Rethinking construction: the Generic Design and Construction Process Protocol

The complexity of construction projects and the fragmentation of the construction industry undertaking those projects has effectively resulted in linear, uncoordinated and highly variable project processes in the UK construction sector. Research undertaken at the University of Salford resulted in the development of an improved project process, the Process Protocol, which considers the whole lifecycle of a construction project whilst integrating its participants under a common framework. The Process Protocol identifies the various phases of a construction project with particular emphasis on what is described in the manufacturing industry as the ‘fuzzy front end’. The participants in the process are described in terms of the activities that need to be undertaken in order to achieve a successful project and process execution. In addition, the decision-making mechanisms, from a client perspective, are illustrated and the foundations for a learning organization/industry are facilitated within a consistent Process Protocol.

Incorporating creativity into teachers practice and self-concept of professional identity

The study explores what happens to teachers practice and ’ professional identity when they adopt a collaborative action research approach to teaching and involve external creative partners and a university mentor. The teachers aim to nurture and develop the creative potential of their learners through empowering them to make decisions for themselves about their own progress and learning directions. The teachers worked creatively and collaboratively designing creative teaching and learning methods in support of pupils with language and communication difficulties. The respondents are from an English special school, primary school and girls secondary school. A mixed methods methodology is adopted. Gains in teacher confidence and capability were identified in addition to shifts in values that impacted directly on their self-concept of what it is to be an effective teacher promoting effective learning. The development of their professional identities within a team ethos included them being able to make decisions about learning that are based on the educational potential of learners that they proved resulted in elevated standards achieved by this group of learners. They were able to justify their actions on established educational principles. Tensions however were revealed between what they perceived as their normal required professionalism imposed by external agencies and the enhanced professionalism experienced working through the project where they were able to integrate theory and practice.

A framework for English? Or a vehicle for literacy? English teaching in England in the age of the Strategy

This article considers the evolution and impact on schools in England of the "Framework for English" since its introduction in 2001, a national initiative that follows on from the National Literacy Strategy, which focused on primary schools. Whilst acknowledging that the Framework is part of a whole school policy, "The Key Stage Three Strategy", I concentrate on its direct impact on the school subject "English" and on standards within that subject. Such a discussion must incorporate some consideration of the rise of "Literacy" as a dominant term and theme in England (and globally) and its challenge to a politically controversial and much contested curriculum area, i.e. "English". If the Framework is considered within the context of the Literacy drive since the mid-1990s then it can be see to be evolving within a much changed policy context and therefore likely to change substantially in the next few years. In a global context England has been regarded for some time as at the extreme edge of standards-driven policy and practice. It is hoped that the story of "English" in England may be salutary to educators from other countries.

Educational reforms, cultural clashes and classroom practices

This article presents an ongoing study of educational policy enactment in Singapore lower primary English classrooms. It explores how teachers react to and interpret educational reforms in their classroom practices against a backdrop ofvtraditional cultural values. Using a prescribed coding scheme, the article presents the instructional organisational patterns and participation structures of the lessons.Through a systematic analysis of the enacted curricula, the paper examines classroom practices as well as teaching and learning activities in Primary 1 (7–8 years) and Primary 2 (8–9 years) English lessons in Singapore. The results suggest that there are cultural clashes between major educational reforms which emphasise independent/critical thinking and ‘Asian values’ which promote respect for authority and conformity.

Is it still King Lear? English teachers and the e-reader phenomenon

E-reading devices such as the Kindle have rapidly secured a significant place in a number of societies as at least one major platform for reading.To some extent they are part of the overarching move towards a fully digitised world, but they have a distinctiveness in being deliberately‘book-like’. Teachers generally have some suspicion towards ‘New Media’, especially when it challenges their established practice. This chapter reports on a survey of English teachers in England to gauge their reactions to e-readers, both personally and professionally, and describes their speculations about the place of e-readers in schools in the future. There is a mixed reaction with some teachers concerned about the demise of the book and the potential negative impact on reading. However, the majority welcome e-readers as a dynamic element within the reading environment with particular potential to enthuse reluctant readers and those with special or linguistic needs. They also, some grudgingly, view the fact that reading using this form of technology appeals to the ‘egeneration’ and may succeed in making reading ‘cool’. This form of technology is, ironically [given that it appears to threaten traditional books], likely to be rapidly adopted in classrooms.

Collaborating Blackboard into Teaching – Case Study

In this presentation, a business instructor will discuss a variety of Blackboard functions and describe how technology enhances teaching and learning. It will also address the challenges and issues facing both instructors and students in an online learning environment.

Science is Primary - Children Thinking and Learning in theChemistry Laboratory

The goal of primary science education is to foster children’s interest, develop positive science attitudes and promote science process skills development. Learning by playing and discovering provides several opportunities for children to inquiry and understand science based on the first–hand experience. The current research was conducted in the children’s laboratory in Heureka, the Finnish science centre. Young children (aged 7 years) which came from 4 international schools did a set of chemistry experiments in the laboratory. From the results of the cognitive test, the pre-test, the post-test, supported by observation and interview, we could make the conclusion that children enjoyed studying in the laboratory. Chemistry science was interesting and fascinating for young children; no major gender differences were found between boys and girls learning in the science laboratory. Lab work not only encouraged children to explore and investigate science, but also stimulated children’s cognitive development.

Flipped classroom and learning strategies

This paper seeks to answer the research question "How does the flipped classroom affect students’ learning strategies?" In e-learning research, several studies have focused on how students and teachers perceive the flipped classroom approach. In general, these studies have reported pleasing results. Nonetheless, few, if any, studies have attempted to find out the potential effects of the flipped classroom approach on how students learn. This study was based on two cases: 1) a business modelling course and 2) a research methodology course. In both cases, participating students were from information systems courses at Dalarna University in Sweden. Recorded lectures replaced regular lectures. The recorded lectures were followed by seminars that focused on the learning content of each lecture in various ways. Three weeks after the final seminar, we arranged for two focus group interviews to take place in each course, with 8 to 10 students participating in each group. We asked open questions on how the students thought they had been affected and more dedicated questions that were generated from a literature study on the effects of flipped classroom courses. These questions dealt with issues about mobility, the potential for repeating lectures, formative feedback, the role of seminars, responsibility, empowerment, lectures before seminars, and any problems encountered. Our results show that, in general, students thought differently about learning after the courses in relation to more traditional approaches, especially regarding the need to be more active. Most students enjoyed the mobility aspect and the accessibility of recorded lectures, although a few claimed it demanded a more disciplined attitude. Most students also expressed a feeling of increased activity and responsibility when participating in seminars. Some even felt empowered because they could influence seminar content. The length of and possibility to navigate in recorded lectures was also considered important. The arrangement of the seminar rooms should promote face-to-face discussions. Finally, the types of questions and tasks were found to affect the outcomes of the seminars. The overall conclusion with regard to students’ learning strategies is that to be an active, responsible, empowered, and critical student you have to be an informed student with possibilities and mandate to influence how, where and when to learn and be able to receive continuous feedback during the learning process. Flipped classroom can support such learning.

Depleting the curriculum: teaching digital platforms and curricular impoverishment

The paper aims at showing how curricular complexity tends to be depleted by the use of digital platforms based on the SCORM (Sharable Content Object Reference Model) standard, which was created with the main purpose of recycling content as it is supposed to be independent both from the context of learning and the supporting technology also deemed to be neutral, all surrounded by a rhetoric of innovation and “pedagogical” innovation. The starting point of the discussion is García Perez’s model of Traditional Didactics as a simple tool to show almost graphically that any ancient didactic model is far richer in terms of complexity than the linearity, in disguise most of the times but still visible under a not so sophisticated critical lens, of the interaction human-(reusable) content that is the basis of the SCORM standard. The paper also addresses some of the more common deliberate mix-ups related to those digital platforms, such as learning and teaching, content and learning object, systems of automatic teaching and learning management systems.

Representações de professores de língua inglesa de Natal-RN: um estudo sistêmico-funcional

Teaching and learning representations have been more and more investigated in the Brazilian applied linguistics field, as it allows the understanding of the teachers representations and how they conceive the learning process. This practice facilitates the planning of actions to improve the educational system. This study aims at identifying, interpreting and discussing some representations related to the identity and professional view of English as a foreign language teachers in different school contexts of Natal-RN. The theoretical and methodological foundation for this research is Halliday s Systemic- Functional Linguistics (1994; HALLIDAY; MATHIESSEN, 2004; EGGINS, 1994, among others). Our goal was to reveal the teachers representations embedded in their language, mainly through the ideational metafunction, as language is the tool we use to express ourselves about the external world (events, qualities, things, etc) and the internal world (thoughts, beliefs, feelings, etc). The research corpus is made of 21 teacher narratives, generated from a questionnaire sent to the teachers, who were divided in two groups: Group 1 (public schools teachers) and Group 2 (private schools and English course teachers). Most of the participants seemed to be satisfied with their professional choice. Many of them see the job as a challenge and an opportunity to transmit knowledge. All of them affirmed that the English teacher is a professional, for different reasons; however, the low professional appreciation was a recurrent aspect among the studied narratives. When asked about where they work, the private school teachers seemed to be more satisfied with the teaching-learning process than the ones from the public schools. We believe that the data analyzed in this study is important to show how some English teachers from Natal-RN see their profession. The results might be used in continuing education courses as food-for-thought in group discussions, as it is extremely important to emphasize and stimulate this practice

Interação em sala de aula de língua inglesa: o feedback como estratégia do desempenho assistido

This dissertation aims at characterizing the practices as well as the effects of a teacher s feedback in oral conversation interaction with students in an English Language classroom at a Primary School, 6th Grade in Açu/RN, Brazil. Therefore, this study is based on Vygotsky s (1975) and Bruner´s (1976) researches, which state that the learning process is constructed through interaction between a more experienced individual (teacher, parents and friends) and a learner who plays an active role, a re-constructor of knowledge. It is also based on Ur´s (2006) and Brookhart s (2008) studies (among other authors in Applied Linguistic) who defend that the feedback process needs to be evaluative and formative since it sets interfaces with both students autonomy and learning improvement. Our study is based on qualitative, quantitative and interpretive researches, whose natural environment (the classroom) is a direct source of data generated in this research through field observations/note-taking as well as through the transcriptions of five English classes audio taped. This study shows the following results: the teacher still seems to accept the patterns of interaction in the classroom that correspond to the IRE process (Initiation, Response, Evaluation) in behaviorist patterns: (1) he speaks and determines the turns of speech; (2) the teacher asks more questions and directs the activities most of the time; (3) the teacher´s feedback presents the following types: questioning, modeling, repeated response, praise, depreciation, positive/negative and sarcasm feedback, whose functions are to assess students' performance based on the rightness and wrongness of their responses. Thus, this implies to state that the feedback does not seem to help students improvement in terms of acquiring knowledge because of its normative effects/roles. Therefore, it is the teacher´s role to give evaluative and formative feedback to a student so that he/she should advance in the learning of the language and in the construction of knowledge

Foucault e a arte do cuidado de si: uma nova possibilidade de Discussão para a formação continuada de professores de língua inglesa

This thesis proposes a new thinking on the English teacher and their continuing education, leaving the picture emerging of a new professional, who is producing and being produced. From this perspective, I present an analysis of self writing of thirteen student-teachers, teachers on how they position themselves to be discursively constituted as subjects in the context of continuing education. As part of Applied Linguistics, the theory and method that supports the analysis of data are articulate key elements of Foucault notions, namely:The care of the self, seeking their connection with one another and care of and the self writing. In the theoretical notions of these elements are implied notions of others, such as speech, ethics, technology of the self, subject and truth. (Foucault, 1984, 1995, 2004c, 2006), and questioning the ethics of the subject. I propose to examine selected excerpts from the self writings of student teachers with a specialization in Teaching and Learning the English Language, seeking linguistic processes in the material production of subjectivities.In order to analyze the process of subjectivation, I examine the discursive statements of selected cuts, aiming to learn more specifically, the points of identification and fragments of the uniqueness of the teachers, showing how they care for themselves and reflect upon them in building their subjectivity from the technologies of the self, to occupy the position of English Language teachers. The results show that, in the exercise of self writing, the subject falls, and a practice of asceticism, discursively construct her/his subjectivity

Narrativas de professores em formação sobre a didatização de podcasts para o ensino de inglês na floresta

Considering the following conditions: (1) the fluency demands of students in an undergraduate program in Languages and Literatures/English in the Amazon region; (2) the listening and speaking needs of pre-service teachers of English as a Foreign Language (EFL); (3) my continuing education as a professor of EFL and my academic literacy as a teacher-researcher and pre-service-teacher trainer, this study, which is based on Narrative Inquiry, reports on a teacher experience of working didactically with oral genres through podcasting an activity that emerged with the advent of Information and Communication Technology (ICT). Through this process, I engage with some theorists who promote teaching as a process that is driven by a concept of language as social practice. Subsequently, I make use of the notions of context of culture and context of situation, derived from Systemic Functional Linguistics, as well as the concept of genre and register derived from the perspective of this theory. Based on these principles and beliefs, the Amazon region constitutes the register (situation) of the genres used in this study. These principles also provide, opportunities for building learning strategies appropriate to this local context, and also to teach listening and speaking skills from a task-based approach. During the experience, based on the reflective teacher-education model, the participants produced narratives about the process, which I then analyzed according to Ely, Vinz, Downing and Anzul (2001), who propose possibilities of composing meanings in Narrative Inquiry. Based on this perspective, I discuss the following topics, which were highly emphasized in the participants narratives: the lack of didactic activities using oral genres; the relevance of context within teacher education; and collaborative work as a strategy to overcome gaps in digital literacy, language fluency and teaching skills. The meanings I thereby compose point to a paradigm shift in English language teaching within this context. I also argue for a pedagogical practice that is engaged with historical and socio-cultural issues, and with the development of language skills, also one that promotes the implementation of ICTs at the very start of teacher training programs, adopting teaching and learning strategies that correspond to the demands of fluency in this particular context, and deficiencies imposed by geographical isolation