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Background: Some studies have researched the correlation between flipped learning and cognitive learning outcomes; however, there is a paucity of research elaborating on the effects of flipped language learning on cognitive load (CL). Objectives: This study investigates the effects of using flipped learning designs (student‐led, teacher‐led and collaboration‐led) on learning outcomes and CL management during out‐of‐class activities versus during‐class activities. Methods: A mixed methods research was used to concurrently triangulate different strands of data on the effects of flipped learning designs on English as foreign language (EFL) learners' learning outcomes and CL. A total of 122 EFL learners were randomly assigned to either the control or experimental group and participated in the study. The interpretations were made based on running one‐way analysis of variance between four groups. Results and Conclusion: This study evidenced the efficacy of the interactive use of collaboration‐led flipped learning design over student‐led and teacher‐led designs for improving learning outcomes and lowering CL during computer‐assisted language learning (CALL) course. Pedagogically, CALL practitioners need to develop and integrate a well‐organized combination of student‐led and teacher‐led flipped learning activities for during‐class and out‐of‐class phases with respect to the CL and learning material complexity, while also considering the specific contexts and goals of their instructional settings. Theoretically, the results indicate the necessity of merging active learning and sociocultural theories into an instructional design to take advantage of the identified affordances of flipped language learning approach in terms of psychological effects (CL management) and learning effects (CALL outcomes). Lay Description: What is already known about this topic: The flipped language learning approach involves receiving online instruction outside the classroom and is a learner‐centered pedagogy. What this paper adds: This study contributes by triangulating different strands of data on the effects of flipped learning designs on learning outcomes and cognitive load.The findings highlight the effectiveness of collaboration‐led design for flipped language learning, facilitating engagement in both out‐of‐class and during‐class activities. Implications for practice: The findings emphasize the importance of designing and implementing instructional designs that align with emerging educational technologies.Teachers should consider the flexibility, fluency and novelty of the learning material when designing flipped learning activities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Sexuality, Gender & Policy Journal is the property of Wiley-Blackwell and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Background: The present study analyses the design of programming literacy in the sixth grade of Primary Education, starting from the use of simple activities with visual block‐based programming, through Scratch, and progressively linking difficulty to the use of the Unity engine, and the C# language, with simple activities identical to those created in Scratch. Objectives: This research aims to evaluate future teachers' abilities and attitudes regarding programming and its educational possibilities. We intend to evaluate the viability of a teaching proposal that combines a visual block‐based programming environment and a more advanced one, based on C#. Method: In the settings of two public Spanish universities, we analyse the possibilities in the training of future teachers who are studying for a degree in Primary Education Teaching and a degree in Pedagogy. Based on a test and three scales, descriptive data and statistical inference are detailed through a quasi‐experimental design with a Student's t‐test in the first dimension, and a Wilcoxon test in the second dimension. Results: The participants improved their performance and attitudes towards programming with the intervention of the study in the use of coding. Conclusions: It can be concluded that coding is essential in teacher training, and that a greater presence of programming training in higher education is essential. The benefits are visible in the pedagogical approach of coding related to creativity, innovation, motivation, an active approach and interest, highlighting the fact that the implementation of visual block‐based programming by blocks and engines is feasible in Elementary Education. The training proposal—provided by appropriate progression, selection, and sequencing of content—fosters basic and practical teacher training, and this can be defined as an apt training solution. Lay Description: What is already known about this topic: Visual Programming Language (Scratch) provides benefits in educational contextsEducational Technology in classroom provides motivation and encouragement.Active methods and interactions are interesting and beneficial to elementary school students What this paper adds: Visual programming and game engine are feasible in Elementary Education, detailing significant improvements regarding academic outcomesWe found benefits in this pedagogical approach related to creativity, innovation, motivation, active approach and interest. Implications for practice and/or policy: Due to the benefits and positive results obtained in this research it is recommended to implement Visual Programming LanguageWe recommend the introduction to engine in educational settings in 6th grade in primary education though a cross‐curricular implementation.We recommend to apply an active approach, innovation, and learning computational concepts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Considerable evidence suggests that students' achievement emotions are important contributors to their learning and success online. It is, therefore, essential to understand and support students' emotional experiences to enhance online education, especially under the COVID‐19 context. However, to date, very few studies have investigated how students' achievement emotions might be affected by teaching and learning factors in online learning environments. Objectives: Based on Pekrun's (2006) control‐value theory of achievement emotions, this study examined the influence of students' perceived online teaching quality and appraisals of control and value on their achievement emotions in an online second language (L2) learning context instigated by the COVID‐19. Methods: Data were collected using an online survey of 1503 undergraduates from ten universities across different regions of China. Confirmatory factor analyses (CFA) were performed to test the validity of the instruments and structural equation modelling were conducted to examine the relations between L2 teaching and learning variables. Results and Conclusions: Results revealed that perceived teacher internet and communication technology competence had positive effects on enjoyment, but negative effects on anxiety and boredom, and these effects were fully mediated by perceived control and/or value. Perceived chaotic teaching structure (CTS) had reverse effects for the three emotions. Perceived CTS effects on enjoyment and anxiety were fully and partially mediated by perceived control, respectively. Takeaways: Online teaching quality is critical for students' appraisals and emotions towards L2 learning. Teachers should strive to improve online teaching quality and design interventions targeting students' perceived control and value to temper their affective experiences associated with the crisis‐prompted online teaching practices. Lay Description: What is already known about this topic: Teachers' internet and communication technology (ICT) competence and pedagogical design can enhance students' e‐learning efficacy, motivation and interests.Students' perceived control and value can influence their achievement emotions in online learning.Teacher's ICT competence and pedagogical design can impact students' emotions in online learning. What this paper adds: Perceived teacher ICT competence and chaotic teaching structures can have differential impact on students' perceived control and value for e‐learning.Perceived control and intrinsic value differently mediated the effects of the two teaching factors on students' emotions for e‐learning.Perceived teacher ICT competence and chaotic teaching structures can have both direct and indirect effects on students' e‐learning emotions via perceived control and value. Implications for practice and/or policy: Teacher training and development programs should prepare teachers for varying teaching formats including unplanned online teaching due to a forced switch to remote teaching.Teachers should acquaint themselves with using various online platforms and software to communicate the goals, expectations, structures and requirements of their language lessons to students' in a clear manner.Online language teaching interventions aiming to increase or decrease a specific emotion could directly target specific combinations of teaching characteristics and appraisals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Globally, digital skills are a crucial aspect of education that schools should develop systematically. Research on digital skills tends to be measured using self‐reports, performance tests or interventions. There is less knowledge about student and teacher uptake of technology in school, making it important to investigate the actual use of technology and digital skills in authentic classroom settings. Objectives: This study contributes unique baseline data concerning students' use of technology and digital skills across mandatory English courses in real classroom settings in secondary schools in Norway over time. Methods: The study adapted a national framework for digital skills into an observation protocol. With it, this study analysed videos from 60 naturally occurring English lessons in 13 English classes at seven lower secondary schools over two school years (grades 9 and 10), following 186 students (aged 13–15) and 10 teachers. Results and Conclusions: Students used digital skills critical for education in half of the video‐recorded English lessons, with more digital skill use at some schools over time. The main finding across classrooms and school years regards students' use of basic, not advanced, digital skills. Takeaways: Although teachers provide opportunities for students to use digital skills in school, more advanced skills are needed. This work calls for continued use of video recordings to provide systematic comparisons of potential shifts in students' digital skills in real English secondary classroom settings over time. Lay Description: What is currently known: Digital skills is a crucial aspect of education globallyStudent and teacher uptake of technology varies extensivelyMost studies on the use of digital technology concern self‐reports and interventionsFew studies exist concerning the actual use of digital skills in the classroom What this paper adds: Video recordings from seven English classrooms across two school years are analysed.A framework for digital skills is adopted and used as observation protocolAttention is given to the difference between basic and advanced digital skillsHow technology is actually used matters more than how much technology is available Implications of study findings for practitioners: Teachers should offer opportunities for students' use of digital skills in the classroomSubject‐specific use of digital skills should be prioritizedThere is a need for more emphasis on reflection and digital judgementWe need to encourage the use of advanced digital skills and not only basic skills [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Whilst the link between young people's well‐being and the creative arts is strengthening, there is a lack of research which focuses on the roles that artists play to help teachers and parents engage young people in the creative arts. This paper explores the benefits of and barriers to artists working in education in six European countries (England, Iceland, Germany, Greece, Italy and Austria). Using the '5A's model of creativity' and a view of professional development taking place within 'landscapes of practice', the data were analysed in order to explain how creativity is operationalised in the different contexts. Our study highlights the need for policy at a national and transnational level to value the creative arts in order to help teachers cross boundaries and utilise the full potential of the creative arts in schools. Our study also highlights that further research is needed into how artists shape teaching and curriculum and how schools engage parents in the creative arts in order to build an evidence‐base relating to young people's positive mental health that can affect policy at these levels. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite research studies on TESOL materials and textbooks addressing a wide range of pedagogical issues as well as evaluation strategies, reference books for examination preparation have received little attention from TESOL researchers. This study reports an attempt to develop a checklist for evaluating the reference books for the examination for the Hong Kong Diploma of Secondary Education (HKDSE, the college entrance requirement for secondary school students in Hong Kong), with a particular focus on books for the English writing examination. The researchers acquired a total of 39 reference books on DSE English writing and examined them against the reports and documents of the Hong Kong Examinations and Assessment Authority as well as the Education Bureau. After identifying the most concerning issues in the reference books, the researchers developed a checklist for evaluating future reference books using the framework suggested by McGrath (2002), taking into account the Education Bureau's guidelines for local school textbook evaluation. The authors conclude by briefly discussing implications and how their findings could be shared with HKDSE candidates through engaging the Hong Kong government. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper outlines the processes of creating a 'Storymaker Wheel', a creativity evaluation tool conceptualised with input from a children's book author, a children's book illustrator, academics and teachers, for teachers and pupils to use to support and develop their creative writing. It documents the ways in which teachers and pupils engaged with the Wheel in three schools in England: a primary pupil referral unit, a primary school and a secondary school. Interviews with teachers and pupils about the Storymaker Wheel, and classroom observations of the Wheel in use, expose some challenges of teaching creative writing within the current English educational context, which we discuss. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Children with cancer experience fragmented school attendance during treatment. Telepresence robots that connect them with school during treatment periods were explored through an intervention involving participant observation followed by semi‐structured interviews from 2020–22 with children with cancer, their class teachers, and classmates. We used an abductive approach, inspired by the Agential Realism theory and Situational Analysis. The use of telepresence robots in education enables hospitalized children to actively participate in real‐time social activities with their classmates. However, consistent monitoring is necessary to ensure the success of this integration process as the classmates can lose interest in providing support to a child with cancer. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reports on our participatory multi‐faceted community‐wide intervention to change gender perceptions and encourage support for girls' education to improve their school attendance and performance. The intervention involved community and education stakeholders in implementing a context‐specific multi‐faceted intervention to improve opportunities for girls in 123 primary schools in the rural Wolaita Zone, Ethiopia. We implemented a repeated‐measures quasi‐experimental design in a sample of 30 schools (15 project and 15 control schools) to evaluate the intervention's effectiveness. Over 3 years we assessed gender perceptions of a cohort of 750 Grade 6 girls, their parents and teachers in project and control schools. In addition, participative group discussions were conducted with various stakeholders. In project schools, we recorded significant changes (e.g., provision of sanitary pads, counselling, tutorial classes and community involvement). Teachers and parents reported improved gender attitudes and support for girls' education; while girls' self‐esteem scores and educational aspirations increased. The findings showed a change in community perceptions of the value of girls' education and some evidence of increased equality in gender perceptions. We concluded that these systemic changes marked the start of a long‐term change process. This intervention showed the value of a participatory approach in a systemic community intervention. Please refer to the Supplementary Material section to find this article's Community and Social Impact Statement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, the authors discuss their grounded research carried out with teachers about the wellbeing of teachers. They explore the importance of making the concept of wellbeing more intimate and consider hedonic and eudaimonic ways of looking at wellbeing. They present a model of layered reflection which illuminates key factors that have an impact on the wellbeing of teachers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Accessible Summary: This paper reviews the present educational needs of children and young people and autistic spectrum disorder (ASD) in Egypt.Children with ASD are largely unrecognised by the educational provision in Egypt.This paper highlights the need for an improved educational programme for children with ASD who also experience an associated learning disability and learning difficulties.It is crucial to develop teacher support programmes and empower teachers to enable children and young people with ASD develop their fullest potential. This paper outlines, through a transnational discourse between partners in Egypt and the UK, an overview of the literature on the definition and features of autistic spectrum disorder (ASD) with associated learning needs and health conditions as applied to children and young people in Egypt. As a low‐ to middle‐income country, Egypt has a poor and underdeveloped health, education and social service to support children with ASD and very little research has investigated this phenomenon. This paper adds to the discussion through the shared knowledge and practice in the educational curriculum of children with ASD in Egypt. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Learning design is growing in importance but is not yet widely adopted by teachers. This paper describes the development of a scenario‐led learning design process, divided into two stages, which was implemented with over 500 teachers altogether from 15 European countries. Activity theory is used to explore the contradictions that arose when such changes were introduced into the established activity system of lesson planning. Data were collected through interviews and questionnaires from a small sample of participants including national coordinators (stage 1: n = 8; stage 2: n = 13) and teachers (stage 1: n = 13; stage 2: n = 23). These participants perceived that the scenario‐led learning design process, involving a wide range of stakeholders, was collaborative, supportive and innovative (compared to previous lesson planning practices). However, a number of contradictions were identifiable between: (1) the shift to collaborative learning design from teachers preparing their lessons alone; (2) the new tools and the existing rules of the national/regional education systems; (3) the time required to both understand and implement learning design, and the impact of competing demands. This paper discusses the challenges faced when attempting to scale‐up European school teachers' development of digital pedagogy. The structured (yet flexible) approach was welcomed and the tools promoted teacher reflection but, as commonly noted, the complexity and time‐constraints were major issues. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Teachers' behaviours drive motivational climates that shape children's engagement and well‐being in the classroom, but few studies examine how specific teachers' behaviours such as wording, body language, or voice contribute to these outcomes in isolation of one another. Aims: This pre‐registered experiment sought to examine the often‐forgotten role that teachers' tone of voice plays in children's education. Informed by the theoretical framework of self‐determination theory (SDT; Ryan & Deci, Self‐determination theory: Basic psychological needs in motivation, development, and wellness, 2017), conditions manipulated controlling (pressuring, demanding), autonomy‐supportive (inviting of choice), or motivationally neutral, tones of voice to explore their effects on children's self‐reported psychological needs satisfaction, well‐being, intention to self‐disclose to and intention to cooperate with their teacher. Sample and Method: Children aged 10–16 years (n = 250) heard pre‐recorded teachers' voices holding sentence content and speakers constant across conditions, but varying tones of voice. Results: We hypothesized a‐priori and found that when children heard controlling sounding voices, they anticipated lower basic psychological need satisfaction, well‐being, and intention to disclose to teachers, as compared to neutral‐sounding voices. We also anticipated beneficial effects for autonomy‐supportive versus neutral voices, but pre‐registered analyses did not support these expectations. Intention to cooperate with teachers did not differ across conditions. Supporting relational motivation theory (RMT; Deci & Ryan, Human Motivation and Interpersonal Relationships, 2014), exploratory analyses showed that hearing autonomy‐supportive sounding voices increased autonomy and relatedness need satisfactions (but not competence need satisfaction), and through doing so indirectly related to beneficial outcomes (well‐being, intention to cooperate and self‐disclose). Conclusion: In summary, tones of voice seem to play an important role in shaping teachers' impact on their students. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The pursuit of education for sustainable development (ESD) integration is imperative for appraising the implications and progress of the educational plan. Teachers are critical agents in delivering sustainable development content in formal education. Consequently, understanding the teachers' perspective is necessary for integration. This study analyses teachers' insights on integrating education for sustainable development. The teachers filled out a questionnaire concerning sustainable development, and data analysis revealed that teachers have positive awareness, poor attitudes and a detrimental state of behaviour towards sustainable development. The four focus group discussions were conducted to congregate teachers' perspicacity for sustainability education integration. The participant perceived reform in student‐teacher curricula, teacher's training programs, and embedding sustainability‐related subject content as an elementary enabler. They emphasised the vitality of administrative inputs and the government's role in successful integration. Three interlocking (educative, administrative and government) dimensions were advocated for sustainability integration in the school educative process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Teacher professionalism in England may be considered to have been shaped by the set of professional standards, and the accompanying statutory performance management system, introduced by the Labour government in 2007. More recently the coalition government’s 2010 White Paper, The Importance of Teaching, announced reforms that will potentially re-shape teacher professionalism. In this article I examine the ‘shape’ of teacher professionalism in England, as defined by the professional standards. I reveal it to be a lop-sided shape, indicating a professionalism that focuses predominantly on teachers’ behaviour, rather than on their attitudes and their intellectuality. Presenting my conceptual analysis of professionalism, and examination of its link with professional development, I consider whether—and to what extent—teacher professionalism may in fact be shaped by government-imposed reform. I conclude that ‘enacted’ professionalism may be quite different from ‘demanded’ professionalism, and shaping professionalism involves a complex and indecipherable process that is better understood by examining the process whereby individuals develop professionally. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In this paper we examine contemporary academic working lives, with particular reference to teaching- only and teaching-focused academics. We argue that intensification in the neoliberal university has significantly shifted the structure of academic careers, while cultural stories about those careers have not changed. We call for academics to re-examine our collective stories about standard academic career paths. Challenging the stories and making visible the ways that they create and multiply disadvantage is a crucial step in expanding the possibilities for academic identities and careers. The paper begins by describing teaching-focused academics within the context of the wider workforce. We then draw on narratives of those in these roles to illustrate the processes that (re)inscribe their marginalisation. We uncover the gendering of the teaching-focused academic labour market. We end the paper by suggesting interventions that all academics can take and support to address the issues we highlight. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper addresses the question: How do teachers and school leaders respond to high stakes testing of pupils transitioning from primary to secondary school? It explores how a new test, the Level 6 test, operated with regard to primary/secondary school relationships in England. It draws on an analysis of qualitative interviews with teachers and school leaders in 20 primary schools that took part in the test, 40 school leaders that chose not to and 20 secondary-school leaders. Theoretical work on social boundaries is utilised to develop an argument that this test and its results acted as a boundary signifier, crystallising many of the tensions between primary and secondary schools. These tensions included the role of accountability regimes in requiring schools to demonstrate progress; narrowing of the curriculum and teaching to the test; and the extent to which test results can provide a true representation of pupil attainment. We conclude by suggesting the potential of the boundary signifier concept in relation to other tests at the primary/secondary boundary and other key transition points in education, and consider whether such tests can act as an ideal boundary object, serving to help overcome, rather than cement, barriers between schools. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Background: Although a large body of research has investigated teachers' reading‐related knowledge and associated pedagogical practices, comparatively little is known about these factors in parents. Therefore, the present study examined the association between parental reading‐related knowledge and feedback during child‐to‐parent reading. Methods: Seventy parents completed a reading‐related knowledge questionnaire (phonological segmentation, knowledge of written syllable patterns, identification of regular and irregular word spellings) while their 6 and 7‐year‐old children were administered the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test and the reading subtest of the Wide Range Achievement Test–Fourth Edition. Based on children's Wide Range Achievement Test–Fourth Edition reading performances, they were assigned one of five adapted passages from the Gray Oral Reading Test–Fifth Edition to read aloud to their parents; parents were asked to help as they normally would. Reading sessions were videotaped; the content was transcribed and coded for evidence of verbal and nonverbal parental feedback (evaluative feedback: praise and criticism; miscue feedback: graphophonemic, context cues, try again, terminal and ignoring miscues). Results: Consistent with the teacher and parent literature, reading‐related knowledge was positively associated with children's reading scores. Parents' reading‐related knowledge additionally accounted for unique variance in praise and graphophonemic feedback during child‐to‐parent reading beyond the variance already explained by children's reading scores. Conclusions: These findings suggest that even after accounting for children's reading abilities, reading‐related knowledge contributes to a positive affective atmosphere for teaching key literacy skills to young readers. Implications are discussed in terms of enhancing parents' reading‐related knowledge and associated practices in hopes of positively contributing to children's literacy outcomes. Highlights: What is already known about this topic Teachers' reading‐related knowledge significantly predicts the instruction they provide and students' reading development.Consistent with the teacher research, parents' reading‐related knowledge is associated with children's reading performances.Parents tend to be quite positive and not critical when jointly reading with their children (Martin‐Chang & Gould, 2012). What this paper adds Here, we see the contribution of parents' feedback practices and their associations with parents' reading‐related knowledge and children's reading scores.Parents' reading‐related knowledge contributes to the affective atmosphere of joint reading.Parents' reading‐related knowledge accounts for more attempts at making explicit grapheme–phoneme connections (reading instruction) when jointly reading with their emergent readers. Implications for theory, policy or practice To direct parents towards available websites to improve their reading‐related knowledge.To develop parents' and teachers' reading‐related knowledge through joint parent/teacher learning evenings and other such efforts.Much of the initiatives to date have spoken to the importance of reading to children; however, the contributions of children reading to their parents need further attention. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Curriculum reforms often fail because teachers are asked to implement approaches to teaching and learning that are contrary to their beliefs about students and how to teach them. Since curriculum reforms are attempts to resolve particular educational problems, failures in implementation produce parallel failures to resolve the problem for which the curriculum was the intended solution. We propose an approach to understanding curricula that makes the mismatch between assumptions about teaching and learning in policy and teachers' practice apparent. By describing curricula as theories of action we can explain why teachers persist in teaching as they usually do. Once described, the gap between policy and implementation can be bridged by creatively redesigning the current theories that underpin them. We demonstrate this approach to understanding curricula by describing the espoused and enacted locally designed curriculum of a Japanese junior and senior high school programme and find that teachers' strongly held beliefs about their students constrained them from enacting the active student‐centred approaches they had initially espoused. In so doing, we show how even where there is broad agreement between teachers and policy makers there may be a considerable gap between the curriculum that was intended and that which is enacted in the classroom. By deeply understanding and comparing the assumptions underpinning both curricula, we explain such mismatches and discuss how they might be reduced through creative and principled reformulation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The goal of this research is to gain an understanding of how Arab civics teachers in Israel teach material that is inconsistent with their beliefs and aspirations. To this end, I conducted qualitative research employing interpretative phenomenological analysis. The findings show that different teachers find different ways to deal with the challenge. One group of teachers concentrates on teaching the programme as it is in order to avoid getting into trouble. Another group cautiously introduces creative strategies to expose the students to the Arab narrative that does not appear in the programme. A third group deals with the challenge directly. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the role of research in improving science education in the U.S. The understanding of the process of teaching, learning, and schooling has improved. Thus, rapid societal changes has an impact on the image of the process of schooling in general, and the process of teaching and learning science in particular. With this regard, teachers must engage in constructing a curriculum to enhance the development of all students. Lastly, research should guide and inform policy formation and decision making regarding science teaching, preschool through college.

Copyright of Journal of Research in Special Educational Needs is the property of Wiley-Blackwell and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Journal of Research in Special Educational Needs is the property of Wiley-Blackwell and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Journal of Research in Special Educational Needs is the property of Wiley-Blackwell and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The study featured in this paper investigates pre- and in-service Physical Education (PE) teachers' diverse views of OE (Outdoor Education) against the backdrop of numerous curricular changes underpinning Singaporean education. We highlight the potential challenges Singaporean schools and teachers may face in implementing the newly formalized OE curriculum. Findings revealed the teachers' prioritization of high elements and adventure activities within residential camps. Then, the teachers linked these 'risky' and 'unfamiliar' activities with transferrable learning outcomes, mostly in line with students' personal and social development. The more experienced teachers in the cohort tended to advocate that OE could be situated within local school and community environs. Yet, this envisioning of OE within a place-based learning model reflected limited understanding of this concept. We conclude by suggesting that curriculum designers and teacher educators should draw upon pre- and in-service PE teachers' perceptions of OE. It is imperative that these teachers' key concerns and beliefs, which currently structure their work in this recently formalized subject area, are used to contextualize the extensive curricular change and professional learning endeavors that are being implemented by the education ministry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

One of the challenges facing education systems in general and the South African education system in particular is how to understand ways that teachers change from nonusers of technologies to becoming transformative teachers with technology. Despite numerous initiatives, not limited to training, workshops and so forth, to bring about sustained and wide-spread teacher change, transmission/delivery-based pedagogies and chalk-and-talk methods continue to dominate. While policy directives and professional development programmes aim to effect change in teachers' practice, they tend to fail to create sustainable change in teachers' practice of using emerging technologies (ETs). This paper reports on a study that sought to understand how teachers change their pedagogy of teaching with ETs. Using a Design-Based Research approach, the paper reports on the teachers' pedagogical change framework (Teaching Change Frame -TCF) as a diagnostic tool for locating and mapping how teachers' change. The TCF maps teachers' existing pedagogies and ET uses, and designs a pathway of a change process to effect the desired change. The TCF was tested and refined using data from 325 teachers drawn from rural, resource-constrained schools, urban, well-resourced schools and from preservice teaching students in a decontextualized environment. Following three iterations it was found that teachers' use of ETs in regulated, restrictive ways correlate with transmission pedagogies, unregulated, dispersed ways correlate with transformative pedagogies. The use of TCF not only located teaching pedagogies but also provide different pathways to ensure sustainable change. Findings emphasize the need for teachers to encourage learners to build/create/construct with ETs and for increased interaction in fostering nonregulated dispersed use of ETs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Writing is a particularly demanding activity, which poses unique motivational challenges for students. Despite the wealth of research on the relation between writing motivation and writing performance, little is known about the role of students' writing frequency in writing motivation and writing performance. Aims: We aimed to: (1) examine structural relations among two motivational variables (i.e., self‐efficacy and attitudes), a behavioural variable (i.e., writing frequency), and writing performance; and (2) inspect whether these relations varied across two text genres (i.e., narrative and opinion texts) and across two educational levels (i.e., students in grades 5–6 and grades 7–8). Sample: Six hundred and five students from grades 5–8 participated in this study. Methods: Students completed self‐report scales and wrote narrative and opinion texts. We conducted multiple‐group structural equation modeling to analyse the data. Results: Regarding narrative texts, digital writing frequency was significantly associated with text quality for students in grades 7–8, but this relation was not significant in students from grades 5–6. Both attitudes and self‐efficacy for self‐regulation made a direct contribution to narrative text quality across educational levels. In addition, attitudes were associated with both literary and digital writing frequency across educational levels. Concerning opinion texts, no significant differences emerged in terms of educational level. Attitudes contributed to both literary and digital writing frequency as well as to opinion text quality across educational levels. Conclusions: This study underlines the fundamental contribution of motivational variables to students' writing performance. Accordingly, teachers need to adopt motivation‐enhancing practices in writing instruction across grade levels. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Discusses the Travelling Literacy Trunk concept developed by teachers of a young writers' camp in Oregon. Basis for creating Travelling Literacy Trunks; Development of concept; Benefits from the concept.

Through employing ethnographic data collected with female teachers from rural and low-income communities in Pakistan, this paper examines how parhi likhi (educated) women's access to valuable opportunities in public domains is contingent upon them becoming subject to new regulations, especially regarding their sexuality. This gendered process of regulated empowerment challenges the discourse of women's education as universally empowering and highlights the complex and multidimensional impact of education in different sociocultural contexts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research in the social sciences has focused extensively on the relationship between family background, educational attainment and social destination, on the one hand, and on the processes of skills creation and skills use, on the other. This paper brings these two branches of the literature together by examining the correlation between a range of social factors. The methodology we adopt provides a comprehensive approach to the study of the channels through which literacy skills are acquired, taking into account the interrelation of family background, educational attainment, and the use of skills at work and at home. We use the Programme of International Assessment of Adult Competences (PIAAC) dataset and apply a structural equation model (SEM). Our results show that family background and education play an important role in the configuration of adult skills and skill practices. Unequal family access to resources has a strong impact at later stages in life and strongly affects educational attainment and skills outcomes. Additionally, skills use has a positive and direct impact on adult skills. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper brings together research on slope from mathematics education and research on line of best fit from statistics education by considering what knowledge of slope students transfer to a novel task involving determining the placement of an informal line of best fit. This study focuses on two students who transitioned from placing inaccurate to accurate lines of best fit during a task-based interview. The analysis focuses on describing shifts in slope reasoning that accompanied the change to accurately placed lines, and investigates factors that may have influenced the shift in reasoning. The results have implications for the teaching of both slope and the line of best fit. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper describes an i Pad project in a Northern Ireland primary school. It evaluates how the technology impacted on learning in literacy, numeracy and in pupil skills. The youngest pupils were asked about their i Pad experiences using small-group interviews based on the circle time approach. Their teacher and two classroom assistants were interviewed about organisational, pedagogical and pupil skill patterns. The teacher reported improvements and greater readiness in pupils' ability to grasp initial key concepts in literacy and numeracy, including lower ability and special needs children. Motivation, concentration and confidence grew, as did spontaneous peer collaboration and the early stages of peer assessment. Classroom assistants had an innovative role in supporting i Pad use and noted improved pupil communication, listening and fine motor skills. The children said that i Pads helped them with writing, counting and drawing. They understood the purpose of specific apps, how to navigate them and what learning occurred. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Forty invited interculturalists (both academics and non‐academics) from nine countries engaged in developing a coherent culture of dialogue and collective action to address the challenge of redefining intercultural education provisions with regard to the needs of refugee children. The method of cooperative inquiry to elicit theoretical and professional expertise from the participants was adopted. This inquiry was based on four dimensions of reflective practice, drawing on experiential, presentational, propositional and practical knowledge. The intercultural experts (seen as 'co‐researchers' and/or 'co‐subjects') who participated engaged in a rigorous intercultural and reflexive dialogue developed in four distinct phases. The first two phases took place in their own local contexts and the final ones in a forum organised in Greece. During the forum, the participants' diverse knowledge and experience were renegotiated to ascertain the 'collective wisdom' of the group and to address issues of otherness and approaches to refugee education, teachers' training and mediation. The consensus reached by the participants included the following: the need for local communities to be supported so as to avoid and mitigate any hostility towards refugees; the urgency of a common European asylum policy; the realisation of the 'other' as a social construct based on hierarchical connotations and defined by diverse (meta)narratives; the urgency for providing formal/mainstream education to secure a pathway to social citizenship for refugees; the adoption of culturally responsive education practices to empower intercultural learning using refugee children's own cultural knowledge and collaborating with parents; and the need for systemic intercultural and mediation training for teachers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Educators usually recognise the value of drama‐in‐education, but hesitate to use it with unpredictable diverse groups that have limited communication and social understanding. This article evaluates a professional development initiative in an all‐age special school (3–19 years) in eastern England as a whole‐school improvement strategy to promote drama for enhancing children's communication through dialogic teaching. The project was the culmination of an action research cycle to refine an original constructivist five‐staged professional developmental model for teaching inclusive groups with children with special educational needs and disabilities. Following a staff training session, the researcher supported each teacher in class once a week for 6 weeks, using collegial mentoring strategies. The model enabled their starting point and priority next step to be accurately identified towards them gradually taking over leading drama sessions. A pedagogical framework for early drama – Prescribed Drama Structures – proved pivotal, enhanced by a flexible model for exploring story and understanding social narrative. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although there is an increasing use of emerging technologies ( ETs) in higher education internationally and in South Africa in particular, there is little evidence that their use is transforming teaching and learning practice. Anecdotal evidence shows that there is a dichotomy between the technologies supported and used in higher education institutions ( HEIs) on one hand, and technologies owned and predominately in use among students. Thus, the gulf between technologies supported and used for teaching and the technologies used by students for learning has created pressure for educators to 'play catch-up,' resulting in a continuum of pedagogically ineffective to effective uses of ETs. This paper argues that pedagogically sound uses of ETs leverage the broader context of existing practices (cultural-historical context) to design learning activities that transform both the teaching and learning practices. The paper draws data from a national survey on uses of ETs among educators in higher education to propose a pedagogical model of use that has the potential to transform practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research indicates a powerful correlation between students' reading enjoyment, motivation and achievement. This Australian case study investigates how reading for pleasure (RfP) approaches are demonstrated in the teaching of reading in a Stage 1 (6‐year‐old to 7‐year‐old students) classroom. The methodology was designed to mirror aspects of Cremin's 2014 UK‐based study, Teachers As Readers. Engaging an interpretivist paradigm, the case was analysed through three distinct but intersecting lenses, knowledge, affect and material, to develop a rich and multifaceted insight into the social world of the classroom. The study found that while the teacher's pedagogic practices for teaching reading incorporated many indicators of a RfP approach, this stemmed from personal ideologies rather than explicit knowledge of a RfP pedagogical framework. Hence, while the study indicates the positive impacts of RfP approaches on this classroom's reading culture, the efficacy of this pedagogy could be potentially limited if an explicit understanding of the theoretical framework does not underpin teachers' actions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The focus of this paper is a discussion of anxiety and politics as they relate to business school pedagogy. Using ideas from critical management education (CME), the paper explores why and how to engage with the anxiety mobilized through attempts to learn. The aim is to discuss emotional and political dynamics that are generated, and too often avoided, in management education. Making these dynamics overt in the classroom can help managers to comprehend the political context within which management takes place. Examples informed by CME are presented, as well as reflections from the author on the anxiety and politics that emerge for the critical management educator in a business school context. The contribution in the paper is to show the way that anxieties and politics within the business school classroom offer opportunities to change how business schools approach the teaching of managers. CME adds value to management education because it challenges what and how individuals and groups expect to learn, and consequently it challenges assumptions about how learning takes place within business schools. Such challenges are seen as an important and integral part of ‘making the business school more critical’. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In contributing to debates about how student-teachers might draw from personal experience in addressing digital literacy in the classroom, this paper explores the stories that one primary student-teacher told of her digital practices during a larger study of the role of digital literacy in student-teachers' lives. The paper investigates the ‘recognition work’ this student-teacher did as she aligned herself with different discourses and notes how themes of ‘control’ and ‘professionalism’ seemed to pattern her stories of informal and formal practices both within and beyond her professional education. The paper calls for further research into how student-teachers perceive the relevance of their personal experience to their professional role and argues for encouraging pre-service and practising teachers to tell stories of their digital practices and reflect upon the discourses which frame them. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Designing and implementing effective e-learning is a complex process, which involves many factors. Lecturers need to constantly consider, evaluate and adjust these factors to provide effective e-learning environments for students. In this paper, we report on the design and development of the Online Learning Environment Survey (OLES), an instrument which can be used to gather and represent data on students' ‘actual’ (experienced) and ‘preferred’ (ideal) learning environments. We describe the use of this instrument in blended learning environments with university classes, illustrating how OLES can be used by educators striving for good practice in the design of effective online learning environments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper discusses the impact of a number of external influences on targets for education in developing countries and on national plans for the development of the education sector. Both the external pressure to develop Poverty Reduction Strategies in developing countries and the Millennium Development Goal process influence national education targets and plans. The paper argues that key inputs to education are increasingly driven by non-educators and examines the influence of non-educators on teacher recruitment and deployment, classroom construction and textbooks. The paper identifies the trend among multilateral and bilateral donors to provide financial assistance through general budget support and examines some of the international evidence on the impact on education systems of: (i) stand-alone projects, (ii) assistance provided within sector-wide approaches, and (iii) general budget support. World Bank evaluations of each mode of support to education within Uganda are then examined and discussed. The paper concludes with some lessons for educators. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper argues that the work of teachers in England's primary schools has been reconstructed. It is proposed that the literacy curriculum has been a major factor in this reconstruction. The paper suggests that the purposes of literacy today have been determined by policy makers, and that the nature of policy texts has changed, hardened, into specific requirements. It argues that the role of the policy driver has been fundamental in this era, influential in the contexts of policy making, policy text production and teacher training. The paper develops by proposing that there is an emerging model of professionalism today largely determined by two key figures: the Policy Driver, and the Practice Driver, or Headteacher. These two figures are at the meeting place of policy and practice and assume the mantle of‘reality definers’ for the process of literacy education in English primary schools. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper describes some strategies for the educator seeking to better his/her classroom effectiveness. It was inspired by one of the technical sessions of the 29th Annual IEEE/ASEE Frontiers in Education Conference in which over a dozen experienced college instructors engaged in a roundtable discussion of ways to improve a classroom environment. In this paper, those ideas are discussed and then supplemented with general advice and specific suggestions from the experience of the authors. The paper concludes with a bibliography of related reference material from a wide variety of educational sources. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Declaration of Salamanca proposes a deep reformulation of educational praxis which has as a main goal to create an environment where all students can enjoy learning, improve and grow in confidence, in a perspective of Inclusive Education. In this sense, it is necessary that teachers acquire scientific and educational skills but, also, development of personal and interpersonal competences that are crucial for a flexible and adequate professional praxis. The concept of competences integrates knowledge, skills, personal values and attitudes that are acquired through work experience and learning by doing. On other side, experiential work is lived through a body in movement. Acknowledging these ideas and considering active methods and expressive arts as valorous contributions to the positive model of inclusive education in this paper, the authors propose the training in Expressive Arts to promote Inclusion but mainly to develop personal and interpersonal competences of teachers to the Inclusion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For many years educational practitioners have tended to focus on issues within the child for the causes of special educational needs and or disabilities. However, as the field has developed in professional maturity, a more inclusive approach has now tended to look beyond the child themselves, and recognise that often the cause of the child's educational struggle is more to do with within school factors, and factors from the home. In some instances, researchers have suggested that the home-based factors can account for around 80% of the difficulties experienced by children. In this paper, the overview of the research carried out with four Belfast schools will be provided, along with the key findings, including the impact of teacher aspiration, parental struggles with their own education and community influences. Belfast has a unique history, and divisions remain between Protestant and Catholic schools as to their outcomes for pupils. The research crossed the religious divide and findings will be presented as to the differences in educational aspiration and engagement from the two communities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Our work is set against the backdrop of the pervasive discussion of harnessing online games to provide students with new constructivist learning opportunities. Upon the theoretical foundation, we have developed Virtual Interactive Student- Oriented Learning Environment ( VISOLE), a teaching framework for implementing constructivist online game-based learning in formal curriculum teaching in school education. In this paper, apart from underlining the pedagogical features of VISOLE, we discuss our study on investigating 118 teachers' concerns about this educational innovation with the Stages of Concern ( SoC) model, in terms of five categorical concerns-Evaluation, Information, Management, Consequence and Refocusing. All participants had completed our VISOLE induction training before they participated in the SoC survey. Results revealed that their Management concern was the most intense. With this 'diagnostic' knowledge, we can formulate more precise interventions addressing teachers' actual needs so as to assist them in the adoption of VISOLE at school. The findings also shed light on designing, developing or appropriating online games to support learning and teaching in school education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Political pressures to improve schooling outcomes have typically narrowed the curriculum to that which can be measured. We explore the counter‐narrative of efforts to enrich curriculum with learning, which is difficult to measure but nevertheless valued, through a study of British Council programmes offered in Scottish schools to support curricular internationalisation. These programmes exemplify a growing number of programmes provided by external organisations to enrich official school curriculum. However, the contemporary focus on performative targets means that such hosted programmes need to argue their relevance in terms of measurable curricular outcomes. We draw on an empirical project involving semi‐structured interviews with school leaders and focus groups with teachers in Scottish schools. The research is conceptualised through Bernstein's theory of the classification and framing of knowledge, and distinction between visible and invisible pedagogies. Analysis of two schools' enactment of such curricular enrichment explores how programmes ostensibly cultivating international education and global citizenship are ultimately assessed and defended through their contribution to other curricular outcomes. This counter‐narrative of curricular enrichment in performative times asks whether such efforts to measure the ineffable defeat the object of the exercise, to highlight how overly simplistic measures of curricular learning can distort what matters. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

ABSTRACT Opportunities for the development of science-related pedagogy during training are necessarily limited for the generalist primary (elementary), preservice teacher. While school placement is an important context within which to develop such professional expertise, the role of institution-based learning is less well understood in this regard. This paper explores the generation of science-related pedagogy as preservice primary teachers learn about the traditionally challenging subject of forces as part of their institution-based science education course. Findings illustrate how critical interpretation of the school curriculum is informed as a consequence of preservice teachers developing metacognitive awareness of their own learning of science. A subject matter learning audit provides a framework to enable the teachers to analyze their learning and apply their perspectives to the primary curriculum through focusing attention on the abstract and counterintuitive nature of forces. Pedagogic insight emerges as the student-teachers craft successive reflective accounts of their own understanding of forces and interpret the curriculum relating to forces. In doing so, they begin to translate their learning as pedagogical apparatus for their future work with pupils. The paper concludes with discussion of some implications for the role of institution-based learning in the development of pedagogical subject knowledge in science. © 2013 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Sci Ed 97:410-441, 2013 [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Drawing upon findings of a four-year national research project on variations in the work and lives of teachers in England, this paper provides empirical evidence which contributes to understandings about the importance of resilience in teachers' work. The experience of resilience as perceived by teachers in this research was that it was neither innate nor stable and was much more than a capacity to survive and thrive in extremely adverse circumstances. Rather, it was perceived as being closely allied to their everyday capacity to sustain their educational purposes and successfully manage the unavoidable uncertainties which are inherent in the practice of being a teacher. Their capacity to be resilient fluctuated as a result of the influences of the personal, relational and organisational settings in which they worked. The findings have implications for initial and in-service professional development programmes, school leadership and the quality retention of teachers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Assessing student learning is a complex process requiring teachers to have deep knowledge of the curriculum, assessment, and pedagogy. Changing political climates mean that teachers are expected to respond to new approaches or systems and adjust their classroom practice accordingly. Teachers often engage in professional learning (PL) to assist their knowledge and classroom practice, but what impact does PL have on their assessment practice as well as student learning and achievement? This paper examines optimal PL principles, the New Zealand assessment policy context, and application of assessment for learning principles in a nation-wide PL programme. Empirical data presented in relation to the five levels of Guskey's (2002) model evaluating PL indicate successful outcomes at the classroom level. However, application of Carless’ (2005) theoretical framework on embedding PL changes in schools reveals an area of neglect: attending to system (macro) level needs. Collaborative partnerships between schools and the wider community are posited as essential determinants of assessment literacies and transformational PL in times of political change. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]