Centre for Commonwealth Education: Seminars

In this presentation, I describe the theoretical underpinnings of mentoring in teacher education (Kram 1985; Ganser 1996, 2002; Hudson &Hudson 2011; Mullen 2012), an area of teacher development research that is central in understanding and strengthening University school partnerships for mentoring. I then present my research on mentoring in initial teacher education in Uganda, teacher education models and mentoring discourse.

In this presentation I describe the theoretical underpinnings of multilingual socialization, a fertile area of research internationally (Duff, 2012; Duff & Hornberger, 2008; Duff & Talmy, 2011), and note several recent illustrative studies. I then present my research on socialization into--and through--Mandarin and English language education, ideologies, and practices within the multilingual ecology of Yunnan Province in southwest China, home to 25 ethnic minority groups.

Amaresh Chakrabarti provides an overview of a Masters in Design programme that has been running successfully at the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore for the last 15 years.

This seminar will provide an overview of Dr Amanda Keddie's book Educating for Diversity and Social Justice. Amanda is a Research Fellow at The University of Queensland. Her research interests and publications are in the field of gender, cultural diversity, social justice and schooling. She has published extensively in these areas. She is the author of Teaching Boys: Developing classroom practices that work (2007, with Professor Martin Mills) and Educating for diversity and social justice (2012). Her forthcoming book Leading for Equity and Justice with Dr Richard Niesche will be published later this year.

The Annual Status of Education Report (ASER) is the largest citizen led; household based learning accountability initiative that aims to fill a gap in learning outcomes and provide reliable estimates on the schooling status of children (aged 5-16 years) in rural and selected urban districts of Pakistan. Inspired by ASER India, it is firmly embedded in a major concern that the right to education as encompassed in Article 25A of the constitution for 5-16 year olds is driven by access and not necessarily learning, thus undermining a fundamental entitlement. ASER is a social movement; a South-South initiative in 8 countries of South Asia, Africa and Mexico.

Chaired by Madeleine Arnot, this discussion formed part of the Africa Colloquium.

This event brought together individuals interested in the topic of education in Africa. Details of diverse African-based research currently taking place in the Faculty of Education were presented. Attendees then went on to share their own experiences and ideas during an interactive discussion session.

This paper examines the manner in which new private providers of education operate within, and how they withdraw from, the educational marketplace in countries where mass schooling has not yet been achieved. The conceptual framework is drawn from the original model of exit, voice and loyalty in educational markets created by Hirschman in 1970 that set out the mechanisms by which households evaluate the difference in educational provision provided by each provider.

A presentation given as part of CCE's Education in India: A Multidisciplinary Exploration which discusses a study into religious and non-religious service provision by religious organisations in India.

In this presentation, Akanksha will discuss the apparent disconnect through a study of the social and financial implications of the Act’s norms and standards using a small sample study conducted in Delhi, and simultaneously examine the opportunities and pitfalls of this reservation policy. Finally, through the lens of a study on primary school vouchers given to 400 randomly selected students in Delhi, Akanksha proposes a mechanism to reconcile the two contradictory aspects of the Act.

Poetry is generally regarded as the most difficult literature genre to understand and teach because of its complex language. Many researchers agree that often teachers’ attitudes towards poetry and their teaching efficacy help to create an in-built resistance and this affects their pedagogy. One of the ways teachers can increase their sense of efficacy is by improving their pedagogical and content knowledge of the subjects they deliver. This paper reports on professional development workshops on the teaching of Caribbean poetry that were delivered to secondary school English teachers in Trinidad and Tobago. Initial findings reveal that teachers found the workshops beneficial in exploring important concepts and issues in the teaching of poetry as well as offering strategies they can use in their classrooms. They also pointed to a need for additional workshops on specific areas of poetry that could enhance their pedagogy.

The promulgation of major educational reforms during the 1980s and 1990s in Australia (Hobart Declaration of Schooling), the UK (The Education Reform Act), and the US (Improving America’s Schools Act) occurred alongside a renewed interest in how major change was impacting on teachers and schools. In this context an international study reported that teachers with more active involvement in a change were more supportive of the change and more likely to participate in future change initiatives (Poppleton & Williamson, 2004). However, this study did not consider the role of incongruence between principal and teacher attitudes toward teacher involvement.

Across sub-Saharan Africa, it is becoming very clear that many, many children are not learning basic skills in primary schools. There are multiple reasons, but recent seminars at the Faculty of Education (Bob Moon and John Pryor/Jo Westbrook) have indicated that the inadequate preparation of primary teachers is a significant factor. This seminar builds on earlier contributions, reporting on work currently being undertaken in Malawi with primary teachers colleges and their partnership schools, with a particular focus on the school-based second year spent in often struggling primary schools. Issues to do with demography, funding and sustainability are considered and early evaluation findings reported.

John Pryor and Jo Westbrook talk about preparing teachers for early learning in Sub Saharan Africa. John Pryor is Reader in Education at the University of Sussex, working especially within the Centre for International Education (CIE). John began his career as teacher in primary and secondary schools with a particular interest in development education. Following a doctorate on gender and group work in education, John took up a post as research fellow and subsequently lecturer at Sussex. His research interests centre on aspects of social identity and equity in education including formative assessment and pedagogy, international and intercultural study and research training and the doctorate in the social sciences. John has directed research projects in both the UK and sub Saharan Africa mostly of a broadly micro-sociological nature including collaborative ethnography and action research. Jo Westbrook is a Senior Lecturer in Education at the University of Sussex working mostly within the Centre for International Education. She has worked as a secondary school teacher of English in London and in Uganda, where she also worked in teacher education at a National Teachers' Centre. Jo's research interests lie in the development of readers and reading communities with a particular interest in comprehension strategies for young and adolescent learners -- and in teacher learning. She has been a PI for collaborative research projects on the transition from trainee to NQT in developing countries and most recently on systematic and rigorous literature reviews on pedagogy and teacher education in developing countries.

Bob Moon was a secondary teacher and headteacher of two urban British secondary comprehensive schools before moving into the higher education sector. He was appointed Professor of Education at the Open University in 1988 with the task of developing all aspects of teacher education. In this presentation he draws on his experience of Sub-Saharan Africa, arguing that a radical rethink of current approaches to teacher education are necessary to address the desperate shortage of teachers in many developing countries.

A Centre for Commonwealth Education seminar discussing the challenges of educational provision in African countries emerging from conflict.

Patricia George's research interests include: mathematics education, specifically making mathematics accessible to all students in a classroom; identity; equality, equity and the general area of the sociology of education; poverty and education; studies that provide cross-national comparisons. Her most recent work involved conducting a social risk assessment of the education system of Antigua and Barbuda as part of groundwork towards universal secondary education. Patricia taught mathematics and Chemistry in secondary schools in Antigua for 13 years. Patricia currently works as a part-time Research Fellow within the CEE and is involved in the Raising Students' Achievement Project being conducted in Antigua. The project, among other things, seeks to create communities of practice in which teachers communicate and collaborate on best practices in teaching which enhance students' learning.

This seminar, given by Adrienne Alton-Lee, explores the challenges of mobilising research and development to inform ongoing improvements in valued outcomes for diverse (all) learners across school systems. The Iterative Best Evidence Synthesis (BES) Programme is charged with developing trustworthy bodies of evidence about what does and doesn't work in education. The seminar will consider the significance of a new BES innovation - BES exemplars. These have been developed in response to feedback from practitioners about what they need to support their use of evidence to accelerate improvement. This seminar identifies key messages that can be used to inform effective use of evidence in the service of educational improvement for the public good. Adrienne Alton-Lee is the Chief Education Adviser for the New Zealand Ministry of Education's Iterative Best Evidence Synthesis (BES) Programme.

Professor Tony Booth, Research Fellow at the Centre for Commonwealth Education, talks about the new edition of 'The Index for Inclusion: developing learning and participation in schools'. Professor Booth has taught, researched and written about issues of inclusion and exclusion in education for the last thirty years. His ideas are summarised within the 'Index for Inclusion; developing learning and participation in schools' which has been translated into 39 languages. He has recently produced a radically revised version to create dialogues for the 2nd decade of the 21st century, the decade of biodiversity, about educational development and informal and formal curricula in schools.

Colleen McLaughlin, Deputy Head of the Faculty of Education and Director of International Initiatives, and colleague Susan Kiragu present on their work in Africa on HIV/AIDS and the launch of the book Old Enough to Know which summarises that study. A pdf of slides to accompany the podcast are available from the project website: http://www.educ.cam.ac.uk:8080/centres/cce/initiatives/projects/askaids/publications.html