Teaching assistants and pupils' academic and social engagement in mainstream schools: insights from systematic literature reviews Introduction: deployment and training of TAs (original) (raw)
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International Journal of Emotional Education, 2009
The last twenty years have seen a huge expansion in the additional adults 3 working in classrooms in the UK, USA, and other countries. This paper presents the findings of a series of systematic literature reviews about teaching assistants (TAs). The first two reviews focused on stakeholder perceptions of TAs' contributions to academic and social engagement, namely the perceptions of pupils, teachers, TAs, headteachers and parents on four principal contributions that teaching assistants contribute to: pupils' academic and socio-academic engagement; inclusion; maintenance of stakeholder relations; and support for the teacher. The third review explored training of TAs. Against a background of patchy training provision both in the UK and the USA, strong claims are made for the benefits to TAs of training provided, particularly in building confidence and skills. The conclusions include implications for further training and the need for further research to gain an in-depth understanding of the way TAs engage with children.
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Engagement of Students Teaching Assistants-Confessions From 5 Years of Conference Participation
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This paper reports from five years of experience of engaging young student teaching assistants in the continuous development of a course by involving them in research, both pedagogically and in other course related themes. The purpose of the paper is to pave the road for a more engaged and integrated form of teaching, where the full potential of STAs is released. Firstly some basic constructs are presented; secondly a concrete example of STAs’ research activity is presented – as an illustrative case which also forms the empirical background of the paper. Finally implications and reflections are identified accompanied with suggestions for further research.
Working with teaching assistants: three models evaluated
Questions about how best to deploy teaching assistants (TAs) are particularly apposite given the greatly increasing numbers of TAs in British schools and given findings about the difficulty effecting adult teamwork in classrooms. In six classrooms, three models of team organisation and planning for the work of teaching assistants -'room management', 'zoning' and 'reflective teamwork' -were evaluated using a repeated measures design for their effects on children's engagement. Detailed interview feedback was also gained from participating teachers and assistants about the perceived benefits of each model and possible adaptations to the models for future classroom use. All three models were found to effect significant improvements in engagement in all of the classrooms, and each was evaluated positively by participants, with useful commentary concerning adaptation.
Support for Learning, 2010
This article explores notions of support and collaboration between teachers and teaching assistants (TAs) in two secondary schools in England. In particular it reviews how team members created opportunities and established collaborative practices aimed at including each other in the task of providing support for children who are described as having difficulties in learning. The data from the ethnographic study, which were collected through a variety of methods and were generated with the support and participation of teachers, heads of departments, special educational needs co-ordinators (SENCOs) and teaching assistants, suggest that the successful inclusion of students is dependent on how schools as organisations and communities are able to support the inclusion of adults as well.