David McNamara

Theory and Practice: Methodological Procedures for the Objectification of Craft Knowledge.

∗ The project described in this paper is tided ‘Codifying practice and relevant educational theory: the development of materials for the education of teachers’ and is funded by the Nuffield Foundation. † An earlier version of this paper, Educational Theories from Practice, was presented to the Fourth International Conference on Higher Education at the University of Lancaster, 1978.

Teaching Skill: the Question of Questi

Summary Methods books which have been marketed for student teachers during the past hundred years are remarkably consistent in their treatment of teaching skills. The psychological or theoretical rationales which are invoked to justify practices have changed, there have been a few alterations in terminology, the style has become less didactic and presentation is more attractive. Nevertheless, the information which a student teacher would have acquired from his methods text in the 1880s is compatible with that available to the contemporary student. I will take examples from methods texts and illustrate this theme with reference to the teachers questioning skills. I will then ask why this pattern has endured and finally suggest that it is both necessary and possible to break out of this tradition.

Attention, Time-On-Task and Children's Learning: Research or Ideology?.

There has been an increasing emphasis upon the concept of ‘time on task’ within the educational research community, especially in the USA. The idea that the amount of time which children spend ‘on task’ influences their learning has certain attractions in the current educational and economic climate. In this paper it is argued that the research base of the time on task research is suspect and educationally barren. Finally, it is suggested that the notion of time on task is a proxy for the notion of ‘attention’ and that information contained in methods texts is more subtle and relevant to the needs of the class teacher than the findings emerging from time on task research.

The Personal Qualities of the Teacher and Educational Policy: a critique

A reasonable commonsense opinion held by laymen, politicians and educationists is that personal qualities are an important factor which must be borne in mind when making judgements about teachers and teaching. This concern with the personal qualities of the teacher is a thread which runs through a number of official publications on teaching which have emanated from Elizabeth House in the past few years. The personal qualities of the teacher, often in the guise of teacher personality, have also been the focus of systematic analysis and research undertaken by academics who have typically located their investigations within the wider context of researching teacher effectiveness. The key theme which emerges from the current political and administrative engagement with the personal qualities of the teacher contrasts strongly with the key theme which emerges from a reading of the expert academic literature on this topic. On the one hand, the DES documents demonstrate a conviction that the personal qualities of the teacher are important and that policies must be implemented in order to foster those qualities which will enhance teaching. On the other hand, the expert literature indicates that the identification of personal qualities which may improve teacher effectiveness is an intractable and complex endeavour which has generated problems rather than resolved them. Theorising and research have sensitised the academic to the range of conceptual and methodological issues entailed in attempting to evaluate effective teaching and to identifying those qualities which may influence it. There is no coherent and consistent corpus of expert knowledge which administrators can refer to in order to implement policies to improve teaching. At a time when and on an issue where policy makers representing government can proceed with confidence academics know how little they know and the fragile basis of what they know. In what follows I wish to: