Student/Faculty Connections in the Development of Teaching

This project directly involved students in two different models of instructional development. The first model was a Student Consultant program in which faculty selected from a menu of instructional services carried out by students. Typical services included attending class as impartial observers, soliciting feedback from other students on their learning experiences, videotaping class sessions, and evaluating course Web sites. The second model of instructional development was a program of student‐assisted teaching seminars for college faculty. Student Associates helped serve as panelists and facilitators. Assessments of attitudes toward teaching indicated that faculty members viewed both professors and students as collaborators in the classroom as a result of the seminar series.     

Developing undergraduate research skills in a faculty of education: motivation through collaboration

This paper explores motivational factors underpinning undergraduates’ learning of research skills through individual research projects with collaborative tutorials. Research has long pointed to group support, positive affect and scaffolding as important for motivating and facilitating learning. Furthermore, UK government priorities have placed an increasing emphasis on the need to develop the key skills of inquiry and working with others. However, this is set in a context of assessment and practice in higher education that encourages individualist and instrumental perspectives on gaining competencies and knowledge. Traditionally undergraduate research skills have been taught through lectures and small‐scale projects chosen by the students with individual tutorial support in a faculty of education. Here our action research introduced collaborative tutorials as another element of teaching. We examine the process of collaboration to explore factors that support motivation to learn through two principal theoretical frameworks.     

How is technology seen in young people’s visions of future education systems?

This research captured the views of young people regarding their views of ‘how learning should be in the future’. Four focus groups were run with different groups of school‐age pupils. The ways in which technology was seen within these discussions were analysed. The findings noted that the explicit use of technological innovations, and predicted innovations, was rarely seen as having a significant impact on learning, rather that the technology was used in line with the models of learning derived from the participant’s best current experiences of learning and education. Technology was, therefore, seen as something which could make current learning practices more efficient but did not transform the learning process.     

Pre-service teachers’ conceptions of creativity in elementary school English

Widely thought to be something worth encouraging in young learners, creativity has popularly been associated more with music and art than with other areas of the curriculum. There have been many studies of creativity but few that focus explicitly on what counts as creative thinking in specific subject areas. The aim of the research reported here was to determine pre-service teachers’ conceptions of creativity within the curriculum for English. The study involved analyses of primary school trainee teachers’ responses to questionnaires and follow-up focus group discussion to identify their conceptions. A group of 48 trainees in the final year of an undergraduate degree in primary education leading to qualified teacher status in England completed the questionnaire. Of these, eight volunteered to participate in a follow-up focus group discussion to further explore ideas. Responses were analysed quantitatively and qualitatively. Conceptions of creativity in English were found to be limited, focused mainly on naïve views of story writing and dramatic activity. Responses indicated that they were often unable to distinguish clearly between the concept of creativity, an example of its occurrence in the classroom, and what feature of that example made it creative. Consequently, their limited constructions of creativity were confused. It is important that teachers in schools as well as those responsible for training teachers in universities are advised that trainees’ conceptions of creativity in English may be inadequate in several respects and that they may not recognise opportunities for creativity. Pre-service training programmes could well benefit from structured courses on the forms and applications of creativity.     

Editors’ introduction to Keeping cultures alive: Archives and Indigenous human rights

Keeping Cultures Alive investigates the relationship between Indigenous human rights and the archives through an interdisciplinary and comparative lens, bringing together papers by Indigenous and non-Indigenous experts in Indigenous studies, human rights, law and archival science. It explores Indigenous human rights in an international context with particular reference to the implications of the international human rights agenda for current and future archival practice in Australia, Canada, New Zealand and the United States.     

Beyond a binary: The lives of gender‐nonconforming youth

Sue Rankin and Genny Beemyn report on results from the first large‐scale study of transgender diversity; they describe the gender identity development processes of transsexual, cross‐dressing, and genderqueer individuals and suggest ways that colleges and universities can disrupt binary gender systems.     

Poetry is an Unfamiliar Text: Locating Poetry in Secondary English Classrooms in New Zealand and England during a Period of Curriculum Change

Undertaken during a period when changes in the assessment of English in public examinations at 16+ were becoming embedded in classroom practice, this comparative research explores where poetry is located within the newly aligned examination assessment frameworks of New Zealand and England. It comments on how these frameworks are locally interpreted by a sample group of English teachers in two culturally diverse cities. It identifies the challenges for assessment of poetry writing and retention of poetry study at examination level that are instantiated within these contexts. In investigating poetry’s location, key issues are highlighted about teachers’ perceptions of poetry, confidence and the support needed for examination level teaching of a genre that is in danger of becoming increasingly unfamiliar to many students.