Improving subject knowledge and subject pedagogic knowledge in employment based secondary initial teacher training in England

Each year in England about 6,000 trainee teachers qualify by undertaking an employment-based initial teacher training route (EBITT), where training is mainly school based. Government inspectors have found that trainees on this route are weaker in subject knowledge and subject pedagogic knowledge compared to trainees following the more traditional one year training course (PGCE) of which about a third of course time is University based. EBITT providers are currently seeking to improve the subject knowledge aspect of training. To support this work the TDA have published a model for developing trainees' subject knowledge for teaching and suggest that providers review their provision against the model. In addition EBITT providers must also meet a new requirement that the total training time should be a minimum of 60 days. This new requirement presents a challenge to EBITT providers as most of the subject knowledge enhancement will have to be school-based. This paper seeks to find out: - how trainee teachers acquire subject and subject pedagogic knowledge while based in a school and - whether teaching staff in schools have the required subject and subject pedagogic knowledge and skills for this enhanced role. Data have been collected from trainees, school-based mentors, school-based Initial Teacher Training Coordinators and University assessors over a one year period. Data about the way trainees acquire subject knowledge was interpreted against the TDA model. The study finds that: - trainees acquire subject and subject pedagogic knowledge in a variety of highly individualistic ways that suggests that the TDA model only partially explains what is happening in practice and - there is a significant training need to ensure schools are well equipped to deliver high quality subject focussed training.</p

Condition matters: pupil voices on the design and condition of secondary schools

This research was produced by Sheffield Hallam University. The project aimed to inform the creation of a national schools Facilities Management network and an ongoing programme to research and benchmark the impact of school condition and design on pupils

Cosmology without inflation

We propose a new cosmological paradigm in which our observed expanding phase is originated from an initially large contracting Universe that subsequently experienced a bounce. This category of models, being geodesically complete, is non-singular and horizon-free, and can be made to prevent any relevant scale to ever have been smaller than the Planck length. In this scenario, one can find new ways to solve the standard cosmological puzzles. One can also obtain scale invariant spectra for both scalar and tensor perturbations: this will be the case, for instance, if the contracting Universe is dust-dominated at the time at which large wavelength perturbations get larger than the curvature scale. We present a particular example based on a dust fluid classically contracting model, where a bounce occurs due to quantum effects, in which these features are explicit.Comment: 8 pages, no figur

HST/STIS Imaging of the Host Galaxy of GRB980425/SN1998bw

We present HST/STIS observations of ESO 184-G82, the host galaxy of the gamma-ray burst GRB 980425 associated with the peculiar Type Ic supernova SN1998bw. ESO 184-G82 is found to be an actively star forming SBc sub-luminous galaxy. We detect an object consistent with being a point source within the astrometric uncertainty of 0.018 arcseconds of the position of the supernova. The object is located inside a star-forming region and is at least one magnitude brighter than expected for the supernova based on a simple radioactive decay model. This implies either a significant flattening of the light curve or a contribution from an underlying star cluster.Comment: 12 pages, 2 figures, AASTeX v5.02 accepted for publication in ApJ Letter

SCUBA - A submillimetre camera operating on the James Clerk Maxwell Telescope

The Submillimetre Common-User Bolometer Array (SCUBA) is one of a new generation of cameras designed to operate in the submillimetre waveband. The instrument has a wide wavelength range covering all the atmospheric transmission windows between 300 and 2000 microns. In the heart of the instrument are two arrays of bolometers optimised for the short (350/450 microns) and long (750/850 microns) wavelength ends of the submillimetre spectrum. The two arrays can be used simultaneously, giving a unique dual-wavelength capability, and have a 2.3 arc-minute field of view on the sky. Background-limited performance is achieved by cooling the arrays to below 100 mK. SCUBA has now been in active service for over a year, and has already made substantial breakthroughs in many areas of astronomy. In this paper we present an overview of the performance of SCUBA during the commissioning phase on the James Clerk Maxwell Telescope (JCMT).Comment: 14 pages, 13 figures (1 JPEG), Proc SPIE vol 335

Phase Structure of Z(3)-Polyakov-Loop Models

We study effective lattice actions describing the Polyakov loop dynamics originating from finite-temperature Yang-Mills theory. Starting with a strong-coupling expansion the effective action is obtained as a series of Z(3)-invariant operators involving higher and higher powers of the Polyakov loop, each with its own coupling. Truncating to a subclass with two couplings we perform a detailed analysis of the statistical mechanics involved. To this end we employ a modified mean field approximation and Monte Carlo simulations based on a novel cluster algorithm. We find excellent agreement of both approaches concerning the phase structure of the theories. The phase diagram exhibits both first and second order transitions between symmetric, ferromagnetic and anti-ferromagnetic phases with phase boundaries merging at three tricritical points. The critical exponents nu and gamma at the continuous transition between symmetric and anti-ferromagnetic phases are the same as for the 3-state Potts model.Comment: 20 pages, 22 figure

Jet break time -- flux density relationship and constraints on physical parameters of GRB afterglows

We derive a relation between the flux density $F_{\nu,j}$ at the light-curve break of a gamma-ray burst (GRB) afterglow and the break time $t_{j}$. The break is due to the transition from the spherical-like to jet-like evolution of the afterglow, when the Lorentz factor of the jet equals the inverse of the initial half-opening angle, i.e., $\gamma=1/\theta_0$. We show that this relation indeed behaves as $F_{\nu,j}\propto t_{j}^{-p}$ among GRBs for the slow-cooling case, where $p$ is the power-law index of electron distribution. A statistical analysis of the optical jet breaks of nine GRBs gives $p=2.10\pm 0.21$, which is consistent with the shock acceleration theory. The value of $p$ derived in this way is different from the observed temporal index $\alpha_2$ ($F_{\nu}\propto t^{-\alpha_{2}}$) of the late-time light curve after $t_{j}$, which suffers several uncertainties from the unclear hydrodynamics of the sideways expansion and exhibits a large dispersion. Our results not only confirm that the remnants of GRBs are standard candles, but also provide the first evidence that the physical parameters of relativistic shocks are universal, with the favored values $\epsilon_{e}\sim 0.1$ and $\epsilon_{B}\sim 10^{-3}$.Comment: 11 pages including 3 color figure

Spin-Electromagnetic Hydrodynamics and Magnetization Induced by Spin-Magnetic Interaction

The hydrodynamic model including the spin degree of freedom and the electromagnetic field was discussed. In this derivation, we applied electromagnetism for macroscopic medium proposed by Minkowski. For the equation of motion of spin, we assumed that the hydrodynamic representation of the Pauli equation is reproduced when the many-body effect is neglected. Then the spin-magnetic interaction in the Pauli equation was converted to a part of the magnetization. The fluid and spin stress tensors induced by the many-body effect were obtained by employing the algebraic positivity of the entropy production in the framework of the linear irreversible thermodynamics, including the mixing effect of the irreversible currents. We further constructed the constitutive equation of the polarization and the magnetization. Our polarization equation is more reasonable compared to another result obtained using electromagnetism for macroscopic medium proposed by de Groot-Mazur.Comment: 24 pages, no figure, the discussion for the modifed thermodynamic relation is added, several errors are corrected, accepted for publication in PR

The Surface Brightness Fluctuations and Globular Cluster Populations of M87 and its Companions

Using the surface brightness fluctuations in HST WFPC-2 images, we determine that M87, NGC 4486B, and NGC 4478 are all at a distance of ~16 Mpc, while NGC 4476 lies in the background at ~21 Mpc. We also examine the globular clusters of M87 using archived HST fields. We detect the bimodal color distribution, and find that the amplitude of the red peak relative to the blue peak is greatest near the center. This feature is in good agreement with the merger model of elliptical galaxy formation, where some of the clusters originated in progenitor galaxies while other formed during mergers.Comment: 5 pages, 2 figure