Exploring teacher professional learning for future-oriented schooling

Sets out some of the early findings from a pilot project to explore the qualities that future-oriented teachers might need and how those qualities might be developed. Summary In educational discussions today, there is concern that our schools are not adequately preparing today’s learners for the increasingly fast-changing world they will live and work in. The terms “future-oriented” and/or “21st century” teaching and learning occur frequently in policy documents, and “future focus” is a key principle of our national curriculum.3 However, while there is a great deal of talk about “21st century” learners’ needs, and how best to meet these needs, there is very little discussion of what “21st century” or “future-oriented” teachers look like, or how today’s teachers might become “future-oriented”. This, it seems to us, is a major gap. Developing a future-oriented education system cannot be done without teachers who understand—and are committed to doing—what is needed. However, many of today’s teachers are not well-prepared for this work, and most professional learning programmes are not designed to scaffold the kind of “future practice” needed. What qualities do future-oriented teachers need? To what extent are these qualities different from those required of 20th century teachers? How are these qualities best developed? Can we expect all teachers to develop them? Can these new qualities be simply added to a 20th century teacher’s existing repertoire of knowledge and skills? While there is a focus on teachers’ ICT knowledge and skills, the educational research literature has had little to say on other qualities needed by future-oriented teachers, and these questions are not a focus in the wider education sector

Curriculum implementation exploratory studies: Final report

Throughout the history of schooling in New Zealand the national curriculum has been revised at fairly regular intervals. Consequently, schools are periodically faced with having to accommodate to new curriculum. In between major changes other specifically-focused changes may arise; for example, the increased recent emphasis upon numeracy and literacy

Serological Evidence of Discrete Spatial Clusters of Plasmodium falciparum Parasites

BACKGROUND: Malaria transmission may be considered to be homogenous with well-mixed parasite populations (as in the classic Ross/Macdonald models). Marked fine-scale heterogeneity of transmission has been observed in the field (i.e., over a few kilometres), but there are relatively few data on the degree of mixing. Since the Plasmodium falciparum Erythrocyte Membrane Protein 1 (PfEMP1) is highly polymorphic, the host's serological responses may be used to infer exposure to parasite sub-populations. METHODS AND FINDINGS: We measured the antibody responses to 46 individual PfEMP1 domains at four time points among 450 children in Kenya, and identified distinct spatial clusters of antibody responses to individual domains. 35 domains showed strongly significant sero-clusters at p = 0.001. Individuals within the high transmission hotspot showed the greatest diversity of anti-PfEMP1 responses. Individuals outside the hotspot had a less diverse range of responses, even if as individuals they were at relatively intense exposure. CONCLUSIONS: We infer that antigenically distinct sub-populations of parasites exist on a fine spatial scale in a study area of rural Kenya. Further studies should examine antigenic variation over longer periods of time and in different study areas

Some reflections on the philosophical and pedagogical challenges of transforming education

This paper responds to the articles in the recent special edition of The Curriculum Journal (Volume 20, Number 3). The special edition discusses an ‘archaeological’ approach to student enquiry, with associated ideas of personalisation, competency development, and building learning power. We argue that the papers both raise and omit complex issues that need to be addressed if their transformative agenda is to be realized. For example, it is important to reconsider traditional assumptions about the nature of knowledge, so that teachers' practice and students' learning can become more appropriately aligned to twenty-first century conditions of knowing and being. Similarly, the wider political contexts that frame practice need to be addressed, in part by rethinking connections between pedagogy, curriculum and assessment to provide a more satisfactory theoretical rationale for competencies and personalization, and by re-theorising related ideas such as ‘equity’. We fear that lack of attention to such issues will simply mean the new pedagogies will continue to reproduce the status quo.