Using the Research and Development in Organisations model to improve transition to high school

This article describes the application of the Research and Development in Organisations (RADIO) model to five action research projects carried out in schools around transition processes. The RADIO model is mapped onto all five studies, and adapting the model in order to include greater stakeholder participation is suggested. Reflections are made on the focus group methodology used in these schools within the RADIO model. An evaluation of the factors influencing the effectiveness of these five studies in bringing about positive change suggests that the preparation and context for carrying out action research using the RADIO model are key.     

Using scaffolded rubrics to improve peer assessment in a MOOC writing course

This study explored the value of using a guided rubric to enable students participating in a massive open online course in writing to produce more reliable assessments of their fellow students’ writing. To test the assumption that training students to assess will improve their ability to provide quality feedback, a multivariate factorial analysis was used to determine differences in assessments made by students who received guidance on using a rating rubric and those who did not. Although results were mixed, on average students who were provided no guidance in scoring writing samples were less likely to successfully differentiate between novice, intermediate, and advanced writing samples than students who received rubric guidance. Rubric guidance was most beneficial for items that were subjective, technically complex, and likely to be unfamiliar to the student. Items addressing relatively simple and objective constructs were less likely to be improved by rubric guidance.     

Creative work careers: pathways and portfolios for the creative economy

This article examines the career opportunities, challenges and trajectories of creative work. As part of the Creative Trident approach to creative workforce measurements, the embedded mode draws attention to creative work as it is undertaken outside of the creative industries. This article further considers and conceptualises the complex careers pathways of creative workers. Firstly, creative workers in non-creative occupations in other industries are discussed to highlight the challenges and barriers to securing creative employment and the balance creative workers establish with other forms of employment. Secondly, students from creative courses going into non-creative occupations in other industries is discussed to highlight challenges students face in making the transition from higher education to creative employment in terms of workforce expectations and the competition amongst graduates. This article critically evaluates assumptions about transitions from education into creative work employment and associated career trajectories.     

Rube Goldberg salad system: Teaching systems theory in communication

Courses: Undergraduate Organizational Communication, Communication Theory, and Small Group Communication courses.

Objectives: This single-class activity aims to engage students actively in explaining and applying systems components, processes, and properties.     

What is Valuable and Unique about the Educational Psychologist?

This paper describes a small‐scale piece of research identifying which aspects of the EP role are considered valuable by SENCos and by EPs themselves. In addition, both groups were asked to identify whether they felt these aspects were uniquely offered by EPs or whether other professionals offered similar or identical services. The differences between responses from SENCos and from EPs were marked, with SENCos valuing ‘traditional’ EP roles while EPs themselves saw a much wider range of services as valuable to schools. Implications for the EP team in addressing these conflicting perspectives are discussed.     

Producing and choosing chemistry texts: There are better ways

Conclusion The analyses reported in this study provide detailed insights into three senior secondary Chemistry texts. They reveal significant weaknesses in all three texts. Science departments in schools are encouraged to perform such analyses before choosing texts. More importantly, publishers and authors should incorporate such analyses into the development and trialling of their texts.     

Creative Contexts: work placement subjectivities for the creative industries

This article examines reflections on work placement experiences generated for the Creative Contexts website by higher education students. The article outlines the aims of Creative Contexts to generate and share placement experiences and stories. The article analyses the reflections films available on the website, and reveals a continuum of agency in which students’ contributions generally foreground the individual at the expense of the structural. The analysis reveals that whilst Creative Contexts can help foreground the subjective dimensions of employability, the students’ focus on individual dispositions and attributes does little to question industry and placement norms and structural challenges.     

Guess Who's Coming to Dinner? Resetting the Table of Modernist Art

Racism has often been expressed in the form of physical violations of human rights, soul destroying emotional taunts and deliberate policies of social exclusion. Many educators who oppose such an approach would be horrified to find racist origins embedded in the aesthetic discourses which they have taken up as their own. In this paper I trace racist imagery and ideology in my own childhood, early schooling and adult art learning, and connect this with the persistent silencing of the black ‘other’ in the story of modernist art. As an educator of future art teachers the deconstruction of racist discourses is as essential as it is for pre‐service students in their own emergent art pedagogy.     

Implementation and Outcomes of Supplemental Educational Services: The Tennessee State-Wide Evaluation Study

Supplemental Educational Services (SES), a component of the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act, provides free tutoring to economically disadvantaged children who are attending Title I schools in their 2nd or more years of school improvement. This research evaluated SES in Tennessee to determine the: (a) impacts on student achievement, and (b) perceptions of SES implementation and outcomes by teachers, district coordinators, principals/site coordinators, and parents. Using value-added methodology, statistical analyses of achievement data controlled for both student ability and teacher effects in 2 alternative models. Not surprisingly, parent reactions to SES were highly positive, whereas those by the 3 other stakeholder groups were more mixed. Achievement results from both analytical models yielded mostly small and nonsignificant provider effects. The implications of the findings for evaluating SES are discussed with regard to both research and policy issues. Recommendations are offered for broadening the evaluation of SES through smaller mixed-methods studies to examine implementation and educational outcomes in more highly controlled contexts.