Telling and Retelling Our Stories on the Professional Knowledge Landscape

Drawing on a 3-year study focusing on the shaping influences of the professional knowledge landscape on the personal practical knowledge of experienced teachers, we first explore how stories are shaped as they are told and responded to in different places and, second, explore whether or not this sharing leads to imagining new possibilities for retelling and reliving stories. By sharing and exploring a story of a disagreement between a parent and a teacher, we focus on what we do when we tell stories in schools and what we do when we tell stories off the school landscape. In making meaning from this story, we show that both in the teacher's living of the story with the parent and in her numerous recountings of the story to others on the school landscape, she did not have opportunities to figure out new ways to relive the story. In our research group, she shared her story again. In this telling, we asked her to focus on who she, the mother, and the principal are in the story, and we inquire into what plotlines each were living. We ask questions about how they were positioned as characters in relation to one another. Re-searching the story in this way enabled us to understand the embodied nature of the teacher's knowing and how this knowledge shaped the events of the story as they were lived out, particularly how the teacher's living of a relational story countered the story of teacher and principal as positioned above parent. By drawing on Nelson's work on 'found' and 'chosen' communities, we imagine ways in which schools could become chosen communities where the story of school might be one of fostering the living out of multiple stories. We imagine the stories emerging from such communities might significantly shape the landscape of schools by opening up new possibilities for living in relation with others.     

COMMUNITY COLLEGE FACULTY DEVELOPMENT: BRINGING TECHNOLOGY INTO INSTRUCTION

Community college faculty development programs assist faculty in the development of quality curricula, using current and expanding teaching technologies. The first step in helping faculty reach their respective goals is to help them articulate their instructional needs. Eighteen faculty members participated in this study, using a personal in-depth interview as the research method. Several implications for community college faculty and administration resulted from this study including: the need to emphasize information literacy, the faculty as lecturers who want to use technology as a means of enhancing that lecture, the need for more time to accomplish their instructional ideas, the need for help to incorporate technology in the classroom themselves, and the desire for training classes that fit their time schedules and location.     

Genre systems and “keeping track” in everyday life

Keeping track of what needs to be done and where and when and by whom is a common practice in Canadian households. The documentary tools used to coordinate the work of keeping track in everyday life are the focus of this paper. We consider these documentary tools as belonging to genres. On the basis of four in-depth interviews, observation, and photography, we identify four genres common to all participants: check-ins or status reports, lists, reminders, and calendars. We map examples of these genres to show that they are socially and intertextually connected—in genre systems—with institutions and organizations beyond the home. Archivists have much to gain by applying the concept of genre-as-social-action and using ethnographic methods to study personal records from the creator’s perspective. Such approaches provide insight into the contexts within which personal records are created and used, including the intertextual linkages between personal and institutional recordkeeping.     

Cleaning data: guess the olympian

This article tackles the problem of what should be done with real textual data that are contaminated by errors of recording, particularly when the data contain words that are misspelt, unintentionally or otherwise.     

Development and exemplification of a model for Teacher Assessment in Primary Science

ABSTRACT

The Teacher Assessment in Primary Science project is funded by the Primary Science Teaching Trust and based at Bath Spa University. The study aims to develop a whole-school model of valid, reliable and manageable teacher assessment to inform practice and make a positive impact on primary-aged children’s learning in science. The model is based on a data-flow ‘pyramid’ (analogous to the flow of energy through an ecosystem), whereby the rich formative assessment evidence gathered in the classroom is summarised for monitoring, reporting and evaluation purposes [Nuffield Foundation. (2012). Developing policy, principles and practice in primary school science assessment. London: Nuffield Foundation]. Using a design-based research (DBR) methodology, the authors worked in collaboration with teachers from project schools and other expert groups to refine, elaborate, validate and operationalise the data-flow ‘pyramid’ model, resulting in the development of a whole-school self-evaluation tool. In this paper, we argue that a DBR approach to theory-building and school improvement drawing upon teacher expertise has led to the identification, adaptation and successful scaling up of a promising approach to school self-evaluation in relation to assessment in science.     

The Dudley Challenges: virtual balloon journeys and real learning

The Dudley Challenges were developed to celebrate the millennium and the first year of the Dudley Grid for Learning. Three Challenges, Challenge 2000 the original resource, Challenge Europa and Junior Trek, are based on virtual balloon journeys, visiting a series of interesting cultural centres. Access to each centre visited is by solving a series of difficult, cross‐curricula problems that deliver a range of higher order learning experiences. Creativity, imagination, initiative, perseverance as well a range of ICT skills are promoted, developed and celebrated as key elements of the challenge.

Die Dudley Herausforderungen: Virtuelle Ballonreisen und wirkliches Lernen

Die Dudley Herausforderungen wurden zur Milleniumsfeier und zum ersten Jahrestag des “Dudley Grid of Learning” entwickelt. Die drei Herausforderungen, Challenge 2000 die Original Ressource; Herausforderung Europa und Junior Treck beruhen auf einer virtuellen Ballonreise, in deren Verlauf eine Serie interessanter kultureller Zentren besucht werden. Der Zugang zu jedem besuchten Zentrum ist nur nach Lösen einer Reihe schwieriger Allgemeinbildungsfragen, die einen hohen Lernzuwachs liefern, möglich. Kreativität, Einbildungskraft, Initiative, Durchhaltevermögen ebenso wie Computerkompetenz werden gefördert, entwickelt und gefeiert als Schlüsselelemente der Herausforderung.

Les Challenges Dudley :les voyages virtuels en ballon et l’apprentissage réel

Les Challenges Dudley ont été crées pour célébrer le millénaire et la première année de la Grille d’Apprentissage Dudley.Trois de ces Challenges, le Challenge 2000 la resource –mère,le Challenge Europa et Junior Trek sont fondés sur des voyages en ballon virtuels qui permettent la visite de centres culturels pleins d’intérêt.Pour accéder à chaque centre et le visiter , il faut résoudre une série de problèmes difficiles, interdisciplinaires qui offrent une gamme d’aventures apprenantes de premier ordre. On stimule,on développe et on célèbre ainsi la créativité, l’imagination,l’initiative la persévérance ainsi qu’un éventail de compétences en TIC qui sont les éléments‐clés du Challenge.     

Post-Bullock

This paper reports on a small-scale study which examined children's knowledge of fiction and non-fiction genres on starting school and how this knowledge had changed after two terms in a reception class. It also considers how the teacher's reading of texts to the class may have influenced children's development.     

Making a difference: using action research to explore our educational practice

This paper describes and discusses an action research collaboration between a multi-disciplinary team of practice educators, a practice development nurse and a university lecturer in order to explore, evaluate and improve a dementia care training package developed for a range of staff providing care for people with dementia. Whilst it is recognised that the findings of this small evaluation study are only of local interest, we believe the approach we took to be of general use for other teams of practice educators as a way of exploring and evaluating their own practice. This paper will therefore focus mostly on the philosophy, methodology and conduct of the study, including our own reflections and learning as novice action researchers.