Reasons for Doctoral non-completion; one non-completing Doctoral student’s voice on limitations in the academic literature

Timely completion has recently been an important focus of academic literature on supervising Doctoral students. This paper is a reflection on the academic literature on timely doctoral completion by a former Doctoral student who has been a serial non-completer. This reflection explores whether academics’ constructions, reported in the research literature, of the causes and symptoms of doctoral non-completion relate to this student’s experience. The reflection concludes that there is a significant blind spot in the Doctoral non-completion literature. This blind spot relates to a possible mismatch between students’ and academics’ conceptions of research. In addition to this conclusion, the paper is a small exemplification of educators using their own autobiographies as learners as a method for critical reflection on practice. It also considers the possibility of developing this approach into autoethnography

What Do Teachers Do When They Say They Are Doing Learning Rounds? Scotland’s Experience of Instructional Rounds

This paper reports on research into the practice of learning rounds in Scotland. Learning rounds are a form of collaborative professional development for teachers based on the instructional rounds practice developed in the USA. In recent years learning rounds have gained high profile official support within education in Scotland. The research finds that what teachers in Scotland do when they say they are do-ing learning rounds varies widely from school to school and deviates significantly from the practice of instructional rounds. The implications of this for who is learning what in the practice of learning rounds is considered. The wider implications of the Scottish experience for the development of in-structional rounds practice in other countries is also considered as are the implications for promoting collaborative professional development practice more generally

Teacher agency and professional learning communities; what can Learning Rounds in Scotland teach us?

Recently there has been growth in researching teacher agency. Some research has considered the relationship between teacher agency and professional learning. Similarly, there has been growing interest in professional learning communities as resources for professional learning. Connections have been made between professional learning communities and teacher agency, with professional learning communities seen as an affordance for the exercise of teacher agency. However, it has also been argued that there is little detailed evidence of what happens inside professional learning communities or of teacher agency in action. The research reported here focuses on a form of professional learning community from Scotland: Learning Rounds. It uses data from transcripts of post classroom observation conversations to consider the extent to which Learning Rounds provide an affordance for teacher agency and the extent to which that affordance is utilised. This research makes a contribution in three ways: adding to an empirical understanding of what happens in professional learning communities; understanding how teacher agency is (or is not) exercised in practice; considering what factors might affect the utilisation (or otherwise) of affordances for teacher agency. The paper concludes with several recommendations for developing effective professional learning communities as an affordance for teacher agency

Biomarkers of Nutrition for Development (BOND)—Iron Review

This is the fifth in the series of reviews developed as part of the Biomarkers of Nutrition for Development (BOND) program. The BOND Iron Expert Panel (I-EP) reviewed the extant knowledge regarding iron biology, public health implications, and the relative usefulness of currently available biomarkers of iron status from deficiency to overload. Approaches to assessing intake, including bioavailability, are also covered. The report also covers technical and laboratory considerations for the use of available biomarkers of iron status, and concludes with a description of research priorities along with a brief discussion of new biomarkers with potential for use across the spectrum of activities related to the study of iron in human health. The I-EP concluded that current iron biomarkers are reliable for accurately assessing many aspects of iron nutrition. However, a clear distinction is made between the relative strengths of biomarkers to assess hematological consequences of iron deficiency versus other putative functional outcomes, particularly the relationship between maternal and fetal iron status during pregnancy, birth outcomes, and infant cognitive, motor and emotional development. The I-EP also highlighted the importance of considering the confounding effects of inflammation and infection on the interpretation of iron biomarker results, as well as the impact of life stage. Finally, alternative approaches to the evaluation of the risk for nutritional iron overload at the population level are presented, because the currently designated upper limits for the biomarker generally employed (serum ferritin) may not differentiate between true iron overload and the effects of subclinical inflammation

Professional Learning Communities as drivers of educational change: the case of Learning Rounds

Many researchers claim that there is a compelling weight of evidence for the effectiveness of PLCs in promoting teachers’ learning and pupil achievement. However, others raise fundamental questions about their nature and purpose. Some of the uncertainties about the nature and purpose of PLCs relate to the ways in which the macro-context of neo-liberalism has shaped the practices of PLCs in particular ways. The fundamental questions raised about PLCs relate to the type of change they are intended to produce, the model of community they are based on and whether the right conditions and skills are in place for them to contribute to change. Some researchers argue that we need to pay more attention to shortcomings within existing PLCs and their internal dynamics. Others argue that little research focuses on the specific interactions of teachers inside PLCs. The research reported here goes ‘inside the teacher community’ of Learning Rounds to explore what the shortcomings of some examples of this model in practice add to what we know about how to assist PLCs to produce change in education

Using narrative research as a method in teacher education; a sociocultural approach

Researching the relationship between narrative and teacher development has become increasingly popular. A recent literature search by the author found over forty papers published since 2005 that explored the relationship between teacher development and narrative. Many of these papers offered no explicit theorisation of narrative and its relationship to individual agency or sociocultural structure. Where a theoretical paradigm was cited, it privileged agency over structure and viewed sociocultural context only as a constraining container. As a response to this deficiency, this paper reports on research that develops Wertsch’s sociocultural approach to narrative to research the ways that initial teacher education students’ narratives of classroom experience (and hence their experiential learning) are influenced by dominant narratives in their placement school. This is intended to provide a worked example of a narrative research approach that other teacher education researchers can use to understand the learning of their students. Keywords: narrative research; sociocultural theory; initial teacher education

Socioculturally situated narratives as co-authors of student teachers' learning from experience

This paper reports on research into the ways in which student teachers’ experiential learning is mediated by socioculturally situated narrative resources. The research uses Wertsch’s idea of the narrative template as a co-author of individual narratives. This idea is developed to be useful in the particular context of initial teacher education. Transcripts from post lesson observation discussions between student teachers, school based mentors and university based tutors are used to analyse the processes by which beginning teachers master the use of narrative templates for making sense of and, therefore learning from, their experiences. This research is put into the context of debates about the centrality of ‘on the job’ learning to initial teacher education and developing interest in recent decades in models of teacher knowledge and teacher learning

Wrapping PGT courses around employers' and employees' practices : an example from Scottish teachers' professional learning

This paper looks at PGT courses around employers' and employees' practices providing an example from Scottish teachers' professional learnin