“It's not as if we've been teaching them…” reflective thinking in the outdoor classroom

Research undertaken during a six week mountaineering expedition to Iceland in July 2003 set out to investigate approaches to facilitating the reflective process in 20 participants aged between 14 and 18. A number of models were examined to help determine the educational philosophy underpinning the expedition. The research methods involved documentary searches, observations and semistructured interviews. Findings suggest that the approach of expedition leaders accorded with the 'mountains speak for themselves' model as the leadersmade little or no attempt to encourage, facilitate or enable reflection on the part of participants. With few exceptions the participants did, however, engage in reflective thought both about the activities they had been involved in and the holistic benefits of the expedition. The findings suggest that whilst the facilitator/interventionist model and the Kolb cycle do little to explain the pedagogy within this expedition, there was evidence of much reflective learning from the participants.     

The Politics of Rewriting History: New History Textbooks and Curriculum Materials in Russia

The collapse of communism in Russia in 1991 necessitated, among other things, the rewriting of school history textbooks, which had been dominated by Marxist-Leninist interpretations of historical events. The aim of this article is to evaluate the new postcommunist history taught in upper secondary schools, giving particular attention to how the models for Russian identity presented in the new textbooks redefine legitimate culture for students. Attention will also be given to the multiple perspectives on history that textbooks and other curriculum materials emphasize; these new methods contrast with the grand narrative that dominated the study of history before 1991.     

Systems thinking of pre- and in-service science and engineering teachers

Systems thinking is an important skill in science and engineering education. Our study objectives were (1) to create the basis for a systems thinking language common to both science education and engineering education, and (2) to apply this language to assess science and engineering teachers’ systems thinking. We administered two assignments to teacher teams: first, modelling the same adapted scientific text, and second, modelling a synthesis of peer-reviewed articles in science and engineering education, with teams selecting a topic from a list and summarising them. We assessed those models using a rubric for systems thinking we had developed based on our literature review of this topic. We found high interrater reliability and validated the rubric’s theoretical construct for the system aspects of function, structure and behaviour. We found differences in scores between the assignments in favour of the second assignment, for two attributes of systems thinking: ‘expected outcome/intended purpose’ and ‘main object and its sub-objects’. We explain the first attribute difference as stemming from the modellers’ domain expertise as science or engineering teachers, rather than as scientists or engineers, and the second attribute difference – from the larger amount of information available for modelling the articles synthesis assignment. The theoretical contribution of this study lies in the definition of the systems thinking construct as a first step in establishing a common language for the science education and engineering education communities. The study's methodological contribution lies in the rubric we developed and validated, which can be used for assessing the systems thinking of teachers and potentially also of undergraduate students.     

Developing policy and practice for dyslexia across a local authority: a case study of educational psychology practice at organisational level

In this paper two premises are set out: first, that within Children’s Services educational psychologists (EPs) have a distinctive contribution to make towards policy and practice in relation to “dyslexia”; second, that they may be well placed to lead development work at an organisational level within a local authority. Building on previously unpublished work, the authors report a case study of the development of a local authority dyslexia policy led by an EP over a two year period. Data were collected from an account by the lead EP, a policy development group members’ focus group, and a questionnaire survey of special educational needs coordinators (SENCos). The findings confirm the scientist-practitioner contribution of the lead EP to both the product and the process of successful policy development and implementation. Facilitators, barriers and secondary benefits in relation to successful policy development within multi-disciplinary Children’s Services are considered, and the policy-practice inter-relationship is theorised.     

Views of Nature and the Human-Nature Relations: An Analysis of the Visual Syntax of Pictures about the Environment in Greek Primary School Textbooks—Diachronic Considerations

This paper explores the function of the visual syntax of images in Greek primary school textbooks. By using a model for the formal analysis of the visual material, which will allow us to disclose the mechanisms through which meanings are manifested, our aim is to investigate the discursive transition relating to the view of nature and the human-nature relationship between two series of natural science textbooks. The model is applied to a total of 635 pictures; 434 coming from the old series of textbooks introduced in the early 1980s and 201 from the new introduced in 2006. The results show that a) no differences in the codes of the visual representation of nature or human-nature relationship were recorded between the two series of textbooks, b) the environmental rhetoric mediated by the pictorial material of the textbooks appears closer to its lay counterpart than to scientific rhetoric, c) both series of textbooks favor a viewer-picture relation which diverges from the epistemological (subject/object) ideas of the romantic worldview and comes closer to the baroque one that depicts the world as non-linear and disconnected, while gives more freedom to the viewer to proceed to subjective interpretations. Thus, we assert that the baroque approach adopted by both series of textbooks does not aim at the initiation of students to the highly conventionalized ways of expression, and ultimately to the formalized and scientific rhetoric. On the contrary, within a constructionist context, the textbooks’ visual mode allows students to equally share power with a quite familiar world.     

Co-Researching the Concept of 'Noticing and Adjusting' in Monitoring Literacy Learning

The present article describes the rationale, development and initial evaluation of a framework for enquiry that enabled a team of educational psychologists from four local education authorities to co-research the concept of 'noticing and adjusting' in relation to children's literacy progress. The work is based on reflective practice where psychologists and teachers considered the usefulness of the framework in developing interactive assessment and teaching approaches in the classroom. The collaborative work helped us to focus on teacher practice and innovative thinking rather than child, teacher or resource/environmental deficits.