From mainstream school to pupil referral unit: a change in teachers’ self-understanding

As teachers are at the heart of education, a substantial number of studies have researched the perception that mainstream school teachers have of themselves in relation to their work. This investigation extends this field of inquiry by examining how teachers’ self-understanding is altered when they transfer from mainstream to special school education. This study adopts the methodology of interpretive phenomenological analysis (IPA) to examine in detail how three female teachers in inner London experienced the transition from mainstream secondary schools to teaching in alternative provision for excluded students referred to as a pupil referral unit (PRU). Central to IPA is how an individual experiences a substantial change in life and the influence this may have on his or her world views. The research approach adopted is, therefore, idiographic and reliant on the experiences of a small number of participants. The findings from this investigation indicate that the participants chose to leave mainstream school education when they came to the self-realisation that they wanted to engage in more creative and personally engaging professional practice with a stronger moral purpose. When they started to teach at a PRU, the more persistent and personal relationships with their students brought about a substantial change in self-understanding.     

男幼师生面临的困境与解决对策

幼儿园缺乏男幼师已经是世界性问题．男幼师在校期间存在专业认同度不高,身处女生环境找不到归属感,心理焦虑严重,就业目标不明确等问题．要想建设一支“师德高尚、热爱儿童、业务精良、结构合理”的幼儿教师队伍,必须对男幼师生进行政策扶持,加强男幼师生的职业认同感,制订适合男幼师生的学校管理制度和具体课程,提高社会对男幼师的认识和薪金待遇．     

家庭环境因素与大学生职业决策困难的相关研究

目的:了解大学生职业决策困难与家庭环境因素的相关性,为大学生职业选择提供帮助。方法:采用家庭环境量表和职业决策困难量对158名学生进行集体测试。结果:家庭环境因素与大学生职业决策困难中缺乏准备、探索信息困难和冲突矛盾维度存在显著相关,并对大学生职业决策困难各维度有预测作用。结论:大学生职业决策困难处于中等水平,应从多方面加以提升和引导,减低职业决策困难。     

Making Plans for Michael: providing for a student with moderate learning difficulties in a secondary academy

The profile of a student with learning difficulties is described and also the learning context in 2017. Previous models of provision are then described in terms of their aetiology with discussion of strengths and shortcomings. Some influential features of curriculum planning and delivery are identified. A model of provision involving specific literacy teaching and differentiation is advocated.     

Difficulties and reasonable adjustments carried out by Spanish faculty members to include students with disabilities

This study focuses on the experience of 20 Spanish faculty members who teach students with disabilities. We conducted semi‐structured individual and group interviews, and analysed the data using an inductive system of categories and codes. The results of this work describe the difficulties that faculty members encountered when including students with disabilities, and how they attended, through reasonable adjustments, to the educational needs of their students. Their testimonies produced a profile of professionals who recognise their own shortcomings while valuing the actions that they have undertaken in order to meet the needs of their students. From their perspective, these actions were more closely linked to their own willingness and the students’ efforts than to the training they had received on disability. In this sense, the present study shows that universities must provide more meaningful training in the field of disability and make firm institutional commitments to supporting their faculty members.     

Improving the reading skills of young people with Duchenne muscular dystrophy in preparation for adulthood

Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD) is a progressive genetic condition that affects both muscle and brain. Children with DMD are at risk of psycho‐social difficulties such as poor academic achievement and behavioural and socio‐emotional problems. This article by Janet Hoskin and Angela Fawcett, both from the University of Swansea, describes how 34 participants with DMD took part in a 36‐week online literacy intervention which was delivered in partnership between home and school. The key objective was to improve reading skill. Participants were re‐tested at 36 weeks for single word and text level reading, comprehension, fluency, processing and timed single word reading. Pre and post results indicated that children who followed the intervention for 36 weeks made significant improvement in their single word reading (p = <0.0001), timed single word reading (p = <0.0001) and text level reading (p = <0.004). They also made significant improvement in their fluency and comprehension scores. The results showed that children with DMD and related literacy difficulties benefit from a regular, structured and systematic synthetic phonics programme. With young people with DMD increasingly living into adulthood, early literacy intervention is particularly important to ensure optimum career and training opportunities.     

Graduate teaching assistants: motives,difficulties and professional interactions and their relationship to perceived benefits

ABSTRACT

Graduate students play a major role in teaching in higher education, particularly in undergraduate programs. The purpose of the present study was two-fold: first, to identify graduate students’ motives for working as graduate teaching assistants (GTAs), describe some aspects of their work, and ascertain their perceived benefits; second, to predict GTAs’ benefits as a function of their individual background characteristics, motives, job difficulties, and richness of professional interactions with the course instructor. Data were collected from 189 GTAs who led discussion groups at a large research university in Israel by means of an internet questionnaire. Findings revealed that graduate students accepted the position of GTA mainly for extrinsic reasons, such as salary and convenience. They claimed to have faced few difficulties and that their professional interactions with the course instructors focused more on job responsibilities and less on pedagogical issues. They reported having gained a greater understanding of course content and improved teaching skills due to their experience as GTAs. Richness of contact with the course instructor, motives, difficulties, and faculty match significantly contributed to predicting perceived benefits. The implications of the results are discussed.     

The place of separate provision in a policy climate of inclusion

This paper presents an analysis of a survey of separate provision for pupils with social, emotional and behavioural difficulties (SEBD) in Scotland conducted in October 2002. First, the purpose of this study was to provide a map of separate provision for pupils with SEBD in Scotland. The findings raise concerns about a climate of uncertainty in separate provision linked to the context of the dominant inclusion agenda. Second, the type of curriculum on offer and perceived advantages and disadvantages of different approaches were investigated. Once again the findings point to the impact of the inclusion agenda on schools in this sector and what they feel able to offer. This paper argues that the findings can be interpreted, at least in part, as a consequence of a defensive stance adopted by separate schools in response to the current ideological climate.     

Influence of the difficulty of the Matching Familiar Figures Test-20 on the assessment of reflection–impulsivity: An item analysis

This study is an item analysis of the Matching Familiar Figures Test-20. We examined error scores in the Matching Familiar Figures Test-20 to determine the influence of the difficulty of the test on the assessment of reflection–impulsivity. The sample included 700 participants aged between 6 and 12 years. The results obtained from the corrected item–total correlation showed moderate but significant values for the discrimination index in all age groups, although the lowest values were found in the 6-year-old group. The item difficulty data show that the test is quite difficult for 6-year-old participants and quite easy for 12-year-old participants, and more likely to show individual differences between these ages. The results suggest that the difficulty of the MFFT20 is appropriate for children between 6 and 12 years. However, because of some floor and ceiling effects, the results of this test for ages 6 and 12 should be interpreted very cautiously, especially for the 6-year-old group.     

高职高专英语分层教学探究

针对高职高专学生入学时英语水平差异较大,传统教学不能满足学生“吃不饱”或“吃不了”的实际,探讨了高职高专大学英语教学中采用分层教学的模式,并在理论和实践上论证了这一教学模式的可行性与必要性。