Puppets promoting engagement and talk in science

Research into classroom interactions has shown that talk that promotes reasoning can help children in their learning of science. Such talk can only be generated when teachers are willing to take a dialogic approach that is stimulating and provides opportunities for children to articulate their ideas. This research set out to determine whether the use of large puppets would help teachers to change the nature of their whole class discourse to enhance children’s talk and engagement in science. The study was carried out with 16 teachers of children aged 7 to 11 years in schools in London and Manchester, UK. Through adopting a mixture of research methods, including classroom observation and teacher and child interviews, the research provides evidence that the use of puppets significantly increases the amount of teacher discourse oriented towards reasoning and argument, and decreases the amount of talk that focuses on recall. Through the puppets, teachers also use more narrative to set the science in stimulating contexts, and encourage children in their contributions to whole class discussion. Interview data also show the positive effects of puppets on children’s motivation and engagement in science. The findings have led to further major funding for professional development in the use of puppets in the UK, and research into the reasons why the use of puppets is so effective

(Un)teaching the ‘datafied student subject’: perspectives from an education-based masters in an English University

That compulsory education is datafied is widely acknowledged. A significant body of literature illuminates the policy context and technologies that have given rise to what we now call datafication. Less research has focussed on the consequences of datafication on teachers and learners. In this paper, we offer a unique perspective of these consequences in relation to qualified, experienced teachers as learners on education-based masters courses. Working within a post-qualitative frame, we employ a lesser-known approach to research, ‘conversation as methodology’, in order to explore our experiences and develop our expertise as HE practitioners. Through conversation, we identify datafication as both affective and effective – it shapes and produces particular learning and teaching encounters and it also shapes and produces subjectivities. We suggest that for education-based masters courses, this is troublesome, and can result in a process of (un)teaching, as we challenge the values and practices on which a datafied education depends

Dynamic optimal taxation with human capital.

This paper revisits the dynamic optimal taxation results of Jones, Manuelli, and Rossi (1993, 1997). They use a growth model with human capital and find that optimal taxes on both capital income and labor income converge to zero in steady state. For one of the models under consideration, I show that the representative household's problem does not have an interior solution. This raises concerns since these corners are inconsistent with aggregate data. Interiority is restored if preferences are modified so that human capital augments the value of leisure time. With this change, the optimal tax problem is analyzed and, reassuringly, the Jones, Manuelli, and Rossi results are confirmed: neither capital income nor labor income should be taxed in steady state

Developing the nature and the role of quality argument in primary science lessons through the use of concept cartoons

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