When principals choose young teachers for their school do they get the teachers they want? A College of Education looks at how its graduates are appreciated, and what could be done to do a better job.
The computer has turned us all into typographers - the arrangers of print and graphic material. Here is advice, based on research into legibility, on how to make it easy for learners to grasp the content.
Some children learn best using verbal instructions and explanations; others prefer visual material. Some children learn well in one way, but prefer the other (at which they are not as skilled.) This research reveals that all is not lost when the teacher knows what to do.
Two classroom research projects used co-operative learning to encourage cognitive progress. This meant, almost paradoxically, using conflict, and its subsequent resolution, to teach knowledge and skills.
This is a review of the work of Peter Freebody in this field. It is a stimulating look at classroom practice, assessment of literacy, and mis-matches of policy and method.
'The English cannot spell because they have nothing to spell it with but an old foreign alphabet of which only the consonants - and not all of them - have any agreed speech value.' So said George Bernard Shaw. How right he is, and how it can be turned to advantage by teachers, is revealed.
Careful examination of written stories reveals that poor spellers restrict their vocabulary and their syntax to avoid words they cannot spell, giving quite a wrong impression of their intelligence.
One of the key elements in reciprocal teaching is getting the children to 'be the teacher' for a while. This research found great gains in reading for the children who tried the technique. Teachers found it easy too.
Some schools are busy challenging the assumptions Richard White details in item No.7, particularly the assumption that children of equal age must all be taught the same curriculum, and together. One secondary school tried other ways; very successfully, the researchers found.
15 assumptions get in the way of good education. For example, teachers must punish but teachers must not punish. This item will make you think again.
