Maximising the awareness and impact in policy and practice of a multi-method research exploring the classwork of primary-school teaching assistants
Lead Research Organisation:
University of Southampton
Department Name: Southampton Education School
Abstract
Among other things, this fellowship aims to increase awareness of my PhD and its use amongst multiple audiences (e.g., politicians and scholars). To this end, academic publications, conferences, and podcast talks will be used. Before describing the next fellowship's aims, an abstract of my PhD will be produced.
My PhD explored the classwork of teaching practitioners (TAs) internationally playing a crucial role in the mainstream education of children with SEND while teachers manage whole-class education. Whilst much of the existing research has targeted countries using TAs with limited training and a role focused on only assisting children with SEND, my study was carried out in a context (Italy) providing TAs with wealthy training and whole-class responsibilities equally to teachers. Drawing from classroom observations of a TA and interviews with 31 other TAs in Italian primary schools, the study suggested that:
a) The TAs instructed children with SEND and infrequently managed whole-class instruction.
b) Regardless of being well trained, they did not effectively scaffold the thinking of children with SEND - they supplied children with answers to solve tasks, limiting their thinking and learning. Also, they demonstrated a lack of awareness of a key sociocultural principle as to how children best learn, such as fostering their thinking by transferring them the responsibility of task completion.
Thus, the fellowship plan of sharing this PhD will contribute to existing knowledge of a relatively unexplored research context. Also, it will disclose an updated version of an internationally influential theoretical framework of TA practices. This adds the nuanced PhD findings as to TA practical strategies (such as providing the learner with a multiplications table to support easy task completion) to an existing catalogue of TA solutions. It informs TAs about designing effective instructions, known as "scaffolding", according to the sociocultural tenet above.
Despite being based on the experience of a few TAs, sharing the PhD findings might also have important implications for Italian policymakers due to uniform employment conditions and training of Italian TAs, whereby negatively impacting the teaching of highly trained TAs like the PhD participants. Among these is the seeming need to include more training on sociocultural principles of child development in the training of TAs, alongside its existing ample provision of courses on teaching methods (e.g., by using my scaffolding framework). This might improve TAs' awareness of the effect of their practice on children's learning and their teaching in practice. Though this policy implication is germane to the Italian context, countries reviewing the training of teachers and TAs might also benefit from this (e.g., the UK).
In addition, this fellowship will conduct new research addressing this question: "What do primary-school TAs perceive are the technical features of effective scaffolding practices to support the learning of children with SEND?" To deal with this, I will rely on the following:
a) An unexplored collaborative research design, wherein eight primary-school TAs and I will have two focus discussions (FG) on the research question topic. Firstly, I will use the FGs to present my scaffolding framework. Next, the TAs will describe examples of their effective teaching practices to update this.
b) The analysis of a different research context than in my PhD (UK primary education), thus potentially promoting nuanced TA classwork and findings.
Later, I will outline the results in a written document. The participants will review and modify it. Its final version will be shared via the participants' school websites to potentially shape the practices of a wider group of practitioners.
My PhD explored the classwork of teaching practitioners (TAs) internationally playing a crucial role in the mainstream education of children with SEND while teachers manage whole-class education. Whilst much of the existing research has targeted countries using TAs with limited training and a role focused on only assisting children with SEND, my study was carried out in a context (Italy) providing TAs with wealthy training and whole-class responsibilities equally to teachers. Drawing from classroom observations of a TA and interviews with 31 other TAs in Italian primary schools, the study suggested that:
a) The TAs instructed children with SEND and infrequently managed whole-class instruction.
b) Regardless of being well trained, they did not effectively scaffold the thinking of children with SEND - they supplied children with answers to solve tasks, limiting their thinking and learning. Also, they demonstrated a lack of awareness of a key sociocultural principle as to how children best learn, such as fostering their thinking by transferring them the responsibility of task completion.
Thus, the fellowship plan of sharing this PhD will contribute to existing knowledge of a relatively unexplored research context. Also, it will disclose an updated version of an internationally influential theoretical framework of TA practices. This adds the nuanced PhD findings as to TA practical strategies (such as providing the learner with a multiplications table to support easy task completion) to an existing catalogue of TA solutions. It informs TAs about designing effective instructions, known as "scaffolding", according to the sociocultural tenet above.
Despite being based on the experience of a few TAs, sharing the PhD findings might also have important implications for Italian policymakers due to uniform employment conditions and training of Italian TAs, whereby negatively impacting the teaching of highly trained TAs like the PhD participants. Among these is the seeming need to include more training on sociocultural principles of child development in the training of TAs, alongside its existing ample provision of courses on teaching methods (e.g., by using my scaffolding framework). This might improve TAs' awareness of the effect of their practice on children's learning and their teaching in practice. Though this policy implication is germane to the Italian context, countries reviewing the training of teachers and TAs might also benefit from this (e.g., the UK).
In addition, this fellowship will conduct new research addressing this question: "What do primary-school TAs perceive are the technical features of effective scaffolding practices to support the learning of children with SEND?" To deal with this, I will rely on the following:
a) An unexplored collaborative research design, wherein eight primary-school TAs and I will have two focus discussions (FG) on the research question topic. Firstly, I will use the FGs to present my scaffolding framework. Next, the TAs will describe examples of their effective teaching practices to update this.
b) The analysis of a different research context than in my PhD (UK primary education), thus potentially promoting nuanced TA classwork and findings.
Later, I will outline the results in a written document. The participants will review and modify it. Its final version will be shared via the participants' school websites to potentially shape the practices of a wider group of practitioners.
Organisations
People |
ORCID iD |