Action learning in John Lewis

A small group of training professionals within the John Lewis Partnership set up an action learning group about 2 years ago. The main aim was to explore the technique for our own learning and development. The timing and lifespan of the group reflected the generally strategic and long-term nature of our projects. One of these was to introduce action learning to a group of operational managers in one of our department stores. Key benefits which arose for this group were: the opportunity to spend time thinking about one aspect of work in a focused way; the learning that arose both about the action learning experience as well as about our projects; the challenge provided by the group, which proved an incentive to move work along quickly; the bonds of trust and support established which have continued after the group ended it's life. We have been able to learn from our own experience and that of the pilot operational managers group to help us expand both the use and the usefulness of action learning for the organization.     

The influence of policy and context on teachers’ social media use

Research on teachers’ use of social media has typically assumed that it is a) driven by a need for professional learning and b) best understood in terms of individual motivations. In this study, we use a dataset of nearly 600,000 tweets posted to one or more of 48 Regional Educational Twitter Hashtags associated with 44 U.S. states. To explore the influence of local contextual factors on hashtag- and account-level activity in these hashtags, we use an analytic approach heretofore uncommon in social media-focussed education research: generalised linear and multilevel modelling. At the hashtag level, higher numbers of teachers within a state, proportions of students receiving subsidised meals, student-to-teacher ratios, and amounts of state spending per child are associated with more activity within a regional hashtag; by contrast, more left-leaning state governments and citizenries are associated with less activity. At the account level, more experienced accounts and accounts in more right-leaning states contribute more tweets to these hashtags. These findings reinforce established understandings of Twitter as a site for teacher learning; however, they also underline the importance of acknowledging other important purposes of teachers’ Twitter use, including receiving emotional support and engaging in activism. Practitioner notes What is already known about this topic

• Many teachers use Twitter (and other social media platforms) for professional purposes.
• Teachers have identified professional learning—among other purposes—as motivating their use of Twitter.
• Regional Educational Twitter Hashtags are diverse learning spaces for teachers and other education stakeholders.

What this paper adds

• Local context and policy factors help influence teachers’ use of Twitter.
• Teachers may turn to Twitter because of a lack of emotional or political support—not just a lack of material support or professional development opportunities.
• Individual and idiosyncratic factors remain important in explaining teachers’ engagement with social media.

Implications for practice and/or policy

• Informal spaces like social media may supplement formal support mechanisms for teachers.
• Teachers’ use of social media may help administrators and policymakers identify existing gaps to be repaired in those formal support mechanisms.
• Support for teachers should be conceived holistically and include emotional and political support.

     

Defending Qualitative Change: The View From Dynamical Systems Theory

A central controversy in developmental science, enflamed by nativist accounts, is whether development is best viewed as a series of qualitative or continuous changes. This article defends the notion of qualitative change from the perspective of dynamical systems theory (DST). Qualitative change within DST refers to the shift that occurs when a system goes from one attractor state through an instability into a different attractor state. Such changes occur on the second‐to‐second timescale of behavior. Thus, developmental analysis must always stay local, grounded in the real‐time attractor states around which behavior is organized. This article also demonstrates that qualitative and continuous change should not be cast in opposition. They are aligned concepts that work together across multiple timescales.     

Predicting Spelling Behaviour in 7 to 11 Year-olds

There is an increasing number of studies which demonstrate that readers in more transparent orthographies than English, such as Italian, Spanish, Turkish, Greek and German have little difficulty in decoding written words, while English children have many more problems. Increasingly, lack of orthographic transparency in English is seen as having a powerful negative effect on the development of reading skills in English-speaking children. There is evidence that English-speaking children who fail to acquire reading skills may fall into two distinct categories: those who would succeed in languages, other than English, that have greater orthographic consistency; and, those who would still have problems even with perfect orthographic transparency. The first, larger, group are let down by the interaction of poor teaching methods and an incomprehensible system of orthography. At Hull University’s Institute for Learning, word factors associated with poor spelling and reading have been identified. We have found three factors which account for the relative ease with which pupils can spell words: frequency of the word in the English language, length of the word, and the presence of “tricky” letters or letter combinations. Data is presented illustrating our predictive model of spelling which enables word difficulty to be calculated from the characteristics of English words. The implications the model has for teaching and learning English is elaborated, with particular reference to the most common 150 words in the English language.     

Physical,physiological, and technical demands of national netball umpires at different competition levels

ABSTRACT

To compare demands of national netball umpires between levels of competition, 22 Netball New Zealand high-performance umpires participated in this investigation. These included from highest to lowest standard: 9 × semi-professional ANZ Championships (ANZC); 6 × National A Squad (NZA); and 7 × National Development Squad (DEV). Physical (global positioning system tri-axial accelerometry), physiological (heart rate) and technical (video analysis) demands were determined for 48 (16 per group) umpire match performances. Level of competition had no significant effect on physical or mean physiological demands. However, ANZC umpires spent a lower proportion of time at low heart rates compared to DEV, and a greater proportion of time at high, rather than moderate, heart rates compared to NZA. Compared to lower standard umpires, ANZC spent lesser proportions of time standing but greater proportions of time walking backwards and sideways, and turning to change direction. Furthermore, ANZC umpires spent lower proportions of time jogging, but greater proportions of time sprinting compared to DEV. Finally, ANZC umpires spent longer mean durations than DEV on the goal third side line. As such, the difference in demands experienced by national netball umpires between levels of competition is more technical than physical or physiological.     

Light distribution from rectangular sources

The rectangular light source is more frequently encountered in engineering practice than any other form. Thus, both for artificial lighting and natural lighting, it is desirable to have convenient methods of obtaining the light distributions produced by rectangular sources. We have attempted to supply this need by calculating pharosage from sources of uniform helios and also for the non-uniform sources representing average overcast skies. Figures 5 to io are found to be particularly convenient in the visualization of light distributions.The results of these graphs are readily extended to any point and to surfaces tilted at any angle, provided that the plane of the illuminated surface does not cut the source.In conclusion, we wish to express our appreciation of the careful work of the computers: Messrs. L. S. Castlemann M. S. Cettei, J. C. Gibbs, A. L. Keller, G. J. Laurent, V. Lippitt, J. M. Margolskee, L. Mautner, J. Topalian.     

Radiant Flux Through Apertures— II

Equations for the radiant flux through apertures are well-known. But the exact equations are cumbersome and give little direct insight into the behavior of aperture systems. The present paper considers simple approximate equations for rectangular apertures in parallel planes and in perpendicular planes. It extends the previous work (square apertures) to the general case of rectangular apertures.