Gatty's Tale; or virtue restored

Most children's books assume a moral framework in which their characters live and grow, but in most cases, morality remains extrinsic to the characters themselves: it is what happens to them and what they do, rather than what they believe and who they become. Kevin Crossley-Holland's novel Gatty's Tale , is unusual in that it presents a protagonist for whom being good matters for its own sake. This article explores Gatty's developing goodness, and shows how Crossley-Holland helps young readers understand what virtue is.     

Landmarks in the professional and academic development of mid-career teacher educators

This paper focuses on the professional and academic development of mid-career teacher educators from two universities in England. The objectives of the study were to analyse and compare the career experiences of teacher educators; in particular, to identify stages of development, landmark events and contextual factors affecting professional learning and academic identities. In-depth biographical interviews were carried out with 12 teacher educators, together with living graphs of their career paths. Clear landmarks were identified in both contexts, with development in teaching seen as largely positive, while research development was much more varied. Teacher educators who were further on in their careers saw research development as transformative personally as well as academically. In analysing the findings within a sociocultural learning framework, the authors draw in particular on Swennen et al.’s model of teacher educators’ sub-identities, Akerlind’s categorisation of an academic identity and Eraut’s contextual and learning factors.     

“Community Psychology is for Poor,Black People”: Pedagogy and Teaching of Community Psychology in South Africa

The term “community” holds historical connotations of political, economic, and social disadvantage in South Africa. Many South African students tend to interpret the term “community” in ways that suggest that community and community psychology describe the experiences of exclusively poor, black people. Critical pedagogies that position the teaching process as a transformative activity and that challenge student perceptions about the status quo are central in teaching community psychology. This article uses the subdiscipline of community psychology to discuss the importance of pedagogy. It uses a module that was presented at Stellenbosch University (SU) in the Western Cape, South Africa, as an illustrative example. The module was taught collaboratively with the social work department at the University of the Western Cape. Forty-five psychology students from a historically white university (SU) and 50 social work students from a historically black university (UWC) engaged in face-to-face workshops and virtual (e-learning) assignments that interrogated notions of the self, community, and identity. Final student essays were analysed qualitatively for themes illustrating aspects of the human capabilities approach to pedagogy adopted in this project.     

Creating and translating knowledge about teaching and learning in collaborative school–university research partnerships: an analysis of what is exchanged across the partnerships,by whom and how

Whilst there is a growing body of literature on practitioner research and the role of collaborations and partnerships that include universities in that process, there are relatively few studies examining the role of the university in any depth. We reflect on 12 years of working in school–university collaborative research partnerships through an analysis of the exchanges between teachers and academics as documented by interviews, case studies and project reports. We draw upon a sample of 90 teachers in 51 schools covering all phases of compulsory schooling. Focusing on the exchanges between the university and partnership schools, we extend the idea of radical collegiality to encompass teacher to academic dialogue in the process of mutual transformation. We contribute to the development of greater conceptual clarity regarding school–university research partnerships and their potential to contribute to the creation and translation of knowledge about teaching and learning. The interplay of the project as the context, the role of enquiry and the development and use of tools by the participants is outlined and a model for understanding the dynamics of school–university partnerships proposed. We suggest that the project as a space‐ and time‐limited context inclusive of partner institutions may have the scope to reconcile the tension between an impetus for exclusive bonding and the flexibility of bridging across structures in social networks. We conclude that the model of the exchanges between partners is fruitful in unravelling the relationship between theory and practice in the pursuit of knowledge about teaching and learning.     

Bringing the social into pedagogy: unsafe learning in an uncertain world

The paper describes a collaborative curriculum development project implemented over 3 years at 2 universities in the Western Cape Province of South Africa. The project involved a short module in which students in their fourth year of study interacted and learnt collaboratively across the boundaries of institution, discipline, race and social class, about the concepts of community, self and identity. The pedagogic approach adopted is described, as well as the responses of the students, and a brief reflection on some of the learning outcomes attained. The paper considers the learning processes which the curriculum development team experienced, and suggests that in order to facilitate learning for an ‘uncertain world’, the curriculum designers, too, need to engage in learning processes in which they make themselves vulnerable, mirroring some of the learning processes they expect the students to undergo.     

Catalytic tools: understanding the interaction of enquiry and feedback in teachers’ learning

This paper investigates how the use of Pupil Views Templates (PVTs), a tool designed to elicit, record and analyse the development of students’ awareness of their own learning processes, supports teachers’ professional learning. This paper reports on a three‐year collaborative practitioner enquiry project involving more than 30 primary and secondary schools in England. The data set includes practitioners’ case studies, interviews, questionnaires and cross‐project analysis completed by the university team. Analysis focuses on the role of feedback, stimulated through the use of PVTs, in teachers’ learning through three dimensions: the influence of student feedback on teachers as part of the pedagogical encounter; the influence of student feedback on schools within the context of the practitioner enquiry projects; the influence of feedback on the lead teacher researchers. Links between the tools used, the source of the feedback, and teachers’ learning are mapped from a ‘second order perspective’ derived from the diverse data sources.