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The carousel-style lesson: an effective intervention to enhance motivation and the learning of foreign languages at primary school
Get PDFAlthough there is a direct link between pupil motivation and successful learning of foreign languages (FL), there appears to be a real paucity of research regarding carousels of activities as a pedagogical intervention, although carousels may often be used in the teaching and learning of FL. Located within two Year 6 French classrooms in a primary school in England, this article explores carousel-style lessons to enhance motivation and FL learning. A case study methodology was implemented and data were collected via observations of pupils engaged in carousels of activities and via questionnaires of pupil perceptions. The subsequent findings demonstrate that carousel-style lessons offer a very effective pedagogical practice in enhancing pupils’ FL learning; these lessons are pupil-centred and pupil-led; they put pupils at the heart of their own learning and give them the locus of control of their learning; and they align well with motivational orientations, with a subsequent positive impact on pupil motivation and competence
Looked After Children: The Reluctant State and Moral Salvation
Get PDFOver the past fifty years, public care for children in England has undergone a significant transformation moving almost exclusively towards foster care as the preferred mode of delivery. The most recent data from the Department for Education for the year ending 31 March 2018, reported that 73% of all Looked After Children (LAC) were placed in foster care with just 8% in residential placements. Compared to an almost even split of 45% of children in Foster Care (or ‘boarded out’) and 42% of children in residential care in 1966, the scale of this shift becomes apparent. This transformation has taken place in the context of a social policy discourse promoted by successive governments, which has privileged foster care as the most suitable place for children needing out-of-home public care. The main argument in this article is that the rationale for the state’s growing interest in children (in particular those children who are considered a social problem) and the emerging social policy solutions, i.e., foster care, are driven by particular political and economic agendas which have historically paid little attention to the needs of these children and young people. This article explores the relationship between the state, the child and their family and the drivers for this transformation in children’s public care making use of a genealogical approach to identify the key social, political and historical factors, which have provided the context for this change. It examines the increasing interest of the state in the lives of children and families and the associated motivation for the emerging objectification of children. The role of the state in locating the family as the ideal place for children’s socialisation and moral guidance will be explored, with a focus on the political and economic motivations for privileging foster care. Consideration will also be paid to the potential implications of this transformation for children and young people who require public care
An Ethnographic Study Exploring Football Sessions for Medium-Secure Mental Health Service-Users: Utilising the CHIME Conceptual Framework as an Evaluative Tool
Get PDFA key part of developing an understanding of ‘what works’ within the evolving mental health recovery evidence base is finding ways of service-users (and their friends and family) and practitioners working collaboratively. This interaction is slowly shifting practice, whereby care is potentially co-constructed in a setting between those involved to facilitate recovery-oriented processes. Increasingly, mental health services are appreciating the potential role of sport. This study adds to this body of literature by providing analysis of a football project in a medium-secure service context. This study also expands the methodological and theoretical scope of the literature by adopting an ethnographic approach and by utilising the CHIME conceptual framework as an evaluative tool. 47 participants were involved in the study, which included service-users, staff and volunteers. The data demonstrated that these sessions have considerable links to the CHIME processes, and can therefore be considered to enhance personal recovery for those involved
‘Think Football’: Exploring a football for mental health initiative delivered in the community through the lens of personal and social recovery
Get PDFThe practice and discourse of mental health recovery is evolving, with increasing appreciation given to personal recovery and now social recovery. It therefore follows that we need initiatives that enhance levels of social capital, positive social identities and social inclusion within the community, not just within mental health services. These initiatives must bring people together in ways that allow them to feel that they have ownership of any new social infrastructures and use evidence-based frameworks to evaluate them. One context that has been given some consideration is the use of community sport. This paper therefore contributes to the steadily growing literature in this area by exploring the specifics of a community mental health football project, through the utilisation of the personal and social recovery frameworks that have been established within the ‘mainstream’ mental health evidence base. This relativist study utilised seventeen semi-structured interviews (with participants and staff) and, as a deliberate departure from existing research, chose to adopt a deductive, theoretical approach to the analysis that located the data within the personal recovery and social recovery literature. Both participants and staff were considerably positive about the sessions, and data suggested an adherence to the empirically based CHIME personal recovery framework. In terms of alignment with the social recovery concepts, the data was particularly robust in supporting active citizenship processes, which can increase levels of social capital and enhance social identities. Future work is required to further explore the contextual impact of poverty and employment, and the role that sport can potentially play
Using student data: Student-staff collaborative development of compassionate pedagogic interventions based on learning analytics and mentoring
Get PDFUK Universities are increasingly being ‘encouraged’ to focus on student engagement, retention and performance, with learning analytics becoming commonplace. Based on inter-related student-staff partnerships, this study adopted a human and compassionate approach to the use of student data and subsequent interventions. Analysis of focus group and interview data from 86 student participants explored key themes: peer-mentoring increasing engagement with the communal-habitus; increased confidence and engagement; and the demystification and humanisation of the university environment. Findings highlight the importance of emphasising human and compassionate support for students within rapidly developing learning analytics approaches, with subject-specific peer-mentoring found here to be beneficial
Integrating the Constructionist Learning Theory with Computational Thinking Classroom Activities
Get PDFIn computer science education at school, computational thinking has been an emerging topic over the last decade. Even though, computational thinking is interpreted and integrated in classrooms in different ways, an identification process about what computational thinking is about has been in progress among computer science school-teachers and computer science education researchers since Wing’s initial paper on the characteristics of computational thinking. On the other hand, the constructionist learning theory by Papert, based on constructivism and Piaget, has a long tradition in computer science education for describing the students’ learning process by hands-on activities. Our contribution, in this paper, is to present a new mapping tool which can be used to review classroom activities in terms of both computational thinking and constructionist learning. For the tool, we have reused existing definitions of computer science concepts and computational thinking concepts and combined these with our new constructionism matrix. The matrix’s most notable feature is its scale of learners’ autonomy. This scale represents the degree of choices learners have at each stage of development of their artefact. To develop the scale definitions, we trialed the mapping tool, coding twenty-one popular international computing activities for pupils aged 5 to 11 (K-5). From our trial, we have shown that we can use the mapping tool, with a moderate to high degree of reliability across coders, to analyse classroom activities with regard to computational thinking and constructionism, however, further validation is needed to establish its usefulness. Despite a small number of activities (n = 21) being analysed with our mapping tool, our preliminary results showed several interesting findings. Firstly, that learner autonomy was low for defining the problem and developing their own design. Secondly that the activity type (such as lesson plan rather than online activity) or artefact created (such as physical artefact rather than onscreen activity or unplugged activity), rather than the computational thinking or computer science concept being taught was related to learner autonomy. This provides some tentative evidence, which may seem obvious, that the learning context rather than the learning content is related to degree of constructionism of an activity and that computational thinking per se may not be related to constructionism. However, further work is needed on a larger number of activities to verify and validate this suggestion
Fans for diversity? A Critical Race Theory analysis of Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic (BAME) supporters’ experiences of football fandom
Get PDFOver the last 20 years or so there has been a proliferation of anti-racist organisations, campaigns and interventions across football at all levels, allied to broader social, cultural and political shifts in late modern digital societies. Indeed, relying on certain statistical data, which reports a decline in racist incidents in stadia, might lead many anti-racist policy-makers to champion liberal doctrines and to proclaim football fan cultures as quantitatively ‘less racist’. However, in this article, using Critical
Race Theory as a guiding theoretical framework, throughout, we foreground the qualitative experiences and stories of BAME football fans to understand why football fandom and spectatorship remain predominantly ‘White’ activities. Using semi-structured interviews and observational techniques, we explore critically the continued significance of ‘race’ as a mediating factor in football fandom, how BAME football fans negotiate-resist belonging in football fandom cultures and the implications of BAME fans’ testimonies for policymakers. We conclude by arguing for an increase in intersectional research across football/football fan studies, to understand better the racialised aspects of football fandom, and we also urge scholars and policymakers, alike, to place greater emphasis on ‘trust building’ innovations, as opposed to ‘diversity’, given the latter has taken on a commercial value of late
‘Out on the edge of my comfort’: Trainee counsellor/psychotherapists’ experiences of spirituality in therapy: a qualitative exploration
Get PDFThe integration of spirituality into counselling and psychotherapy poses complex challenges. Personal spirituality, professional competency and ethical considerations may impact on trainees’ experiences of integrating spirituality into therapy. This study adopted an inductive, qualitative approach to explore trainee counsellor/psychotherapists’ experiences and perceptions of integrating spirituality into therapy. Six trainee counsellors and psychotherapists were recruited using purposive sampling from a professional counsellor and psychotherapist training institution in the UK. In-depth, semi-structured interviews were conducted, audio recorded and transcribed verbatim. Thematic analysis of the interviews revealed two overarching themes: spirituality provides support but needs a warning; and spirituality is relevant but undervalued. These themes encompass a wide range of trainee concerns associated with integrating spirituality into therapy. Participants reported that they felt unprepared to work therapeutically with clients’ spiritual beliefs. However, the value of spirituality in providing support to both the trainee and their clients was highlighted by several participants. Some participants described integrating clients’ spirituality as having a positive impact on the therapeutic relationship, but often felt threatening to the trainee. This research has implications that are important as consideration for counselling and psychotherapy training and developing enhanced consideration of client spirituality and the interpersonal environment in which therapy is delivered
How do counsellors having menopausal symptoms experience their client work: An interpretative phenomenological analysis
Get PDFAim: The aim of this study was to discover if menopausal symptoms have implications for counsellors in their therapeutic work. Method: Semi-structured interviews were conducted with three counsellors who have experienced menopausal symptoms. The menopause is a unique experience for the individual therefore Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA) allowed for a detailed exploration of the participants’ experiences. Findings: Four superordinate themes were identified: transitioning personal and professional identity during menopause; the limited dialogue about the menopause; the ethical dilemmas of practicing as a counsellor when menopausal and the influence of menopausal symptoms during client work. The findings of this study demonstrated that the participants each had very personal and individual experiences of the menopause. A lack of knowledge and understanding of the menopause and limited dialogue within society to discuss symptoms was also reflected in the counselling profession. The capacity to continue working therapeutically presented potential ethical dilemmas which were affected by menopausal symptoms. Conclusion: Counsellors’ experiences of menopausal symptoms may create challenges in their therapeutic work, ranging from a mild distraction, a disconnection with a client, to the extreme of having to cease engaging with client work. Implications for therapeutic practice are discussed
Exploring Children’s Physical Activity Behaviours According to Location: A Mixed-Methods Case Study
Get PDFThe school environment is ideally placed to facilitate physical activity (PA) with numerous
windows of opportunity from break and lunch times, to lesson times and extracurricular clubs.
However, little is known about how children interact with the school environment to engage in
PA and the other locations they visit daily, including time spent outside of the school environment
i.e., evening and weekend locations. Moreover, there has been little research incorporating a
mixed-methods approach that captures children’s voices alongside objectively tracking children’s
PA patterns. The aim of this study was to explore children’s PA behaviours according to different
locations. Sixty children (29 boys, 31 girls)—35 key stage 2 (aged 9–11) and 25 key stage 3 (aged
11–13)—wore an integrated global positioning systems (GPS) and heart rate (HR) monitor over four
consecutive days. A subsample of children (n = 32) were invited to take part in one of six focus groups
to further explore PA behaviours and identify barriers and facilitators to PA. Children also completed
a PA diary. The KS2 children spent significantly more time outdoors than KS3 children (p = 0.009).
Boys engaged in more light PA (LPA) when on foot and in school, compared with girls (p = 0.003). KS3
children engaged in significantly more moderate PA (MPA) at school than KS2 children (p = 0.006).
Focus groups revealed fun, enjoyment, friends, and family to be associated with PA, and technology,
costs, and weather to be barriers to PA. This mixed methodological study highlights differences in the
PA patterns and perceptions of children according to age and gender. Future studies should utilize a
multi-method approach to gain a greater insight into children’s PA patterns and inform future health
policies that differentiate among a range of demographic groups of children