CPD

School Improvement: Developing and sustaining professional dialogue about teaching and learning

Aim: Our aim was to follow up six secondary schools that had been involved in the North East School Based Research Consortium (NESBRC), a collaborative partnership funded by the Teacher Training Agency/CfBT, which focused on generating evidence about teaching and learning and the impact on pupils achievements. The original partnership intended to develop approaches that were effective and could be embedded into the culture of the school after the NESBRC funding finished. We wanted to see what the schools were doing three years later.

Teachers engaging with and in research: Creating a Professional User Review of Education for Sustainable Development

Aim: This summary is written collaboratively by a team of four. Because of this it is different and is intended to be so. We hope it encourages you to explore our work further. The objectives of this summary are to find out how a researcher and four teachers of Education for Sustainable Development from primary, secondary and outdoor education engaged with an academic review of research and to highlight the issues the teachers chose to research in their schools; how they did it and what they discovered.

Gender and mathematics: what can research tell us about how we teach mathematics to boys and girls?

Aim: The project had three quite distinct aims: 1) To identify from existing research literature what is known about gender differences in learning mathematics at secondary school - no attempt was made to establish any new insights; 2) To elicit, through interviews, the perceptions that a group of mathematics teachers had concerning the impact of gender on learning mathematics; and 3) To use the contrasts and similarities between the findings of the research and the outcomes of the interviews, as astimulus for the development of classroom teaching.

Using email to assist reading

Aim: 1) To see if computer-mediated communication between boys at two different schools can enhance the reading ability and interest of Year 9 boys with low reading levels. 2) To make use of the opportunities for anonymity which email offers in order to allow teachers to assume multiple roles in the teaching of literature.

Children's perspectives on formative assessment: an action research approach

Aim: The overall aim of the project was to investigate childrens perspectives on formative assessment and how formative assessment can be developed to improve learning. I was particularly interested to know how childrens perspectives on learning and formative assessment changed between Key Stage 2 and Key Stage 3. I wanted to explore whether an action research approach could assist in the development of classroom practice in formative assessment.