Exemplifying a Continuum of Collaborative Engagement: Raising Literacy Achievement of At-Risk Students in New Zealand

This article reports different ways researchers work with stakeholders in national projects targeted at raising achievement of students. Specifically, New Zealand has a persistent high performance–low equity profile in international tests, with indigenous Māori students and immigrants from the Pacific Islands most at risk of underachievement and of leaving school without qualifications. Policy has aimed to address this issue largely through provision of high-quality professional development to enhance effectiveness of practice. The notion of a continuum of collaboration is proposed; examples are presented that are positioned at different points in terms of the ideal of coconstructed, evidence-based judgments and decisions. The examples represent models or ways of working and the analysis captures both the varied nature of the interface that researchers have with policy makers, ministry officials, deliverers of professional development, and schools, and the affordances and tensions that accompany each model. Student achievement outcomes are identified.     

Ten Salient Practices of Undergraduate Research Mentors: A Review of the Literature

This paper identifies salient practices of faculty mentors of undergraduate research (UR) as indicated in the extensive literature of the past two decades on UR. The well-established benefits for students involved in UR are dependent, first and foremost, on high-quality mentoring. Mentorship is a defining feature of UR. As more and different types of colleges and universities strive to meet student demand for authentic scholarly experiences, it is imperative to identify what effective UR mentors do in order to ensure student engagement, quality enhancement, retention, and degree-completion. We offer an original analysis of the literature on UR mentoring in which we identify 10 significant “lessons learned,” or evidence-based practices of effective UR mentors that apply broadly across disciplines, students, institutions, and mentoring approaches.     

Embedded creative workers and creative work in education

This article is concerned with the many connections between creative work and workers, and education work and industries. Employment in the education sector has long been recognised as a significant element in creative workers’ portfolio careers. Much has been written, for example, about the positive contribution of ‘artists in schools’ initiatives. Australian census analyses reveal that education is the most common industry sector into which creative workers are ‘embedded’, outside of the core creative industries. However, beyond case studies and some survey research into arts instruction and instructors, we know remarkably little about in which education roles and sectors creative workers are embedded, and the types of value that they add in those roles and sectors. This article reviews the extant literature on creative work and workers in education, and presents the findings of a survey of 916 graduates from creative undergraduate degrees in Australia. The findings suggest that education work is very common among creative graduates indeed, while there are a range of motivating factors for education work among creative graduates, on average they are satisfied with their careers, and that creative graduates add significant creative-cultural and creative-generic value add through their work.     

Analysing senior secondary mathematics teaching using the Knowledge Quartet

Educational Studies in Mathematics - The multi-faceted nature of mathematics knowledge for teaching, including pedagogical content knowledge (PCK), has been studied widely in elementary classrooms,...     

How to conduct External Quality Assessment Schemes for the pre-analytical phase?

In laboratory medicine, several studies have described the most frequent errors in the different phases of the total testing process, and a large proportion of these errors occur in the pre-analytical phase. Schemes for registration of errors and subsequent feedback to the participants have been conducted for decades concerning the analytical phase by External Quality Assessment (EQA) organizations operating in most countries. The aim of the paper is to present an overview of different types of EQA schemes for the pre-analytical phase, and give examples of some existing schemes. So far, very few EQA organizations have focused on the pre-analytical phase, and most EQA organizations do not offer pre-analytical EQA schemes (EQAS). It is more difficult to perform and standardize pre-analytical EQAS and also, accreditation bodies do not ask the laboratories for results from such schemes. However, some ongoing EQA programs for the pre-analytical phase do exist, and some examples are given in this paper. The methods used can be divided into three different types; collecting information about pre-analytical laboratory procedures, circulating real samples to collect information about interferences that might affect the measurement procedure, or register actual laboratory errors and relate these to quality indicators. These three types have different focus and different challenges regarding implementation, and a combination of the three is probably necessary to be able to detect and monitor the wide range of errors occurring in the pre-analytical phase.     

Questioning Secondary Inclusive Education: Are Inclusive Classrooms Always Best for Students?

Educating students with special needs in inclusive settings has become a priority for westernized governments as they strive to create more inclusive societies. While recognizing the societal benefits of inclusion, teachers and parents question whether or not implementation of full inclusion will come at the expense of learners’ individual needs. This is particularly true for students with cognitive disabilities moving into the content-rich, peer-dominated environment of secondary school. It will be maintained within this article that there remains a need for segregated classrooms where students with mild cognitive disabilities can receive the specialized programming and supports that they require in a low-stress environment. Furthermore, educators should continue to prioritize the learning needs of all students with disabilities when contemplating full inclusion. Modeling an inclusive society should not mean inclusion at all costs, but considering what’s best for each student and recognizing that one size does not fit all.     

Get real: making problematic the pathway into the teaching profession

Learning to be a teacher is a complex and very personal matter that involves transformation from student teacher (pre‐service teacher) to teacher. The pathway to being a teacher is scattered with what appears to be competing tensions in various realities. This paper explores those tensions and realities through the context of two final year integrated field‐ and campus‐based subjects that all pre‐service teachers undertake as they complete their four‐year teacher education journey into the primary (ages 5‐ to 12‐years‐old) teaching profession. We then propose a framework involving a variety of realities that pre‐service teachers face through the recognition and resolution of the tensions these pre‐service teachers experience in the workplace.