Uniting Adolescent Support Systems for Safe Learning Environments

Counterintuitively, the more one develops as a leader, the less of a leader one becomes. What do great leaders do? Great leaders are ambitious first and foremost for the cause, the mission, the work—not themselves. Educators as “serving leaders” sense that every action they take, together with every decision that they make, either supports or undermines students and colleagues’ perceived levels of status, certainty, autonomy, relatedness, and fairness.     

Teaching English grammar in initial teacher training: a course evaluation

The article evaluates a course in English grammar taught to a group of secondary PGCE students specializing in English with Drama. The course concentrated on parts of speech, morphology and syntax but also included sessions on 'applied' grammar. The students' knowledge and understanding were assessed in an initial audit at the beginning of the course and in a test at the end to try to establish how much they had learned. Students' opinions of the course were also elicited. Results were mixed. Although all students improved their knowledge (some dramatically so), and expressed satisfaction with the course, approximately one-third failed to reach the required standard. The implications of this for course planning are discussed.     

Forms of innovation inspired by open educational resources: a post-project analysis

It has been argued that Open Educational Resources (OER) present opportunities for innovation in education. However, there has been a lack of retrospective analysis of the forms of innovation that can emerge through OER, and the processes and challenges these entail. This paper presents a post-project analysis of the diverse uses and impacts of open courses produced through an international OER initiative. A thematic analysis of retrospective interviews and documentation from this case study is reported on, guided by a review of relevant concepts from innovation and OER literature. Through this we identify three archetypal forms through which the OER created opportunities for innovation: Specific Adoption; Preferred Practise and Foundations for Innovation. We identify drivers and inhibitors through which these forms of innovation interacted with each other in this initiative. This elaborates on the notion that a single existing model does not capture the multi-faceted relationships between innovation and OER.