Research on Staff Bullying in Australian Schools has recently been released in a report "Investigation of Staff Bullying in Australian Schools" by Dan Riley, Deirdre J. Duncan and John Edwards. It is the result of national survey which gathered responses from primary and secondary schools in both the Government and non-Government sectors.
The report covers:
Who are the bullys
Who are the targets
What forms of bullying of staff occur
The effect of bullying on the individual
This book is available for borrowing from TLRU or you can purchase a copy for your school from the Co-op bookshop for $19.95.
An executive summary is available for viewing online via University of New England Schoolbullies website.
Thursday, September 17, 2009
Thursday, September 3, 2009
Learning stories / Narrative assessment
Learning stories
This document by Professor Susan Hill, Associate Professor in Early Childhood Education, University of South Australia describes the use of learning stories in capturing the context of the learning environment that appears to be enabling or constraining learning.
Learning and Teaching Stories: New Approaches to Assessment and Evaluation
Podmore V. & Carr M. 1999. Paper presented at the AARENZARE Conferenceon Research in Educaion, Melbourne, December.
This document outlines the research in New Zealand on using Learning stories for assessment and evaluation and details the frameworks and procedures used.
An ABCD of Developing Curious Minds
2007 Conference on Thinking: Curious Minds Think and Learn by Exploring the Unknown
Norrköping, Sweden
Margaret Carr (University of Waikato, New Zealand)
Wendy Lee (Educational Leadership Project & University of Waikato
In this short paper Margaret and Wendy discuss their interest in the ways in which teachers notice, recognise, respond to, record and re-visit episodes of learning, including curiosity in action. In particular, they look at how early years teachers in New Zealand are writing ‘Learning Stories’ as formative assessments to encourage an orientation towards exploration, curiosity, and resilience in the face of failure.
http://education.ed.pacificu.edu/bailey/resources/papers/Lstories/whatare.html
Mark Bailey, 2004
This paper focuses on the use of Digital Learning Stories (DLS) as an approach for constructing and presenting understanding . Student-documented DLS tend to be more effective with children who are a bit older and therefore more capable of documenting their learning, and reflecting on the process and contents.
Learning Story template
The Learning Story template is intended to allow LEOTC providers and schools to create their own Learning Stories. The template has been developed on the basis of best evidence of learning research in LEOTC environments both nationally and internationally. It has been widely circulated for comments and feedback, and formatted with the teachers and students (the end users), meaningfully taken into account.
Examples of learning stories
These Learning Stories have been produced using the Learning Story template in full or by adapting the template and creating short films. The venues were chosen to show best practice, and a range of curriculum learning areas and student age groups. The 'teacher’s voice' is from the teacher responsible for the visit. This may not always be the person who arranged the LEOTC visit but will be the teacher responsible for the management of the visit on the day.
Using children’s learning stories to assess their mathematics learning in preschools and schools
Elspeth Harley Bob Perry Nicole Hentschke, AARE.
This paper reports work done with preschool educators ,tracing how powerful ideas in mathematics were identified in current preschool practice, how they were linked to the Developmental Learning Outcomes in the mandatory curriculum documents and how the technique of learning stories (narrative assessment) was established as a valid assessment regime compatible with key principles of preschool education.
Learning Stories and Children's Powerful Mathematics
The professional development focus on children’s powerful mathematical ideas, combined with action research that encouraged educators to identify these ideas within children’s experiences and to document these through learning stories, form the basis of this paper.
The stories we share: Using narrative assessment to build communities of literacy participants in early childhood centres
Ann Hatherly
AJEC, Vol. 31 No. 1, March 2006, pp. 27-34.
This article draws on data collected as part of the development of Kei Tua o te Pae, Assessment for Learning: Early Childhood Exemplars (Ministry of Education, 2004), a New Zealand resource designed to engage teachers in reflection about assessment practices within the framework of Te Whāriki. It tells the story—the author’s story—of the ways in which documented assessment, using techniques more associated with storytelling than with observation, invites participation of children, families and teachers and thereby becomes the means through which a community of literacy-learners and participants is developed. It is argued that, given the increasing pressure on centres to provide for literacy, documented assessments offer many possibilities for not just describing but also constructing literacy learning in meaningful contexts.
Connected learning stories: mathematics
http://www.cli.nsw.edu.au/cli/e-learning/Stories/stories_maths.shtm
Provides example stories of successful classroom practice the Mathematics KLA illustrate a range of approaches and strategies for incorporating information and communication technologies (ICT) into teaching and learning.
Using children’s learning stories to assess their mathematics learning in preschools and schools
Elspeth Harley Bob Perry Nicole Hentschke, AARE
This paper reports work done with preschool educators as part of the Southern Numeracy Initiativ. It traces how ‘powerful ideas’ in mathematics were identified in current preschool practice, how they were linked to the Developmental Learning Outcomes in the mandatory curriculum documents and how the technique of learning stories (narrative assessment) was established as a valid assessment regime compatible with key principles of preschool education.
Narratives for learning: Sharing giftedness through learning stories
Valerie Margrain, Massey University
Paper presentation to Reaching Forward: National Conference on Gifted Education, Rotorua, March 13-15, 2009.
Learning stories, as a narrative assessment method, provide rich opportunities for documenting and sharing examples of giftedness in social contexts. The documentation method is one that it accessible to teachers, parents and students, and able to capture broad multicategorical aspects of giftedness, including creative, cultural and leadership domain, and dispositions for learning. Examples of two learning stories of 4-year old precocious readers are included in this paper to illustrate assessment for learning and to make learning visible.
Narrative Assessment: identity and equity for disabled students
Geoff Moore, Sue Molloy, Missy Morton, Keryn Davis
University of Canterbury, UC Education Plus, College of Education, New Zealand.
Assessment that is student-referenced and related to the learner’s dispositions, (competencies) is a hopeful way forward for these students. This project is highlighting how the use of narratives (Learning Stories), enables teachers to capture rich descriptions of learning in relation to The New Zealand Curriculum key competencies and learning areas, in the context of culturally responsive pedagogy (Bishop & Glynn, 1999). Learning Stories not only look back, but they are constructive and forward looking through providing teachers and learners a process of seeking and interpreting evidence to open up possible learning pathways. They are also enabling teachers to view the students as mindful and competent in learning contexts; able to access learning in and through The New Zealand Curriculum.
Curriculum accountability in the early years
From August 2005–July 2006, sixteen preschools engaged in a practitioner research project to critically examine and investigate the interweaving of learning and pedagogical objectives, and to document children’s learning and development against the DLOs, using narrative assessment called ‘Learning stories’. As part of the project, a draft matrix underpinned by a social pedagogical approach, was developed for piloting. The matrix has a focus on educational effort and commitment, shifting from expectations in terms of output to expectations in terms of inputs for each child.
Exploring narrative assessment to promote empowerment of educators and parents of children with special educational needs
The use of narrative assessment by early intervention teams is explored in two case studies in New Zealand where early intervention provisions are guided by an inclusive special education policy. Team members, including parents and teachers, received professional development on the use of learning story assessment, and shared their learning stories at planning meetings. The project highlighted the empowerment of parents and educators through the use of learning stories for assessment and planning. Challenges to the adoption of narrative methodologies in inclusive early intervention contexts are identified.
Selected Books
Developing early literacy: assessment and teaching
Susan Hill 2006
Held CEO 428.0071 HIL
Patterns of narrative discourse: Multicultural life span approach
Alyson McCabe
Held CEO 401.41 MCC
From observation to reflection: A practitioners guide to programme planning and documentation
Joy Lubawy, 2008.
This book provides practical examples at how to observe learning, how to document this in a learning story framework and then connecting your reflections and understandings with the curriculum and your program. Joy’s work in this book has drawn inspiration from the New Zealand Early Childhood Curriculum document Te Whariki, the theories og Multiple Intelligence by Howard Gardner and the work of Reggio Emilia.
Held CEO
Assessment in early childhood settings.: learning stories
Margaret Carr 2003
Programming and Planning in Early Childhood Settings (4th Edition), Thomson Learning
Arthur L (2008)
Held CEO
This document by Professor Susan Hill, Associate Professor in Early Childhood Education, University of South Australia describes the use of learning stories in capturing the context of the learning environment that appears to be enabling or constraining learning.
Learning and Teaching Stories: New Approaches to Assessment and Evaluation
Podmore V. & Carr M. 1999. Paper presented at the AARENZARE Conferenceon Research in Educaion, Melbourne, December.
This document outlines the research in New Zealand on using Learning stories for assessment and evaluation and details the frameworks and procedures used.
An ABCD of Developing Curious Minds
2007 Conference on Thinking: Curious Minds Think and Learn by Exploring the Unknown
Norrköping, Sweden
Margaret Carr (University of Waikato, New Zealand)
Wendy Lee (Educational Leadership Project & University of Waikato
In this short paper Margaret and Wendy discuss their interest in the ways in which teachers notice, recognise, respond to, record and re-visit episodes of learning, including curiosity in action. In particular, they look at how early years teachers in New Zealand are writing ‘Learning Stories’ as formative assessments to encourage an orientation towards exploration, curiosity, and resilience in the face of failure.
http://education.ed.pacificu.edu/bailey/resources/papers/Lstories/whatare.html
Mark Bailey, 2004
This paper focuses on the use of Digital Learning Stories (DLS) as an approach for constructing and presenting understanding . Student-documented DLS tend to be more effective with children who are a bit older and therefore more capable of documenting their learning, and reflecting on the process and contents.
Learning Story template
The Learning Story template is intended to allow LEOTC providers and schools to create their own Learning Stories. The template has been developed on the basis of best evidence of learning research in LEOTC environments both nationally and internationally. It has been widely circulated for comments and feedback, and formatted with the teachers and students (the end users), meaningfully taken into account.
Examples of learning stories
These Learning Stories have been produced using the Learning Story template in full or by adapting the template and creating short films. The venues were chosen to show best practice, and a range of curriculum learning areas and student age groups. The 'teacher’s voice' is from the teacher responsible for the visit. This may not always be the person who arranged the LEOTC visit but will be the teacher responsible for the management of the visit on the day.
Using children’s learning stories to assess their mathematics learning in preschools and schools
Elspeth Harley Bob Perry Nicole Hentschke, AARE.
This paper reports work done with preschool educators ,tracing how powerful ideas in mathematics were identified in current preschool practice, how they were linked to the Developmental Learning Outcomes in the mandatory curriculum documents and how the technique of learning stories (narrative assessment) was established as a valid assessment regime compatible with key principles of preschool education.
Learning Stories and Children's Powerful Mathematics
The professional development focus on children’s powerful mathematical ideas, combined with action research that encouraged educators to identify these ideas within children’s experiences and to document these through learning stories, form the basis of this paper.
The stories we share: Using narrative assessment to build communities of literacy participants in early childhood centres
Ann Hatherly
AJEC, Vol. 31 No. 1, March 2006, pp. 27-34.
This article draws on data collected as part of the development of Kei Tua o te Pae, Assessment for Learning: Early Childhood Exemplars (Ministry of Education, 2004), a New Zealand resource designed to engage teachers in reflection about assessment practices within the framework of Te Whāriki. It tells the story—the author’s story—of the ways in which documented assessment, using techniques more associated with storytelling than with observation, invites participation of children, families and teachers and thereby becomes the means through which a community of literacy-learners and participants is developed. It is argued that, given the increasing pressure on centres to provide for literacy, documented assessments offer many possibilities for not just describing but also constructing literacy learning in meaningful contexts.
Connected learning stories: mathematics
http://www.cli.nsw.edu.au/cli/e-learning/Stories/stories_maths.shtm
Provides example stories of successful classroom practice the Mathematics KLA illustrate a range of approaches and strategies for incorporating information and communication technologies (ICT) into teaching and learning.
Using children’s learning stories to assess their mathematics learning in preschools and schools
Elspeth Harley Bob Perry Nicole Hentschke, AARE
This paper reports work done with preschool educators as part of the Southern Numeracy Initiativ. It traces how ‘powerful ideas’ in mathematics were identified in current preschool practice, how they were linked to the Developmental Learning Outcomes in the mandatory curriculum documents and how the technique of learning stories (narrative assessment) was established as a valid assessment regime compatible with key principles of preschool education.
Narratives for learning: Sharing giftedness through learning stories
Valerie Margrain, Massey University
Paper presentation to Reaching Forward: National Conference on Gifted Education, Rotorua, March 13-15, 2009.
Learning stories, as a narrative assessment method, provide rich opportunities for documenting and sharing examples of giftedness in social contexts. The documentation method is one that it accessible to teachers, parents and students, and able to capture broad multicategorical aspects of giftedness, including creative, cultural and leadership domain, and dispositions for learning. Examples of two learning stories of 4-year old precocious readers are included in this paper to illustrate assessment for learning and to make learning visible.
Narrative Assessment: identity and equity for disabled students
Geoff Moore, Sue Molloy, Missy Morton, Keryn Davis
University of Canterbury, UC Education Plus, College of Education, New Zealand.
Assessment that is student-referenced and related to the learner’s dispositions, (competencies) is a hopeful way forward for these students. This project is highlighting how the use of narratives (Learning Stories), enables teachers to capture rich descriptions of learning in relation to The New Zealand Curriculum key competencies and learning areas, in the context of culturally responsive pedagogy (Bishop & Glynn, 1999). Learning Stories not only look back, but they are constructive and forward looking through providing teachers and learners a process of seeking and interpreting evidence to open up possible learning pathways. They are also enabling teachers to view the students as mindful and competent in learning contexts; able to access learning in and through The New Zealand Curriculum.
Curriculum accountability in the early years
From August 2005–July 2006, sixteen preschools engaged in a practitioner research project to critically examine and investigate the interweaving of learning and pedagogical objectives, and to document children’s learning and development against the DLOs, using narrative assessment called ‘Learning stories’. As part of the project, a draft matrix underpinned by a social pedagogical approach, was developed for piloting. The matrix has a focus on educational effort and commitment, shifting from expectations in terms of output to expectations in terms of inputs for each child.
Exploring narrative assessment to promote empowerment of educators and parents of children with special educational needs
The use of narrative assessment by early intervention teams is explored in two case studies in New Zealand where early intervention provisions are guided by an inclusive special education policy. Team members, including parents and teachers, received professional development on the use of learning story assessment, and shared their learning stories at planning meetings. The project highlighted the empowerment of parents and educators through the use of learning stories for assessment and planning. Challenges to the adoption of narrative methodologies in inclusive early intervention contexts are identified.
Selected Books
Developing early literacy: assessment and teaching
Susan Hill 2006
Held CEO 428.0071 HIL
Patterns of narrative discourse: Multicultural life span approach
Alyson McCabe
Held CEO 401.41 MCC
From observation to reflection: A practitioners guide to programme planning and documentation
Joy Lubawy, 2008.
This book provides practical examples at how to observe learning, how to document this in a learning story framework and then connecting your reflections and understandings with the curriculum and your program. Joy’s work in this book has drawn inspiration from the New Zealand Early Childhood Curriculum document Te Whariki, the theories og Multiple Intelligence by Howard Gardner and the work of Reggio Emilia.
Held CEO
Assessment in early childhood settings.: learning stories
Margaret Carr 2003
Programming and Planning in Early Childhood Settings (4th Edition), Thomson Learning
Arthur L (2008)
Held CEO
Thursday, August 13, 2009
Education reform via Charter schools?
We must consider radical ideas in education reform
Jennifer Buckingham a research fellow at The Centre for Independent Studies discusses the need for reform to improve education for our most disadvantaged children.
Indigenous children who live in very remote Queensland have failure rates of 58 per cent. A further 28 per cent just meet the minimum benchmark in reading. That's a rate eight times higher than the national average.
One idea is Charter schools.
Read more here
The Charter Connection from The Centre for Education Reform provides more details on Charter schools in the US.
Charter schools are...
* innovative public schools
* designed by educators, parents or civic leaders
* open and attended by choice
* free from most rules and regulations governing conventional public schools
* and accountable for results.
Jennifer Buckingham a research fellow at The Centre for Independent Studies discusses the need for reform to improve education for our most disadvantaged children.
Indigenous children who live in very remote Queensland have failure rates of 58 per cent. A further 28 per cent just meet the minimum benchmark in reading. That's a rate eight times higher than the national average.
One idea is Charter schools.
Read more here
The Charter Connection from The Centre for Education Reform provides more details on Charter schools in the US.
Charter schools are...
* innovative public schools
* designed by educators, parents or civic leaders
* open and attended by choice
* free from most rules and regulations governing conventional public schools
* and accountable for results.
Wednesday, August 12, 2009
Imagining the future of the school library
Imagining the future of the School Library
Without a doubt, the school library remains one of them most symbolic, protected, and expensive ’spaces’ on any campus. But will future designers of school libraries be recreating sacred book spaces of the past or will technology and the ‘consumer’ inspire new design strategies for the future?
With this in mind, DesignShare spoke with 2 passionate library experts — Doug Johnson and Rolf Erikson — to gain better insight into serving the information needs of students, schools, and communities via the future of school library planning and design. Doug is the author of The Indispensable Librarian: Surviving (And Thriving) in School Media Centers and the Blue Skunk Blog; Rolf is the lead author of Designing A School Library Media Center for the Future.
Welcome to the Library say goodbye to the books
The article is about Cushing Academy's move from a traditional library to a learning centre.
Instead of a traditional library with 20,000 books, we’re building a virtual library where students will have access to millions of books,’’ said Tracy, whose office shelves remain lined with books. “We see this as a model for the 21st-century school.
As part of this plan administrators plan to distribute the electronic book readers, which they’re stocking with digital material, to students looking to spend more time with literature.
Without a doubt, the school library remains one of them most symbolic, protected, and expensive ’spaces’ on any campus. But will future designers of school libraries be recreating sacred book spaces of the past or will technology and the ‘consumer’ inspire new design strategies for the future?
With this in mind, DesignShare spoke with 2 passionate library experts — Doug Johnson and Rolf Erikson — to gain better insight into serving the information needs of students, schools, and communities via the future of school library planning and design. Doug is the author of The Indispensable Librarian: Surviving (And Thriving) in School Media Centers and the Blue Skunk Blog; Rolf is the lead author of Designing A School Library Media Center for the Future.
Welcome to the Library say goodbye to the books
The article is about Cushing Academy's move from a traditional library to a learning centre.
Instead of a traditional library with 20,000 books, we’re building a virtual library where students will have access to millions of books,’’ said Tracy, whose office shelves remain lined with books. “We see this as a model for the 21st-century school.
As part of this plan administrators plan to distribute the electronic book readers, which they’re stocking with digital material, to students looking to spend more time with literature.
Alternative new teacher training/education models
The Underpinning Knowledge Bases of an Alternative Teacher Education Model
From 1999 the Faculty of Education at the University of Wollongong has run an alternative model of teacher education known as the Knowledge Building Community (KBC) Project. This program has been acclaimed nationally. What makes this program so unique is its design that abandons the traditional model of teacher education that consists of lectures and tutorials; instead this alternative model of teacher education is based on several underpinning pillars of professional knowledge. The KBC program has been described as a “negotiated evaluation of a non-negotiable curriculum based on a constructivist model of learning and knowledge building”. However, the basic aim of this program is to deal with the perennial problem of contextualising students’ professional learning, by linking abstract theory as closely as possible to the contexts and settings to which it is applied, i.e. the primary school classroom.
The role of teacher training schools in the basic education of Finnish teachers.
Discusses the role of teacher training schools (TTSs) in the basic education of Finnish teachers. Advantages of TTSs for practical training; Problems of TTSs; Future of Finnish TTSs.
http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=tfh&AN=9511031132&site=ehost-live
Employment based teacher training
Employment-based teacher training (EBTT) comprises training programmes that allow trainees to work in a school and follow an individual training programme leading to qualified teacher status (QTS). The school pays the trainee as an unqualified teacher.
Apprentice teacher scheme attacked
Teenagers with just a handful of GCSE passes are to be recruited to secondary schools to work as teaching assistants. The Schools Secretary, Ed Balls, wants to recruit more than 4,000 apprentices to work full-time in schools. They would work as teaching assistants with youngsters up to the age of 14. If they liked the job, they would be able to train as teachers.
Teacher training scheme praised
Inspectors have heaped praise on a training scheme which is helping to produce some of the best young teachers in Leicestershire. The project, started by a group of primary schools, has trained 100 new recruits to teaching, and many of them have already gone on to successfully teach thousands of children in the city and rest of the county.
Normally people who have finished a degree and want to become a teacher go on to a postgraduate course in education at a university.
But graduates of Leicester's Scitt (School-Centred Initial Teacher Training) spend much of their time in the classroom, and it is this that has so impressed Ofsted.
Apprenticeship for Teaching: Professional Development Issues Surrounding the Collaborative Relationship Between Teachers and Paraeducators
The collaborative apprenticeship model: Situated professional development within school settings
Professional learning is a social enterprise where peers rely on the expertise and support of one another to adopt innovative practices. Reciprocal interactions in a community of practice, where teachers take responsibility for each other’s learning and development, may provide an effective means of supporting situated professional learning. We propose a collaborative apprenticeship model featuring reciprocal interactions as an approach to promote professional development, encouraging peer-teachers to serve as modelers and coaches of strategies and ideas aimed at improving instruction. collaborative apprenticeship is designed to help teachers learn and implement new teaching skills and strategies through four development phases, beginning with implementation of best practices from a mentor to the development of their own. Teachers, in turn, contribute new ideas to their teaching environment and become future mentors in order to sustain skills and strategies across a community of teachers. In addition to the model, we discuss various influences related to affect, beliefs, environment, culture, cognition, and personality that characterize the nature of reciprocal interactions in order to stimulate collaborative apprenticeship.
Webbased Cognitive Apprenticeship Model for Improving Preservice teachers performances and attitudes towards instructional planning
Through web-based conferencing, the expert teacher leads pre-service teachers to observe his/her cognitive modeling displayed by web-based multimedia and guides them to
constructing initial conceptual models of how to write and implement an instructional plan. During this procedure, web-based multimedia is used to demonstrate the cognitive modeling of an expert teacher in a real
classroom context by simultaneously presenting the instructional plan and the video case for the expert teacher’s articulation of why and how to write the instructional plan, or the instructional plan and the video case about teaching demos based on the instructional plan. Moreover, through issues posed in discussion forums, expert teachers guide pre-service teachers to focus on key points of cognitive modeling displayed by web-based multimedia and to share ideas with others. Finally, by interacting with expert teachers and peers in the internet chat room, pre-service teachers construct their own personal conceptual models through sharing, debating, modifying, and discussing.
Does School-Based Initial Teacher Training Affect Secondary School Performance?
(Citation only but its findings interesting from abstract)
This article investigates the effects of trainee teachers on secondary school student outcomes. The additional resources which schools receive from being involved in teacher training offer them an opportunity to raise standards, but this has to be set against the possible losses due to school students being taught by inexperienced beginning teachers and the diversion of mentors' efforts away from the classroom. Inspection evidence is used to assess whether trainee teachers affect school students' test and examination results. The findings of this research are that the number of trainees has no significant effect on school results at A-level or General Certificate of Secondary Education (GCSE), or on the overall value added between Key Stage 3 and GCSE level. However, at Key Stage 3 level at age 14, while there appears to be a very small depressing effect on achievement in schools with low numbers of trainees, there is a significant positive effect on achievement in schools with larger numbers of trainees. (Contains 3 figures and 3 tables.)
From 1999 the Faculty of Education at the University of Wollongong has run an alternative model of teacher education known as the Knowledge Building Community (KBC) Project. This program has been acclaimed nationally. What makes this program so unique is its design that abandons the traditional model of teacher education that consists of lectures and tutorials; instead this alternative model of teacher education is based on several underpinning pillars of professional knowledge. The KBC program has been described as a “negotiated evaluation of a non-negotiable curriculum based on a constructivist model of learning and knowledge building”. However, the basic aim of this program is to deal with the perennial problem of contextualising students’ professional learning, by linking abstract theory as closely as possible to the contexts and settings to which it is applied, i.e. the primary school classroom.
The role of teacher training schools in the basic education of Finnish teachers.
Discusses the role of teacher training schools (TTSs) in the basic education of Finnish teachers. Advantages of TTSs for practical training; Problems of TTSs; Future of Finnish TTSs.
http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=tfh&AN=9511031132&site=ehost-live
Employment based teacher training
Employment-based teacher training (EBTT) comprises training programmes that allow trainees to work in a school and follow an individual training programme leading to qualified teacher status (QTS). The school pays the trainee as an unqualified teacher.
Apprentice teacher scheme attacked
Teenagers with just a handful of GCSE passes are to be recruited to secondary schools to work as teaching assistants. The Schools Secretary, Ed Balls, wants to recruit more than 4,000 apprentices to work full-time in schools. They would work as teaching assistants with youngsters up to the age of 14. If they liked the job, they would be able to train as teachers.
Teacher training scheme praised
Inspectors have heaped praise on a training scheme which is helping to produce some of the best young teachers in Leicestershire. The project, started by a group of primary schools, has trained 100 new recruits to teaching, and many of them have already gone on to successfully teach thousands of children in the city and rest of the county.
Normally people who have finished a degree and want to become a teacher go on to a postgraduate course in education at a university.
But graduates of Leicester's Scitt (School-Centred Initial Teacher Training) spend much of their time in the classroom, and it is this that has so impressed Ofsted.
Apprenticeship for Teaching: Professional Development Issues Surrounding the Collaborative Relationship Between Teachers and Paraeducators
The collaborative apprenticeship model: Situated professional development within school settings
Professional learning is a social enterprise where peers rely on the expertise and support of one another to adopt innovative practices. Reciprocal interactions in a community of practice, where teachers take responsibility for each other’s learning and development, may provide an effective means of supporting situated professional learning. We propose a collaborative apprenticeship model featuring reciprocal interactions as an approach to promote professional development, encouraging peer-teachers to serve as modelers and coaches of strategies and ideas aimed at improving instruction. collaborative apprenticeship is designed to help teachers learn and implement new teaching skills and strategies through four development phases, beginning with implementation of best practices from a mentor to the development of their own. Teachers, in turn, contribute new ideas to their teaching environment and become future mentors in order to sustain skills and strategies across a community of teachers. In addition to the model, we discuss various influences related to affect, beliefs, environment, culture, cognition, and personality that characterize the nature of reciprocal interactions in order to stimulate collaborative apprenticeship.
Webbased Cognitive Apprenticeship Model for Improving Preservice teachers performances and attitudes towards instructional planning
Through web-based conferencing, the expert teacher leads pre-service teachers to observe his/her cognitive modeling displayed by web-based multimedia and guides them to
constructing initial conceptual models of how to write and implement an instructional plan. During this procedure, web-based multimedia is used to demonstrate the cognitive modeling of an expert teacher in a real
classroom context by simultaneously presenting the instructional plan and the video case for the expert teacher’s articulation of why and how to write the instructional plan, or the instructional plan and the video case about teaching demos based on the instructional plan. Moreover, through issues posed in discussion forums, expert teachers guide pre-service teachers to focus on key points of cognitive modeling displayed by web-based multimedia and to share ideas with others. Finally, by interacting with expert teachers and peers in the internet chat room, pre-service teachers construct their own personal conceptual models through sharing, debating, modifying, and discussing.
Does School-Based Initial Teacher Training Affect Secondary School Performance?
(Citation only but its findings interesting from abstract)
This article investigates the effects of trainee teachers on secondary school student outcomes. The additional resources which schools receive from being involved in teacher training offer them an opportunity to raise standards, but this has to be set against the possible losses due to school students being taught by inexperienced beginning teachers and the diversion of mentors' efforts away from the classroom. Inspection evidence is used to assess whether trainee teachers affect school students' test and examination results. The findings of this research are that the number of trainees has no significant effect on school results at A-level or General Certificate of Secondary Education (GCSE), or on the overall value added between Key Stage 3 and GCSE level. However, at Key Stage 3 level at age 14, while there appears to be a very small depressing effect on achievement in schools with low numbers of trainees, there is a significant positive effect on achievement in schools with larger numbers of trainees. (Contains 3 figures and 3 tables.)
Wednesday, August 5, 2009
Stephen Heppell on school design
Building learning futures: a research project at ultralab within the CABE/RIBA "Building Futures" programme, Stephen Heppell et al, 2004
This report focuses directly onto the evolution of pedagogy in the school sector and its implications for design. It contains details drawn from the most eclectic of sources over a full year; it offers some solid recommendations which need to be
acted on and it offers some lightly drawn scenarios to provide a provocation for the many creative people involved in this whole debate.
Learning Environments of the future, Stephen Heppell et al, 2004.
This report looks at the influences impacting on the effectiveness of the
design process: changing pedagogy; new technologies; political policy and will.
This report focuses directly onto the evolution of pedagogy in the school sector and its implications for design. It contains details drawn from the most eclectic of sources over a full year; it offers some solid recommendations which need to be
acted on and it offers some lightly drawn scenarios to provide a provocation for the many creative people involved in this whole debate.
Learning Environments of the future, Stephen Heppell et al, 2004.
This report looks at the influences impacting on the effectiveness of the
design process: changing pedagogy; new technologies; political policy and will.
Monday, July 27, 2009
Teacher quality
A recent article in the Sydney Morning Herald suggests that differences between teachers play only a minor role in how well a child will learn.
Teacher quality makes little difference, July 24, 2009
The global study, led by the University of New England, monitored 500 pairs of identical twins during their first three years of school.
They were divided into two groups: twins who shared the same teacher, and siblings who were split across different classrooms.
The same genetics and home life ensured the twins had the same ability to learn. The study was designed to reveal any differences linked to their teacher alone.
Professor Brian Byrne said the finding contradicted the views of educationalists who claimed teacher quality could account for a variance of up to 40 per cent in a child's learning outcome.
An excerpt from Maralyn Parkers Daily Telegraph column on this research points out:
Professor Byrne said the study did not measure the quality of the teaching, as the researchers did not actually visit any classrooms. However he said the majority of difference in childrens’ literacy levels in their first three years of schooling, 60 to 70 per cent, was due to genetics.
Byrne’s research is being undertaken under the auspices of the Australian Twin Registry
The latest paper available online from Byrne is “Genetic and environmental influences on early literacy, 2006”
Byrne discussed findings from the above research in an article in the Armidale Times. “Twins Aid research” in 2007 saying “We’re not finding big effects of different schools - or even different teachers - on the literacy levels of children within the same school year.”
Other articles from Byrne
Byrne, B. (2004). "Guest editorial on behaviour genetics." Australian Journal of Psychology Special edition.
Byrne, B., C. Delaland, et al. (2001). "Preliminary Results from a longitudinal preschool twin study of early reading
development." Annals of Dyslexia.
Byrne, B., R. K. Olson, et al. (2006). "Genetic and environmental influences on early literacy." Journal of Research in Reading
29: 33-49.
Byrne, B., S. Wadsworth, et al. (2005). "Longitudinal twin study of early literacy development: Preschool and kindergarten
phases." Scientific Studies of Reading 9: 219-235.
Some other research in this area
U.Va. Study Finds Teaching Quality Inadequate in Most U.S. First-Grade Classrooms
Interestingly, the study found that factors traditionally thought to influence quality, such as class size and teacher credentials, had little influence on classroom quality. Instead, the study found that high classroom quality is linked more strongly to teachers who are both creating a positive social climate and offering strong instructional support.
Estimating Teacher Effectiveness From Two-Year Changes in Students’ Test Scores
Teacher fixed effects show a significant association with some, though not all, observable teacher characteristics. Experience has the strongest effect, with a large effect in the early years of a teacher’s career.
How much of the variation in literacy and numeracy can be explained by school performance?
Family background is known to have a substantial impact on students’ literacy and numeracy results. This raises questions about whether any of the remaining differences in results are due to school performance — or whether they are merely due to random noise. This article reviews research from the OECD’s Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) study, based on student-level analysis. It then presents new evidence based on publicly reported school-level data from Western Australia. Combining test results with data on schools’ socioeconomic characteristics, this study estimates the degree to which some schools outperform those with similar characteristics. On a ‘like schools’ basis, school differences are shown to be persistent across subjects, grades and years.
Teacher quality makes little difference, July 24, 2009
The global study, led by the University of New England, monitored 500 pairs of identical twins during their first three years of school.
They were divided into two groups: twins who shared the same teacher, and siblings who were split across different classrooms.
The same genetics and home life ensured the twins had the same ability to learn. The study was designed to reveal any differences linked to their teacher alone.
Professor Brian Byrne said the finding contradicted the views of educationalists who claimed teacher quality could account for a variance of up to 40 per cent in a child's learning outcome.
An excerpt from Maralyn Parkers Daily Telegraph column on this research points out:
Professor Byrne said the study did not measure the quality of the teaching, as the researchers did not actually visit any classrooms. However he said the majority of difference in childrens’ literacy levels in their first three years of schooling, 60 to 70 per cent, was due to genetics.
Byrne’s research is being undertaken under the auspices of the Australian Twin Registry
The latest paper available online from Byrne is “Genetic and environmental influences on early literacy, 2006”
Byrne discussed findings from the above research in an article in the Armidale Times. “Twins Aid research” in 2007 saying “We’re not finding big effects of different schools - or even different teachers - on the literacy levels of children within the same school year.”
Other articles from Byrne
Byrne, B. (2004). "Guest editorial on behaviour genetics." Australian Journal of Psychology Special edition.
Byrne, B., C. Delaland, et al. (2001). "Preliminary Results from a longitudinal preschool twin study of early reading
development." Annals of Dyslexia.
Byrne, B., R. K. Olson, et al. (2006). "Genetic and environmental influences on early literacy." Journal of Research in Reading
29: 33-49.
Byrne, B., S. Wadsworth, et al. (2005). "Longitudinal twin study of early literacy development: Preschool and kindergarten
phases." Scientific Studies of Reading 9: 219-235.
Some other research in this area
U.Va. Study Finds Teaching Quality Inadequate in Most U.S. First-Grade Classrooms
Interestingly, the study found that factors traditionally thought to influence quality, such as class size and teacher credentials, had little influence on classroom quality. Instead, the study found that high classroom quality is linked more strongly to teachers who are both creating a positive social climate and offering strong instructional support.
Estimating Teacher Effectiveness From Two-Year Changes in Students’ Test Scores
Teacher fixed effects show a significant association with some, though not all, observable teacher characteristics. Experience has the strongest effect, with a large effect in the early years of a teacher’s career.
How much of the variation in literacy and numeracy can be explained by school performance?
Family background is known to have a substantial impact on students’ literacy and numeracy results. This raises questions about whether any of the remaining differences in results are due to school performance — or whether they are merely due to random noise. This article reviews research from the OECD’s Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) study, based on student-level analysis. It then presents new evidence based on publicly reported school-level data from Western Australia. Combining test results with data on schools’ socioeconomic characteristics, this study estimates the degree to which some schools outperform those with similar characteristics. On a ‘like schools’ basis, school differences are shown to be persistent across subjects, grades and years.
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