Exploring teachers’ curriculum decision making: insights from history education

This paper explores teachers’ decision making by examining the topics that 11 history teachers from 10 schools in England chose to teach and how they approached teaching these topics. Data were gathered from curriculum documents and semi-structured interviews in which teachers’ topic choices and approaches to history were explored. Most teachers adopted a disciplinary approach to history teaching but one focused on analytical structures rather than processes. Additionally the findings suggest a large degree of uniformity in the topics chosen despite the freedom provided within the policy documents for history teaching in England. Few teachers had given much consideration to approaches that demonstrate the ‘usability’ of history for young people. This suggests a need to engage teachers more fully in robust curriculum debates given their central role in enacting curricula.     

Teachers' Emotions and Teaching: A Review of the Literature and Directions for Future Research

The purpose of this study is to review the limited literature on the emotional aspects of teachers' lives. First, a multicomponential perspective on emotions is described, then the existing literature on teachers' positive and negative emotions is reviewed and critiqued. Next is a summary of the literature suggesting that teachers' emotions influence teachers' and students' cognitions, motivation, and behaviors. Four areas for future research are proposed: management and discipline, adoption and use of teaching strategies, learning to teach, and teachers' motivation. An overview of research methods used in a multicomponential perspective on emotions is provided. This review draws on a variety of research literatures: educational psychology, social and personality psychology, educational sociology, and research on teachers and teaching.     

Localising and tailoring research evidence helps public health decision making

Background

Published research evidence is typically not readily applicable to practice but needs to be actively mobilised.

Objectives

This paper explores the mechanisms used by information professionals with a specific knowledge mobilisation role to make evidence useful for local decision making and planning of public health interventions.

Methods

Data are drawn from a NIHR project that studied how, when, where and by whom published research evidence is used in commissioning and planning across two sites (one in England and one in Scotland). Data included 11 in‐depth interviews with information professionals, observations at meetings and documentary analysis.

Results

Published research evidence is made fit for local commissioning and planning purposes by information professionals through two mechanisms. They localise evidence (relate evidence to local context and needs) and tailor it (present actionable messages).

Discussion

Knowledge mobilisation roles of information professionals are not recognised and researched. Information professionals contribute to the ‘inform’ and ‘relational’ functions of knowledge mobilisation; however, they are less involved in improving the institutional environment for sustainable knowledge sharing.

Conclusion

Information professionals are instrumental in shaping what evidence enters local decision making processes. Identifying and supporting knowledge mobilisation roles within health libraries should be the focus of future research and training.

     

The 2002 revision of the American Psychological Association's ethics code: Implications for school psychologists

The Ethical Principles for Psychologists and Code of Conduct has been recently revised. The organization of the code changed, and the language was made more specific. A number of points relevant to school psychology are explicitly stated in the code. A clear advantage of including these items in the code is the assistance to school psychologists negotiating ethical dilemmas in their work setting. This article provides an overview of the revisions in the code most applicable to school psychologists and a detailed analysis of three areas of the code: psychological assessment, the implications and application of the modifiers in the code that guide ethical decision making and correct conduct, and diversity issues. © 2005 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Psychol Schs 42: 433–445, 2005.     

Citizenship? Only If You Haven't Got A Life: secondary school pupils' views of Citizenship Education

This article reports the responses of small groups of secondary pupils, from Y7‐Y10, to questions about aspects of citizenship education. The pupils were interviewed in early 2002 as part of wider research into their schools’ preparation for the introduction of compulsory citizenship education in September 2002. The interviews were conducted to assess the pupils’ interest in, knowledge of and enthusiasm for the three elements of the citizenship curriculum‐‐social and moral responsibility, community involvement and political literacy‐‐as well as to evaluate their involvement in the life of their school and the wider community. The pupils, from three urban comprehensive schools in a large town in the south of England, showed ignorance of and little interest in national politics and a lack of involvement in the local community. They were aware of some of their school councils’ achievements and powers, knew how the councils operated, and thought them moderately useful. Most did not anticipate that citizenship education would interest them, though they could see benefits in its inclusion in the curriculum. The one group of pupils already preparing for Citizenship Studies GCSE was, however, more enthusiastic about the subject than those who had yet to experience it.     

A case-study of one teacher's use of an interactive whiteboard system to support knowledge co-construction in the history classroom

Interactive whiteboards (IWBs) have rapidly become an integral feature of many classrooms across the UK and elsewhere, but debate continues regarding the pedagogical implications of their use. This article reports on an in-depth case-study from the wider T-MEDIA project (Teacher Mediation of Subject Learning with ICT: a Multimedia Approach). A key aim of the study was to draw upon sociocultural perspectives to develop a shared, grounded theoretical account of the processes through which teachers mediate subject learning incorporating use of the IWB and other resources. A series of six history lessons with a class of pupils aged 12–13 was videoed and analysed collaboratively by a university research team, the teacher, one of his colleagues and an academic subject specialist. We identify an emerging emphasis upon interdependent learning relationships in the classroom and illustrate how this particular teacher harnessed IWB technology to support a dialogic approach to knowledge construction in history. Strategies included communicating and developing complex ideas and modelling historical thinking processes through use of multiple digital resources; collaborative annotation of images and texts; spotlighting and reveal tools for focusing; and ‘drag and drop’ for classification activities. Revisiting annotated slides served to draw on shared experience.     

A Model for Assessing Higher Order Thinking in Statistics

ABSTRACT

As in other areas of the school curriculum, the teaching, learning and assessment of higher order thinking in statistics has become an issue for educators following the appearance of recent curriculum documents in many countries. These documents have included probability and statistics across all years of schooling and have stressed the importance of higher order thinking across all areas of the mathematics curriculum. This paper reports on a pilot project which applied the theoretical framework for cognitive development devised by Biggs and Collis to a higher order task in data handling in order to provide a model of student levels of response. The model will assist teachers, curriculum planners and other researchers interested in increasing levels of performance on more complex tasks. An interview protocol based on a set of 16 data cards was developed, trialed with Grade 6 and 9 students, and adapted for group work with two classes of Grade 6 students. The levels and types of cognitive functioning associated with the outcomes achieved by students completing the task in the two contexts will be discussed, as will the implications for classroom teaching and for further research.