RSS 1.0Education
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The effects of language learning and math mindsets on academic success in an engineering programBackground Mindsets are based on two basic assumptions: some people think that their intellectual abilities can be developed through hard work and instruction (i.e., a growth mindset), whereas others believe that nothing can change their level of intellectual ability (i.e., a fixed mindset). The association between mindsets and academic achievement has been examined in different academic subjects, such as biology and math. However, no previous study has examined the effects of language learning mindsets (LLMs) and math mindsets (MMs) on academic success in an English medium instruction (EMI) setting in which English, rather than the first language of the students, is used for teaching content (e.g., mechatronics engineering). Purpose/Hypothesis This study explores the relationship between Turkish mechatronics engineering undergraduate students' domain-specific mindsets, LLMs and MMs, and their academic success. Design/Method Student test scores for English medium and first-language medium courses were collected from fourth-year students studying mechatronics engineering (n = 68) at a public university in Turkey. Students also completed the LLM and MM inventories. Results Regression analyses revealed that growth LLM and MM were positive predictors of EMI and Turkish medium of instruction (TMI) academic success, whereas fixed LLM and MM were negative predictors of EMI and TMI academic success. Conclusions In both EMI and TMI courses, a growth mindset in math and language learning can profoundly predict students' academic achievement in a mechatronics engineering program. We argue that domain-specific mindsets can effectively explain the self-theories of intelligence and achievement.
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Teacher mindset and grit: how do they change by teacher training, gender, and subject taught?This study explored the interplay between teacher mindsets and grit levels of Turkish pre-service teachers taking their year of study into account (i.e., first-year vs the fourth year), gender, and the subject taught in a Turkish higher education setting. Student teachers from various programmes at a public university in Turkey participated in the study (N = 321). The participants completed the Teacher Mindset Scale and Grit Scale online after receiving the approval of the university’s ethics committee and signing the consent forms. The correlations between the components of teacher mindset and grit demonstrated that as growth teacher mindset scores increased, and effort scores also increased significantly. Furthermore, as fixed teacher mindset scores increased, interest scores decreased. First-year pre-service teachers had significantly higher fixed teacher mindset scores than the fourth year. In terms of grit, fourth-year pre-service teachers showed greater effort than the first year. There was no difference between female and male pre-service teachers regarding fixed teacher mindset. However, female pre-service teachers scored significantly higher on growth teacher mindset, interest, and effort scales. As for the subject taught, the Mathematics Education programme showed higher levels of fixed teacher mindset and the English Language Teaching programme showed lower levels of grit. Practical implications of our findings and limitations of the study are shared accordingly.
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Different people, different backgrounds, different identities’: filling the vacuum created by policy views of ‘cultural capital’The notion of cultural capital, defined in its Arnoldian sense, of “the best that has been thought and said”, has been at the centre of the England’s education policy for the last five years. While it is clear that this version of cultural capital – different from the sense in which it was used by Pierre Bourdieu, who popularised the term – has been deployed to valorise certain types of social, educational and cultural knowledge, it is not clear at all what use teachers make of the term or indeed, how they view it. This article presents data from an evaluation of a programme for disadvantaged students in English primary and secondary schools that sought to make a focus on cultural capital, and tries to assess how teachers perceive and use the term. The article posits that teachers see exhortations to accumulate cultural capital as part of their role, but in much broader terms than the government does, and that they seek to fill the “vacuum” created by the current policy perspective on cultural capital.
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Adaptive agency: some surviving and some thriving in the ‘interesting times' of English teachingPurpose: This paper aims to introduce the concept of adaptive agency and illustrate its emergence in the field of English teaching in a number of countries using England over the past 30 years as a case study. It examines how the exceptional flexibility of English as school subject has brought many external impositions whilst its teachers have evolved remarkable adaptivity. Design/methodology/approach: It proposes several models of agency and their different modes, focussing finally on adaptive agency as a model that has emerged over a 30-year period. It considers aspects of this development across a number of countries, mostly English speaking ones, but its chief case is that of England. It is principally a theoretical paper drawing on Phenomenology, Critical Realism and later modernist interpretations of Darwinian Theory, but it is grounded by drawing on two recent empirical projects to illustrate English teachers’ current agency. It offers a fresh overview of how agency and accountability have interacted within a matrix of official policy and constraint. Findings: Adaptive agency has become a necessary aspect of teacher expertise. Such a mode of working creates great emotional strains and tensions, leading to many teachers leaving the profession. However, many English teachers whilst feeling controlled in the matrix of power and the panopticon of surveillance, remain resilient and positive about the future of the subject. Research limitations/implications: This is to some extent a personal and reflexive account of a lived history, supported by research and other evidence. Practical implications: Adaptive agency enables teachers to conceptualise the frustrations of the role but to celebrate how they expertly use their agency where they can. It makes their work and struggle more comprehensible. In providing the concept of harmonious practice, it offers the hope of a return to more satisfying professional lives. Originality/value: This paper offers an original concept, adaptive agency, and discusses other valuable conceptualisations of agency and accountability. It combines a unique individual perspective with a fresh overview of the past three decades as experienced by English teachers in England.
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Only disconnect: rereading Margaret Meek–of policies and practicesThis article reviews Margaret Meek Spencer’s body of work in relation to the various policies that she critiqued from the Bullock Report in 1974 to the National Literacy Strategy in 2004. She analysed increasingly conservative moves to promote a dominant, elitist version of school literacy. A Critical Realist perspective aligns with Margaret Meek Spencer’s view of a highly structuring political movement to maintain a model of merely functional literacy. She focused on the agentive, engaged reader from birth and some of the intellectual and societal structures that hampered the development of authentic, independent readers. Several of her major themes are reviewed, including her rich and complex view of literacy and its relationship to literary competence, a personal growth view that emphasised the centrality of children’s literature and finally her emphasis on the role of reading in fostering human dignity and self-esteem.
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The attrition of the expertise of teachers of English: from the rich pedagogy of personal and social agency to the poverty of the powerful knowledge heritage modelThis chapter reviews conceptualisations of the developing expertise of English teachers and uses, as a lens, the history of selected professional development initiatives over the last 40 years, some local, some national, some international. One major purpose is to record the enduring values of English teachers as experts in how literature and language authentically and affectively are at the heart of education for all students. A “personal growth and social agency” model is an emancipatory view of English and focuses on developing nascent and maturing individual agents, constantly fostering their growing critical powers. The chapter summarises a number of research/development projects over the last 30 years that illustrate the tenacity of the Personal Growth and Social Agency model model for the majority of that period and then reveal the emergence of the Powerful Knowledge Heritage model. The rise of ‘Scientism’ and neoliberal notions of ‘Powerful Knowledge’ may come to dominate English teachers.
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International perspectives on English teacher development: from initial teacher education to highly accomplished professionalThe fourth volume in the successful IFTE series provides an international perspective on the knowledge and professional development of the English teaching workforce. It provides a state-of-the-art review of English teaching and teachers and how they are developed over time. With contributions from leading scholars around the world, this volume is divided into four sections that follow the journey of an English teacher from being a student, to the latter stages of professional development and becoming a teacher. It sheds light on how different elements such as school culture, professional development, higher-level qualifications, professional associations and government policies contribute or detract from retention and job satisfaction. International Perspectives on English Teacher Development serves as ideal reading for the research and teacher education community along with teachers and student teachers globally.
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Introduction: the remarkable careers of English teachersThis introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book demonstrates how English teachers have struggled and resisted these pressures, holding on to their personal and professional integrity and maintaining their expertise. It focuses on the ongoing uncertainty about the relationship between English Literature departments in universities and teacher education programs. The book reveals an especially fraught scenario where persistent government intervention over more than 30 years has seen constant demands and constraints and an underlying move to drive ITE out from universities and into schools exclusively. It offers radical visions for the future of Canadian English Language Arts Teachers. The book reviews New Zealand’s model of teacher education to reveal similar pressures on the schools beginning English teachers must work in via assessment demands and heavy pressure on teacher autonomy.
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Special educational needs and disability : the basicsSpecial Educational Needs and Disability provides a clear, coherent overview of the historical development of the field of special educational, or additional learning or support needs and disability, and discusses important past and current social and political contexts in which this took place, as well as changes in the law across time. It offers broad coverage of a range of needs and disabilities, and how to effectively identify and support those young people who experience such needs. This revised fourth edition covers recent legislative changes across the UK, an expanded discussion of key areas such as social, emotional, and mental health, a new chapter on literacy difficulties, and further fair, balanced, and open discussion of up-to-date evidence that indicates how young people who experience barriers to their learning are affected by factors associated with such marketisation, for example competition between schools and the academies programme. Special Educational Needs and Disability serves as essential reading for trainee and practising teachers, members of governing boards in schools and colleges, policymakers, and all those working directly with learners and their families.
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Impact of tablet-PCs on learning outcomes in classroom environmentIt is evident that information and communication technology (ICT) plays a vital role in educational settings. However, it is also important to determine how learners use ICT in different settings. Currently, ICT is mostly used as a supporting tool for the existing learning process, however, it is still unable to revolutionise the learning and teaching process. The reason for this can be its failure to unleash its original potential and capabilities. This study adopted a quasi-experimental method to measure the impact of using tablet PCs on the learning outcomes of 255 children inside classrooms. Data was collected from both types of classroom, i.e., classrooms using and not using mobile tablets for learning and the difference-in-differences technique has been coupled with a t-test to make the comparison. The results show that children using tablet-PCs in the classroom have better learning outcomes.
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Book review: The essential guide to forest school and nature pedagogyreview of The essential guide to forest school and nature pedagogy by Jon Cree and Marina Robb, 2021, Abington, Routledge, 392 pp., £26.00 (paperback), ISBN: 978-0-367-42561-6
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A philosophical inquiry into subject English and creative writingTable of Contents Part I: Aims & Scope of the Book Chapter 1 Writing in, about, & from the Classroom Chapter 2 Mapping the Terrain of Schooled English & Creative Writing Part II: Problems of Knowledge Chapter 3 Problems of Individual Knowledge Chapter 4 Problems of Curricular & Disciplinary Knowledge: The Curious Case of School English Chapter 5 Reading, Writing, & a Very Rough Sketch of Revised English Studies (Coda to Part II) Part III: Writing Beyond the English Studies Classroom Chapter 6 Thinking as a Kind of Writing, Writing as a Kind of Philosophy; or, On Lightbulb Moments
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Review of: Engaging with linguistic diversity: a study of educational inclusion at an Irish primary schoolreview of Engaging with linguistic diversity: a study of educational inclusion at an Irish primary school edited by David Little, Deirdre Kiwan, Victoria Pugh and Daniel Hughes, London, Bloomsbury, 2019, 190 pp., £26.00 (paperback), ISBN: 978-1-350-07203-9
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A tale of two committees: Newbolt illuminated through the Cox modelsThe historical moment of Newbolt, and what gives it enduring significance, is that it defined English as the business of the state and the key to the state of the nation. The Committee had an extraordinary brief, which it developed into a remarkable mission to transform ‘English’ from its pitiful place in education oppressed by ‘The Classics’ to the paramount subject charged with the salvation of the nation. Despite the inevitably elitist nature of its members, it argued for an emancipatory model of English to benefit every class of society. How could anything as bureaucratic as a committee produce such an evangelical and missionary manifesto? Almost 70 years later, the Cox committee, used much more subdued language. However, with a Newbolt legacy that had promoted English to the key subject in schooling, Cox set out a vision of English for ages 5-16 with the same emancipatory principles. The Newbolt and Cox Committees have a remarkable affinity that deserves recognition and analysis, beginning with the notion that the committee phenomenon itself is a remarkable historical agent in the history of the subject English.
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Review of: Teaching PSHE and R(S)HE in primary schools: enhancing the whole curriculumReview of: Teaching PSHE and R(S)HE in primary schools: Enhancing the whole curriculum edited by Victoria Pugh and Daniel Hughes, London, Bloomsbury, 2021, 200 pp., £19.25 (paperback), ISBN: 9781350129887
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Review of: Friedrich Froebel: a critical introduction to key themes and debatesReview of: Friedrich Froebel: a critical introduction to key themes and debates by Tina Bruce, London Bloomsbury, 2021, 167 pp., £19.99 (paperback), ISBN 9781474250429
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Dynamic conversations: using social media in learning and teachingThis conversation aims to consider how social media could be used to support academic practices during and beyond the Covid-19 conditions. It aims to explore some practical approaches to using Social Media in a satisfying and sustainable way. I am looking forward to exploring future opportunities for using social media beyond the covid-19 conditions to support the student experience.
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Multi-disciplinary event for community-based learning and action for the UN SDGsThis practice guide explores a university-wide, immersive learning event from the University of Bedfordshire, which brings together students, academics and representatives from public, private and civic organisations in the community to examine a key global challenge and its local manifestation.
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Transitions to motherhood: young women’s desire for respectability, responsibility and moral worthIn the UK, teenage motherhood is depicted in the media and government policy as highly negative and problematic. Pregnant and mothering young women are constructed as socially excluded members of society who belong to an assumed underclass who lack responsibility and respectability. This article draws on the views and perspectives of pregnant and mothering young women in the east of England to examine how positive and successful subjects are defined and understood. It is illustrated how this group of working class young women negotiated and resisted their positioning as 'unfit' mothers and 'bad' citizens. Central to their narratives was a desire to reassert themselves as respectable and responsible individuals through engaging in education and employment in order to achieve financial independence. It is argued that this notion of respectability provides a limited and limiting understanding of inclusion and moral worth for working class young women.
