Realising the Value of Self-assessment: The influence of the Business Excellence Model on teacher professionalism

In the UK across all phases of education very different models of self-assessment are being introduced. The paper identifies three 'grammars' of self-assessment. The Business Excellence Model currently being implemented in UK schools is characterised by the 'creative' grammar. This paper examines the value of this self-assessment model, and its impact on teacher professionalism. The findings are that teachers using this model are compelled to redefine their professional roles. Self-assessment can offer a structure, and a language for understanding the critical process of continuing professional development. Au Royaume-Uni, à tous les niveaux d'éducation, des modèles très distincts d'évaluation commencement à être introduits. Cet article contient les trois 'grammaires' de l'auto-évaluation. Le 'Business Excellence Model' que l'on emploie actuellement dans les écoles du Royaume-Uni est caractérisé par 'une grammaire créatrice'. L'article examine la valeur de ce modèle d'auto-évaluation et son impact sur l'aspect professionnel de l'enseignement. Les résultats font apparaître que les enseignants utilisant ce modèle sont obligés de remettre en question leur rôle professionnel. L'auto-évaluation est en mesure d'offrir une structure et un langage pour mieux comprendre le processus critique du développement professionnel continu. En el Reino Unido, al interior de todas las fases de la educación, nuevos y distintos modelos de autoevaluación empiezan a introducirse. El artículo identifica tres 'gramáticas' de autoevaluación. El modelo de 'Business Excellence Model ' implementado actualmente en escuelas británicas se caracteriza por una gramática 'creativa'. El presente artículo estudia la validez de este modelo de autoevaluación, y su impacto en el profesionalismo de los maestros. Se concluye que los profesores que emplean este modelo se ven obligados a redefinir su rol profesional. La autoevaluación puede ofrecer una estructura y un lenguaje que permitan comprender plenamente el proceso crítico de un desarrollo profesional continuo. In Großbritannien werden in allen Ausbildungsphasen sehr unterschiedliche Modelle der Eigenbewertung eingeführt. Dieser Artikel identifiziert drei verschiedene 'Grammatiken' der Eigenbewertung. Das 'Business Excellence Model', welches momentan an britischen Schulen eingeführt wird, kennzeichnet sich durch sogenannte kreative Grammatik. Der Artikel prüft den Wert dieses Modells und untersucht die Auswirkungen auf den Profes sionalismus der Lehrer. Es scheint, daß Lehrer, die dieses Modell benutzen, gezwungen sind, ihre Rolle als Lehrfachkräfte neu zu definieren. Eigenbewertung kann eine Struktur und eine Sprache für das Verständnis des kritischen Prozesses der fachlichen Weiterbildung bieten.     

Intensive Intervention in Mathematics

Students who demonstrate persistent mathematics difficulties and whose performance is severely below grade level require intensive intervention. Intensive intervention is an individualized approach to instruction that is more demanding and concentrated than Tier 2 intervention efforts. We present the elements of intensive intervention that teachers should consider when planning for, implementing, and monitoring intensive intervention in mathematics. Each of these elements is based on evidence from validated interventions. We also highlight strategies for intensifying instruction. We provide two examples of intensive intervention, one of which launches from a Tier 2 intervention platform and the other which is completely generated by a teacher. We conclude with considerations for intensive intervention in mathematics.     

Books,Bytes, and Buildings: The Academic Library's Unique Role in Improving Student Success

Student persistence and completion are paramount in higher education, and institutions are employing targeted programs and initiatives to address these concerns. The academic library can play an especially important role in these efforts, given its unique interdisciplinary mission and its integrated instructional programs. With a foundation in both higher education and library and information science literatures, this article describes how one academic library engaged in cross-campus programs, partnerships, and initiatives to contribute to student success efforts. Other libraries may find these examples useful as they consider how to frame their work in the context of their institutions’ student persistence efforts.     

The governmentality of childhood obesity: Coca-Cola,public health and primary schools

In this paper, we examine the emergence of what might seem an unexpected policy outcome – a large multinational corporation, frequently blamed for exacerbating childhood obesity, operating as an officially sanctioned driver of anti-obesity initiatives in primary schools across the globe. We draw on Foucault's notion of governmentality to examine the pedagogical work of two international programmes devised and funded by Coca-Cola. We demonstrate how these programmes work simultaneously as marketing campaigns and as governmental strategies to position children as responsible for their own health, conflate (ill)health with body weight and strategically employ the concept of energy balance. We argue that these programmes not only act to unite the interests of corporations, governments and schools, but also seek to use schools to reshape the very ideas of health and a ‘healthy life’. We conclude by considering two sets of ethical and political issues that come sharply as corporations like Coca-Cola continue to exploit the policy space created by the ‘obesity epidemic’.     

Exploring the Impact of Prior Experiences in Non-Formal Education on My Pedagogy of Teacher Education

The purpose of this article is to use self-study methodology to analyze critically the impact of 30 years of non-formal education on my development as a teacher educator. I begin within a particular conception of self-study research and make a case for situating martial arts as non-formal education. The data for this article are presented as a series of episodes, in which I write a short paragraph about each phase in my development as a martial artist and comment on my approach to learning and teaching, where appropriate, during each episode. At the end of the article, I draw several links to self-study literature and to my own understanding of teacher education. In so doing, I demonstrate the value of examining the impact of non-formal education experiences as a teacher educator.     

Perceptions of junior doctors and undergraduate medical students as anatomy teachers: Investigating distance along the near‐peer teaching spectrum

Near‐peer teaching involves more experienced students acting as tutors and has been widely used in anatomy education. This approach has many advantages for the learner due to the social and cognitive congruence they share with the teacher, however, the influence of distance between the teacher and learner on these congruences has yet to be explored. The aim of this study was to compare the attitudes and perceptions of the student learner towards neuroanatomy review sessions taught by either a senior medical student or a junior doctor. The students were randomly assigned to an allocated tutor. All tutors used standardized material and had access to identical resources. The type of allocated tutor was swapped between the two teaching sessions and 99 student feedback forms were collected in total. The rating for the overall quality of the teaching session was not significantly different between the junior doctors and senior medical students (P = 0.11). However, criteria closely relating to social and cognitive congruence such as “enjoyment of the session,” “delivery of the teaching,” and “was it a good use of time” were all rated significantly higher for the senior medical students (P < 0.05). The results of this study suggest that small increases in distance along the near‐peer teaching spectrum have an impact upon the student's perception of their learning experience. While all teachers were suitable role models it appears that junior doctors are too far removed from their own undergraduate experiences to share congruences with pre‐clinical medical students. Anat Sci Educ 7: 242–247. © 2013 American Association of Anatomists.     

“It’s not them,it’s me”: competing discourses in one aspiring teacher’s talk

In this paper, we deploy M.M. Bakhtin’s notions about how language works to understand aspiring teachers’ struggles about the intersecting roles race, class, gender, language background, and sexual orientation play in students’ school lives and learning. Through life-history interviews and document analysis, we investigated the authoritative and internally persuasive discourses one aspiring teacher brought with her and took from a 15-week long course on a predominantly White Midwestern public university campus. Ideas she encountered in the course and its required tutoring component challenged her thinking about how various facets of people’s lives (such as those we list above) and the contexts in which they live, work and are schooled, affect how they are perceived, what they know, and can do.     

Environmental education program evaluation in the new millennium: what do we measure and what have we learned?

We conducted a systematic literature review of peer-reviewed research studies published between 1999 and 2010 that empirically evaluated the outcomes of environmental education (EE) programs for youth (ages 18 and younger) in an attempt to address the following objectives: (1) to seek reported empirical evidence for what works (or does not) in EE programming and (2) to uncover lessons regarding promising approaches for future EE initiatives and their evaluation. While the review generally supports consensus-based best practices, such as those published in the North American Association for Environmental Education’s Guidelines for Excellence, we also identified additional themes that may drive positive outcomes, including the provision of holistic experiences and the characteristics and delivery styles of environmental educators. Overall, the evidence in support of these themes contained in the 66 articles reviewed is mostly circumstantial. Few studies attempted to empirically isolate the characteristics of programs responsible for measured outcomes. We discuss general trends in research design and the associated implications for future research and EE programming.     

Microfluidic devices fitted with “flowver” paper pumps generate steady,tunable gradients for extended observation of chemotactic cell migration

Microfluidics approaches have gained popularity in the field of directed cell migration, enabling control of the extracellular environment and integration with live-cell microscopy; however, technical hurdles remain. Among the challenges are the stability and predictability of the environment, which are especially critical for the observation of fibroblasts and other slow-moving cells. Such experiments require several hours and are typically plagued by the introduction of bubbles and other disturbances that naturally arise in standard microfluidics protocols. Here, we report on the development of a passive pumping strategy, driven by the high capillary pressure and evaporative capacity of paper, and its application to study fibroblast chemotaxis. The paper pumps—flowvers (flow + clover)—are inexpensive, compact, and scalable, and they allow nearly bubble-free operation, with a predictable volumetric flow rate on the order of μl/min, for several hours. To demonstrate the utility of this approach, we combined the flowver pumping strategy with a Y-junction microfluidic device to generate a chemoattractant gradient landscape that is both stable (6+ h) and predictable (by finite-element modeling calculations). Integrated with fluorescence microscopy, we were able to recapitulate previous, live-cell imaging studies of fibroblast chemotaxis to platelet derived growth factor (PDGF), with an order-of-magnitude gain in throughput. The increased throughput of single-cell analysis allowed us to more precisely define PDGF gradient conditions conducive for chemotaxis; we were also able to interpret how the orientation of signaling through the phosphoinositide 3-kinase pathway affects the cells’ sensing of and response to conducive gradients.