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Collaboration Paints a Bright Future for Arts Education

In July 2010, working with a nonprofit organization called Big Thought, officials at the Dallas IndependentSchool District embarked on an approach to summer school they hoped would change the image from one of punishment and failure and engage kids. The idea was to support teachers, artists, and others to replace worksheet-style instruction with teaching animated by music, visual arts, dance, and theater.The new arts-rich summer school program that resulted is just another sign of Dallas' initiative, spearheaded by BigThought (www.bigthought.org), to bring together schools, cultural organizations, and others to restore high-quality arts instruction to the many classrooms from which it has long been missing. "What's the goal of education: to assess kids or prepare them for life?" asks Craig Welle, executive director of enrichment curriculum and instruction for the Dallas Independent School District. "If you've taken the arts out of the education system, you are no longer preparing kids for life."This report talks about the history of arts education funding and the success of the Dallas initiative

Children with social and emotional difficulties need support from a range of professionals : preparing professions for integrated working

Inclusive education for all children means that teachers are increasingly faced with challenges in managing children with social, emotional and behavioural difficulties (SEBD) whose complex needs span a number of professional disciplines, some of which sit outside of education. However, whilst it is recognised that children with SEBD require management and support across a range of professions that include education, health, social and youth services, there is little done to prepare teaching staff for working across professional and organisational boundaries. The evidence of poor communication and team working amongst professions has led to policy changes and guidelines calling for greater coordination in the delivery of services for children and young people. This paper considers how education and training needs to prepare students with the knowledge and skills for collaborative working through interprofessional education (IPE), and draws on adult learning theory and activity theory to frame its direction. In doing so, it demonstrates a model for IPE that can be used to engage students from different disciplines to gain insight into the understanding of the wider issues of SEBD and the roles and responsibilities of the other professions involved. The model is one that enables students to consider the impact the role of others has on their own role, and to reflect on how their role impacts on the role of others.peer-reviewe

Geology of the Goodber Common area : 1:10 000 sheet SD66SW : part of 1:50 000 sheet 59 (Lancaster)

This report describes the geology of the 1:10,000 sheet SD 66 SW (Goodber Common), part of the 1:50,000 Series sheet 59 (Lancaster). The first geological survey of the area, at the 1:10,560 scale, was carried out by R.C. Tiddeman and published as part of the Lancashire County Series sheets 31 and 32, and as part of the 1:50,000 Primary Series sheet 91 NE (1884). The present survey was carried out during the summer of 1988 by Richard A. Hughes, under the direction of Dr A.J. Wadge, Regional Geologist. The only published work on the area is by Moseley. The area was part of the ground described in his (1954) account and map of the Namurian of the Lancaster Fells. Some of the glacial features are mentioned in a wider context in his account of the glacial history of the area (Moseley and Walker, 1952). The Goodber Common sheet (see figure 1) lies on the northern watershed of the Bowland Fells. Altitude decreases steadily northwards from a high point of approximately 495 m in the extreme south-west corner, to approximately 105 m in Roeburndale [611 649] on the northern margin of the sheet. Goodber Common and Summersgill Fell form a broad, flat, north-south watershed. To the east the land is drained by the River Hindburn and its tributaries, to the west the land is drained by the River Roeburn and its tributaries, notably Mallow Gill and Pedders Gill. Much of the higher ground is very poor quality land used only for sheep grazing and for grouse shooting. The slightly better quality land of the northern part of the area is used for cattle and sheep grazing and for animal fodder crops. A large area in the south-east on Thrushgill Fell has been planted with conifers. Access to the southern part of the area is difficult, and the rough track (passable only by four-wheel driven vehicles) which links Hornby and Slaidburn is a very useful way of access. Ten graphical section logs (Figures 2-11) are presented in Appendix 1 at the back of the report

Construction research: a field of application

Research in construction management is diverse in content and in quality. There is much to be learned from more fundamental disciplines. Construction is a sub-set of human experience rather than a completely separate phenomenon. Therefore, it is likely that there are few problems in construction requiring the invention of a completely new theory. If construction researchers base their work only on that of other construction researchers, our academic community will become less relevant to the world at large. The theories that we develop or test must be of wider applicability to be of any real interest. In undertaking research, researchers learn a lot about themselves. Perhaps the only difference between research and education is that if we are learning about something which no-one else knows, then it is research, otherwise it is education. Self-awareness of this will help to reduce the chances of publishing work which only reveals a researcher’s own learning curve. Scientific method is not as simplistic as non-scientists claim and is the only real way of overcoming methodological weaknesses in our work. The reporting of research may convey the false impression that it is undertaken in the sequence in which it is written. Construction is not so unique and special as to require a completely different set of methods from other fields of enquiry. Until our research is reported in mainstream journals and conferences, there is little chance that we will influence the wider academic community and a concomitant danger that it will become irrelevant. The most useful insights will come from research which challenges the current orthodoxy rather than research which merely reports it