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 Building on previously unpublished work, the authors report a case study of the development of a local authority dyslexia policy led by an EP over a two year period.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.     

A prison audience: women prisoners,Shakespeare and spectatorship

ABSTRACT

In 2017 the Donmar Warehouse presented The Tempest to women prisoners at HMP New Hall, UK. The production was part of a trilogy of Shakespeare plays directed by Phyllida Lloyd, each staged with an all-female cast and each set within a women’s prison. Over the five years of developing this trilogy the Donmar undertook extensive research and development into the prison context, including in collaboration with York St John University’s Prison Partnership Project. This paper explores the prison audiences’ experiences of The Tempest, examining how they responded to seeing their own lived experiences on stage, filtered through the prism of Shakespearian plot, characterisation and language. In particular, this paper focuses on moments of identification, where the women found direct resonance and self-recognition with the characters and experiences in The Tempest. At the same time it draws on discourses from dramatherapy and aesthetic theory to argue for the importance of various forms of emotional, empathetic and psychical distance. Using close analysis of the spectators’ responses, it describes how for the prison audience the result was an oscillation between identification and distance, a reading of “me but more than me” that produced a powerful affective and reflective impact.     

A Culture of Teaching: Policy, Perception, and Practice in Higher Education

In an effort to identify policies that foster an institutional “culture of teaching,” or encourage use of effective pedagogies, this study uses data from 5,612 faculty members at 45 institutions to examine connections between institutional policies and faculty members’ perceptions and practices related to teaching and learning. A series of multi-level models suggests that academic policy variables have small and generally insignificant relationships to such faculty perceptions or practices. Instead, conventional institutional characteristics, such as selectivity and Carnegie classification, appear to be more influential factors.     

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.     

试析高校思想政治工作情与理的辩证法

在国家高等教育体制改革不断深入的今天 ,高校的思想政治工作出现了一些新情况和新问题 ,特别是其工作对象大学生主体意识增强 ,思想异常活跃 ,要求我们的思想政治工作者树立“以人为本”的观念 ,掌握情与理的辩证法 ,既坚持以情感人、以情动人 ,又坚持以马克思主义理论教育学生、改造学生 ,努力做到情与理的和谐统一。     

Examining the Impact of Interdisciplinary Programs on Student Learning

We investigated how learning outcomes of students majoring in interdisciplinary fields differ from those of students in discipline-based majors. We found that students in interdisciplinary majors report less change in Critical Thinking and Need For Cognition than their peers in disciplinary majors, but no difference in change in Positive Attitude Toward Literacy. Students’ gains in Critical Thinking and Need For Cognition do not vary by the characteristics of the interdisciplinary major, but some program characteristics influence modest changes in Positive Attitudes Toward Literacy. Future research should address selection effects, develop measures of interdisciplinary learning, and further explore curricular and instructional patterns in interdisciplinary programs.     

A Classroom Study on the Relationship Between Student Achievement and Retrieval-Enhanced Learning

Retrieval practice has been shown to produce powerful learning gains in laboratory experiments but has seldom been explored in classrooms as a means of enhancing students’ learning of their course-relevant material. Furthermore, research is lacking concerning the role of individual differences in learning from retrieval. The current study explored the effects of retrieval in a large undergraduate introductory biology course as a function of individual differences in student achievement. Students completed in-class exercises that required them to retrieve course information (e.g., recalling definitions for terms and labeling diagrams) followed by feedback or to simply copy the information without retrieving it. A later quiz over the information showed that high-performing students benefited more from retrieving than copying, whereas middle- and low-performing students benefited more from copying than retrieving. When asked to predict their quiz scores following the in-class exercises, high-performers demonstrated better overall metacognitive calibration compared to middle- or low-performers. These results highlight the importance of individual differences in learning from retrieval and encourage future research using course-relevant material to consider the role of student achievement in classroom-based interventions.