Narratives from YouTube: Juxtaposing stories about physical education

The aim of this paper is to explore what is performed in students’ and teachers’ actions in physical education practice in terms of “didactic irritations,” through an analysis of YouTube clips from 285 PE lessons from 27 different countries. Didactic irritations are occurrences that Rønholt describes as those demanding “didactic, pedagogical reflections and discussions, which in turn could lead to alternative thinking and understanding about teaching and learning.” Drawing on Barad’s ideas of performativity to challenge our habitual anthropocentric analytical gaze when looking at educational visual data, and using narrative construction, we also aim to give meaning to actions, relations, and experiences of the participants in the YouTube clips. To do this, we present juxtaposing narratives from teachers and students in terms of three “didactic irritations”: (a) stories from a track, (b), stories from a game, and (c), stories from a bench. The stories re-present events-of-moving in the data offering insights into embodied experiences in PE practice, making students’ as well as teachers’ actions in PE practice understandable

An Exploration of the assessment for intervention model in an Irish educational psychological context

Aims The current research sought to explore the utility of the Assessment for Intervention (AFI) model in bridging the gap between assessment and intervention, through the conceptual lens of Ecological Systems Theory (EST) and Social Constructivist Theory (SCT). AFI is a five-stage assessment model that aims to provide recommendations that are both useful and evidence-based (Pameijer, 2017). Method An exploratory ‘two case’ case study was employed to answer the research question: ‘Can the Assessment for Intervention model bridge the gap between assessment and intervention, through activity and interaction at the meso and microsystem levels?’ The AFI framework was applied to two case referrals made to a school psychological service in Ireland. Case 1 included a student in 4th class, his mother, class teacher and Special Education Teacher (SET) (n=4). Case 2 comprised of a student in 6th class, her mother and class teacher (n=3). A pilot study was conducted to inform the research design and a case study protocol guided data collection and analysis of findings (n=3). Participants rated Likert statements exploring case propositions, before and after application of the AFI model. Semi-structured interviews were also conducted to answer the research question and to address case propositions. AFI templates served as a researcher diary and were recorded before, during and after application of the model. Results Thematic analysis and pattern-matching were employed to analyse the interview data. Changes in ratings on Likert statements were presented in tabular format and excerpts from the researcher diary were included in the discussion of findings. All data were analysed within the conceptual framework detailed. Results suggest some interesting implications for policy and practice, particularly for those in educational psychology. Conclusions The findings suggest the AFI model, grounded in EST and SCT, can address the gap between assessment and intervention, discussed in the literature

The University of Glasgow Careers Guide 2019-20

No abstract available

The University of Glasgow Careers Guide 2019-20

No abstract available

Attending to Experience:a narrative study of early career teachers of primary mathematics, and an early career researcher, in a process of becoming/continuing

In the following pages I explore the experiences of early career primary teachers who have an interest in mathematics education. My intention is to become more aware of what they do in their day-to-day mathematical school lives and what they consider significant to their development. In turn I question the role school-based mentors and mathematics teacher educators have in supporting their development. I bring a narrative ontological and epistemological stance, shaped by postmodern thinking, to my work. I use a range of narrative structures to communicate my developing insights and celebrate the uncertainty of constructions of knowledge and reality. My analysis, largely of interview data, offers a perspective usually obscured by dominant narratives of deficit and what works. I argue a shift in attention from a focus on the attainment of expertise as an end point, to the continuous processes of learning and change, may support the development of the primary mathematics specialists wished for in primary classrooms in England. In keeping with the principles of narrative inquiry I recognise the blurring of the boundary between researcher and researched. I study my experiences as a beginning researcher alongside the experiences of the people I interview, establishing the how and the what of my methodology, as I develop my research practices. Staying with stories of development over time, and using approaches I come to describe as storying the small, writing as if and re-storying, in order that I might attend differently to the continuous nature of change, as beginners position themselves on new landscapes, are significant threads. As a result of my work I seek to highlight methodological implications for working from a narrative position as I recognise connections between narrative inquiry, relational knowing and reflexivity and wonder at the possibilities being slow and knowing slow might offer in learning to attend to experience differently

Students' preferences in undergraduate mathematics assessment

Existing research into students' preferences for assessment methods has been developed from a restricted sample: in particular, the voice of students in the ‘hard-pure sciences’ has rarely been heard. We conducted a mixed method study to explore mathematics students' preferences of assessment methods. In contrast to the message from the general assessment literature, we found that mathematics students differentially prefer traditional assessment methods such as closed book examination; they perceive them to be fairer than innovative methods and they perceive traditional methods to be the best discriminators of mathematical ability. We also found that although students prefer to be assessed by traditional methods they are also concerned by the mix of methods they encounter during their degree, suggesting that more account needs to be taken about the students' views of this mix. We discuss the impact of the results on the way general findings about assessment preference should be interpreted

Progressive pedagogies made visible: Implications for equitable mathematics teaching

This paper makes a significant contribution to contemporary debates over the direction curriculum reforms should take. It challenges claims that progressive pedagogies can exclude disadvantaged learners from gaining access to powerful knowledge and argues that greater attention needs to be given to learner agency and subject didactics. It reports on the findings from the Visible Maths Pedagogy research project, which aimed to develop and evaluate strategies for making progressive pedagogies more visible to mathematics learners. Evidence collected from student surveys and interviews suggests that these novel strategies were successful in heightening students’ appreciation of the teacher’s pedagogic rationale for employing progressive teaching approaches. They appeared to have a positive impact on students’ mathematical engagement and awareness of how to achieve success in the secondary school mathematics classroom, particularly for those from disadvantaged backgrounds. The findings highlight the potential of progressive pedagogies made visible for establishing an alternative didactic situation based on socio-mathematical norms associated with ‘sense-making’, rather than ‘answer-getting’, which can help develop students’ individual and collective agency. We argue that such a didactic situation offers a pathway towards a more equitable mathematics curriculum, that enables wider access to powerful knowledge, and which forms an integral part of a school curriculum designed to address the environmental, economic and social challenges currently faced by our global society

Progressive pedagogies made visible:Implications for equitable mathematics teaching

This paper makes a significant contribution to contemporary debates over the direction curriculum reforms should take. It challenges claims that progressive pedagogies can exclude disadvantaged learners from gaining access to powerful knowledge and argues that greater attention needs to be given to learner agency and subject didactics. It reports on the findings from the Visible Maths Pedagogy research project, which aimed to develop and evaluate strategies for making progressive pedagogies more visible to mathematics learners. Evidence collected from student surveys and interviews suggests that these novel strategies were successful in heightening students’ appreciation of the teacher’s pedagogic rationale for employing progressive teaching approaches. They appeared to have a positive impact on students’ mathematical engagement and awareness of how to achieve success in the secondary school mathematics classroom, particularly for those from disadvantaged backgrounds. The findings highlight the potential of progressive pedagogies made visible for establishing an alternative didactic situation based on socio-mathematical norms associated with ‘sense-making’, rather than ‘answer-getting’, which can help develop students’ individual and collective agency. We argue that such a didactic situation offers a pathway towards a more equitable mathematics curriculum, that enables wider access to powerful knowledge, and which forms an integral part of a school curriculum designed to address the environmental, economic and social challenges currently faced by our global society