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1 – 10 of 268This research explores lesson study as a way to enhance the quality of teaching for pupils with learning disabilities and autism spectrum disorder by observing changes to one pupil…
Abstract
Purpose
This research explores lesson study as a way to enhance the quality of teaching for pupils with learning disabilities and autism spectrum disorder by observing changes to one pupil's (Wilma) active educational participation. The study also investigates if and in what ways the professional development impacted teaching practices.
Design/methodology/approach
Five teachers met with the author on four occasions. Between these meetings, the teachers delivered the lessons they had planned together. The author video recorded the meetings to discern how the teachers' expressions developed. The author shared their thoughts with another researcher to enable an interrater validity examination.
Findings
The implementation of the lesson study vehicle enabled the teachers to transform their thinking from mainly focusing on pupils' deficiencies to instead focusing on their strengths. A relationship was found between teachers' understanding of central coherence, their skills in adapting received instructions and pupils' abilities to process and contextualize information or discern the whole picture.
Research limitations/implications
Research that involves teachers in the learning process emphasizes the relation between teachers’ thinking and their potential to enable the contextualized inclusion of pupils with learning disabilities.
Originality/value
This research offers important insights into how school-day navigation for pupils with severe intellectual disability and autism can be understood through the lens of variation theory; the teachers' repeated and adjusted use of the frame on the schedule strip enabled Wilma to discern what would happen next during the school day.
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Jeremy Segrott, Heather Rothwell, Ilaria Pignatelli, Rebecca Playle, Gillian Hewitt, Chao Huang, Simon Murphy, Matthew Hickman, Hayley Reed and Laurence Moore
Involvement of parents/carers may increase effectiveness of primary school-based alcohol-misuse prevention projects through strengthening family-based protective factors, but…
Abstract
Purpose
Involvement of parents/carers may increase effectiveness of primary school-based alcohol-misuse prevention projects through strengthening family-based protective factors, but rates of parental engagement are typically low. This paper reports findings from an exploratory trial of a school-based prevention intervention – Kids, Adults Together (KAT), based on the Social Development Model, which aimed to promote pro-social family communication in order to prevent alcohol misuse, and incorporated strategies to engage parents/carers. The purpose of this paper is to assess the feasibility and value of conducting an effectiveness trial of KAT.
Design/methodology/approach
The study was a parallel-group cluster randomised exploratory trial with an embedded process evaluation. The study took place in south Wales, UK, and involved nine primary schools, 367 pupils in Years 5/6 (aged 9-11 years) and their parents/carers and teachers. Questionnaires were completed by pupils at baseline and four month follow-up, and by parents at six month follow-up.
Findings
Overall KAT was delivered with good fidelity, but two of five intervention schools withdrew from the study without completing implementation. In total, 50 per cent of eligible parents participated in the intervention, and KAT had good acceptability among pupils, parents and teachers. However, a number of “progression to effectiveness trial” criteria were not met. Intermediate outcomes on family communication (hypothesised to prevent alcohol misuse) showed insufficient evidence of an intervention effect. Difficulties were encountered in identifying age appropriate outcome measures for primary school-age children, particularly in relation to family communication processes. The study was unable to find comprehensive methodological guidance on exploratory trials.
Research limitations/implications
It would not be appropriate to conduct an effectiveness trial as key progression criteria relating to intervention and trial feasibility were not met. There is a need for new measures of family communication which are suitable for primary school-age children, and more guidance on the design and conduct of exploratory/feasibility trials.
Originality/value
KAT achieved high rates of parental involvement, and its theoretical framework and processes could be adapted by other interventions which experience difficulties with recruitment of parents/carers.
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Lalina Coulange, Kari Stunell and Grégory Train
In March 2020, with only two working days’notice the French national education system went online due to the coronavirus pandemic. This study explores the relationship between the…
Abstract
Purpose
In March 2020, with only two working days’notice the French national education system went online due to the coronavirus pandemic. This study explores the relationship between the move to distance learning, the teaching practices employed and the socio-economic context of the learners in French schools during this period. We ask how far the changes in teaching practices during the coronavirus crisis were influenced by the social context of teaching. And to what extent this context influenced the focus of the pedagogical continuity those teachers set up.
Design/methodology/approach
A review of the literature situates the study within the field of mathematics teaching practices. The study was carried out through a multidimensional analysis using multiple correspondences of the responses of 368 French secondary school mathematics teachers to an online questionnaire.
Findings
We found that the unprepared move to distance learning impeded the employment of dialogic practices. The socio-economic situation of the teaching was identified as a determining factor in the teachers' different interpretations of the term pedagogical continuity. Whilst those working in more deprived areas tended towards practices which focused on maintaining pupils' links with school, consolidation of knowledge and providing social/affective support, those teaching a more privileged public favoured tools and practices which allowed them to focus on the disciplinary content of their teaching.
Practical implications
The challenge of maintaining dialogic activities – teacher education to combat inequalities.
Originality/value
A quantitative study of mathematics teachers providing pedagogical continuity through distance learning for the duration of the crisis.
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Jeremy Segrott, Jo Holliday, Simon Murphy, Sarah Macdonald, Joan Roberts, Laurence Moore and Ceri Phillips
The teaching of cooking is an important aspect of school-based efforts to promote healthy diets among children, and is frequently done by external agencies. Within a limited…
Abstract
Purpose
The teaching of cooking is an important aspect of school-based efforts to promote healthy diets among children, and is frequently done by external agencies. Within a limited evidence base relating to cooking interventions in schools, there are important questions about how interventions are integrated within school settings. The purpose of this paper is to examine how a mobile classroom (Cooking Bus) sought to strengthen connections between schools and cooking, and drawing on the concept of the sociotechnical network, theorise the interactions between the Bus and school contexts.
Design/methodology/approach
Methods comprised a postal questionnaire to 76 schools which had received a Bus visit, and case studies of the Bus’ work in five schools, including a range of school sizes and urban/rural locations. Case studies comprised observation of Cooking Bus sessions, and interviews with school staff.
Findings
The Cooking Bus forged connections with schools through aligning intervention and schools’ goals, focussing on pupils’ cooking skills, training teachers and contributing to schools’ existing cooking-related activities. The Bus expanded its sociotechnical network through post-visit integration of cooking activities within schools, particularly teachers’ use of intervention cooking kits.
Research limitations/implications
The paper highlights the need for research on the long-term impacts of school cooking interventions, and better understanding of the interaction between interventions and school contexts.
Originality/value
This paper adds to the limited evidence base on school-based cooking interventions by theorising how cooking interventions relate to school settings, and how they may achieve integration.
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The overall aim of this article is to discuss the conditions and character of collective protest in schools. When do pupils as a collective gain the ability to express critical…
Abstract
Purpose
The overall aim of this article is to discuss the conditions and character of collective protest in schools. When do pupils as a collective gain the ability to express critical views on the policies of schools, and what is that criticism about? Using Sweden as an example, I discuss this question by studying the collective organisation of pupils from the 1920s to the 1980s.
Design/methodology/approach
The article discusses and compares two phases of pupils' collective organisation in Sweden: one dominated by pupil councils, one by national organisations. The article discusses how pupil councils at individual schools arose in the wake of the 1928 grammar school charter, and illustrates its influence using a case study of a grammar school in Stockholm. Furthermore, the article investigates how national organisations, first formed in 1952, expressed their concerns about national school policies.
Findings
The first phase (ca. 1928–1951) was dominated by the idea of discipline, and the main task of pupil councils was to help teachers in maintaining discipline. The second phase (ca. 1952–1989) was instead characterised by a heightened focus on protests and democracy. From then on, the main idea was that pupil councils and national pupil organisations should change the school, making it more suited to the needs of the pupils.
Originality/value
There is much research on university students and student uprisings. However, much of the previous research on the student voice is related to the upheavals of the long 1968. By concentrating its efforts on a limited time period when protest was more obvious, previous research has arguably not been able to discuss transformations over time.
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Štefan Karolčík and Michaela Marková
This research study explores the perceptions of the importance and meaning of innovation in education by qualified teachers. The authors deliberately selected geography teachers…
Abstract
Purpose
This research study explores the perceptions of the importance and meaning of innovation in education by qualified teachers. The authors deliberately selected geography teachers for the research because the extraordinary dynamics of changes and innovations the teacher has to deal with are significantly reflected, particularly in geography teaching.
Design/methodology/approach
The main aim of the research was to determine geography teachers' views on the importance, role and meaning of innovation in teaching. The research group consisted of 12 qualified teachers, and a semistructured interview was chosen as the research method. The research was conducted over six months, from October 2020 to March 2021.
Findings
This research confirmed the interest in introducing innovations into teaching by the teachers interviewed. Teachers mainly think of innovation as new ways of teaching that aim to revive and make teaching more attractive, to increase the motivation of all actors in the learning process. While teachers with more ample teaching experience connect innovations mainly with presentations, education games, and excursions, teachers-beginners and teachers with shorter teaching experience understand innovations mainly as the application of new trends in education, such as research projects and working with GIS and digital technologies. The research confirmed that lectures supported by presentations are the most frequently used teaching method for explaining the geography curriculum in primary and secondary schools. Presentations in which teachers focus on linking relationships and explaining connections more deeply replace existing textbooks and teaching texts for most teachers interviewed.
Research limitations/implications
The number and qualifications of the teachers involved in the research.
Practical implications
Teachers see the quality of the school environment and the education system as the significant barriers to providing better geography education. They often come to innovations through their own study and activities and feel a significant lack of available materials for the practical application of innovations in teaching. They also perceive the support for creation by state authorities and educational institutions as insufficient. Most teachers interviewed would welcome regular training courses and vocational education on the appropriate introduction and use of innovations in the classrooms in the form of practical examples and developed methodologies.
Originality/value
The selection of teachers for the research was deliberate and included active teachers of both genders working in primary and secondary schools. The selected teachers had varying teaching experiences and studied different combinations of teaching subjects with geography.
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