Maximising the awareness and impact in policy and practice of a multi-method research exploring the classwork of primary-school teaching assistants

除其他事项外，该奖学金旨在提高不同受众(例如，政治家和学者)对我的博士学位及其使用的认识。为此，将使用学术出版物、会议和播客演讲。在描述下一届奖学金的目标之前，我会先写一份博士论文摘要。我的博士学位探讨了国际上教学从业者(TA)的课堂工作，在SEND儿童的主流教育中扮演着至关重要的角色，而教师则管理着全班教育。虽然许多现有的研究针对的是使用助教的国家，但培训有限，角色仅侧重于帮助儿童进行SEND，但我的研究是在为助教提供丰富培训和与教师同等的全班责任的背景下进行的。根据对一名助教的课堂观察和对意大利小学其他31名助教的采访，研究表明：a)助教指导儿童进行SEND和不经常管理的全班教学。B)尽管受过良好的培训，但他们并没有有效地用SEND来支撑儿童的思维--他们为儿童提供解决任务的答案，限制了他们的思维和学习。此外，他们还表明，他们缺乏对儿童如何最好地学习的关键社会文化原则的认识，例如通过转移他们完成任务的责任来培养他们的思维。因此，分享这个博士学位的奖学金计划将有助于现有的关于相对未被探索的研究背景的知识。此外，它还将披露具有国际影响力的助教实践理论框架的更新版。这为现有的助教解决方案目录增加了关于助教实用策略(例如为学习者提供乘法表以支持轻松完成任务)的细微差别的博士发现。它告诉助教如何根据上面的社会文化信条设计有效的指导，也就是所谓的“脚手架”。尽管以少数助教的经验为基础，但由于统一的就业条件和意大利助教的培训，分享博士学位的调查结果可能对意大利政策制定者也有重要影响，从而对像博士学员这样训练有素的助教的教学产生负面影响。其中似乎需要在助教培训中纳入更多关于儿童发展的社会文化原则的培训，以及现有的大量关于教学方法的课程(例如，使用我的脚手架框架)。这可能会提高助教对他们的实践对孩子的学习和他们在实践中的教学的影响的认识。虽然这一政策含义与意大利的背景密切相关，但审查教师和助教培训的国家也可能从中受益(例如英国)。此外，该奖学金将进行新的研究，以解决这个问题：“小学助教认为有效的支架实践有哪些技术特征，以支持患有SEND的儿童的学习？”为了解决这一问题，我将依靠以下几点：a)一个未探索的合作研究设计，其中我和八名小学助教将就研究问题主题进行两次焦点讨论(FG)。首先，我将使用FGs来介绍我的脚手架框架。接下来，助教将描述他们有效的教学实践的例子，以更新这一点。b)分析与我的博士学位(英国小学教育)不同的研究背景，从而潜在地促进细微差别的助教课堂工作和发现。稍后，我将以书面文件的形式概述结果。与会者将对其进行审查和修改。它的最终版本将通过参与者的学校网站共享，以潜在地塑造更广泛的从业者群体的实践。

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.