Exploring the Knowledge, Skills, and Attitudes of Four Thriving Early Career Teachers in Saskatchewan

Governments and institutions who train teachers have developed high performing systems, which aim to advance teaching competencies (i.e. knowledge, skills, and attitudes) and strengthen teacher quality and capacity for resilience (Darling-Hammond et al., 2017; O’Flaherty & Beal 2018). These systems incorporate personal, interpersonal, and pedagogical abilities and support the development of cognitive, affective, and psychomotor skill sets, designed to strengthen teaching practice in support of student learning and well-being. Despite sufficient preparation, the occupation of teaching is known for moderate to high rates of attrition, with stress and burnout as factors that cause up to half of new teachers to leave the profession within the first five years (Canadian Teacher’s Federation, 2014; Kutsyuruba, Walker, Stasel, & Al Makhamreh, 2019). In Saskatchewan, teaching competencies are regulated through provincial standards, which outline goals to support teacher education in several domains (Saskatchewan Teachers’ Federation; Saskatchewan Ministry of Education; Saskatchewan Professional Teachers Regulatory Board). The purpose of this qualitative study was to learn from the lives and experiences of four early career teachers (ECTs) in Saskatchewan, who, despite facing adversity, were thriving in their respective roles. Multiple sourses of data (observations, interviews, journals) were analyzed thematically through an interpretive case study supporting an understanding of the knowledge, skills, and attitudes of the four thriving ECTs. Though each faced challenges, they displayed strengths that helped them to be confident and competent educators. The results highlighted the needs of early career teachers by sharing a perspective that is less understood in the literature. A thematic analysis culminated in themes conducive to implications for a thriving teaching practice

Community Organizing in Egypt During and After the Revolution

The Egyptian revolution that took place over 18 days in January and February of 2011 attracted international attention and coverage for several reasons. Not only was the world excited and inspired by the massive crowds in Tahrir Square, standing up, uncompromisingly, for their beliefs, but it instilled in people the sense that justice and change are truly possible. The Organizers\u27 Forum provided a unique opportunity for North American organizers to hear from their brothers and sisters in Egypt, not only exhilarating stories about the strategies and tactics they used to oust Mubarak, but also the sobering challenges facing organizers today during the slow transition to democracy

Eduard Stiefel’s linear programming method as tool in agro metrics

ArticleIn this paper, we consider the linear optimization models’ application problems in the research processes and in the didactics processes. Our target is to convince the colleagues about preferences of Eduard Stiefel’s method comparing with widespread George Bernard Dantzig’s simplex method. Indeed, the Stiefel’s method provides researchers and teachers with clear and pithy interpretations of linear model. Our pedagogical praxis during long time period conclusively confirms that Stiefel’s method makes the theory of linear optimization match easier for understanding and for active employing to students especially in the specialities with limited mathematical education. We offer in this paper also some new theoretical concepts and methods adapted for the linear model information analysis (the concept of general optimal plan, the methods of the profounder sensitivity analysis), and we appeal economists to interpret simplex predicates as productions functions in a broad sense

Perspectives of Youth at Risk of School Failure: The Educational Experiences of Youth in Special Programs or Alternative Schools

An abundance of research exists on youth at risk of school failure; however, in-depth qualitative studies that examine the perspectives of youth in Canadian schools are limited (Thiessen & Cook-Sather, 2007). In the spring of 2014, 12 youth from alternative schools and special programs, in one Saskatchewan urban setting, were interviewed. Rich qualitative data was gleaned from interviews to understand: What factors are most relevant to the success or failure in school for youth at risk? The term, at risk was defined for the purpose of this study based on attendance in an alternative school or special program verses a mainstream school. Alternative schools and special programs are designed to support youth struggling with a variety of issues that can stand in the way of school completion. These schools and programs support youth with a variety of concerns, including, but not limited to: truancy, behaviour, mental health, addictions, and other risk enhancing factors that exist in student’s personal lives (Cuddapah, Masci, Smallwood, & Holland, 2008; McCann & Austin, 1988). The participants in this study reflected on their needs, shared their school experiences, and made suggestions. Through an analysis of the interviews eight factors emerged as being relevant to success or failure in school: teachers, the work, relationships to staff in schools, supports in the school, school and classroom environment, peers, mental health and addictions, and transitions. Based on the eight factors, suggestions are made for schools to support the needs of those most at risk of school failure

Solid-phase assisted synthesis of glycoconjugates, and synthesis of 15N-labelled aminoglycosides

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Ethnographic insights into safety communication for frontline workers

Recent calls for organisation studies to embrace ‘the practice turn’ (Whittington, 2011) have expanded into an understanding of the potential for ethnographic research in occupational health and safety (OHS) research (Pink et al., 2016). The ethnographic project described here, with fieldwork conducted between 2008 and 2010, is one element of this growing appreciation of the potential for qualitative research in industrial settings. Ethnographies have not often been used in OHS settings, and ‘much practicebased knowledge remains undocumented, informal, unspoken and thus unaccounted for’ (Pink et al., 2016, p. 27). This study was motivated by an aim to make explicit the tacit safety knowledge understood and practised by a public service workforce subject to high injury rates. The research team, with Teague as field-based ethnographer, undertook a detailed investigation with customer-facing, frontline staff in a transport organisation. The article uses Teague’s ethnography to argue that new insights into improved safety practices are accessible via investigation of the everyday challenges and responses practised by frontline staff. It demonstrates the value of ethnographic research in opening up new avenues for understandings that can inform OHS policy development and the implementation of OHS procedures within complex organisations. In the context of this particular frontline customer service workforce, staff are positioned in an us-and-them relationship to members of the public through being required to work in pairs. The safety culture relies heavily upon partners looking out for each other, which can create social and emotional distance from the members of the public they are employed to serve. At the same time, the role appeals to people who have experience in security-based shiftwork, including former defence force personnel, firefighters and police. The physical fitness requirements of the role, and reliance on teamwork, complicate the communicative context when engaging with members of the public. This is particularly so when customers are verbally aggressive and/or impacted by alcohol or drugs

Refugees’ dreams of the past, projected into the future

This article is about refugees’ and migrants’ dreams of home and family and stems from an Australian Research Council Linkage Grant, “A Hand Up: Disrupting the Communication of Intergenerational Welfare Dependency” (LP140100935), with Partner Organisation St Vincent de Paul Society (WA) Inc. (Vinnies). A Vinnies-supported refugee and migrant support centre was chosen as one of the hubs for interviewee recruitment, given that many refugee families experience persistent and chronic economic disadvantage. The de-identified name for the drop-in language-teaching and learning social facility is the Migrant and Refugee Homebase (MARH). At the time of the research, in 2018, refugee and forced migrant families from Syria, Iraq, and Afghanistan constituted MARH’s primary membership base. MARH provided English language classes alongside other educational and financial support. It could also organise provision of emergency food and was a conduit for furniture donated by Australian families. Crucially, MARH operated as a space in which members could come together to build shared community

Tox and detox: Are teens\u27 smartphone use and non-use practices fully fungible?

The public sphere includes a range of credible discourses asserting that a proportion of teenagers (“teens”) has an unhealthy dependence upon continuous connection with media devices, and especially smartphones. A review of media discourse (Jaunzems et al.) in Australia, and a critical review of public discourse in Australia and Belgium (Zaman et al.), reveal both positive and negative commentary around screentime. Despite the “emotionally laden, opposing views” expressed in the media, there appears to be a groundswell of concern around young people’s dependence upon digital devices (Zaman et al. 120). Concerns about ‘addiction’ to and dependency on digital media first emerged with the Internet and have been continually represented as technology evolves. One recent example is the 2020 multi-part Massey Lecture series which hooked audiences with the provocative title: “we need to reclaim our lives from our phones” (Deibert). In Sydney, a psychology-based “outpatient addiction treatment centre” offers specialised recovery programs for “Internet addiction”, noting that addicts include school-aged teens, as well as adults (Cabin). Such discourse reflects well-established social anxieties around the disruptive impacts of new technologies upon society (Marvin), while focussing such concern disproportionately upon the lives, priorities, and activities of young people (Tsaliki and Chronaki)

Muhlenbergia uniflora

Angiosperm