Research and Teacher Education: The BERA-RSA inquiry. Policy and Practice within the United Kingdom.

Across the four jurisdictions of the United Kingdom (England, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales) initial teacher education (ITE) is under active development, with its content, location, control and quality often the focuses of sustained debate. Statutory and professional requirements for the sector inevitably reflect differing assumptions about teaching, teacher knowledge and governance. In exploring ITE across the four jurisdictions, this paper reviews policies and practices through two major focuses: first, the relationships between the declared teacher standards (competencies/competences) and research-informed teacher education provision; second, the ‘turn or (re)turn to the practical’ in teacher education, including policy declarations, changes in practices, and emphases and effects of the discourse(s) of relevance

Are Language learning websites special? Towards a research agenda for discipline-specific usability

With the intention of defining an initial research agenda for discipline-specific factors in the usability of e-learning websites, this paper focuses on the example of foreign language learning. First, general notions and concepts of usability are analyzed, and the term 'pedagogical usability' is proposed as a means of focusing on the close relationship between usability and pedagogical design. Then, to address the key issue of whether there are aspects of pedagogical usability that are discipline-specific, the paper examines how language learning and teaching, in particular Technology Enhanced Language Learning (TELL), has approached usability when developing technology-enhanced learning materials. Three elements of a research agenda are identified: pedagogical usability, intercultural usability and website evaluation. In conclusion, it is suggested that just as language learning websites may require a discipline-specific approach, so in other disciplines pedagogical usability may also need to be considered in relation to the specific requirements of the discipline, and that a debate around these issues is timely

Framework and guidelines for implementing the proposed IUCN Environmental Impact Classification for Alien Taxa (EICAT)

Recently, Blackburn et al. (2014) developed a simple, objective and transparent method for classifying alien taxa in terms of the magnitude of their detrimental environmental impacts in recipient areas. Here, we present a comprehensive framework and guidelines for implementing this method, which we term the Environmental Impact Classification for Alien Taxa, or EICAT. We detail criteria for applying the EICAT scheme in a consistent and comparable fashion, prescribe the supporting information that should be supplied along with classifications, and describe the process for implementing the method. This comment aims to draw the attention of interested parties to the framework and guidelines, and to present them in their entirety in a location where they are freely accessible to any potential users

A social constructivist approach to introducing skills for employment to Foundation Degree students

Expectations for higher education providers to produce graduates ready for the workplace have shaped provision, with the introduction of the Foundation Degree, and expectations of an employability component within higher education programmes. This paper reports on an intervention for three groups of foundation degree students, which introduces them to ideas of skills for employability. An initial evaluation was followed up two months later exploring the longer-term impact and connections within students' programmes of study and data were captured from employers and tutors supporting this intervention. In agreement with similar studies, benefits for students were identified. However, this research reinforces the challenging nature of the employability agenda, particularly within the context of Foundation Degrees and their dual vocational-academic remit. This paper suggests there is a case to be made for a social constructivist approach within programmes and institutions for promoting awareness and consistency in developing student employability skills. © 2013 © 2013 Further Education Research Association

The DNA damage checkpoint pathway promotes extensive resection and nucleotide synthesis to facilitate homologous recombination repair and genome stability in fission yeast.

DNA double-strand breaks (DSBs) can cause chromosomal rearrangements and extensive loss of heterozygosity (LOH), hallmarks of cancer cells. Yet, how such events are normally suppressed is unclear. Here we identify roles for the DNA damage checkpoint pathway in facilitating homologous recombination (HR) repair and suppressing extensive LOH and chromosomal rearrangements in response to a DSB. Accordingly, deletion of Rad3(ATR), Rad26ATRIP, Crb2(53BP1) or Cdc25 overexpression leads to reduced HR and increased break-induced chromosome loss and rearrangements. We find the DNA damage checkpoint pathway facilitates HR, in part, by promoting break-induced Cdt2-dependent nucleotide synthesis. We also identify additional roles for Rad17, the 9-1-1 complex and Chk1 activation in facilitating break-induced extensive resection and chromosome loss, thereby suppressing extensive LOH. Loss of Rad17 or the 9-1-1 complex results in a striking increase in break-induced isochromosome formation and very low levels of chromosome loss, suggesting the 9-1-1 complex acts as a nuclease processivity factor to facilitate extensive resection. Further, our data suggest redundant roles for Rad3ATR and Exo1 in facilitating extensive resection. We propose that the DNA damage checkpoint pathway coordinates resection and nucleotide synthesis, thereby promoting efficient HR repair and genome stability

Magnetism and high magnetic-field-induced stability of alloy carbides in Fe-based materials.

Understanding the nature of the magnetic-field-induced precipitation behaviors represents a major step forward towards unravelling the real nature of interesting phenomena in Fe-based alloys and especially towards solving the key materials problem for the development of fusion energy. Experimental results indicate that the applied high magnetic field effectively promotes the precipitation of M23C6 carbides. We build an integrated method, which breaks through the limitations of zero temperature and zero external field, to concentrate on the dependence of the stability induced by the magnetic effect, excluding the thermal effect. We investigate the intimate relationship between the external field and the origins of various magnetics structural characteristics, which are derived from the interactions among the various Wyckoff sites of iron atoms, antiparallel spin of chromium and Fe-C bond distances. The high-magnetic-field-induced exchange coupling increases with the strength of the external field, which then causes an increase in the parallel magnetic moment. The stability of the alloy carbide M23C6 is more dependent on external field effects than thermal effects, whereas that of M2C, M3C and M7C3 is mainly determined by thermal effects

London's weather and the everyday: two centuries of newspaper reports

This study surveys 200 years of London’s weather and its public reporting in newspapers to reveal some of the recurring modes of reporting and linguistic styles that are used to describe and make sense of the human experience of weather. These modes include: the cultural anxieties prompted by ‘unusual weather’; the visual dramas of ‘great storms’; the weather as culpable; and bench-marking extreme weather. Even as the broader processes and patterns of our climate are changing, at the level of the everyday the human and cultural experience of weather remains remarkably familiar

Smart devices or people? A mobile learning quandary

Mobile learning is an emerging paradigm in an unpredictable and shifting landscape of technological change. A technocentric focus is anathema to educators who prefer to believe that innovative pedagogy is the driving force behind educational developments. However, the proliferation of mobile devices may have an almost irresistible impact on teaching and learning. The focus of this article is on the concept of “smartness” in relation to mobile devices and people. As devices become smarter, their users are in danger of becoming less smart, or their agency may be at risk. Yet the key value of smart devices may be in how they can help develop essential skills and competencies in 21st-century learners—in particular, their self-direction—although this will not happen of its own accord

Policy and Practice Within The United Kingdom

Across the four jurisdictions of the United Kingdom (England, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales) initial teacher education (ITE) is under active development, with its content, location, control and quality often the focuses of sustained debate. Statutory and professional requirements for the sector inevitably reflect differing assumptions about teaching, teacher knowledge and governance. In exploring ITE across the four jurisdictions, this paper reviews policies and practices through two major focuses: first, the relationships between the declared teacher Standards (competencies/competences) and research-informed teacher education provision; second, the ‘turn or (re)turn to the practical’ in teacher education, including policy declarations, changes in practices, and emphases and effects of the discourse(s) of relevance. Across the UK, the paper argues that the knowledge bases of teaching are contested and reflected in the resultant teacher Standards. In Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales, schooling is clearly important in the construction of development and/or re-affirmation of national identities. Teacher education policy then assumes strategic importance in devolved Governments’ educational policies. In Scotland and Northern Ireland, and less explicitly in Wales, research-informed provision is a declared part of the Standards and the expectations of teacher education programmes and providers. In England, although there has been debate about national identity and values within the Standards and the ITE curriculum, a more generic stance has been adopted in recent policy-making, superficially less influenced by cultural beliefs and more by ideological agendas. The English Standards and current Government policy now indicate a decisive shift away from the idea of teaching as a research-based profession and towards the construction of teaching as a craft. As part of the (re)turn to the practical in ITE across the UK, all provision places considerable importance on ‘practicality’ and ‘relevance’. Within this debate, this paper argues that the discourse of relevance is a powerful part of the (re)turn to the practical. We suggest that there are many manifestations of this discourse across the UK, but an emphasis on the experiential skills and knowledge necessary for new teachers to be ‘classroom-ready’ is a common and often central feature. In England the (re)turn to the practical has been intensified by specific structural and political factors and by a dominating culture of compliance and regulation. Despite some similarities and differences across the four jurisdictions, forms of the discourse of relevance currently found in England are creating a model of ITE which privileges performativity and ‘practical’ and experiential knowledge over theoretical, pedagogical and subject knowledge. The paper identifies past and present areas of similarity in ITE across the four jurisdictions, but it also argues that there is now some marked divergence, with England emerging as the exception or outlier. But in the absence of clear evidence on the effectiveness and lived realities of research-informed ITE provision across the UK, the paper concludes that opportunities for maintaining research-rich and enquiry-led ITE are welcome, alongside debates on the educational research undertaken in universities in partnership with and for the teachers, schools and communities they serve