In-service Initial Teacher Education in the Learning and Skills Sector in England: Integrating Course and Workplace Learning

The aim of the paper is to advance understanding of in-service learning and skills sector trainee teachers’ learning and propose ways of improving their learning. A conceptual framework is developed by extending Billett’s (International Journal of Educational Research 47:232–240, 2008) conceptualisation of workplace learning, as a relationally interdependent process between the opportunities workplaces afford for activities and interactions and how individuals engage with these, to a third base of participation, the affordances of the initial teacher education course. Hager and Hodkinson’s (British Educational Research Journal 35:619–638, 2009) metaphor of ‘learning as becoming’ is used to conceptualise the ways trainees reconstruct learning in a continuous transactional process of boundary crossing between course and workplace. The findings of six longitudinal case studies of trainees’ development, and evidence from other studies, illustrate the complex interrelationships between LSS workplace affordances, course affordances and trainee characteristics and the ways in which trainees reconstruct learning in each setting. The experience of teaching and interacting with learners, interactions with colleagues, and access to workplace resources and training are important workplace affordances for learning. However, some trainees have limited access to these affordances. Teaching observations, course activities and experiences as a learner are significant course affordances. Trainees’ beliefs, prior experiences and dispositions vary and significantly influence their engagement with course and workplace affordances. It is proposed that better integration of course and workplace learning through guided participation in an intentional workplace curriculum and attention to the ways trainees choose to engage with this, together with the use of practical theorising has the potential to improve trainee learning.     

Dissensus,Street Art and School Change

This article draws upon Rancière’s concepts of the ‘distribution of the sensible’ and ‘dissensus’ in order to explore some of the tensions and processes at work in a multi‐year school change project that sought to transform a school through the ‘urban arts’. Building on student interest in extracurricular Hip‐Hop and street art programming, the school tried to integrate the urban arts across the curriculum through a partnership with local arts organisations and university researchers. While there were a number of project successes, the project also faced significant resistance, which in Rancière’s terms might be inevitable since the project tried to transform the dominant ways of doing and making in the school, displacing those who no longer saw themselves reflected. We understand the tensions in light of the disruptive power of street art and Hip‐Hop culture, but also as manifestations of antiblackness in education. Using data from a three‐year critical ethnography, we share a series of narrative vignettes which unpack the role of the visual arts in challenging the distribution of the sensible at the school, and offer insight into how teachers might have been better invited in as participants in dissensus.     

Engaging Primary Students in Learning about New Zealand Birds: A socially relevant context

This article reports on a classroom study of a unit on New Zealand birds that focused on adaptation and conservation in a Year 7 class. The unit used a ‘context as social circumstances’ model. The researchers observed the nine lessons and interviewed students, the classroom teacher, and three other teachers who had taught the same unit. The students completed a pre-test and a post-test for the unit. Findings indicate that the students enjoyed and were interested in the unit, and had learnt more than usual. The students investigated predators using the tracking tunnel in their school gully and, of their own volition, in their home gardens. Some students pursued this interest into the wider community after the completion of the unit. The ‘context as social circumstances’ unit teachers helped students see the relevance of learning science for their lives, personally and socially, which opens up the possibility of action outside the classroom. The role of context, content and activity selection in the design of a unit that has social relevance is discussed.     

Equality and Education: Fact and Fiction

This paper reports on a series of statistical analyses carried out on some of the National Curriculum tests in mathematics for 11-year-olds in England. In England all 7-, 11- and 14-year-olds are tested in English, mathematics and science (11- and 14-year-olds only). The tests for 11-year-olds are very high stakes, in that the results are published in a school-by-school basis in newspapers etc. The analyses were prompted by the suggestion (from governmental organisations) that the balance of the curriculum content in the mathematics tests should be changed to accommodate better the require ments of the government-initiated National Numeracy Strategy. The analyses were carried out on two datasets, involving nationally representative samples of 11-year-old pupils. The analyses reveal some interesting patterns of change in the overall outcomes when Handling Data questions were statistically replaced by Number items of various kinds and also some interesting changes at the individual level, which could potentially affect the Level outcomes of a significant number of children nationally. However, the final conclusion reached is that, given an appropriately sized and structured pool of items across the curriculum content areas, tests can be constructed which are of an appropriate level of difficulty and discrimination power and which still allow year-on-year calibration of the national standards in mathematics.     

Implicit aspects of paper and pencil mathematics assessment that come to light through the use of the computer

This article explores the effect on assessment of ‘translating’ paper and pencil test items into their computer equivalents. Computer versions of a set of mathematics questions derived from the paper-based end of key stage 2 and 3 assessments in England were administered to age appropriate pupil samples, and the outcomes compared. Although in most cases the change to the different medium seems to make little difference, for some items the affordances of the computer profoundly affect how the question is attempted, and therefore what is being assessed when the item is used in a test. These differences are considered in terms of validity and legitimacy, that is whether the means used to answer a question in a particular medium are appropriate to the assessment intention. The conclusion is not only that translating paper and pencil items into the computer format sometimes undermines their validity as assessments, it is also that some paper and pencil items are less valid as assessments than their computer equivalents would be.     

The integration of an anatomy massive open online course (MOOC) into a medical anatomy curriculum

Massive open online courses (MOOCs) are designed as stand‐alone courses which can be accessed by any learner around the globe with only an internet‐enabled electronic device required. Although much research has focused on the enrolment and demographics of MOOCs, their impact on undergraduate campus‐based students is still unclear. This article explores the impact of integrating an anatomy MOOC in to the anatomy curriculum of a year 1 medical degree program at the University of Leeds, United Kingdom. The course did not replace any teaching that was already being delivered, and was used to supplement this teaching to support the students' consolidation and revision. Analysis of student feedback indicates a high level of usage, with evidence to suggest that female learners may have approached the course in a more personalized manner. Although the video based resources and quizzes were greatly appreciated as learning tools, significant evidence suggests the students did not engage, or were inclined to engage, with the discussion fora. Furthermore, a significant majority of students did not want the MOOC to replace the existing teaching they received. Given the feedback provided, this research suggests that although the student population believe there to be value in having access to MOOC material, their role as replacements to campus‐based teaching is not supported. Details regarding the enrolment and engagement of the general public with the MOOC during the two runs are also documented, with the suggestion that graduates employed in the healthcare sector were the primary users of the course. Anat Sci Educ 10: 53–67. © 2016 American Association of Anatomists.     

Accountability through access,authenticity and advocacy when researching with young children

ABSTRACT

Research with children involving their use of digital and mobile technologies either as a methodological tool or in relation to their learning foregrounds emerging ethical issues and practices. This paper explores some of the ethical and practical challenges we faced in studies involving the recruitment of young children as research participants, and where the integrity of these research collaborations was critical. We propose an ethical framework to foreground these challenges that is shaped by a view of children as social actors and experts on their own lives, information and communication technologies as ubiquitous in children’s lives, and ethics as a situated and multifaceted responsibility. This framework has three aspects: access, authenticity and advocacy. We draw on examples from different research projects and use ethically important moments to illustrate how notions of access, authenticity and advocacy can foreground the ethical challenges in teaching–learning research contexts to better consider and offer children greater agency in research collaborations.     

Action cycles: rhythmic actions for engagement with children and young adults with profound mental handicap

ABSTRACT

Rhythmic groups of cyclical movements—action cycles—were identified during interactions between adults and children and young adults with profound mental handicap. The cycles were allocated to five categories according to rate, each action cycle clearly having its own communicative purpose. There was a striking regularity of rate within each performed set of action cycles, this being observed in the people with profound mental handicap as well as the adults, with the regularity more marked in the faster cycles. The people with profound mental handicap performed similar actions for apparently similar reasons at similar rates to their caregivers, giving strong indication of a biologically robust system of basic emotional communication which can quite literally be tapped into by caregivers. Comparisons of video records of interactions between mothers and their non‐handicapped babies (4‐8 weeks old) in Scotland and Nigeria yielding similar action cycles and rates to those seen in the interactions with people with profound mental handicap support this hypothesis.