Taking Action for Looked After Children in School: A Knowledge Exchange Programme

This book will become a teaching resource for all professionals concerned with the education of children in care, such as designated teachers and Virtual School colleagues

The OER Ambassadors Pilot

Poster presented at NERCOMP Annual Conference, Providence, Rhode Island. March 22, 201

The role of schools in the mental health of children & young people

Young people spend many of their waking hours in school and form lasting social networks there. Making that environment mental healthy therefore seems like a good plan. Schools also offer opportunities for the early detection of mental health difficulties, and early treatment. However, schools focus primarily on an academic curriculum. Furthermore, while mental health professionals are good sources of expertise, especially for students experiencing problems, they are not necessarily knowledgeable about changing school environments. This report reviews the evidence on school-based approaches to mental health

School-university partnerships: a model for knowledge co-creation for inclusive education. Research Brief

This report is an account of the development of one model of school-university partnership working, that has yet to be externally evaluated, that began at UCL Centre for Inclusive Education in 2013, and the subsequent contribution this has made to investigating and developing knowledge, in particular developing an increased understanding of aspects of inclusive pedagogy for both practice and research. This account presents an overview of the structure of these partnerships, describes the four main principles upon which the school-university partnerships are based with illustrative vignettes and offers a commentary by the authors, more broadly, of the benefits and challenges to be overcome to support stronger and more sustained school-university partnerships

Digital Resources for Targeted Mathematics Support

SPIRIT Maths (Students’ Perceptions Informing and Redefining Innovative Teaching of Mathematics in Higher Education) is a project that was established in Munster Technological University (MTU) to investigate students’ attitudes towards mathematics and to explore a more student-centred development of mathematics resources. One of the aims of the project was to create a collection of student-preferred digital materials with a view to improving student engagement, building students’ confidence in mathematics and helping students to succeed in their mathematics modules.The findings of a survey disseminated to first year students in MTU indicated that students would be most likely to use the resources if they were geared towards their specific module; to maximise impact, resources were developed for two modules, one in Engineering and one in Business, that are each taken by large numbers of students. The resources were integrated on the learning management system and are available to all MTU students taking a mathematics module. Three interlinked digital resources were developed: (1) a series of interactive self-assessment questions, (2) corresponding videos showing worked solutions and (3) an associated bank of practice questions developed using a digital tutor to provide instant feedback. It is hoped that the complementary resources will facilitate student learning through a combination of active learning, explicit instruction and the ready availability of the resources.This article describes these resources and how they were developed, and outlines how these are being promoted to students. We also report on the feedback received from a small number of students who tested the resources and discuss how to measure student engagement with the resources