Modelling the injured spinal cord using 3-dimensional cell cultures; strategies for improving tissue engineered repair

Abstract not available

The repeatability of self-reported exposure after miscarriage

BACKGROUND: The Avon Longitudinal Study of Pregnancy and Childhood is a prospective study of women who were resident in Avon and who were expected to deliver a baby between April 1991 and December 1992. METHODS: The study provided an opportunity to test the repeatability of responses from 220 women who experienced a miscarriage and who reported exposure to occupational substances and common household products and appliances in two questionnaires. The first questionnaire was completed in the early part of the pregnancy and the second after the miscarriage. Women were asked to score their frequency of exposure on a five-point scale from 'daily' to 'never'. Their responses were analysed to assess the degree of agreement between replies to identical questions in the two questionnaires using the kappa statistic. A new frequency variable was created which compared the replies for the two questionnaires; this was analysed for all exposures by cross-tabulation with possible explanatory variables (age of mother, social class, history of miscarriage and the time lag between questionnaires). RESULTS: In general there was good agreement in the reported exposures to 48 substances and products. The results showed a small and consistent pattern of reporting exposures less frequently in the second questionnaire, i.e. after miscarriage. This was not explained by the analysis of possible confounding variables. Given the literature, the authors had expected to find a shift in the opposite direction. CONCLUSION: The study reinforces the need to be cautious when using the results from single surveys of retrospective self-reported exposure

Subject professional association activity: what can it offer teachers of mathematics and their students?

Professional association activity is commonly regarded as a professional ‘good’, yet there remains little systematic evidence of its impact. This paper reports on a small study that asked English teachers of mathematics participating in such activity what contribution they believe it makes to the development of their knowledge, skills and affect, and how that then impacts on their students. Participants claimed a range of significant and pervasive benefits, many of which are distinctive to this form of professional development. These include a renewed commitment to their role as teachers of mathematics, refreshment and inspiration, and a deep and lasting impact on both their own learning and that of their students

Policy critics and policy survivors: who are they and how do they contribute to a department policy role typology?

This paper considers the policy ‘roles’ adopted by teachers enacting policy in a department. It draws on a longitudinal study of two secondary mathematics departments endeavouring to make deep change aligned with a demanding curriculum policy. The study validates aspects of an existing typology, demonstrates the existence of a variety of policy ‘critics’ and adds a category of ‘survivor’ teacher, showing the role can have considerable impact on enactment. The paper argues for an extension to a group construct of ‘policy role’, here at a department level, and shows that as teachers struggle to marry the constraints of the range of policies to which they are subject with the time and effort needed to maintain deeply espoused professional values, an adopted group role can serve either to support or constrain individual teacher efforts

Mathematics education and financial literacy: a valued but vulnerable symbiosis

BSRLM Proceedings: Vol 40 No 1 at The University of Cambridge, Cambridge, on Saturday 7 th March 2020 01 Characterising patterning of teacher-learner interactions in mathematics classrooms. Julian Brown University of Bristol Deliberate development of our practices, in and out of the classroom, is supported by explicit awareness of possibilities in the moment, expanding possibilities for action. My role as a mathematics teacher educator involves working alongside teachers as they work on their own awarenesses. I am interested in how classroom observations might be used as a mechanism to follow and support development of the awareness of awareness. This report makes use of observations of sequences of lessons taught by two different, experienced teachers of mathematics to consider possibilities for characterising particular teacher-class environments and, hence, to identify shifts in these environments. Consideration is given to how such mechanisms might act as tools for development of in-the-moment awareness for practising teachers. 02 A design based research project: Exploring pedagogies that develop abstract and algebraic thinking within secondary school mathematics Libby Chancer Swansea University Within the current Welsh educational system, ‘real life’ problems have become a focus within Mathematics lessons. Pupils are given a worded or visual problem which often needs to be translated into a mathematical form to solve. The OECD refer to this process as mathematizing. It is this process of mathematizing that often causes difficulties for pupils. Pupils have to abstract during the translation, meaning they have to locate and express the mathematical structure within the problem. Only after abstraction is the problem in a form which is able to be manipulated and solved. This research is the 1 st iteration in a design based research project that covers four intervention lessons. This project aims to develop specific pedagogies which support pupils to focus on mathematical structure and think abstractly and algebraically. This paper seeks to justify and evaluate intervention tasks and suggests possible changes for the next cycle of intervention. 03 Mathematics education and financial literacy: A valued but vulnerable symbiosis Jennie Golding UCL Institute of Education In England the development of financial literacy and related applications features in several aspects of the intended curriculum, including, but not primarily, mathematics. We argue that the development of key mathematical concepts and of financial literacy have historically often been symbiotic and this inter-dependency is reflected in many curriculum materials. This paper draws on cross-phase classroom-close evidence collected as part of a larger study, to report changes to the preparedness of some learners for engagement with related concepts. Subsequent student and teacher interviews suggested such changes were due to both changing patterns of family life and moves towards virtual, rather than physical, currency in many communities. We discuss the significant implications for organisation of both mathematics and financial literacy curricula, and suggest some ways forward

East African teacher educators learning at a distance

AIMSSEC (www.aimssec.za) has previously run mixed mode teacher development courses for South Africans from deprived areas, with sustained success (Joubert and Kenny 2018; Golding, 2018). This project aimed to adapt and evaluate the foundation such course for use with mathematics teacher educators in East Africa. There are obvious issues of context-specific content and framing, including effective ‘low tech’ delivery and approaches to overcoming the digital divide. The University of London Centre for Distance Education supported research to focus on the adaptation and efficacy of distance learning resources for this context and purpose

Professional association activity: what contribution can it make to mathematics teachers' professional development and student learning, and are any of those distinctive? Final report

Professional association activity is commonly regarded as a professional ‘good’ (Cherwin 2010), yet there remains little systematic evidence of its impact on teachers’ development or the learning of their students. At a time when there are a variety of threats to the quality and quantity of mathematically-effective teaching (Ofsted 2012) this small study asks what contribution participation in mathematics professional association activity can make to the development of teachers’ knowledge, skills and affect, and how that then impacts on their students. Questionnaire and interview data were collected from participants at a variety of mathematics professional association conferences, and a grounded approach was adopted to data analysis and interpretation. Participants claim a range of significant and pervasive benefits to their professional association participation, many of which are distinctive to this form of professional development. These include a renewed commitment to their role as teachers of mathematics. They talk about refreshment and inspiration, and about deep and lasting impact on them and on their students’ learning. They offer suggestions for improving impact further, and also describe a number of disincentives to engage in such activity. Implications of the findings are discussed

What price coherence? Challenges of embedding a coherent curriculum in a market-driven and high-stakes assessment regime

Curriculum coherence is widely valued as underpinning the enactment of a curriculum consistent with intentions. Such coherence depends on good alignment between, among other things, the written curriculum, available resources, the range of assessments, and teachers’ capacity, including their knowledge, skills and affect. We report on a group of longitudinal studies mapping the early enactment of an aspirational curriculum in England which initially appeared to be supported by a coherent system, and show how the maintenance of that coherence was threatened by competing teacher beliefs in a market-driven and high stakes accountability regime