RSS 1.0Education
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Impacts of COVID-19 and social isolation on academic staff and students at universities: a cross-sectional studyThe impacts of the Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic and the shutdown it triggered at universities across the world, led to a great degree of social isolation among university staff and students. The aim of this study was to identify the perceived consequences of this on staff and their work and on students and their studies at universities. The study used a variety of methods, which involved an on-line survey on the influences of social isolation using a non-probability sampling. More specifically, two techniques were used, namely a convenience sampling (i.e. involving members of the academic community, which are easy to reach by the study team), supported by a snow ball sampling (recruiting respondents among acquaintances of the participants). A total of 711 questionnaires from 41 countries were received. Descriptive statistics were deployed to analyse trends and to identify socio-demographic differences. Inferential statistics were used to assess significant differences among the geographical regions, work areas and other socio-demographic factors related to impacts of social isolation of university staff and students. The study reveals that 90% of the respondents have been affected by the shutdown and unable to perform normal work or studies at their institution for between 1 week to 2 months. While 70% of the respondents perceive negative impacts of COVID 19 on their work or studies, more than 60% of them value the additional time that they have had indoors with families and others. . While the majority of the respondents agree that they suffered from the lack of social interaction and communication during the social distancing/isolation, there were significant differences in the reactions to the lockdowns between academic staff and students. There are also differences in the degree of influence of some of the problems, when compared across geographical regions. In addition to policy actions that may be deployed, further research on innovative methods of teaching and communication with students is needed in order to allow staff and students to better cope with social isolation in cases of new or recurring pandemics.
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Strategic School Improvement Fund (SSIF) 'Narrowing the gap in reading attainment for disadvantaged pupils': a report into the impact of reading interventions in schools to support disadvantaged childrenA qualitative investigation into a project designed to narrow the gap in reading attainment for disadvantaged pupils through the use of commercially available reading interventions. This report contains case studies for each of the four reading interventions used; Accelerated Reader, Catch Up® Literacy, Fresh Start and Lexonik.
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Tackling anxiety in primary mathematics teachersThis book provides teacher educators with an understanding of the issues around mathematics anxiety and a framework of teaching strategies to support undergraduates, trainee teachers and established professionals in primary settings in developing confidence in learning and teaching mathematics.
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Young British African and Caribbean men achieving educational success: disrupting deficit discourses about Black male achievementIn contrast to research that focuses on the underperformance of young Black males in the British education system, the dominant notion of this volume is educational success. By aiming to understand how young, Black—notably African and Caribbean—male education plays out in different educational spaces, this book provides new insights around intersections between, and across, different structural forces and educational contexts.
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Along the Write Lines: a case study exploring activities to enable creative writing in a secondary English classroomThis article arises from a four week study of a class of 14-15 year old students. The study explored students’ perception of themselves as writers and the effects of a variety of teaching and learning strategies on their creative writing responses. The aim of the project was to enhance the students’ creative writing, whilst ascertaining whether there were particular activities or types of writing that would lead to students perceiving more satisfactory outcomes in their writing. It answers the research question: What do I observe, and what do my students say, about the experience of different classroom based creative writing tasks?
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Teaching poetry: reading and responding to poetry in the secondary classroom.Teaching Poetry is an indispensible source of guidance, confidence and ideas for all those new to the secondary English classroom. Written by experienced teachers who have worked with the many secondary pupils who ‘don’t get’ poetry, this friendly guide will help you support pupils as they access, understand, discuss and enjoy classic and contemporary poetry.
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Implementing reading interventions to support disadvantaged children in England: insights from a process evaluationIn this paper we present insights from the qualitative data collected during a process evaluation of a reading intervention project carried out in primary and secondary schools in West Yorkshire, England. Commercially available reading interventions, financed by the Strategic School Improvement Fund, were delivered by school staff to disadvantaged pupils over a period of four half-terms, and a team of university-based researchers carried out qualitative interviews with members of school staff in order to discover factors that affect the sustainability of school-based reading interventions after the initial funding period, and identify good practice in planning for and meeting sustainability objectives. The data from the interviews enabled the researchers to compare and contrast the experiences of the staff following the different interventions. The findings presented in this paper have generated some helpful guidance about the process of implementing reading interventions in schools successfully, and factors such as staff training, fidelity of implementation and organisational context are discussed.
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Pre‐twentieth century literature in the Year 9 classroom: student responses to different teaching approachesThis article arises from an action research investigation that sought to understand the ways in which different approaches to teaching pre-twentieth century literature in Year 9 English lessons might influence students’ experiences of texts. It examines the proposition that some students need to have a secure understanding of the text before they can benefit from more creative approaches which require them to undertake independent and personal responses. Although creative methods of teaching are often posited as being superior to more teacher-led approaches, student responses suggest that requiring them to participate in creative activities as a means of exploring an unfamiliar text without first ensuring they have a solid understanding of the overarching narrative and a good grasp of unknown language can lead to resistance and disengagement. In this case study, some students benefited from and appreciated a structured approach that included more ‘traditional’ methods of teaching pre-twentieth century literature, which they said helped them to learn more effectively.
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Classroom-based action research with secondary school students: a teacher-researcher's reflectionPurpose: The purpose of this paper is to reflect on some of the professional and practical challenges which emerged during the process of carrying out a small-scale action research project into different approaches to teaching English Literature in a Year-9 secondary classroom, completed in part-fulfilment of the requirements for a higher degree. Design/methodology/approach: The author narrates an account of some of the difficulties faced by one emergent researcher whilst carrying out educational research in a comprehensive school in England. Findings: The author suggests that even within a research-supportive environment where “research” is encouraged or expected, there is often limited effort from management to articulate the practicalities or evaluate its effectiveness. Despite this, the author emphasises the benefits to teachers and students of undertaking small-scale action research projects into issues of contemporary professional concern in the classroom. The author argues for the involvement of school administrators and universities in supporting teacher-researchers. Originality/value: The value of this research lies in acknowledging some of the challenges that emergent researchers might face in conducting research in the context of the classroom, which might enable other teacher-researchers to anticipate and avoid similar problems in their own research, and circumvent criticism from those who believe that educational research should not be carried out by teachers.
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Praxis, pedagogy and teachers’ professionalism in England Praksa, pedagogika in učiteljska strokovnost v AnglijiThe article considers current teachers’ participation in educational research in England and whether Stenhouse’s perception that such involvement was necessary to stall the political undermining of democratic teacher professionalism has been addressed. Stenhouse instigated the emergence of the teacher-as-researcher movement, whereby teachers engaged with a process that created knowledge and practice. From 1979, when the Conservative Margaret Thatcher became Prime Minister, the increasing dominance of globalised knowledge economies turned knowledge away from being a process into a product. Teacher and student education became controlled and consumed by increasingly competitive educational institutions. Learning became aimed at assuring the attainment of higher grades to increase the country’s economic growth and profit, leading to democratic teacher professionalism being undermined. However, contemporary research by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development has indicated that teacher professionalism should involve teachers in conducting classroom-based individual or collaborative research. In addition, a recent academic inquiry by the British Education Research Association has con-cluded that teachers as researchers, in both literate and practical terms, will have a positive impact on learner outcomes by developing an education system that has the internal capacity to direct its own progress. At the same time, the Department for Education in England commissioned a two-year study to assess progress towards an evidence-informed teaching system. Taking a systematic literature approach, the present article considers the extent to which current teacher education and practice encourage teacher research as a form of developing pedagogical practice, in other words, praxis, in order to re-establish democratic teacher professionalism in Eng-land. It also explores whether there are alternative practices to create the same, or a similar, outcome.
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Optimization analysis and implementation of online wisdom teaching mode in cloud classroom based on data mining and processingThe rapid development of Internet technology and information technology is rapidly changing the way people think, recognize, live, work and learn. In the context of Internet + education, the emerging learning form of a cloud classroom has emerged. Cloud classroom refers to the process in which learners use the network as a way to obtain learning objectives and learning resources, communicate with teachers and other learners through the network, and build their own knowledge structure. Because it breaks the boundaries of time and space, it has the characteristics of freedom, high efficiency and extensiveness, and is quickly accepted by learners of different ages and occupations. The traditional cloud classroom teaching mode has no personalized recommendation module and cannot solve an information overload problem. Therefore, this paper proposes a cloud classroom online teaching system under the personalized recommendation system. The system adopts a collaborative filtering recommendation algorithm, which helps to mine the potential preferences of users and thus complete more accurate recommendations. It not only highlights the core position of personalized curriculum recommendation in the field of online education, but also makes the cloud classroom online teaching mode more intelligent and meets the needs of intelligent teaching.
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Interactive study of multimedia and virtual technology in art educationArt education an important part of aesthetic education. It is indispensable for the comprehensive and healthy development of human beings. The basic task is to cultivate creative ability, human aesthetics, and appreciation. Art education is conducive to improving the humanistic cultivation of young students, enhancing the spiritual realm of human beings, and cultivating the creative ability of young people. It has irreplaceable social, cultural, and anthropological significance for promoting the comprehensive and healthy development of people. The development of multimedia information technology provides a new teaching method for art education and teaching in a contemporary setting. This teaching method can guide students to optimize or change the methods and concepts of traditional art creation and aesthetic value. However, traditional art education multimedia technology has poor teaching effects due to limited teaching conditions. This requires the use of multimedia technology and other technologies for interactive fusion. Therefore, this paper proposes an interactive fusion model of multimedia and virtual technology, which is verified by the model. It was found that this integrated education method could not only simulate the real environment and expand the cognitive scope of students, but also could promote students’ learning motivation as well as situational and authentic learning experiences.
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Building the foundations for academic success: learning from the experiences of part-time students in their first semester of studyThis article examines the findings from a mixed methods research study exploring part- time students' perceptions of their transition into higher education. Drawing on wider research in the field of transition and utilising Gale and Parker's (2014) conceptual framework as a means of viewing the transition process, the article identifies how one group of part-time undergraduates experienced the process of becoming an undergraduate. The results highlight the importance of offering a well-framed early learning experience for students, which enables them to learn the skills needed for early academic success and provides continued support as they progress in their own time towards recognition of themselves as undergraduates. Furthermore, the results demonstrate that transition is not time bound, and individual students will need individual approaches. This will require institutions to consider how the support they offer can be tailored to a student's specific needs.
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Emotions and professional reflections in a post-war community: teachers’ perspectives from KosovoBackground: Teaching is more complex than dealing with the cognitive aspects of learning alone and is also influenced by affective states. Because of this, more research is needed into the role of teachers’ emotions in classroom interaction. Of special importance is research into reflective thinking and the extent to which it may be disturbed by the prior experience of trauma. Purpose: This study aimed to shed light on these issues by analysing reports of Kosovan teachers’ emotional arousal when speaking about and/or teaching topics related to war experiences, their beliefs about these experiences, their opinions about students’ reactions and their reports on professional reflective practices. Methods: Descriptive study. Data were collected by means of a structured questionnaire completed by 70 teachers. Results: Teachers reported strong emotions were triggered by discussion of topics linked to the war. Their beliefs influenced how they engaged with sensitive and emotionally charged topics, but they interpreted their professional behaviour using reflective and critical thinking. Conclusion: Both external and internal factors affect post-war teachers cognitively and emotionally. Further research is needed to identify the extent to which this impacts teachers’ ability to use critical reflection and critical emotional reflexivity in school-based practice.
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Working with/in institutions: how policy enactment in widening participation is shaped through practitioners' experienceWidening participation in higher education is driven by policy which is then enacted by individual practitioners. Practitioners bring with them a wealth of personal and employment experiences which shape their interpretations and enactments. Drawing on sixteen in-depth semi structured interviews with practitioners across seven universities in England, a classification is developed in order to conceptualise their orientations to policy enactment. Whilst nationally focused, this study has international resonance especially in marketised HE systems where policies are similarly enacted. The model developed within the paper proposes that personal and professional experience can cause practitioners to orient towards the interests of the institution or the individuals they work with. This orientation can be in compliance with institutional policy or adopt a more transgressive stance. Through deeper theorisation of practitioner positions we can better understand how to ensure work in this area better serves the individuals which it is targeted at.
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Widening the discourse on team-teaching in higher educationTeam-teaching is arguably shifting from the realm of pedagogic choice to that of necessity in a complex and demanding Higher Education (HE) landscape. This research gives a voice to staff collaborating in team-teaching, considering their motivations and approach, to identify key challenges and opportunities. Results indicate that the changing landscape of HE in the UK is promoting innovative approaches to using existing team-teaching models rather than proposing new ones. The leadership dimension of the module leader role is highlighted, suggesting a need to explore and extend debates on developing academic leadership at all levels of academic employment. Consequently, the research contributes additional perspectives on existing work relating to academic leadership, the changing academic role, increasing workloads and professional teacher identity. The findings have implications for how staff are prepared and supported as practitioners in HE and the processes whereby we record and reward individuals contributions.
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Media literacy, curriculum and the rights of the childEngaging with digital media is part of everyday living for the majority of children, yet opportunities to learn about, through and with media are denied many pupils in compulsory schooling. Whilst Media Studies in the UK is internationally reputed to be well established, changes made to the primary and secondary national curriculum in 2014 included removal of existing media study elements. We demonstrate what is lost by these actions in relation to the United Nations Rights of the Child and, in particular, the right of the child to express identity. We demonstrate how media literacy had previously been included in curriculum, enabling opportunities to address children’s rights, and propose that the absence of media education is part of an overall trend of the non-prioritisation of children’s rights in England and Northern Ireland. The paper calls for media literacy to be reintroduced into primary and secondary curriculum
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Integrating computer-assisted language learning in Saudi schools: a change modelComputer-assisted language learning (CALL) technology and pedagogy have gained recognition globally for their success in supporting second language acquisition (SLA). In Saudi Arabia, the government aims to provide most educational institutions with computers and networking for integrating CALL into classrooms. However, the recognition of CALL’s efficacy does not translate into easy acceptance and integration in English as a Second Language or English as a Foreign Language (ESL/EFL) classrooms in Saudi schools, particularly where teaching of both English language and information and communication technologies (ICT) is subject to religious and cultural constraints. There are other barriers that impede native Arabic speakers from learning English. Accordingly, the research question addressed in this paper is an exploration of the overt and covert factors that affect CALL use and integration in Saudi Arabian secondary schools. A case study approach using mixed methods was employed to interview and observe a sample of teachers and school inspectors in urban and rural secondary schools. Results were supplemented with an online questionnaire and analysed using both descriptive statistics and thematic analysis.
