Finding her way: a beginning teacher's story of learning to honour her own voice in teaching

This article examines the ways in which a collaborative action research design became the lens by which a classroom teacher and two university teacher educators examined the practice of a novice during her second year of teaching. Together the three authors tell a story of a young woman's struggle to find and honour her voice as a new teacher. Three overarching themes were identified from the date, including university preparation, formal/informal support networks and finding and honouring her voice. Findings revealed that the collaborative nature of this research provided for unintended praxis for all researchers. Ultimately, the teacher's quest for voice and ultimate articulation of self-as-teacher emerged as a result of her participation in this collaborative inquiry.     

Sources of Instructional Feedback, Job Satisfaction, and Basic Psychological Needs

This study examined college instructors’ utilization and perceived value of sources of instructional feedback (institutional student ratings, consultation with an instructional specialist, soliciting feedback from students, self-assessment, self-observation, peer/administrator observation, and peer coaching). We examined relationships between the utilization of each source of feedback with job satisfaction and psychological needs satisfaction. We solicited instructors (N?=?126) via email. Results revealed self-assessment was the most utilized source of instructional feedback, and instructor-solicited feedback from students was perceived as the most useful. Job satisfaction was significantly correlated with basic psychological needs. We discuss qualitative findings, implications, and suggestions for future research.     

Mentors’ personal growth and development in a college access mentorship program

As the prevalence of mentoring programs in higher education institutions continues to grow, there remains little research on the growth and development that comes from serving as a mentor. In this phenomenological study, the researchers examined college students’ personal and educational gains through serving as mentors to high school students in a work-study mentoring program for increasing college access. Drawing on interviews with 14 mentors and other program staff, the researchers examined the following research question: In what ways did student mentors in the G-Force Mentoring Program grow and develop as a result of their mentor experience? Findings included mentor growth in three key categories: (a) self-development and awareness, (b) skill development, and (c) career development. Implications for practice and future research are offered.     

Emerging: An Art Field Placement’s Impact on Practice

ABSTRACT

This exploratory study examined the experiences of 9 stakeholders in an art gallery field placement during their social work education. The study sought to understand how the nontraditional field placement prepared students for practice. In addition, personality traits of students that best fit the placement was examined. Findings suggest that students had been prepared to engage in a variety of practice behaviors, work independently, and be more creative. However, they also felt that the field placement setting did not give them enough direct practice opportunities. The two most salient personality traits were being flexible and an initiator.     

Teacher candidates’ mastery of phoneme-grapheme correspondence: massed versus distributed practice in teacher education

Matching phonemes (speech sounds) to graphemes (letters and letter combinations) is an important aspect of decoding (translating print to speech) and encoding (translating speech to print). Yet, many teacher candidates do not receive explicit training in phoneme-grapheme correspondence. Difficulty with accurate phoneme production and/or lack of understanding of sound-symbol correspondence can make it challenging for teachers to (a) identify student errors on common assessments and (b) serve as a model for students when teaching beginning reading or providing remedial reading instruction. For students with dyslexia, lack of teacher proficiency in this area is particularly problematic. This study examined differences between two learning conditions (massed and distributed practice) on teacher candidates’ development of phoneme-grapheme correspondence knowledge and skills. An experimental, pretest-posttest-delayed test design was employed with teacher candidates (n?=?52) to compare a massed practice condition (one, 60-min session) to a distributed practice condition (four, 15-min sessions distributed over 4 weeks) for learning phonemes associated with letters and letter combinations. Participants in the distributed practice condition significantly outperformed participants in the massed practice condition on their ability to correctly produce phonemes associated with different letters and letter combinations. Implications for teacher preparation are discussed.     

Computer conferencing with access to a 'guest expert' in the professional development of special educational needs coordinators

This article describes and outlines the implications of a one‐year case study of students’ use of the computer conferencing facility of a postgraduate module for special educational needs coordinators (SENCOs) at a distance‐learning institution. This facility incorporates a virtual space for a ‘guest expert’. The aim of the study was to inform future development of courses at a time when computer conferencing was just becoming widespread in the university concerned. Quantitative data associated with the volume and patterns of individual participation in the computer conference were collected as well as interview material from students, tutors and the ‘guest expert’. Findings from the study indicate that computer conferencing has the potential to facilitate the professional development of teachers as reflective practitioners and researchers. However, they also point to a number of barriers to student participation that must be addressed. These include access issues related to time constraints, unfamiliarity with the medium, and lack of confidence in expressing personal views in a public arena. A major conclusion drawn from this study is that it may be appropriate to consider future developments which incorporate the assumption that, in computer conferences of large professional development courses, students are much more likely to participate through reading rather than making personal contributions to conference discussions. This opens the possibility of reconceptualising the role of the ‘guest expert’ as two or more discussants with relevant expertise dialoguing with each other while students follow a threaded discussion and/or make personal contributions.     

Researching early intervention and young children's perspectives – developing and using a ‘listening to children approach’

This article, by Alice Paige‐Smith and Jonathan Rix, considers the current context of early intervention in England from the perspective and experiences of two families and in particular focuses on two young children identified as having Down syndrome. This case study research has emerged from previous research conducted by the authors, both of whom are Senior Lecturers at the Open University and have a wealth of experience across all phases of education. Their previous research involved interviews with parents of children diagnosed as having Down syndrome, which raised further questions about early intervention and the pedagogical relationship between the parent and the child, and recognised that ‘early intervention’ can be more than structured activities led by professionals. The research in this article, which has been funded by the British Academy, used ethnographic methodology to understand the process of early intervention with two young children with Down syndrome and their families. The methodology developed to include narrative first‐person observation of the child and photography. In addition to this a method of reflecting on the process of early intervention developed that included the researchers, the parent and the child. The development of this research methodology is considered in detail in this article.     

A Tiered Intervention Model for Early Vocabulary Instruction: The Effects of Tiered Instruction for Young Students At Risk for Reading Disability

Vocabulary knowledge at school entry is a robust predictor of later reading achievement. Many children begin formal reading instruction at a significant disadvantage due to low levels of vocabulary. Until recently, relatively few research studies examined the efficacy of vocabulary interventions for children in the early primary grades (e.g., before fourth grade), and even fewer addressed vocabulary intervention for students at increased risk for reading failure. In more recent work, researchers have begun to explore ways in which to diminish the “meaningful differences” in language achievement noted among children as they enter formal schooling. This article provides a review of a particularly effective model of vocabulary intervention based on shared storybook reading and situates this model in a context of tiered intervention, an emerging model of instructional design in the field of special education. In addition, we describe a quasi‐experimental posttest‐only study that examines the feasibility and effectiveness of the model for first‐grade students. Participants were 224 first‐grade students of whom 98 were identified as at risk for reading disability based on low levels of vocabulary. Results of a multivariate analysis of variance revealed significant differences on measures of target vocabulary knowledge at the receptive and context level, suggesting that students at risk for reading failure benefit significantly from a second tier of vocabulary instruction. Implications for classroom practice as well as future research are provided.