The Didactic Narrator in C.S. Lewis's The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe

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Personal tutoring: positioning practice in relation to policy

Most academic staff will at some point in their career be asked to take on the role of being a personal tutor for a group of students.  It can be an ill-defined role that lacks focus in terms of what it is trying to achieve.  This paper is a reflection on my own practice as a personal tutor, and views this within the context of the policy drivers and changing nature of higher education.  In particular, it identifies three levels of interaction: the macro, meso and micro.  The macrolevel is informed by the wider national and strategic debates on issues such as retention and transition; the mesolevel’s focus is on staff responsiveness to enact policy; and the microlevel on student well-being and satisfaction.  The paper argues that there are tensions between how personal tutoring is identified and pursued, especially if it is approached with managerialist intentions

Book Review of Dave Lochtie, Emily McIntosh, Andrew Stork and Ben Walker (2018) Effective Personal Tutoring in Higher Education

While higher education is going through a period of turbulent change driven by the Teaching Excellence Framework and Student Outcomes Framework (TEF), the refinement of the widening participation agenda, not to mention the Augar funding review, how we support students continues to be a perennial topic of discussion and contention. Effective Personal Tutoring offers a timely reminder of the role personal tutoring (PT) can play in supporting students but also of the complexity of PT models and practice.   It is worth reminding ourselves that the regulatory framework for HE states that students should be “supported to access, succeed in, and progress from, HE” (Office for Students, 2018: 14). The metrics applied by institutions to deliver on the TEF agenda such as attendance, progression, satisfaction and retention all need monitoring and supporting and it can be argued that PT plays a key role in doing this. This is the context of this book.  Effective Personal Tutoring complements Becoming an Outstanding Personal Tutor, which was developed specifically for Critical Publishing’s Further Education series (Stork and Walker, 2015). It applies a similar structure and draws on parallel principles. One of the over-arching ideas is that to be an effective personal tutor requires applying the principles to be an effective academic lecturer. These principles include listening and relating to people, sound pedagogy and subject expertise. The focus here is on a holistic approach to supporting student success and takes a student-centred approach throughout. [Review continues

Teacher Preparation in Scotland : Rachel Shanks (editor), Bingley: Emerald Publishing (2020) 216pp., hardback £68.00 ISBN: 978-1-839-094811

Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Personal tutoring: positioning practice in relation to policy

Most academic staff will at some point in their career be asked to take on the role of being a personal tutor for a group of students. It can be an ill-defined role that lacks focus in terms of what it is trying to achieve. This paper is a reflection on my own practice as a personal tutor, and views this within the context of the policy drivers and changing nature of higher education. In particular, it identifies three levels of interaction: the macro, meso and micro. The macrolevel is informed by the wider national and strategic debates on issues such as retention and transition; the mesolevel’s focus is on staff responsiveness to enact policy; and the microlevel on student well-being and satisfaction. The paper argues that there are tensions between how personal tutoring is identified and pursued, especially if it is approached with managerialist intentions

The invisible leader : facilitation in lesson study

Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Man in his native noblesse? : chivalry and the politics of the nobility in the tragedies of George Chapman

In this thesis I argue that the three plays under consideration - Bussy D'Anbois, The Conspiracy and Tragedy of Charles Duke of Byron, and The Revenge of Bussy D'Ambois - illustrate Chapman's concern with the role of chivalry in England following the debacle of the Essex Rebel lion in 1601. My contention is that, for Chapman, the Essex Rebellion exposed the fragility and the inconsistencies of Elizabethan chivalry and the political threat represented by its preoccupation with martial values. I suggest that in his plays, Chapman sets out to deconstruct the myth of chivalry by exposing it as a romantic concept which is used by the martial nobility as a means of Emphasizing their political rights. The values of chivalry - prowess, honour, loyalty, generosity, courtesy and independence - are shown, by the plays, to be incompatible with the political ambitions of the nobility. By associating themselves with this mythical concept of chivalry, political figures cane to identify their factions with the values of chivalry. Chapman, I argue, shows haw the myth is established and then exposes it for what it is, by portraying his characters as unable to live up to their expected mythical ideals. Chivalry is stripped of its mythical trappings and exposed as militaristic, aggressive and politically motivated. The thesis is divided into five chapters. In the first, I consider Chapman alongside the Tacitean historians who were connected with the Essex circle in the 1590s and show how, in The Conspiracy and Tragedy of Charles Duke of Byron, the dramatist transformed the providentialist narrative of his source into a play with Tacitean connotations, emphasizing the relationship between chivalry and constitutional political theory. In the second chapter I consider Chapman's interest in chivalry and discuss generally the romantic concept of Elizabethan chivalry and its relationship with the political concerns of the nobility. In Chapters Three to Five I discuss Chapman's portrayal of chivalry and its political impliications

Facilitation of trialogic spaces: reflections from Irish and Scottish online lesson studies

Digital innovations in teacher education have continued to evolve since the Coronavirus pandemic. As such, there has been recognition of the need to further examine the affordances and constraints of digitally mediated learning environments (Brown-Wilsher, 2021; White & Zimmerman, 2021). In response, this paper draws on the concept of trialogue (Hakkarainen, 2009), i.e. technology mediated dialogue, where digital tools are drawn on to make deliberate building and creation of knowledge accessible. Trialogue involves iterative communication and exchange of ideas in order to develop shared objects (Paavola & Hakkarainen, 2014), which can consist of artefacts, for example, lesson plans; and practices, such as pedagogical techniques. The paper focuses on two different Online Lesson Study projects facilitated by the authors, which took place in Scotland and Ireland. Insights gleaned from each project illustrating trialogue in action are shared, in order to illuminate the potential of trialogic space for enabling teachers’ collaborative learning

A Primary Head Teacher's Exploration of Lesson Study

This thesis is an exploration of a head teacher’s experience of Lesson Study. It aims to consider how Lesson Study develops teacher learning through consideration of collaboration, expertise and professional conflict. The methodology embraces the lived experience of introducing a collaborative method of teacher development, Lesson Study into a primary school and exploring its impact. The research is conducted through an exploratory layered method, considering the Lesson Study teams, the whole school and the head teacher’s thoughts and reflections on and about Lesson Study. The exploration in this thesis found that Lesson Study is far from breath-takingly simple (Dudley, 2013) and that there are many complexities and variables within each Lesson Study group that need to be considered carefully in order to enhance any opportunity for teacher learning. This thesis describes how these different elements, collaboration, expertise and professional conflict, interacted in two different Lesson Study teams. These findings, are presented alongside the head teacher’s reflections. Building on these reflections the thesis starts to articulate how Lesson Study could offer teacher learning opportunities and which elements of school culture, teacher expertise and understanding would need to be developed, honed and considered in order to create an outcome which results in teacher learning. This research provides an exploration how teacher learning may be generated through Lesson Study work. It extends the current literature on teacher learning in Lesson Study by identifying and exploring professional conflict alongside collaboration and expertise. Teacher learning opportunities are not simply created in the context the research took place. It concludes that while teacher learning can be generated through Lesson Study; the conditions and culture of a setting, alongside the skills, knowledge and expertise of the teachers involved in each team are also crucial