Educational Expectations: How They Differ Around the World: Implications for Teaching ESL College Students

Expectations regarding teacher-student relationships, classroom interactions, testing and evaluation, and academic integrity vary widely around the world. Understanding these differences can be critical to enhancing the academic success of ESL(English as a Second Language) college students. Faculty working with ESL students often ask: “Why won't my students participate more in class?” “Why do my students only repeat back what I've said?” “Why won't they tell me what they think?” “Why don't they ever know what courses they want to take when they come to registration or advisement?” Students often ask: “Why does my professor keep asking me to talk about my personal experiences? We never had to do that in my country. Why is it such a big deal to do that here?” There are a lot of “why's” floating around the campus. This article addresses some of these questions.     

Legacies of empire: from the “religions of China” to the “Confucian heritage” learner

ABSTRACT

In this article, we delve into the characterisation of international students as “Confucian Heritage” learners. To appreciate the implications of such iterative interpellation, we develop a genealogy of Sinology, which is here approached as the discursive effect of a colonial epistemic division of the world into free and democratic West and civilised and yet authoritarian East. In mapping the deployment of such heuristic in the management of international affairs during and after historical colonialism, we moreover demonstrate how the derivative characterisation of international students as “rote”, “dependent”, and inherently “prone to plagiarism” learners has been used to explain racism without race – that is, the epistemic exclusion of international students as a matter caused by factors other than race: lack of socially relevant cultural skills and communication barriers.     

Field Instruction and the Mature Student

Abstract

As increasing numbers of mature students enter schools of social work, it is a challenge and an obligation for field instructors to discover ways to recruit and sustain them in the educational endeavor. Building upon three theoretical perspectives-Freire's pedagogy of the oppressed, Knowles's andragogy, and Schon's reflective learning and teaching, this paper highlights ways in which field instructors can build upon the strengths of mature students to enhance their development as professional social workers. It discusses “parallel process”, “learning styles”, and “contracting” as proactive strategies to fully engage mature students in attaining a graduate degree.     

A Comparison of Students' Predictions of Rank Order on Proximate and Remote Tasks

Abstract

Students’ expectations of relative academic achievement tend to decline over time. “High” and “low” ranking students alike tend to make lower predictions of final class standing at mid-course than at the beginning In the absence of feed-back supporting other conclusions. Moreover, In predicting relative achievement in successive competitive tasks, “high” and “low” students alike tend to predict much lower ranking on the proximate task than the remote task. This phenomenon has Implications for the allocation of counseling efforts to adjust students' expectations to their realistic academic prospects.

It has also been found that graduate students’ predictions of final letter-grades can be quite ambiguous with respect to their expectations of final class rank.     

Control as Care: How Teachers in “No Excuses” Charter Schools Position Their Students and Themselves

Abstract

This qualitative study focuses on how early career charter school teachers (n?=?20) in schools utilizing a “no excuses” discipline approach describe their interactions with students. Using positioning theory as an analytic tool, we explore how teachers engage the language of no excuses discipline and associated behaviors to position their students as passive beings unaware of “what is best for them” and potential deviants needing oversight. In this way, relationships were largely described as focused on control and compliance. The findings raise questions about how no excuses systems shape teachers’ understandings of care for their students as well as how teacher-student relationships develop.     

Choice-Based Segmentation As an Enrollment Management Tool

ABSTRACT

This article presents an approach to enrollment management based on target marketing strategies developed from a choice-based segmentation methodology. Students are classified into “switchable” or “non-switchable” segments based on their probability of selecting specific majors. A modified multinomial logit choice model is used to identify “switchable” students and provides insight into the attributes that influence their choice.     

Student and Faculty Perceptions of an Effective University Instructional Climate

Abstract

This study sought to ascertain perceptions of an effective instructional climate through use of a seventy-one item questionnaire. Usable responses were received from 1,237 students and 268 faculty members. Statistical analysis yielded a list of forty “significant” attributes grouped into seven clusters. Factor loading values were derived for the attributes to facilitate utilization in describing and assessing instructional climate. Students and faculty agreed generally on a global concept of instructional climate and as to the “significance” of many individual attributes. Greater “significance” was attached to instructors and their teaching role than to students and their learning role. Practical uses of the results are suggested.     

“Equal Time” and “Equal Voice”

ABSTRACT

This paper outlines the development, implementation, and qualitative and quantitative evaluations of a foundation research course structured to give “equal time” and “equal voice” to both qualitative and quantitative research content. Assessment of this integrative approach suggested that students' gain in qualitative research knowledge was strongly correlated with their gain in quantitative research knowledge (r = .653, p > .0005), and some students believed “I am better able to evaluate my practice” as a result of taking this course.     

About Creativity,Giftedness, and Teaching the Creatively Gifted in the Classroom

In this case study the author explored a teacher's beliefs about creativity and gifted‐ness and investigated the classroom practices of this teacher of gifted students for 20 years. Seven semi‐structured and 2 open observations were carried out in her classroom, and 2 prefigured interviews were conducted with her. She believed that creative children are those who are “free thinkers” and have “imaginative intelligence.” The thin line between an academically gifted child and a creatively gifted child is built by “imagination,” “emotional intensity,” and “curiosity.” In creative writing, she tried to implement activities such as learning to write poetry, personal narratives, research reports and essays posing solutions to real world problems, and mystery stories decorated with similes, metaphors and imaginative expressions. In reading, students analyzed characters, problems, places and times in stories and novels, and then rewrote stories.     

Between “Islamic” and “un-Islamic”: Navigating Religion at an American Islamic High School

Abstract

This article aims to demonstrate how one American Islamic school community grapples with external and internal demands on religion, and how this process impacts notions of what is religious. At ‘Ilm High School, an Islamic high school on America’s West Coast, school administrators and teachers must accommodate students’ and parents’ diverse and often competing ideas about Islam and the “Islamic.” In doing so, they sometimes downplay the “Islamic” in their Islamic Studies classes, policies, and school representation. They do this without venturing into the “un-Islamic”, casting a wide “religious net” and keeping Islam capacious and relevant enough for Muslim students.     

A Principled Pedagogy for Religious Educators

Abstract

Drawing on whiteness literature and over fifty years of combined classroom instruction experience, two professors of race and religion—one black, one white—at predominantly white institutions, answer the question, “How do we as religious educators effectively teach white students to challenge racially distorted assumptions and promote racially just outcomes?” In reply, they call into question the idea of “safe space,” dissect “the white gaze,” and offer three pedagogical principles for preparing white students to be allies in antiracist struggle: principled dislocation, supportive relocation, and sustained cultivation.     

Mapping inequality in access to meaningful learning in secondary education in Ethiopia: implications for sustainable development

ABSTRACT

The rapid expansion of primary education in Ethiopia has enabled most children to attend primary education—or at least to start schooling. This expansion, however, is largely “symbolic” rather than “substantive” where “substantive” refers to access that generates meaningful learning. The article explores spatial inequality in access to meaningful learning in secondary education in Ethiopia with a particular focus on the Amhara region, and addresses the question: Is substantive learning equitably distributed? To operationalise this question, “access-to-learning” is conceptualised using a new method of constructing a learning-oriented measure of educational quality that combines grade survival (access) and test score (quality). Moreover, the “zones of exclusion” framework has been used to see the systematic loss of students from the education system at different points in time. Using GIS tools, the extent of spatial inequality in access-to-learning was determined by mapping the proportion of students who achieved the required level of performance, and geographical variation in the distribution of inequality factors. The paper concludes with implications for educational policy and planning and recommendations for further research.     

The College as a Social System: Student Perceptions of Students,Faculty, and Administration

Abstract

This is a report on a new instrument for institutional research, (Transactional Analysis of Personality and Environment-(TAPE), based on the semantic differential and unique in its potential for analysis of the integration among students, faculty, and administration in a college, A total of 3,016 students from twenty-one colleges rated the following concepts on the 52 scales in Form A or the 52 scales in Form B: “My College,” “My Self,” “Students,” “Faculty,” “Administration,” and “Ideal College.” Ratings of satisfaction with aspects of college life also were made. The data presented indicate that individuals who perceive great discrepancies between themselves and their college tend to be dissatisfied and consider dropping out. Furthermore, those colleges which have large mean Self- College discrepancies also tend to have high mean dissatisfaction scores. Data are also presented to exemplify the intra- and inter-institutional research comparisons possible with TAPE.     

A pedagogical aid for linking methodological and statistical courses

A critical component in teaching research methods and statistics is linking the data collection with data analysis in such a way that students are engaged and encouraged. Using a strategy congruent with Greek's “active learning” (1995) and Chernak and Weiss's “activity-based learning” (1999), this paper outlines a heuristic mechanism that involves students with data collection, analysis, and utilization of 5 different software programs. To illustrate the process, a case study of my Spring 1999 graduate course in quantitative methods and computer utilization is presented.     

An Appraisal of the Watson-Glaser Critical Thinking Appraisal

Abstract

Successful prediction of achievement involves, as a minimum, selecting significant variables, measuring them accurately, and finding a way of combining them to account for maximum achievement variance. Extending earlier work, this report is of two studies-one on developing a refined combination of predictors including ability, “likability,” and “motivation”; and the other aimed at validating this multiple regression equation against actual school achievement, Prediction is in terms of whether students would fall in “good” or “poor” categories determined by dichotomizing the rank-ordered list of actual achievement at a grade point average of 3.33. The biserial r between the dichotomized variable of actual achievement and predicted achievement scores is .882, which is highly significant. The importance and shortcomings of the method are discussed.     

“Darker than any prison,hotter than any human flame”: Punishment,choice, and culpability in A Clockwork Orange

Contemporary textbooks in criminal justice use A Clockwork Orange to illustrate issues of correctional and sentencing practices. This article challenges criminal justice faculty and students to use the film to explore the political and social realities of punishment, in particular the examination of the moral question of “voluntariness” and the implications for “treatment” as a mechanism of social control. This paper explores the moral questions of state sponsored social control and using the film satire invites the student to examine their beliefs about the political and social realities of punishment and rehabilitation.     

The Post-Modern Student

Abstract

The differences between present-day post-modern students and educators from older generations require changes in educational approach, but also challenge post-modern trends. Students' postmodern experiences may lead them to seek individuality among diverse sources of identity, seeing knowledge as a throwaway consumption good, and education promotes flexibility and “edutainment.” However, professional education trains people for structured managerialist organisations and the accumulation of shared professional knowledge. Social work education needs to be reframed as a process of emergence in which educators and students work jointly to create knowledge and identity in their professional area. To operate in an increasingly complex and changing society, students need to create a strong professional identity and learn how to transfer knowledge and values from one situation to another. In this way, social work education connects with the Danish managerial concept of “chaos pilots” in which students are prepared to deal with cultural and social change.     

A Librarian's Suggestions on Taking Notes

Abstract

A key factor in ensuring students' academic success is to make certain that they do not feel lost or intimidated when undertaking library research assignments. Classroom faculty and librarians working in collaboration can help ease students' research anxiety by providing them with some simple pre-research tools. Included in this article are “Library Tips for Students,” and for faculty “Guidelines for Designing and Implementing Effective Library Research Assignments,” “Characteristics of Effective Assignments,” and “Pitfalls to Avoid” when designing these assignments. Students, classroom faculty, and librarians benefit when students receive a solid foundation for their research undertakings.     

Personal Transformation and Readjustment in “Homecoming”

ABSTRACT

Studies support the observations by college psychotherapists that students returning from study abroad adventures often have a difficult time readjusting to being back “home.” We consider what the internal developmental challenges might be that relate to this transitional step. We weave first-hand comments of students into our article.