Teaching assistants and pupils' academic and social engagement in mainstream schools: insights from systematic literature reviews

The last 20 years have seen a huge expansion in the additional adults working in classrooms in the UK, USA, and other countries. This paper presents the findings of a series of systematic literature reviews about teaching assistants. The first two reviews focused on stakeholder perceptions of teaching assistant contributions to academic and social engagement. Stakeholders were pupils, teachers, TAs, headteachers and parents. Perceptions focused on four principal contributions that teaching assistants contribute to: pupils’ academic and socio-academic engagement; inclusion; maintenance of stakeholder relations; and support for the teacher. The third review explored training. Against a background of patchy training provision both in the UK and the USA, strong claims are made for the benefits to TAs of training provided, particularly in building confidence and skills. The conclusions include implications for further training and the need for further research to gain an in-depth understanding as to precisely the manner in which TAs engage with children

Practices, Challenges and Implications of Teaching and Assessment of Cognitive Skills in Higher Education

The key research questions of the study were to check understanding,practices and challenges in teaching and assessment of higher orderthinking skills to students enrolled in pre-service teacher educationprogram. Sequential mixed method design was applied to collectquantitative and qualitative data with the help of structured questionnairescale and semi-structured interview. Descriptive statistics were appliedby calculating percentages and means; and thematic analysis was carriedout by open coding, axial coding, analytical coding and selective coding.Quantitative and qualitative data was integrated to draw findings andconclusions of the study. The major conclusions of the study are thatfaculty in UK conceptualise Cognitive Skills (CS) as processinginformation, constructing understanding, application of knowledge,problem solving and thinking activity. They also incorporate CSs inteaching problem solving and reflective learning practices in whichlearners retrieve, generate, organise, and validate information. Theyassess CSs by open book examination, moderation of assignments,matching and comparing against Teacher Education Standards, and alsoprovide effective feedback. However, faculty do not focus on‘construction of theory’ and linking theory to practice in teaching andassessment

Practices, Challenges and Implications of Teaching and Assessment of Cognitive Skills in Higher Education

The key research questions of the study were to check understanding,practices and challenges in teaching and assessment of higher orderthinking skills to students enrolled in pre-service teacher educationprogram. Sequential mixed method design was applied to collectquantitative and qualitative data with the help of structured questionnairescale and semi-structured interview. Descriptive statistics were appliedby calculating percentages and means; and thematic analysis was carriedout by open coding, axial coding, analytical coding and selective coding.Quantitative and qualitative data was integrated to draw findings andconclusions of the study. The major conclusions of the study are thatfaculty in UK conceptualise Cognitive Skills (CS) as processinginformation, constructing understanding, application of knowledge,problem solving and thinking activity. They also incorporate CSs inteaching problem solving and reflective learning practices in whichlearners retrieve, generate, organise, and validate information. Theyassess CSs by open book examination, moderation of assignments,matching and comparing against Teacher Education Standards, and alsoprovide effective feedback. However, faculty do not focus on‘construction of theory’ and linking theory to practice in teaching andassessment.</jats:p