The Early Reading Research: The impact of instructional psychology

The Early Reading Research (ERR), is a six-year research project investigating the most effective approaches to: improving reading standards; ensuring that every child can reach age and skill appropriate targets in reading; and, preventing the occurrence of reading difficulties. This article reviews the educational and psychological research into teaching reading and relates recent findings to theories and research emerging from instructional psychology, which underpins the 'framework for teaching reading' used within the ERR. Two studies are then summarised which evaluated the impact of the ERR reading framework. Study 1 involved a two-year experimental study where the progress of children following the ERR framework during reception and Year 1, was compared to that of children taught to read through their usual classroom methods. Study 2 involved a one-year study where the progress of a sample of children within the ERR was compared to children following the National Literacy Project. The article concludes by highlighting some implications of the ERR for educational psychologists (EPs), the field of special education and the National Literacy Strategy.     

Realising the Value of Self-assessment: The influence of the Business Excellence Model on teacher professionalism

In the UK across all phases of education very different models of self-assessment are being introduced. The paper identifies three 'grammars' of self-assessment. The Business Excellence Model currently being implemented in UK schools is characterised by the 'creative' grammar. This paper examines the value of this self-assessment model, and its impact on teacher professionalism. The findings are that teachers using this model are compelled to redefine their professional roles. Self-assessment can offer a structure, and a language for understanding the critical process of continuing professional development. Au Royaume-Uni, à tous les niveaux d'éducation, des modèles très distincts d'évaluation commencement à être introduits. Cet article contient les trois 'grammaires' de l'auto-évaluation. Le 'Business Excellence Model' que l'on emploie actuellement dans les écoles du Royaume-Uni est caractérisé par 'une grammaire créatrice'. L'article examine la valeur de ce modèle d'auto-évaluation et son impact sur l'aspect professionnel de l'enseignement. Les résultats font apparaître que les enseignants utilisant ce modèle sont obligés de remettre en question leur rôle professionnel. L'auto-évaluation est en mesure d'offrir une structure et un langage pour mieux comprendre le processus critique du développement professionnel continu. En el Reino Unido, al interior de todas las fases de la educación, nuevos y distintos modelos de autoevaluación empiezan a introducirse. El artículo identifica tres 'gramáticas' de autoevaluación. El modelo de 'Business Excellence Model ' implementado actualmente en escuelas británicas se caracteriza por una gramática 'creativa'. El presente artículo estudia la validez de este modelo de autoevaluación, y su impacto en el profesionalismo de los maestros. Se concluye que los profesores que emplean este modelo se ven obligados a redefinir su rol profesional. La autoevaluación puede ofrecer una estructura y un lenguaje que permitan comprender plenamente el proceso crítico de un desarrollo profesional continuo. In Großbritannien werden in allen Ausbildungsphasen sehr unterschiedliche Modelle der Eigenbewertung eingeführt. Dieser Artikel identifiziert drei verschiedene 'Grammatiken' der Eigenbewertung. Das 'Business Excellence Model', welches momentan an britischen Schulen eingeführt wird, kennzeichnet sich durch sogenannte kreative Grammatik. Der Artikel prüft den Wert dieses Modells und untersucht die Auswirkungen auf den Profes sionalismus der Lehrer. Es scheint, daß Lehrer, die dieses Modell benutzen, gezwungen sind, ihre Rolle als Lehrfachkräfte neu zu definieren. Eigenbewertung kann eine Struktur und eine Sprache für das Verständnis des kritischen Prozesses der fachlichen Weiterbildung bieten.     

Intensive Intervention in Mathematics

Students who demonstrate persistent mathematics difficulties and whose performance is severely below grade level require intensive intervention. Intensive intervention is an individualized approach to instruction that is more demanding and concentrated than Tier 2 intervention efforts. We present the elements of intensive intervention that teachers should consider when planning for, implementing, and monitoring intensive intervention in mathematics. Each of these elements is based on evidence from validated interventions. We also highlight strategies for intensifying instruction. We provide two examples of intensive intervention, one of which launches from a Tier 2 intervention platform and the other which is completely generated by a teacher. We conclude with considerations for intensive intervention in mathematics.     

The governmentality of childhood obesity: Coca-Cola,public health and primary schools

In this paper, we examine the emergence of what might seem an unexpected policy outcome – a large multinational corporation, frequently blamed for exacerbating childhood obesity, operating as an officially sanctioned driver of anti-obesity initiatives in primary schools across the globe. We draw on Foucault's notion of governmentality to examine the pedagogical work of two international programmes devised and funded by Coca-Cola. We demonstrate how these programmes work simultaneously as marketing campaigns and as governmental strategies to position children as responsible for their own health, conflate (ill)health with body weight and strategically employ the concept of energy balance. We argue that these programmes not only act to unite the interests of corporations, governments and schools, but also seek to use schools to reshape the very ideas of health and a ‘healthy life’. We conclude by considering two sets of ethical and political issues that come sharply as corporations like Coca-Cola continue to exploit the policy space created by the ‘obesity epidemic’.     

Social Networks and Archival Context: From Project to Cooperative Archival Program

This article highlights the objectives and outcomes of the multi-year Social Networks and Archival Context (SNAC) research and demonstration project and discusses related developments to establish a large-scale sustainable cooperative for maintaining information about creators of archival collections, leveraging the Encoded Archival Context—Corporate Bodies, Persons, and Families (EAC-CPF) standard. The article discusses processes developed to derive EAC-CPF records from existing EAD finding aids, MARCXML records, and original authority records, enrichment of those records from other sources, and the creation of a prototype research resource, providing integrated access to dispersed archival collections and the social-historical context of the collections.     

CrossRef's Text and Data Mining Services

CrossRef ( http://www.crossref.org/ ) is an association of scholarly publishers that develops shared infrastructure to support more effective scholarly communications. In May 2014, CrossRef launched CrossRef Text and Data Mining Services for its members. This article covers the thinking behind CrossRef launching this service, and the particular problems it aims to address around the collection of full‐text content for the purposes of text and data mining (TDM). It explains the technical aspects of the service for researchers and lets publishers know what they need to provide to CrossRef in order to participate and how to do so. It will also describe the pilot of CrossRef's TDM Services, and information on publisher uptake since the launch and how this can be measured, and the costs for joining or using the service.     

Perceptions of junior doctors and undergraduate medical students as anatomy teachers: Investigating distance along the near‐peer teaching spectrum

Near‐peer teaching involves more experienced students acting as tutors and has been widely used in anatomy education. This approach has many advantages for the learner due to the social and cognitive congruence they share with the teacher, however, the influence of distance between the teacher and learner on these congruences has yet to be explored. The aim of this study was to compare the attitudes and perceptions of the student learner towards neuroanatomy review sessions taught by either a senior medical student or a junior doctor. The students were randomly assigned to an allocated tutor. All tutors used standardized material and had access to identical resources. The type of allocated tutor was swapped between the two teaching sessions and 99 student feedback forms were collected in total. The rating for the overall quality of the teaching session was not significantly different between the junior doctors and senior medical students (P = 0.11). However, criteria closely relating to social and cognitive congruence such as “enjoyment of the session,” “delivery of the teaching,” and “was it a good use of time” were all rated significantly higher for the senior medical students (P < 0.05). The results of this study suggest that small increases in distance along the near‐peer teaching spectrum have an impact upon the student's perception of their learning experience. While all teachers were suitable role models it appears that junior doctors are too far removed from their own undergraduate experiences to share congruences with pre‐clinical medical students. Anat Sci Educ 7: 242–247. © 2013 American Association of Anatomists.     

“It’s not them,it’s me”: competing discourses in one aspiring teacher’s talk

In this paper, we deploy M.M. Bakhtin’s notions about how language works to understand aspiring teachers’ struggles about the intersecting roles race, class, gender, language background, and sexual orientation play in students’ school lives and learning. Through life-history interviews and document analysis, we investigated the authoritative and internally persuasive discourses one aspiring teacher brought with her and took from a 15-week long course on a predominantly White Midwestern public university campus. Ideas she encountered in the course and its required tutoring component challenged her thinking about how various facets of people’s lives (such as those we list above) and the contexts in which they live, work and are schooled, affect how they are perceived, what they know, and can do.