Exploring The Island: Mapping the Shifting Sands in the Landscape of English Classroom Culture and Pedagogy

I begin with an account of my own observation of an English lesson taught by one of my student teachers using a teaching resource, The Island, that I used myself as a new teacher more than 20 years ago and of my own responses on finding it transformed by two decades of change in educational policy and practice. It has become almost a given in academic articles on English teaching, to refer, in a sentence or two, to the reduction of the English curriculum, the narrowing of pedagogy and the loss of teacher agency due to the dominance of a high stakes assessment regime. The policy changes that have given rise to this change have been clearly analysed elsewhere, but part of my purpose here is just to look again at how it might be experienced by a particular pupil in a particular class. I am interested in analysing some of the features of The Island’s incarnation then and now, from three different angles: as it is inscribed in the project book, as I remember teaching it and as I observed it recently in a London classroom. I draw on theories of literacy and of the teaching of writing in particular in trying to account for some of the differences but beyond that, I argue that it is essential to link such theories to wider political debates about culture and to reflect back from this to the purposes of the English curriculum and culture of the English classroom.     

Cross-school Mentoring: Training and implementing a peer mentoring strategy

This article describes a project based on Year 7 pupils (aged 11-12 years) in a UK inner-city girls' school classified as 'in challenging circumstances'. The girls were cross-mentored by Year 12 (aged 16-17 years) girls from another local girls' school. The city has a diverse multi-cultural population where single gender education is an active preference for many parents. This parental dimension influenced cooperation between the two schools. The conceptual theme for the mentoring project was that the older pupils provided a supportive framework for their younger peers. This was a conscious shift from the traditional notion of 'prefects control younger pupils'. Prior to operating the scheme, a training programme was devised by the city's Secondary Behaviour Support Team. The progress of this training course and the application of the techniques through the mentoring sessions are described.     

Science teachers’ decision-making in Abstinence-Only-Until-Marriage (AOUM) classrooms: taboo subjects and discourses of sex and sexuality in classroom settings

Sex education, especially in the southeastern USA, remains steeped in an Abstinence-Only-Until-Marriage (AOUM) approach, which sets up barriers to the education of sexually active students. Research confirms that science education has the potential to facilitate discussion of controversial topics, including sex education. Science teachers in the USA, however, may face legislative challenges influenced by the local political and social climate. This study aims to understand how science teachers address and construct curriculum related to sex education topics in AOUM environments. A Foucauldian lens is used to examine how teachers’ discourses influence decision-making concerning sex education. Findings from the study suggest that the AOUM curriculum influences the ways in which science teachers make decisions about the curriculum and taboo subjects such as homosexuality and abortion. The study also suggests that students learn about sex and sexuality in ways directly related to their personal experiences. Finally, study findings suggest that personal controversies, such as those relating to sexual health, can be integrated into science education through forms of teacher education and professional development attuned to the different ways that AOUM policies affect science teaching practices.     

Comparison of a behavioral model of physicians' drug product choice decision with pharmacists' product choice recommendations: A study of the choice for the treatment of panic disorder

The purpose of this study was to examine and compare the decision process for physicians and pharmacists when considering medications to treat patients with panic disorder. A second‐order confirmatory factor analysis modeling physicians' prescribing influences revealed high factor loadings for efficacy considerations and side effects in conjunction with patient characteristics. A multisample analysis using the physician model revealed that pharmacists also consider the same factors important. Both health care professionals were concerned about the patient's quality of care, recovery, and medication efficacy.     

Sustaining High-Quality Teaching and Evidence-Based Curricula: Follow-Up Assessment of Teachers in the REDI Project

Research Findings: Recent research has validated the power of evidence-based preschool interventions to improve teaching quality and promote child school readiness when implemented in the context of research trials. However, very rarely are follow-up assessments conducted with teachers in order to evaluate the maintenance of improved teaching quality or sustained use of evidence-based curriculum components after the intervention trial. In the current study, we collected follow-up assessments of teachers 1 year after their involvement in the REDI (REsearch-based, Developmentally Informed) research trial to evaluate the extent to which intervention teachers continued to implement the REDI curriculum components with high quality and to explore possible preintervention predictors of sustained implementation. In addition, we conducted classroom observations to determine whether general improvements in the teaching quality of intervention teachers (relative to control group teachers) were sustained. Results indicated sustained high-quality implementation of some curriculum components (the Promoting Alternative THinking Strategies curriculum) but decreased implementation of other components (the language/literacy components). Sustained intervention effects were evident on most aspects of general teaching quality targeted by the intervention. Practice or Policy: Implications for practice and policy are discussed.     

How instructional design experts use knowledge and experience to solve ill‐structured problems

This study examined how instructional design (ID) experts used their prior knowledge and previous experiences to solve an ill‐structured instructional design problem. Seven experienced designers used a think‐aloud procedure to articulate their problem‐solving processes while reading a case narrative. Results, presented in the form of four assertions, showed that experts (1) narrowed the problem space by identifying key design challenges, (2) used an amalgam of knowledge and experience to interpret the problem situation, (3) incorporated a mental model of the ID process in their problem analyses, and (4) came to similar conclusions about how to respond to the situation, despite differences in their initial conceptualizations. Implications for educating novice instructional designers are discussed.