Inside the front door: Tailoring a leisure reading collection to attract an academic population

While some academics still maintain that an academic library is no place for leisure reading, many are in favor of maintaining at least a small distinct collection of such books. Strategically located and attractively displayed, current popular titles have the potential to generate traffic to the library and improve circulation statistics. Having taken the leap at Florida Gulf Coast University Library, a close statistical analysis of this new collection’s circulation over time has revealed not only that we all use it, but also that there are diverse but consistent patterns and preferences at play. Could the collection’s circulation rate be increased by tailoring it to an academic population? This study was designed to find out.     

Positioning university as a brand: distinctions between the brand promise of Russell Group, 1994 Group,University Alliance,and Million+ universities

Branding is now widely used by higher education (HE) institutions, yet questions still surround the transference of private sector concepts to a university context. This article reports on findings from studies that investigated the brand promises of four UK universities – one from each of the HE ‘mission groups’. The evidence indicated that, contrary to existing published presumptions, there is considerable potential for the application of branding in HE, but in differing and nuanced ways. Clear branding themes emerged across the cases such as environment, experiences, aspiration, and global positioning. While these enabled the universities to position their brands with distinction, the overriding method used across the cases – and the key point of differentiation – proved to be the presence of a core brand promise.     

Learning conversations: teacher researchers evaluating dialogic strategies in early years settings

Learning conversations, dialogic interactions with adults, are important opportunities for children to develop their thinking as well as their speech and language skills. This area of teachers' practice is informed by a well-established body of research evidence and professional guidance literature. The design and facilitation of this practitioner research project was framed by a metaphor for teachers' professional learning as ‘interplay’ between the vertical domain of public, published, knowledge and the horizontal domain of the teachers' practical wisdom. The teacher researchers used a framework based on the published literature to analyse video clips of their conversations with children in early years workplace settings. The study highlights the power of video analysis as a prompt for professional learning within a practitioner research framework. The use of conversation strategies by these teachers involves a balancing act between competing agendas within their workplace setting. In addition to mediating the strategies proposed by the research evidence base to suit their own early years workplace settings, in part by emphasising speech and language development, the teacher researchers identified a useful strategy, based on transportable identity, of ‘stepping out’ of being a teacher, for example by positioning themselves as a playmate or family member.     

Professional Development to Promote Teacher Adaptability

Effective professional development (PD) follows adaptive teaching principles; it increases teacher understanding and instructional purpose, which ultimately supports and extends adaptive teaching. Through this article, we compare and contrast training models with educative models of PD (Duffy, 2004). We discuss characteristics of effective PD that enhance teachers' instructional adaptability, and explore potential barriers to the implementation of adaptive teaching, which may be addressed preemptively through PD.     

Developing an equalities literacy for practitioners working with children,young people and families through action research

ABSTRACT

The Marginalisation and Co-created Education (MaCE) project was developed between the University of Southern Norway, VIA University in Denmark and the University of Cumbria in the UK and funded by Erasmus+. The project aims to co-create proposals to achieve an equitable and socially just education system through participative action research with ‘Early School Leavers’. This paper establishes a conceptual framework called ‘Equalities Literacy’ that evolved from the first action research cycle of the project. The framework is informed by the practice experience and theoretical knowledge of the international and interdisciplinary research team. It is applied to one youth narrative in this paper to illustrate its efficacy in revealing socio-cultural in/equalities. The Equalities Literacy framework is proposed to challenge and inform practice and further research. Further, the ‘Indirect Approach’ is introduced and located within action research as a participatory methodology that other researchers may wish to adopt.     

‘Why are we an ignored group?’ Mainstream educational experiences and current life satisfaction of adults on the autism spectrum from an online survey

Adults on the autism spectrum are significantly under-represented in research on educational interventions and support, such that little is known about their views and experiences of schooling and how this prepared them for adult life. In addition, ‘good outcomes’ in adult life are often judged according to normative assumptions and tend not to include the views of adults on the autism spectrum directly. This study reports the findings from an online survey that sought the views of adults on the autism spectrum about their current life satisfaction as well as their views about school. Fifty-five respondents, most of whom attended mainstream schools and were diagnosed later in life, completed the survey. Respondents were least satisfied with their current employment situation and most satisfied with personal relationships and friendships. More than half of the group said they had friends that they know or meet on the Internet. Overall, there was a significant positive correlation between experiences at school and ratings of current life satisfaction, with the younger respondents being generally more positive about the support they had received. There was substantial individual variation in responses also, demonstrating the importance of understanding and respecting personal views, circumstances and aspirations.