The implications of UPE for teacher education

The huge and sudden increase in the demand for qualified teachers which UPE has occasioned is obliging many countries to develop alternatives to conventional initial training, notably distance programmes and the use of headteachers as trainers of their staff. Universal primary, but not secondary, education also implies changing the content of the training curriculum. All these innovations should not be viewed as threatening constraints but as opportunities for progress towards a policy of lifelong professional development. Features of such a policy would include a review of the respective contributions of initial, induction and inservice training, school-based and school-focussed alternatives to the course, a concern with the cost-effectiveness of different strategies, and the active involvement of teachers in their own training.

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Zusammenfassung In vielen Ländern hat der weltweite Ausbau des Primarschulwesens einen gewaltigen und plötzlichen Anstieg im Bedarf an qualifizierten Lehrkörpern nach sich gezogen. Dadurch wurden viele Länder gleichermaßen gezwungen, Alternativen zur herkömmlichen Anfangsausbildung zu entwickeln, insbesondere Fernunterricht und Einsatz von Schulleitern bei der Ausbildung ihres Lehrpersonals. Der weltweite Ausbau der Primar-, aber nicht Sekundarerziehung impliziert eine inhaltliche Änderung des Ausbildungscurriculums. All diese Innovationen sollten nicht als bedrohliche Zwänge, sondern als richtungsweisende Möglichkeiten für ein Programm lebenslanger, beruflicher Entwicklung angesehen werden. Eine solche Bildungspolitik würde u.a. einen Rückblich auf anfängliche, einführende und weiterführende Formen der Ausbildung einschließen. Sie würde aber auch die auf Schulen basierten und konzentrierten Alternativen zu dem Kursus gewährleisten. Sie sind die Formen, die Kostenwirksamkeit verschiedener Strategien sichern und die Lehrer aktiv an ihrer eigenen Ausbildung beteiligen.

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Résumé La croissance soudaine et intense de la demande d'enseignants qualifiés que l'enseignement primaire universel a provoquée oblige de nombreux pays à recourir à d'autres moyens que la formation initiale conventionelle, notamment à des programmes à distance et à l'emploi des directeurs d'établissement comme formateurs de leur propre personnel enseignant. L'enseignement primaire universel — mais non le secondaire — implique aussi des changements dans le contenu du curriculum de formation. Toutes ces innovations ne devraient pas être regardées comme des contraintes menaçantes mais plutôt comme des occasions de progresser vers une politique de développement professionnel continu. Une telle politique incorporerait les aspects suivants: évaluation des contributions respectives apportées par la formation initiale, la formation à l'entrée en service et celle en cours d'emploi; choix entre le cours traditionnel et celui donné à l'école et centré sur les besoins de l'école; étude du rapport coût-efficacité des différentes stratégies de formation, et participation active des enseignants à leur propre formation.

     

Reliability and concurrent validity of a measure of critical thinking skills in biology

The present study investigated the utility of 52 items, selected from a readily available item pool developed for instructional purposes, when the items are used to measure critical thinking abilities of biology students. The items yield scores that have reasonable internal consistency reliability. Furthermore, analyses involving ACT, Watson-Glaser Critical Thinking Appraisal, and Group Embedded Figures Test scores also suggest that the critical thinking test items have good concurrent validity. Thus, the measure may be useful in both science instruction and future research regarding critical thinking phenomena.     

The design of tasks in support of teachers’ development of coherent mathematical meanings

We examine the role of tasks that have the intended effect of teachers re-conceiving the mathematics they teach as comprising a coherent body of meaningful ideas. We ground our discussion in ideas of trigonometry and modular functions and draw from a professional development research project to illustrate our approach. In this project, many teachers experienced dissonance that was rooted in their commitments to their curricular knowledge of trigonometry. Teachers who built new meanings into a coherent whole were those who coordinated them at a micro level. Teachers who saw implications of their own reasoning for student learning were also successful at expressing that reasoning in natural language. We saw a similar pattern in the case of teachers' creation of meanings for action and process conceptions of mod(f(x),g(x)). Teachers who gained insight into implications of their own activities for student learning were the teachers who reasoned at a micro level in regard to the meaning of mod, who coordinated that meaning with a covariational perspective on the behavior of functions, and who expressed that coordination in natural language. We conclude that a primary feature of tasks that promote teachers' construction of coherent mathematical meanings is that they support an overall effort to have teachers engage in the coordination of meanings in the context of explaining significant ideas and relationships.     

Doing time in the sociology of education

Abstract

This article is both an editorial introduction for this special issue and a distinctive contribution in its own right. The article seeks to extend a dynamic and multiple conception of time to the sociology of education to think beyond the clock time associated with modernity and industrialisation. This need is illustrated through an account and critique of E.P. Thompson’s canonical account of clock time. The article argues that this construction of clock time implicitly frames most work in the sociology of education. The concept of ‘timespace’ offers a way to go beyond both clock time and the current ‘spatial turn’ in the sociology of education that prioritises space over time. It is shown how computerisation also ushers in a new temporality, which works simultaneously with clock time and perhaps presages the move from a disciplinary to control society. The article accepts that there are multiple and dynamic temporalities and correlatively supports a working together of historical and sociological imaginations towards a sociology of education that acknowledges and works with multiple temporalities, empirically, methodologically, theoretically and in research writing.     

Using Kinesthetic Activities to Teach Ptolemaic and Copernican Retrograde Motion

This paper describes a method for teaching planetary retrograde motion, and the Ptolemaic and Copernican accounts of retrograde motion, by means of a series kinesthetic learning activities (KLAs). In the KLAs described, the students literally walk through the motions of the planets in both systems. A retrospective statistical analysis shows that students who participated in these activities performed better on examination questions pertaining to retrograde motion than students who did not. Potential explanations for this result, including the breaking of classroom routine, the effect of body movement on conceptual memory, and egocentric spatial proprioception, are considered.     

Math fluency is etiologically distinct from untimed math performance, decoding fluency, and untimed reading performance: evidence from a twin study

The authors examined whether math fluency was independent from untimed math and from reading using 314 pairs of school-aged twins drawn from the Western Reserve Reading and Math Projects. Twins were assessed through a 90-min home visit at approximately age 10 and were reassessed in their homes approximately 1 year later. Results suggested that the shared environment and genetics influenced the covariance among math fluency, untimed math measures, and reading measures. However, roughly two thirds of the variance in math fluency was independent from untimed math measures and reading, including reading fluency. The majority of this independent variance was the result of genetic factors that were longitudinally stable across two measurement occasions. These results suggest that math fluency, although related to other math measures, may also be a genetically distinct dimension of mathematics performance.     

Evoking the World of Poetic Nonfiction Picture Books

An increasingly prevalent and accessible form of hybrid nonfiction picture books blends factual information with poetry or poetic devices to create literary nonfiction. This important form of hybrid text has been sparsely examined. This article addresses three questions about poetic nonfiction picture books: first, how might we categorize picture books that represent this hybrid text?; second, by what criteria might we evaluate the quality of these books?; third, based in Rosenblatt’s concept of reader’s stance, how might we read these books? The author develops a typology of six categories along a continuum from poetry to narrative or expository prose. He examines well-established criteria in the fields of picture books, children’s nonfiction, and poetry that can apply to poetic nonfiction picture books. He argues that in the best of these books, the poetry or poetic devices are synergistic with the content and raise the overall reading experience. The author also argues that, depending where along the continuum each of these books is located, a reader’s stance moves along the continuum of efferent to aesthetic experience. All these books demand a dynamic and recursive reading process. He suggests ways to work with teachers to teach deep readings of these books.     

Parent–youth discordance about youth-witnessed violence: Associations with trauma symptoms and service use in an at-risk sample

ObjectiveStudies have consistently demonstrated a lack of agreement between youth and parent reports regarding youth-witnessed violence. However, little is known about whether disagreement is associated with poorer outcomes and less utilization of mental health services. The purpose of the current study was to examine disagreement among youth and parents about youth witnessed violence, and determine whether concordance predicted trauma symptoms and recognition of need and receipt of counseling services.MethodsConcordance about youth-witnessed violence was examined in 766 dyads from the Longitudinal Studies of Child Abuse and Neglect (LONGSCAN). Youth participants self-reported trauma symptoms, caregivers indicated youth need for and receipt of services. Both youth and parents provided information about youth-witnessed violence exposure in the last year.ResultsResults showed youth and caregivers differed significantly about youth-witnessed violence. Specifically, 42% of youth reported youth-witnessed violence, compared to only 15% of parents. For those parents who reported youth-witnessed violence, only 29% reported an identified need for services and only 17% reported the youth had received any mental health services. Concordance between parent–youth dyads was associated with greater identified need for services but was not associated with the use of counseling services or trauma symptoms.ConclusionsYouth who reported witnessing violence reported more frequent trauma symptoms regardless of concordance. Parents from dyads in which both informants reported youth-witnessed violence were more likely to endorse need for, but not receipt of counseling services. Given this association between youth-witnessed violence and mental health problems, more work is needed to identify barriers to concordance as well as service utilization.     

The Inevitable Shift to Cloud-Based Book Publishing: The Next Step in the Digital Transformation of Book Publishing May be Closer than You Think

Software used by book publishers to manage contracts, royalties, production workflow, sales, and marketing have begun to migrate from relatively closed systems that are internally maintained, to cloud-based platforms on the Web. Business drivers behind this migration include a highly dynamic market for ebooks and other digital products, pressures to cut costs, and a shrinking ROI horizon for technology investments. While questions remain as to how quickly the transition will take, the possibility of cloud-based book publishing promises to change the nature of publishing infrastructure and with it the role of the IT professionals in publishing.     

The Changing Structure of British Higher Education: How diverse is it?

With the passage of the 1992 Further and Higher Education Act the British system of higher education formally moved from a binary to a unitary structure. However, ever since successive governments have argued for a diversified model of higher education within which institutions should pursue contrasting goals. This article offers an interpretation of the key ingredients of institutional diversification and constructs alternative structural models of higher education. It proceeds by exploring the changing structure of British higher education since the creation of the unitary model. The argument is that there has been a steady emergence of flexible sectors, which both converge and diversify. However, there is a danger that the 2011 White Paper, rather than sustaining flexible sectors, could intensify the nascent shift in the direction of stratification marked by increasing differentiation between sectors as they converge internally.