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.     

Teaching Now with the Living: A Dialogue with Teachers Investigating Contemporary Art Practices

The Education Departments of Tate Modern and Goldsmiths College collaborated with a group of teachers to find out what they understood by the term ‘contemporary art’ and to discover the conditions that enable contemporary art practices in the classroom. We explored questions with eleven teachers, from both primary and secondary schools, during the Autumn of 2004. Although the cultural/ethnic context of the schools the teachers worked within was diverse, they shared a commitment to working with contemporary art in the classroom and exploring new pedagogies in this field. Their engagement with contemporary art and their revealing and compelling experiences are documented, contextualized and summarized. Samples of the discussions form the substance of this article. This is preceded by an analysis of the success of socially‐orientated contemporary art in the wider global context and its contrast with the omission of these practices in many schools. Conclusions have been tentatively drawn about how the curriculum may be better served by the use of contemporary art, as well as the means by which new learning methods may be facilitated.     

Illuminating growth and struggles using mixed methods: Practice-based professional development and coaching for differentiating SRSD instruction in writing

In this mixed methods study, qualitative, quantitative, and single-case methods were combined to provide a comprehensive investigation of teacher and student outcomes following practice-based professional development (PBPD) for self-regulated strategy development (SRSD) in writing. Qualitative observations were used to determine outcomes among the three-fourth grade teachers involved, a nested quantitative model was used to analyze classwide student writing outcomes across 53 students in the three classes, and single case design was used to determine differential outcomes among randomly selected struggling and average writers in each class. PBPD was followed by coaching for differentiation based on student performance and fidelity as teachers taught their students strategies for writing timed imaginary stories (with self as main character), as required by the state writing test. Qualitative results indicated two teachers did not differentiate writing instruction without coaching; one teacher was unresponsive to coaching and did not differentiate instruction. Classwide analysis demonstrated significant growth in writing at the class level for students from baseline to posttesting. Single case design results indicated mixed outcomes among struggling and average writers and instances where instruction was not effective. Teachers indicated high social validity for PBPD and for SRSD; students indicated high social validity for SRSD. Results across the multiple methods illuminate growth and struggles often disguised in group data and are addressed to aid in understanding and enhancing PBPD as well as instruction in SRSD and other evidence-based practices. Limitations and future research directions are discussed.     

Does it Work with the Older Ones? A Review of Behavioural Studies Carried out in British Secondary Schools since 1981

In 1981 the first author carried out a review of studies in behaviour modification in British educational settings. At that time 56 such studies were identified as having been carried out in primary schools, compared with only 24 in secondary schools. In his conclusion the author suggested the form that further empirical investigations might take and pointed out the need for more studies to be undertaken at the secondary level. In the present paper an attempt has been made to give an up‐to‐the‐minute review of the progress that has been made in exploring the usefulness of behavioural methods in secondary schools. What becomes apparent is that whilst behavioural methods have been shown to be equally effective in secondary and primary school settings, very few such studies have been reported: only 37 since the last review, many of these being from the same source. The vast majority of the new studies now reported comprise a ‘rules, praise and ignoring’ element. The reasons why behavioural methods are not more fully used, despite their success in secondary schools, is discussed, and suggestions are made for future action.     

An Empirical Unraveling of Lord's Paradox

Lord's Paradox occurs when a continuous covariate is statistically controlled for and the relationship between a continuous outcome and group status indicator changes in both magnitude and direction. This phenomenon poses a challenge to the notion of evidence-based policy, where data are supposed to be self-evident. We examined 50 effect size estimates from 34 large-scale educational interventions and found that impact estimates are affected in magnitude, with or without reversal in sign, when there is substantial baseline imbalance. We also demonstrated that multilevel modeling can ameliorate the divergence in sign and/or magnitude of effect estimation, which, together with project specific knowledge, promises to help those who are presented with conflicting or confusing evidence in decision-making.     

A Case Study in the Integration of Assessment and General Education: Lessons learned from a complex process

This paper tracks an ongoing, 15-year initiative to reform and assess a general education programme at a regional comprehensive university in the US. The paper identifies four key phases in the process, chronicling emergent challenges, describing key setbacks and highlighting noteworthy successes. The authors identify five key lessons that may prove useful to other institutions planning or currently attempting to integrate assessment into their general education programme, and conclude that designing and implementing general education assessment is more challenging than assessing other programmes in post-secondary settings because it is influenced by more internal and external constituencies than any other assessment process.     

The Four Directions

This article presents the Native American cultural symbol, the Four Directions, as a sign that is culturally evident and inter‐tribally significant. Through understanding the significance of the symbol, a deeper understanding is possible for non‐Natives, especially an understanding of the Native Americans' relationship between their artwork and their culture. It will be argued that through a deeper understanding and cultural saturation by non‐Natives that cultural misinformation can be reduced. Even though the article makes no attempt to define a culture, community, or person, cultural groups are presented through image and story.     

In amongst the glitter and the squashed blueberries: crafting a collaborative lens for children’s literacy pedagogy in a community setting

ABSTRACT

In this article, we bring together relational arts practice (Kester, 2004) with collaborative ethnography (Campbell and Lassiter, 2015) in order to propose art not as a way of teaching children literacy, but as a lens to enable researchers and practitioners to view children’s literacies differently. Both relational arts practice and collaborative ethnography decentre researcher/artist expertise, providing an understanding that “knowing” is embodied, material and tacit (Ingold, 2013). This has led us to extend understandings of multimodal literacy to stress the embodied and situated nature of meaning making, viewed through a collaborative lens (Hackett, 2014a; Heydon and Rowsell, 2015; Kuby et al, 2015; Pahl and Pool, 2011). We illustrate this approach to researching literacy pedagogy by offering a series of “little” (Olsson, 2013) moments of place/body memory (Somerville, 2013), which emerged from our collaborative dialogic research at a series of den building events for families and their young children. Within our study, an arts practice lens offered a more situated, and entwined way of working that led to joint and blurred outcomes in relation to literacy pedagogy.     

The Occupational Motivation,Satisfaction and Health of English School Teachers

ABSTRACT This paper presents the results of a study of a sample of 609 English teachers and school executive (headteachers, deputies, etc.). The study sought to examine and benchmark teachers’ occupational motivation, satisfaction and health and to test a model of teacher satisfaction developed in Australia in a previous research phase.

English teachers were found, in common with their Australian counterparts, to be motivated most strongly by altruism, affiliation and personal growth. They were also found, again like Australian teachers, to be most satisfied with ‘core business’ aspects of teaching‐‐facilitating student learning and achievement, developing as a professional and working with other staff; and the least satisfied with matters from systemic and societal levels‐‐the nature and pace of educational change, and the status and image of teaching. Between these two domains lay factors specific to particular schools: school leadership and communication, school resources and relationships with community.

Teachers from different types of schools and those holding different promotion positions were found to differ on some measures of satisfaction; however, unlike Australian principals, headteachers were found to be, on the whole, no more satisfied than their classroom teacher colleagues and to be similarly ‘stressed’. These findings are interpreted in the light of the specific context of the English education system.