Teacher professional development as an effect of policy and practice: a Bourdieuian analysis

This article draws on Bourdieu’s field theory and related concepts of habitus and capitals, to explore policy implementation in relation to a particular case of teacher professional development in Queensland, Australia. This implementation process is described as an effect of the interplay between what is called the policy field and the field of teachers’ work. The policy field demonstrates intra‐field tensions between the federal Quality Teacher Programme (QTP) and a raft of state policies, particularly those associated with the Queensland meta‐policy, Queensland State Education 2010 (QSE2010). To investigate the effects of this complex policy ensemble, the article draws upon the experiences of principals and a group of teachers engaged in professional development across a cluster of six schools in south‐east Queensland, Australia. The specific focus is on the ‘Curriculum Board’, a cross‐school body created by the principals in the participating schools, and its mediated work in policy implementation and teacher learning. The article analyses the effects of the involvement of the principals in the creation of the board, the limiting impact of QTP requirements to involve consultants rather than support for teacher release, and the limited influence of the board on teacher learning and policy implementation in the individual schools. By doing so, the analysis shows the disjunctions between the logics of practice of the policy field and that of teachers’ work, and the ways in which the differing habitus of principals and teachers and teacher members of the board affected teacher learning and policy implementation. It is argued that effective implementation requires learning within and across fields, and more reflexive habitus of policy makers, principals and teachers.     

The Role of Everyday Contexts in Learner‐centred Teaching: The practice in Namibian secondary schools

This paper reports on the use of out‐of‐school everyday contexts in Namibian science classrooms. This use is portrayed against the backdrop of an explicit educational philosophy of learner‐centred teaching. Data were collected through audio‐taped teacher–learner interactions and non‐participant field notes in 29 junior and senior science classes taught by 12 teachers in six schools. An existing typology was applied to classify episodes of use of everyday contexts and identify teachers’ pedagogic strategies for their use. The results show that more everyday contexts are used in junior secondary than in senior secondary classes, that only a limited range of types of everyday contexts are used at both levels, and that their use often follows theoretical exposition or teacher questioning. These findings are related to three interpretations of learner‐centred teaching. Recommendations for a fuller implementation of learner‐centred teaching are made.     

Education policy and the development of the school organisation committee

This article investigates some of the administrative processes involved in setting up the School Organisation Committee (SOC) in one Shire County in England. Labour central government wants SOCs inter alia to make decisions on the planning and provision of school places 'more local and to speed up the process' that previously involved often lengthy periods of consideration of cases by the Secretary of State for Education. Local politicians' views on the SOC and the implications for local-central power relations are reported in this article.     

Effect of worked examples and Cognitive Tutor training on constructing equations

Algebra students studied either static-table, static-graphics, or interactive-graphics instructional worked examples that alternated with Algebra Cognitive Tutor practice problems. A control group did not study worked examples but solved both the instructional and practice problems on the Cognitive Tutor (CT). Students in the control group requested fewer hints and made fewer errors on the CT practice problems but required more learning time on the instructional examples. There was no difference among the four groups in constructing equations on a paper-and-pencil posttest or on a delayed test that included training and transfer problems. However, students who studied worked examples with a table were best at identifying the meaning of the equation components. The concept of transfer-appropriate processing (the overlap between instructional task and assessment task) aided our interpretation of the findings. Although the CT had a short-term effect on reducing errors and hint requests on CT practice problems, the worked examples were as effective on delayed paper-and-pencil tests. The subsequent construction of a new module for the Animation Tutor (Reed and Hoffman, Animation Tutor: Mixtures. Instructional software, 2011) used both the interactive-graphics and static-table worked examples to take advantage of the complementary strengths of different representations (Ainsworth, Learn Instr 16:183–198, 2006).     

Preparing Instructional Designers for Game-Based Learning: Part III. Game Design as a Collaborative Process

In this three part series, four professors who teach graduate level courses on the design of instructional video games discuss their perspectives on preparing instructional designers to optimize game-based learning. Part I set the context for the series and one of four panelists discussed what he believes instructional designers should know about instructional game design. In Part II, two faculty members who teach courses on instructional game design presented their perspectives on preparing instructional designers for game-based learning. Part III presents a fourth perspective along with conclusion that contrasts the four views posited in Parts I-III.     

Effects of success and failure on emotionally handicapped boys

The study was designed to investigate the extent to which expectancies and performance of emotionally handicapped children could be altered by success- or failure-induced experiences. Students were randomly assigned to either of two experimental conditions during five trials of a guessing task. Immediately following the initial experience, all children were asked to estimate their expectancy of success on a novel learning task; students were then given a progressive matrix worksheet with ten problems which required adding and/or subtracting. It was hypothesized that those students in the success condition would have higher expectancies and actual performance scores than the children in the failure condition. It was further hypothesized that expectancy levels and performance scores would be related. An analysis of the results indicated that success and failure on a task were influential on subsequent expectancy estimates and performance; a discussion of these results is presented.     

An arbiter for authors?

Considers whether some of the authors of papers rejected by scientific journals should be permitted to appeal against the editorial decision, and how an arbitration procedure might be established.