RSS 1.0Education
The University of Chester traces its roots back to one of the earliest training colleges in the country, beginning the training of teachers in 1839. While it is one of the oldest higher education institutions in the UK, it is also a modern, innovative institution and has a well-deserved reputation for the quality of its education. The Faculty was recently awarded 'Outstanding' status by Ofsted, credited with delivering "high levels of academic and pastoral care" - Ofsted Report 2010.
Sub-communities within this community
Collections in this community
Recent Submissions
-
Professional learning in physical educationProfessional learning in physical education is typically experienced as a coaching course where the predetermined content is delivered to teachers in short, one-off sessions. This approach can have value, but greater interest is now being shown in more transformative approaches to professional learning that are based on sustained collaboration with peers within the context of the teacher’s classroom. This paper examines three such approaches: Practitioner enquiry, lesson study, and the teacher research group. More specifically, it shares findings from relevant empirical studies, particularly the author’s own research, to understand the potential values of these approaches and identify the features that provide support for teachers and lead to progress in students’ learning.
-
Decolonising Early Childhood Education: Disrupting Professional DiscoursesLed by international educationalists across all phases of education, The BERA Guide to Decolonising the Curriculum is a powerful evocation, direction, and call to action for epistemological equity in knowledge production, teaching, and ...
-
“It’s not as clear cut as autistic boys versus autistic girls.” Exploring autistic girls’ experiences of mainstream secondary educationTraditionally research and academic writing associated with autism in education has focused on males. Consequently, a range of complex factors have led to the misdiagnosis or late diagnosis of autistic female learners, rendering their needs unrecognised and inappropriately supported. This ethnographic study, based in a mainstream Welsh-medium secondary school, drew upon a semi-structured interview with nine autistic females to explore their academic and social experiences, and the significance they believed that being an autistic female had on their relationships with their teachers and peers. The findings imply that while autistic adolescent girls may continue to encounter challenges relating to sensory differences and peer/teacher relations in secondary education, many of these challenges are also experienced by autistic males. However, the study highlights the impact of socially constructed gender norms on the way in which autistic girls’ presentations are understood and received by non-autistic peers and teachers. Rather than reinforcing female autistic stereotypes, it is advised that further understanding is promoted about the diverse experiences and presentations of autistic girls, and how autism intersects with various aspects of identity. Personalised and relational pedagogical approaches, which give voice to autistic girls, and involve them in planning their own learning are also encouraged.
-
Walter's Cap: Working Class History through the Creative ArtsIn The Working Class: Poverty, education and alternative voices, Ian Gilbert unites educators from across the UK and further afield to call on all those working in schools to adopt a more enlightened and empathetic approach to supporting ...
-
A catalyst for conversation: Dialogic approaches to teaching sensitive histories in secondary schoolsThis article explores the application of dialogic pedagogy in teaching sensitive histories in secondary school settings. Drawing on personal experiences and current research, it highlights how dialogic approaches can enhance students’ understanding of historical events and their relevance to contemporary issues. The paper discusses three effective methods for facilitating dialogic pedagogy in history: silent conversations; structured debates; and Socratic seminars. These approaches can foster critical thinking, empathy and active citizenship by creating an inclusive and respectful classroom environment. The article concludes by considering some of the potential challenges in navigating the complexities of sensitive histories through dialogic approaches.
-
Dentistry in university education: Philosophy and purposeTertiary education or further education which is often synonymously used for higher education is to be found not only in universities but also in vocational or technical training schools, institutes, and colleges. Hence, all tertiary education is not equivalent to what is known as university education, but all university education is tertiary education. From this definition, dental education is university education. Therefore, the philosophical domains of dental education is vast and overwhelmingly numerous with great complexity and social significance in line with the philosophy of education as well as philosophy of higher education. Dentistry has evolved from a description of decaying teeth to a comprehensive program of independent professional discipline. Albeit, how dental schools are structured or how dental education is being offered within the university is not universal. Mostly the relationship between dental schools and medical schools and mode of offering dental education and medical education in relation to the overall healthcare system varies significantly. This chapter touches upon the philosophical issues of education in general with focused attention to dentistry as a university education.
-
Exploring the reasons why former physics teachers in Scotland left teachingDespite significant effort, recruitment of physics teachers in Scotland has fallen short of Scottish Government targets for many years, but there is little data on the retention of teachers, or what factors influence teachers to leave the profession. This study examines the experiences of 11 former physics teachers in Scotland. Data were gathered using an online survey and a semi-structured interview with each participant. Factors emerging from the data included a lack of career progression routes, excessive workload, poor pupil behaviour, a lack of flexible working, and school leadership often driven by accountability pressures in the education system.
-
Talking outside the box: Film as a stimulus for dialogic engagement around social justice issuesThis article explores how film, as a pedagogic device, can be used as a stimulus for dialogic engagement around social justice issues such as human rights, conflict and equity. Based on findings from a doctoral research study – and illustrated with an example from the film, it is argued that through dialogue, film can provide an inclusive and participatory site for learning where children are viewed as social agents, meaning-makers and co-constructors of knowledge.
-
Beyond the Core Content Framework: Using experiential learning to develop agentic, creative and reflexive student teachersIn 2019, the Department for Education introduced the core content framework (CCF) in initial education in England. The framework, which has been criticised for being heavily shaped by research from cognitive science, has, inadvertently, become the baseline curriculum for initial teacher education. This article explores how experiential learning is being used on a history PGCE course to move beyond the limitations of the CCF and offer student teachers a mode of professional learning that is foregrounded in creativity and critical reflexivity.
-
Adventures in the Play-Ritual ContinuumThe junctions between play and ritual are many and complex. Play is for fun and joy, but it also demands a total commitment and serious respect for rules. Rituals involve nearly endless varieties of social arrangements and can truly transform people, but they also include improvisation, testing, and pretending. Adventures in the Play-Ritual Continuum explores the connectivity between the playful and the ritualized through a fresh theoretical perspective, highlighting the creative messiness and the cultural paradoxes such intersections allow. The chapters span topics such as hen parties, marriage proposals, ash scatterings, extreme sports races, football fans, computer game festivals, celebrations of fandom, migration heritages, and antiracist protests. While the case studies are selected to show a range of diversity with various mergings of play, game, ritual, ceremony, rite, and ritualizing, the introductory and concluding discussions offer sharpened perspectives on common aspects. Following these excursions through the play-ritual continuum will be enjoyable for readers interested in how people make sense of their own existence and profitable for scholars in folklore, anthropology, religion, pedagogy, cultural studies, and social sciences and humanities more generally.
-
'Why do we have to learn this?’ A physics educator’s response to every teacher’s least favourite questionIn his years as a physics teacher, students often asked Mark Whalley why they had to learn the subject when most of them would never directly use it in their careers. Having never been satisfied with the answers he gave, he sets out the case for learning physics, even for students who don't pursue the subject further.
-
Informal Music Making and Well-BeingIn order to define the nature of informal music, specifically music making and its multidimensional connections with one’s well-being, a brief history of how music making is understood is first offered in order to delineate associated research and music-learning models. It is hoped that this will provide some detailed definition of the contemporary context of music making, so that the approach of “Universal Design,” among others, in the making of music might be understood as a paradigm shift that might have benefits for well-being. Informal music making is in short defined as categorically separated from formal music making, but their overlapping and dynamic relationship is nonetheless recognized and also further expanded upon. Informal music making is also aligned to understandings of the intuitivist and rationalist composer.
-
Seminar capital: An exploration of the enduring social and pedagogical benefits of seminar engagementThis article presents findings from a small-scale qualitative case study exploring how engagement with seminars might prompt a sense of community amongst students. Further, it considered if such engagement might afford students ‘seminar capital’, a form of academic social capital (Bourdieu 1977 in Preece 2010). The study also aimed to uncover how seminar pedagogy can support students to develop their academic voice and connect with others in learning communities. Reflecting on emergent learning (Bourner 2003) supports students to move between a range of language codes (Preece 2010). Students in the study reported that seminar discussions supported their conceptual understanding, consolidated their academic language skills and offered opportunities to apply their knowledge to their assessments. This took place within an emerging positioning of relationships between peers and lecturers.
-
Retrospective narratives of the cultural and linguistic brokering roles of migrant children following resettlementThe resettlement practices of (im)migrating communities into Global North countries has long been the focus of academic research. This thesis explores the pivotal role that children play in this resettlement process, through their roles as cultural and linguistic brokers, specifically the extent to which child brokers are exercising agency, and the factors which maximise or constrain this agency within the context of family hierarchies and other societal structures. Using Biographical Narrative Interpretive Method, (Chamberlayne, Rustin and Wengraf, 2002; Wengraf, 2004) the project elicits retrospective narratives from five adults who engaged in myriad brokering roles during their childhood. The research positions (Bio)ecological Systems Theory (Bronfenbrenner, 1979; Bronfenbrenner and Morris, 1998, 2006) as a sociological framework for identifying the macro and micro factors impacting upon children’s cultural and linguistic brokering roles. The alignment between the chosen theoretical framework and the BNIM methodology in the context of children’s cultural and linguistic brokering roles is a key feature of this research. The research findings indicate that brokering activities take place across a range of formal and informal contexts, with children deploying complex metalinguistic and cultural negotiation skills from an early age and into adulthood. Many of the brokering roles suggest children exercise varying degrees of agency in situational contexts, influencing family practices and contributing to the resettlement process. Retrospective perceptions of these roles reflect shifting interpretations of the challenges and benefits for their families and for the children themselves, mediated by such factors as their age, sense of efficacy, family expectations, duration, frequency and context of the brokering activities. Finally, I critique normative constructions of childhood, and analyse the significance of socio cultural factors on child brokering practices and their positioning within communities. The application of Bioecological Systems Theory has revealed the importance of establishing conceptual frameworks for exploring child brokering roles which inform policy and practice across relevant academic and societal contexts.
-
Talking everyday science to very young children: a study involving parents and practitioners within an early childhood centreThe acquisition of everyday scientific concepts by 3–6-year-old children attending early childhood institutions has been widely studied. In contrast, research on science learning processes among younger children is less extensive. This paper reports on findings from an exploratory empirical study undertaken in a ‘stay and play’ service used by parents with children aged 0–3 and located within an East London early childhood centre. The research team collaborated with practitioners to deliver a programme of activities aimed at encouraging parents’ confidence in their own ability to support emergent scientific thinking among their young children. The programme generated children’s engagement and interest. Parents and practitioners reported increased confidence in their ability to promote young children’s natural curiosity at home and in early childhood provision. The authors see no reason for positing qualitative differences between the way children acquire scientific and other concepts in their earliest years.
-
A frame within a frame within a frame within … : Concluding essayThe junctions between play and ritual are many and complex. Play is for fun and joy, but it also demands a total commitment and serious respect for rules.
-
Ramblings: A walk in progress (or the minutes of the International Society of the Imaginary Perambulator)In this paper, seven writers experiment with ethnographic and artistic responses to each others’ walking practices. We employed various forms of ethnography, sharing our attempts to transform a walk into other objects, all the while performing together. We are trying to push the representational limits of an ethnography of walking, reflecting on the various modes of inscription available to us. In this sense, this chapter is a report on our knowledge engagements with walking practices. The conversation between and within the passages sheds new light on our individual efforts but also produces knowledge that speaks about walking as a practice and an experience. At the level of transforming experiences into text, our paths kept intersecting through key metaphors that emerged from our individual observations. Without deliberately setting out to do so, we found ourselves approaching arts-based practice as research. This chapter is not to be seen as a conclusive result of our findings but rather as a manifestation of our collaborative meaning-making. It is (at its heart) PROCESS as both beginning and end. Moreover, it is a questioning of the dominant cultural modes which have a tendency to pedestalize the final product.
-
Advocating a folkloristic disposition in the context of music pedagogyThis chapter introduces The Walk to Kitty's Stone, a unique choral composition that intertwines the personal narrative of the composer with indigenous epistemology to create an autoethnographic reflection. Originating in 2018, this 17-minute piece harnesses 140 voices to articulate an immersive experience. Central to its creation is the recognition of the landscape and its inhabitants as active participants, aligning with an autoethnographic approach that acknowledges the agency of both human and non-human entities. Drawing from Bausinger's folkloristic framework, the composition engages with temporal, social, and spatial dimensions, providing a multifaceted exploration of the journey. A key innovation in the composition process is the development of the perambulograph, a device enabling on-the-move graphic scoring to capture the nuances of the journey in real time. Employing this methodology across 30 iterations, the composer achieves a comprehensive understanding of the varied perspectives at play. Beyond its artistic merits, this work advocates for a folkloristic disposition within music pedagogy, positioning songwriting as a form of arts-based practice-as-research. Through The Walk to Kitty's Stone, the composer not only crafts a captivating musical narrative but also advances a broader discourse on the intersection of ethnography, creativity, and education.
-
Fun in the formative phase to scaffold success in the summative phase: Collaboration between Academics and Learning Technologists to build engaging, fun and authentic practice opportunitiesIn the serious space of higher education (HE), there is pressure to ensure that students are engaged and learning; while formerly, this may have been seen as a compulsorily serious business, increasing attention is being paid to how much students enjoy their studies, including as a means to enrich learning and improve outcomes (Whitton and Langan, 2019). This case study draws from the experience of three academics working with learning technologists to deliver game-based and simulation learning through technology. In each case, the work completed relied on a dynamic, collaborative and synergistic approach to learning and technology, with the learning technologist enabling enhanced opportunities for student engagement while reducing the time required from academics. The vignettes discussed are from a range of disciplines and include a Volcanic Hazard Simulation (Geography), a card game to generate practice case visitor scenarios (Social Work), and a board game to emulate stadium policing on a match day (Policing). This work explores how game-based learning provided enhanced engagement, integrated employability skills, authentic opportunities (QAA, 2024) to practice these core skills, and inspire a state of “flow” (Csikszentmihalyi, 2008) in students encountering their learning activities. It focuses on the collaborative approach between the learning technologists and academics to develop and deliver immersive learning activities, with fun being a motivator for all parties (staff included). Students can bridge the gap between theory, knowledge and competency, and build their confidence in a way that makes them keen to return for more.
-
Decision-making of educational leaders: New insights from the Iowa gambling taskPURPOSE: Middle leadership in education is often considered one of the most challenging roles within educational leadership, and it is often under-conceptualised and theorised. A key role of a middle leader is making decisions. This paper presents some initial findings from a study of 22 middle leaders in England, exploring their decision-making ability. DESIGN/METHODOLOGY/APPROACH: This study uses the Iowa gambling task (IGT), a commonly used psychological tool designed to assess decision-making through risk-based activities. All participants were asked to complete the IGT online. They were asked to select one of four cards from a virtual deck. The decks yielded either a positive gain (a financial win) or a net (financial) loss. Participants repeated the selection of a card 100 times. FINDINGS: Participants quickly learned which decks provided a positive net gain. However, what was apparent was that between cards 40 and 60, there was a significant spike in their ability to gain net wins in the cards selected. This suggests that middle leaders are more risk-seeking when they are trying to minimise losses, as in blocks 1 to 3 in the experiment. However, once they have reached a self-determined threshold, they become risk-averse to maintaining the potential gains they have made. RESEARCH LIMITATIONS/IMPLICATIONS: Understanding how leaders make decisions is particularly important if staff are to be encouraged to take responsibility and make decisions within their roles as middle leaders. However, this study has limitations, notably that only 22 participants participated. ORIGINALITY/VALUE: This paper offers a contemporary review underpinned by a preliminary study of middle leaders' decision-making ability against a backdrop of the limited literature on this topic.
