive approach to learning impacts on the transition hopes of marginalised young people in an alternative learning programme in regional Australia

Concerns have been raised internationally about whether alternative learning programmes are producing low-skilled labourers for rapidly disappearing twenty-first-century jobs. Researchers claim that learners in alternative programmes are more at risk due to the focus on low-level vocational and basic skill attainment, with a lack of formal academic pathways available to them. This article questions whether and in what ways an alternative learning programme supports young people to achieve successful transitions to sustainable social mobility for informed citizenship through a holistic approach to learning; or if class stratification is being re/enforced through systems’ accountability discourses. Hesitant hopes in alternative learning are explored through an ethnographic study of one alternative learning programme across five sites in regional Australia. Contextually, not-for-profit community agencies provide physical infrastructures as well as youth workers and volunteers, while a publicly funded School of Distance Education provides teacher oversight of the curriculum. Findings suggest that the theme of ‘hesitant hope’ is constructed through the analysis of the discourses of supporting wellbeing, life skill development and academic learning. These discourses facilitate further analysis of the concept of social mobility, suggesting a conceptual starting point for an engaging critique of the differing perspectives on how support could be providing these marginalised young people with a sense of hope for a socially mobile future.     

A replication of a survey of school psychologists: Congruence between training,practice, preferred role,and competence

The present study is a replication of an earlier effort by Meacham and Peckham (1978) that surveyed practicing school psychologists to obtain their perceptions regarding the congruency between the role functions of assessment, interpretation, remediation, consultation, change agent, and research and training, present job, preferred job, and competence. Overall, results indicate a greater congruency between the training and practice of school psychologists. Other findings are discussed in terms of their implications for the training and practice of school psychology.     

Teaching comprehension and critical literacy: investigating guided reading in three primary classrooms

With the introduction of the National Literacy Strategy, England's primary school teachers were asked to replace “listening to children read”–a practice deeply embedded in UK pedagogy–with guided reading, a practice focused on interpretive and critical comprehension rather than accuracy and fluency. This small‐scale research project addresses the perceptions of the author's Primary B.Ed. student teachers that what goes on under the name of guided reading in the classrooms in which they undertake teaching practice does not do justice to the term. In particular, it examines the claim that fluent readers are still engaged in reading aloud, rather than being taught how to develop analytical strategies for comprehension and engage in collaborative dialogue to develop cognition and promote interpretive critical literacy. Using interpretive methodology, this small‐scale study examines episodes of guided reading in three case study classrooms. In each episode examined, although some form of group reading was conducted, there was no opportunity for children to read silently or engage in collaborative discussion, little teaching of inferential comprehension and none of evaluative strategies. The study reaches tentative rather than conclusive answers. These suggest that the effective teaching of guided reading depends both upon the understanding of its psychological underpinning, and also on the teacher's ability, through sharing responsibility for problem solving with the children, to build bridges between what is known and what is new.     

Delivering an MBA Management Consulting Experience

This article reports on an innovative MBA elective consulting course that attempts to address how to better prepare inexperienced MBA students for a competitive job market. This article is a best practice paper designed to provide insights and encouragement to educators.     

Not a one-shot deal: Generative professional development among experienced teachers

This study examines two experienced teachers’ transformations and sense of agency as they implemented a writer’s workshop curriculum with multi-lingual third grade students. Multiple lines of inquiry guide the study including communities of practice (Lave & Wenger, 1991), teacher identities in figured worlds (Holland, Lachicotte, Skinner, & Cain, 1998), and the ethic of care (Noddings, 1984/2003). A constant comparative method was used to analyze classroom observation notes, interviews and debriefing sessions (Glaser & Strauss, 1967). Findings indicate that teachers transformed their pedagogical practices around writing, and at the same time reconsidered what it may mean to become renewed professionals.