Understanding teacher collaboration in disadvantaged urban primary schools: uncovering practices that foster professional learning communities

This study is set in the context of disadvantaged urban primary schools in Ireland. It inquires into the collaborative practices of primary teachers exploring how class teachers and support teachers develop ways of working together in an effort to improve the literacy and numeracy levels of their student. Traditionally teachers have worked in isolation and therefore ‘collaboration’ as a practice has been slow to permeate the historically embedded assumption of how a teacher should work. This study aims to answer the following questions. 1). What are the dynamics of teacher collaboration in disadvantaged urban primary schools? 2). In what ways are teacher collaboration and teacher learning related? 3). In what ways does teacher collaboration influence students’ opportunities for learning? In answering these research questions, this study aims to contribute to the body of knowledge pertaining to teacher learning through collaboration. Though current policy and literature advocate and make a case for the development of collaborative teaching practices, key studies have identified gaps in the research literature in relation to the impact of teacher collaboration in schools. This study seeks to address some of those gaps by establishing how schools develop a collaborative environment and how teaching practices are enacted in such a setting. It seeks to determine what skills, relationships, structures and conditions are most important in developing collaborative environments that foster the development of professional learning communities (PLCs). This study uses a mixed method research design involving a postal survey, four snap-shot case studies and one in depth case study in an effort to establish if collaborative practice is a feasible practice resulting in worthwhile benefits for both teachers and students.

Learning to drive: from hazard detection to hazard handling

Hazard perception has been found to correlate with crash involvement, and has thus been suggested as the most likely source of any skill gap between novice and experienced drivers. The most commonly used method for measuring hazard perception is to evaluate the perception-reaction time to filmed traffic events. It can be argued that this method lacks ecological validity and may be of limited value in predicting the actions drivers’ will take to hazards encountered. The first two studies of this thesis compare novice and experienced drivers’ performance on a hazard detection test, requiring discrete button press responses, with their behaviour in a more dynamic driving environment, requiring hazard handling ability. Results indicate that the hazard handling test is more successful at identifying experience-related differences in response time to hazards. Hazard detection test scores were strongly related to performance on a driver theory test, implying that traditional hazard perception tests may be focusing more on declarative knowledge of driving than on the procedural knowledge required to successfully avoid hazards while driving. One in five Irish drivers crash within a year of passing their driving test. This suggests that the current driver training system does not fully prepare drivers for the dangers they will encounter. Thus, the third and fourth studies in this thesis focus on the development of two simulator-based training regimes. In the third study participants receive intensive training on the molar elements of driving i.e. speed and distance evaluation. The fourth study focuses on training higher order situation awareness skills, including perception, comprehension and projection. Results indicate significant improvement in aspects of speed, distance and situation awareness across training days. However, neither training programme leads to significant improvements in hazard handling performance, highlighting the difficulties of applying learning to situations not previously encountered.

Training in and assessment of the procedural skills required to perform peripheral nerve blockade

The training and ongoing education of medical practitioners has undergone major changes in an incremental fashion over the past 15 years. These changes have been driven by patient safety, educational, economic and legislative/regulatory factors. In the near future, training in procedural skills will undergo a paradigm shift to proficiency based progression with associated requirements for competence-based programmes, valid, reliable assessment tools and simulation technology. Before training begins, the learning outcomes require clear definition; any form of assessment applied should include measurement of these outcomes. Currently training in a procedural skill often takes place on an ad hoc basis. The number of attempts necessary to attain a defined degree of proficiency varies from procedure to procedure. Convincing evidence exists that simulation training helps trainees to acquire skills more efficiently rather than relying on opportunities in their clinical practice. Simulation provides a safe, stress free environment for trainees for skill acquisition, generalization and transfer via deliberate practice. The work described in this thesis contributes to a greater understanding of how medical procedures can be performed more safely and effectively through education. The effect of feedback, provided to novices in a standardized setting on a bench model, based on knowledge of performance was associated with an increase in the speed of skill acquisition and a decrease in error rate during initial learning. The timing of feedback was also associated with effective learning of skill. A marked attrition of skills (independent of the type of feedback provided) was demonstrable 24 hrs after they have first been learned. Using the principles of feedback as described above, when studying the effect of an intense training program on novices of varied years of experience in anaesthesia (i.e. the present training programmes / courses of an intense training day for one or more procedures). There was a marked attrition of skill at 24 hours with a significant correlation with increasing years of experience; there also appeared to be an inverse relationship between years of experience in anaesthesia and performance. The greater the number of years of practice experience, the longer it required a learner to acquire a new skill. The findings of the studies described in this thesis may have important implications for the trainers, trainees and training bodies in the design and implementation of training courses and the formats of delivery of changing curricula. Both curricula and training modalities will need to take account of characteristics of individual learners and the dynamic nature of procedural healthcare.

Practice-based film education for children: teaching and learning for creativity, citizenship and participation

Practice-oriented film education aimed at children has been hailed for various reasons: at a personal level, as a means of providing tools for self-expression, for developing creativity and communication skills. And at a social level, it is argued that children must now become competent producers, in addition to critical consumers, of audiovisual content so they can take part in the global public sphere that is arguably emerging. This chapter discusses how the challenges posed by introducing children to filmmaking (i.e. digital video) are being met at three civil associations in Mexico: La Matatena AC, which seeks to enrich the children’s lives by means of the aesthetic experience filmmaking can bring them. Comunicaciòn Comunitaria, concerned with the impact filmmaking can have on the community, preserving cultural memory and enabling participation. And Juguemos a Grabar, with a focus on urban regeneration through the cultural industries.

Learning to 'understand backwards' in time: children's temporal cognition and the primary history curriculum

This study examines children’s temporal ways of knowing and it highlights the centrality of temporal cognition in the development of children’s historical understanding. It explores how young children conceptualise time and it examines the provision for temporal cognition at the levels of the intended, enacted and received history curriculum in the Irish primary school context. Positioning temporality as a prerequisite second-order concept, the study recognises the essential role of both first-order and additional second-order concepts in historical understanding. While the former can be defined as the basic, substantive content to be taught, the latter refers to a number of additional key concepts that are deemed fundamental to children's capacity to make meaningful sense of history. The study argues for due recognition to be given to temporality, in the belief that both sets of knowledge, the content and skills, are required to develop historical thinking (Lévesque, 2011). The study addresses a number of key research questions, using a mixed methods research design, comprising an analysis of history textbooks, a survey among final year student teachers about their teaching of history, and school-based interviews with primary school children: What opportunities are available for children to develop temporal ways of knowing? How do student teachers experience being apprenticed into the available culture for teaching history and understanding temporality at primary level? What insights do the cognitive-developmental and sociocultural perspectives on learning provide for understanding the dynamics of children’s temporal ways of knowing? The study argues that the skill of developing a deeper understanding of time is a key prerequisite in connecting with, and constructing, understandings and frameworks of the past. The study advances a view of temporality as complex, multi-faceted and developmental. The findings have a potential contribution to make in influencing policy and pedagogy in establishing an elaborated and well-defined curriculum framework for developing temporal cognition at both national and international levels.

Convergence and translation: attitudes to inter-professional learning and teaching of creative problem-solving among medical and engineering students and staff

Background: Healthcare worldwide needs translation of basic ideas from engineering into the clinic. Consequently, there is increasing demand for graduates equipped with the knowledge and skills to apply interdisciplinary medicine/engineering approaches to the development of novel solutions for healthcare. The literature provides little guidance regarding barriers to, and facilitators of, effective interdisciplinary learning for engineering and medical students in a team-based project context. Methods: A quantitative survey was distributed to engineering and medical students and staff in two universities, one in Ireland and one in Belgium, to chart knowledge and practice in interdisciplinary learning and teaching, and of the teaching of innovation. Results: We report important differences for staff and students between the disciplines regarding attitudes towards, and perceptions of, the relevance of interdisciplinary learning opportunities, and the role of creativity and innovation. There was agreement across groups concerning preferred learning, instructional styles, and module content. Medical students showed greater resistance to the use of structured creativity tools and interdisciplinary teams. Conclusions: The results of this international survey will help to define the optimal learning conditions under which undergraduate engineering and medicine students can learn to consider the diverse factors which determine the success or failure of a healthcare engineering solution.

Learning curves: analysing pace and challenge in four successful puzzle games

The pace at which challenges are introduced in a game has long been identified as a key determinant of both the enjoyment and difficulty experienced by game players, and their ability to learn from game play. In order to understand how to best pace challenges in games, there is great value in analysing games already demonstrated as highly engaging. Play-through videos of four puzzle games (Portal, Portal 2 Co-operative mode, Braid and Lemmings), were observed and analysed using metrics derived from a behavioural psychology understanding of how people solve problems. Findings suggest that; 1) the main skills learned in each game are introduced separately, 2) through simple puzzles that require only basic performance of that skill, 3) the player has the opportunity to practice and integrate that skill with previously learned skills, and 4) puzzles increase in complexity until the next new skill is introduced. These data provide practical guidance for designers, support contemporary thinking on the design of learning structures in games, and suggest future directions for empirical research.