Journaling During a School-Based Secondary Methods Course: Exploring a Route to Teaching Reflection

Journal of Science Teacher Education -     

Professional Academic Societies: Stewards of the Future

ABSTRACT

Academic disciplines are vulnerable in the 21st century to the forces Barnett called supercomplexity, and we argue that academic societies such as the National Association for Kinesiology in Higher Education are especially well positioned to prepare 21st century scholars to respond to contemporary changes in the disciplines and in institutions of higher education. Academic societies can respond by helping to train scholars to be stewards of their disciplines, and the means by which disciplines will do so is to focus on the character of the scholar through the development and reinforcement of specific virtues. Following the arguments of Plato, Ernest Boyer, and Alasdair MacIntyre, we argue that the development of stewards can help kinesiology respond to contemporary issues.     

Argumentative writing: theory,assessment, and instruction

Reading and Writing - Despite the early emergence of oral argumentation, written argumentation is slow to develop, insensitive to alternative perspectives, and generally of poor quality. These...     

Teachers’ practices and beliefs about teaching writing: a comprehensive survey of grades 1 to 3 teachers

Reading and Writing - A random sample of 782 grades 1 through 3 Chinese language arts teachers in Taiwan were surveyed about how they taught writing and their beliefs about writing. The underlying...     

The effect of sodium pentobarbital on attraction in the albino rat

Two “target” rats, one drugged and one undrugged, were tethered on opposite sides of an open arena in which single, undrugged “subject” rats were allowed to roam free. On the last 2 days of testing, the S rats spent significantly more time in physical contact with the undrugged target rat than with the drugged target rat. Prior adaptation to the arena of S rats had no effect on the relative preferences for the target animals.     

International Activity or Internationalisation Strategy? Insights from an Institutional Pilot Study in the UK

Tertiary Education and Management - Set in a context of increasing competition and changing dimensions of internationalisation, the paper offers an analysis of one institution’s approach to...     

Developing a collaborative pilot programme to promote innovation in higher education focusing on the reward and recognition of teaching

This paper provides a commentary on a significant collaborative international project to set up an effective system for promoting innovation in the Australian higher education sector. This project was the pilot Transforming Practice Programme (TPP), which was run in Australia in 2014. A sophisticated knowledge translation methodology, the TPP was influenced by the UK’s Higher Education Academy’s (HEA’s) thematic change programmes and focused on enhancing the reward and recognition of quality teaching in Australian higher education. The paper explains the intentions of the TPP and how it was run in conjunction with the HEA in both Australia and the UK. Thirteen Australian universities took part in the pilot, and nine UK universities took part in the UK version of the programme. Having detailed the content and process of the pilot TPP, this article also presents details of feedback received via surveys and interviews with participants, and closes with some evidence-informed conclusions on what worked in the pilot and why. Alongside these conclusions, recommendations are outlined regarding what people in other higher education sectors might learn from the pilot TPP.     

Baseline assessment results at age 4: associations with pupil background factors

Wandsworth Local Education Authority first introduced baseline assessment for all 4-year-olds entering primary school reception classes in Autumn 1992. Assessment of early literacy skills forms a central part of this, and methods include both structured teacher observation and a standardised assessment (the LARR Test of Emergent Literacy). This paper reports the baseline results for over 11,000 children who were assessed between 1993 and 1997. Results indicate significant variations in baseline attainment associated with pupils’ age, sex, length of nursery education, economic disadvantage, ethnic group and home language. The results also reveal complex interactions between these factors which are important for a full understanding of pupils’ attainment at this early age. At the school level, baseline results varied widely across schools with similar proportions of pupils entitled to free school meals and English as an additional language. This result urges caution in the interpretation of the benchmark data published by the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority (QCA, 1998). Data on pupils’ progress from baseline to the end of Key Stage 1 are summarised and the implications discussed.