The Effect of Cooperative Groups on Regular Class Spelling Achievement of Special Needs Learners

This study examined the utility of cooperative groups as a technology for mainstreaming academically deficit students in a regular fourth grade classroom. Twenty‐seven students (mean age 8.6 years), including five targeted special needs learners, took a weekly spelling test of 20 words chosen from the fourth grade reader. A return to baseline research design indicated that cooperative groups promoted higher academic mastery among those with special needs and regular education learners when compared with two types of individualistic techniques. Results support the use of cooperative groups as a technique for academic as well as social mainstreaming in the regular classroom.     

Priorities for evaluation of nontraditional degree programs

The request to evaluate a nontraditional degree program sounds simple enough. But what does it mean “to evaluate the program?” This article identifies twelve major areas seeming to require evaluative attention according to the perspectives of a number of different groups of people. In addition to identifying these areas, the study suggested priorities for the areas in terms of their long-term, overall importance in a complete evaluation plan and their immediate or short-term importance in the early stages of program implementation.     

Practical independent research projects in science: a synthesis and evaluation of the evidence of impact on high school students

Practical independent research projects (IRPs) are a feature of school science in a number of countries. To assess the impact of IRPs on students, a systematic review of the literature was undertaken. Thirty-nine papers met the review inclusion criteria, reporting on work from twelve countries. The review indicates that IRPs are often associated with wider initiatives such as authentic science, problem-based learning, and project-based learning. There is considerable variability in the nature of IRP work in relation to focus, models of provision, assessment, the involvement of external partners such as universities and employers, and funding, and this diversity affects judgements on the quality of the evidence base on impact. The majority of the research reviewed explored areas such as conceptual understanding, motivation to study science once it is no longer compulsory and attitudes to science, and the development of practical skills. Benefits were identified in relation to the learning of science ideas, affective responses to science, views of pursuing careers involving science, and development of a range of skills. Studies focusing on traditionally under-represented groups indicated that such students felt more positive about science as a result of undertaking IRPs. The review findings indicate that further work is needed to enhance the quality of the available evidence, to consider the ways in which IRPs can be validly assessed, to explore more fully the potential benefits for traditionally under-represented groups, and to explore more fully the potential longer-term benefits of participation in IRPs at high school level.     

‘Philanthropizing’ consent: how a private foundation pushed through national learning standards in Brazil

ABSTRACT

This article explores how the Base Nacional Comum Curricular (National Learning Standards), entered the policy debate in Brazil and became the most important reform initiative of the Ministry of Education between 2015 and 2017. We argue that this accelerated policy process was contingent upon the practice of philanthropizing consent: foundations’ use of material resources, knowledge production, media power, and informal and formal networks to garner the consent of multiple social and institutional actors to support a public policy. In other words, these foundations do not impose policies on governments; rather, they ‘render technical’ high-stakes political debates on pressing issues of educational equity and then influence state officials’ consensus about which policies to adopt. We argue that this philanthropic influence is not simply a neoliberal, profit-maximizing scheme; rather, it is an attempt by foundation and corporate leaders to garner power and influence on different scales, and re-make public education in their own image. Although this educational policy game is in many ways participatory and widely accepted, foundations are only able to play this role due to their tremendous economic power, a direct product of the unequal global political economy, and the systematic defunding of the public sphere.     

The Importance of Epistemic Cognition in Student-Centred Learning

To infer the sophistication ofepistemic thinking in a sample of undergraduatestudents, 25 participants completed afree-response task in which they were asked togive reasons for their agreement ordisagreement with a small number of beliefsabout the role of tutorials and of tutors ingaining knowledge. Responses were analysedaccording to King and Kitchener's (1994) stagesof reasoning, revealing that the justificationsoffered were either at the stages ofpre-reflective or quasi-reflective thinkingwith none exhibiting reflective thinking. Thefindings have two main pedagogicalimplications: first that good teaching beunderstood not as a set of performance skillswhich may only be opportunistically related tostudents' extant conceptualisations but as thelocus through which students confront their ownepistemic beliefs. A second implication isthat to extend students' reasoning, teachingpractices must focus explicitly on thedifficult issue of what counts as evidence.     

Initiating Change in Prospective Elementary School Teachers' Orientations to Mathematics Teaching by Building on Beliefs

Many mathematics educators have found thatprospective elementary school teachers' beliefsinterfere with their learning of mathematics.Often teacher educators consider these beliefsto be wrong or naïve and seek to challengethem so prospective teachers will reject themfor more generative beliefs. Because of theresilience of prospective teachers' beliefs inresponse to these challenges, teacher educatorscould consider alternative ways of thinkingabout and addressing beliefs, particularly thepotential of building on rather than tearingdown pre-existing beliefs. Data from anearly-field experience linked to amathematics-for-teachers course provideevidence that when prospective teachers workintimately with children, in this case tryingto teach 10-year-olds about fractions, theexperience has the intensity from which beliefscan grow. Most of the prospective teachers inthe study were surprised that mathematicsteaching was more difficult than they hadanticipated. They began to consider theimportance of providing children time to thinkwhen solving mathematical problems. The changedescribed in the study is incremental ratherthan monumental, suggesting that building uponprospective teachers' existing beliefs will bea gradual process.     

Educational Achievement and the Disadvantage Factor: Empirical evidence

This study examines the relationship between social background factors and educational achievements. It draws on unique data from London LEAs. The paper illustrates detail analysis on levels of disadvantage in schools and the complexities of judging school performance including discussion on the potential of z-score indicators to measure the levels of deprivation in urban area schools. Overall, the findings from the empirical evidence suggests that there is a strong relationship between disadvantage and examination success, with LEAs located in non-deprived areas tending to obtain higher percentages 5 + A*-C good GCSE passes. Further analysis of the relationship between pupils background and school achievement also confirmed, by and large, that schools with a higher number of disadvantaged families do less well than schools where, a small proportion of their pupils come from disadvantaged families. The paper concluded that uncontextualised performance table is fundamentally flawed and argued for the need to compare like with like and move beyond league table approaches of comparing schools. Policy implications are highlighted as well as practical suggestions.     

Preservice teachers’ self‐efficacy in managing students with symptoms of attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder: The roles of diagnostic label and students’ gender

The present study investigated preservice teachers’ self‐efficacy in classroom management involving students with symptoms of Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD). A total of 137 Chinese preservice teachers were randomly presented with one of four vignettes involving a student character with ADHD symptoms, with manipulations including the character’s gender and diagnostic label of ADHD. Upon reading the vignette, participants responded to questions concerning their self‐efficacy in inclusive classroom management involving the character. Findings based on analysis of covariance indicated an interaction effect of the vignette character’s gender and label on teachers’ self‐efficacy. Specifically, teachers perceived greater self‐efficacy in a classroom involving a girl with an ADHD label than in a classroom involving a girl with no label or a boy with a label. Findings enriched the literature concerning the roles of gender and label in preservice teachers’ self‐efficacy toward inclusive classroom management.     

The conundrum of low achievement and feedback for learning

Abstract

The literature on improving student engagement with assessment and feedback has a tendency to treat all students as if they are the same. Students with lower levels of attainment are generally under-represented within empirical studies and their feedback behaviours are less well understood. The recent drive to improve student assessment and feedback literacy and the move from ‘feedback’ being information about a task to being a process of understanding and using performance information is a larger conceptual leap for some students than others. In this paper, we consider issues surrounding the transition to new modes of feedback, focussing on what is needed for those who find study difficult and persistently are disappointed by their levels of attainment, to benefit from and take advantage of our feedback pedagogies. We examine literature advocating strategies such as increasing agency, using praise, developing feedback literacy and cultivating a growth mind-set. We argue that students who underachieve may benefit from strong relationships with educators and peers, exposure to feedback rich, low stakes environments, which permit repeated integrations of practice and feedback, and building feedback literacy through peer assessment activities.