Managing managerialism in church school leadership: a practitioner inquiry in the theology of education

This paper is written from the perspective of an Anglican head teacher in the context of UK public educational policy in which managerialism is construed as the prevalent orthodoxy of reform. It seeks to bring the discipline of theology and the field of school leadership studies into closer dialogue around the theme of managerialism in a way that will benefit academic scholarship and practitioner researchers. Firstly, it explores The Way Ahead report as an impetus to critical theological reflection about Christian vocation and the distinctive role of church school head teachers. Secondly, it indicates how the site of managed reality is important for theology and how the theology of education might be pursued in defence of education. Against claims that doing theology tends to domesticate education, it is argued that theology can help provide an important countercultural perspective intended for the good of education. Thirdly, it outlines the background of public educational policy which makes countercultural theology an appropriate response in the service of a faith‐inspired professionalism. Fourthly, it suggests how a countercultural model of contextual theology can collaborate with important forms of research in the field of educational leadership, management and administration.     

The Discursive (Re)construction of Journalism’s Gatekeeping Role

Through the lens of discursive institutionalism, and drawing on an extensive corpus of metajournalistic discourse dating from 2000 to 2017, this study considers how journalists have defined and (re)constructed their gatekeeping role against the backdrop of seismic changes confronting their field. In so doing, it considers the legitimizing or delegitimizing discourses journalistic actors use when addressing journalism’s gatekeeping role.     

Two comparative studies of computer simulations and experiments as learning tools in school and out-of-school education

Instructional Science - Interactive computer simulations and hands-on experiments are important teaching methods in modern science education. Especially for the communication of complex current...     

Elementary Teachers' Perceptions of a Reformed Teacher-Evaluation System

This qualitative case study focused on 13 elementary teachers' perceptions of their evaluations. Using multiple schools (5) and teachers (13) we explored the impact of evaluations on instruction. Informed by Pekrun's control-value theory, our analysis focused on teachers' motivations and emotions. Teachers did not value or feel in control of their Value-Added Model (VAM) scores and still needed information regarding VAM. This led to feelings of hopelessness regarding future VAM scores. Teachers reported making mandated changes by the district or to help students' demonstrate learning on state exams. Teachers with mandated changes felt frustration, while teachers making their own changes felt hopeful for high student test scores. The presence of administrators also influenced changes in instruction during observations. Teachers shared feeling hopeful of observation scores, but were annoyed by the observation system. Our findings support the notion that teachers are not making meaningful changes based on VAM.     

Technologically mediated complex problem‐solving on a statistics task

Simulations on computers can allow many experiments to be conducted quickly to help students develop an understanding of statistical topics. We used a simulation of a challenging problem in statistics as the focus of an exploration of situations where members of a problem‐solving group are physically separated then reconnected via combinations of computer and communications technology to work collaboratively on the simulation. The particular focus in this work was on trying to understand how students could use a system which allowed them to conduct variable based practical experiments in order to help them develop their knowledge and understanding of a statistics topic. We wished to develop an understanding of the virtual space created by shared simulations and video communication tools for supporting collaborative work between people at a distance. The paper reports on an experiment involving 48 subjects using this virtual space to establish the impact on their statistics understanding and to map their use of this distributed environment for learning. It establishes that the virtual space is effective for learning, and that the video conferencing condition which allows for eye contact between the pairs has some advantages for successful problem‐solving with the simulation. In addition the experimental setting provided some opportunities for exploring subjects' understanding of statistical and experimental concepts.     

Game Building with Complex-Valued Functions

Abstract

In this paper, we describe how we integrated complex analysis into the second semester of a geometry course designed for preservice secondary mathematics teachers. As part of this inquiry-based course, the preservice teachers incorporated their geometric understanding of the arithmetic of complex numbers and complex-valued functions to create a game using Geometer’s Sketchpad. We detail a game created by a pair of preservice teachers that exemplifies their creativity and knowledge of complex-valued functions. Given inquiry-based courses have inherent challenges we also present projects that were not as exemplary.     

Stabilizing Conditional Standard Errors of Measurement in Scale Score Transformations

The focus of this article is on scale score transformations that can be used to stabilize conditional standard errors of measurement (CSEMs). Three transformations for stabilizing the estimated CSEMs are reviewed, including the traditional arcsine transformation, a recently developed general variance stabilization transformation, and a new method proposed in this article involving cubic transformations. Two examples are provided and the three scale score transformations are compared in terms of how well they stabilize CSEMs estimated from compound binomial and item response theory (IRT) models. Advantages of the cubic transformation are demonstrated with respect to CSEM stabilization and other scaling criteria (e.g., scale score distributions that are more symmetric).