INTERDISCIPLINARY CONTINUING EDUCATION IN A RURAL AND REMOTE AREA: THE APPROACH OF THE NORTHERN EDUCATIONAL CENTRE FOR AGING AND HEALTH

This article describes an interdisciplinary continuing education approach for health professionals in a rural remote area implemented by the Northern Educational Centre for Aging and Health (NECAH) at Lakehead University in Thunder Bay, Ontario, Canada. The article discusses issues of rural health care practice and the implications for practitioners’ educational needs. The key components involved in delivering interdisciplinary education and teamwork training are reviewed, followed by a discussion of the relevance of an interdisciplinary participatory approach for rural practitioners given their practice context and work style. Using NECAH's experience in planning and delivering a 5‐day interdisciplinary education program in palliative care as a case example, it is argued that simultanous attention to these issues in the design and delivery of continuing professional education for rural professionals contributes to a relevant educational experience in the short‐term and an increased interdisciplinary collaboration in the long‐term. The article suggests that NECAH's interdisciplinary participatory approach is a significant model for the continuing education of health professionals in rural remote areas.     

Teachers' emotions and test feedback

A qualitative methodology, grounded theory, was used to examine the thoughts and emotions of teachers who delivered test feedback to students. The goal of this study was to develop a conceptual model of test-feedback processes that was grounded in observational and interview data. Seven college teachers were interviewed and observed as they planned and conducted testfeedback sessions. During the test-feedback sessions, these teachers experienced a variety of negative emotions when they encountered challenges from students in the classroom. Strategies developed by these teachers reflected their attempts to organize test feedback in ways that were consistent with their goals and beliefs, but that also limited their negative emotions and stress during the feedback session. These findings are discussed in terms of their contribution to existing research on teachers' interactive thought and emotion and on the ways that teachers cope with stress in the classroom.     

Measured lives: the rise of assessment as the engine of change in English schools

The year 2000 marks the end of compulsory education for the first cohort of students to experience the National Curriculum throughout their school careers. This article describes their experience of assessment and compares it with the testing regime that those children who start school in 2000 are likely to experience. Changes in policy from the early Task Group on Assessment and Testing proposals are analysed, especially the increasing priority given to the use of assessment for monitoring and evaluating the performance of teachers, schools and local education authorities. This shift is interpreted in terms of underlying assumptions about effective strategies for change. While Conservative and Labour governments have pursued somewhat different goals, they have used a similar change strategy. This explains why the general thrust of policy has continued in a broadly similar direction - towards ever more testing in schools and the use of results as performance indicators. It is argued, however, that this strategy cannot be pursued indefinitely. After a point, further improvements will only be made if teachers are helped to work ‘smarter’, not just harder. Policy-makers need, therefore, to look again at the contribution that formative assessment - or assessment for learning as part of pedagogy - can make to lifelong learning, in a more coherent, balanced and ‘educational’ system.     

Early Literacy Measures for Improving Student Reading Achievement: Translating Research Into Practice

The importance of early literacy instruction and its role in later reading proficiency is well established; however, measures and procedures to screen and monitor proficiency in the area of early literacy are less well researched. The purpose of this study was to (a) examine the technical adequacy and validity of early curriculum-based literacy measures, Letter–Sound Correspondence, Onset Phoneme Identification, and Phoneme Segmentation, developed for use within the problem-solving model in the Minneapolis Public Schools and (b) describe the district-wide implementation of these measures. In general, these measures were found to have adequate reliability and validity, have moderate to moderately high correlations with criterion measures (oral reading, report cards), and be sensitive to growth across the school year. A case study of how these measures are used for screening and progress monitoring to improve reading achievement within 1 school is included. Limitations and future directions are also presented.     

Protection of the librarian

This article deals with a proposed initiative to train library managers on the African continent. It is argued that such an education initiative will contribute to the socio-economic development of Africa. Issues addressed in the article include the following: the background to and rationale for this initiative, justification for the University of Pretoria to be the degree-issuing institution, the delivery mode, outline of the proposed curriculum and expected outcomes of this initiative.     

A NEW LOOK AT PRESERVICE TEACHERS' CONCEPTIONS OF CLASSROOM MANAGEMENT AND ORGANIZATION: UNCOVERING COMPLEXITY AND DISSONANCE

This article examines preservice teachers' conceptions of classroom management and organization in light of their training and beliefs about good teaching. Students in their final year of a 5-year program discussed their definitions and conceptions of classroom management, organization, and rule systems through an open-ended questionnaire. Researchers analyzed responses using a grounded approach. Findings revealed a portrait of student perceptions more complex than those in previous studies, with conceptions often changing according to the nature of the question asked. Respondents exhibited a preoccupation with behavior management previously recognized in other studies; however, findings also revealed underlying conflicts between respondents' theoretical orientations and conceptions of management, a lack of attention to developing student independence, and a conceptual schism between organization and management. Findings suggest a need for teacher educators to clarify the role of management, clarify relationships between organization and management, and help students to bridge specific theory–practice gaps.