The “good professor” as perceived by university instructors

The purpose of this study is to answer the question: What is the Israeli instructor's conception of a “good university professor?” The study deals with the instructor's conception of the characteristics of the “good professor” with regard to the department in which he is teaching. A sample of 51 instructors from two departments were asked to select the three most important characteristics of a “good university professor” from a list of fifteen. It was shown that instructors attached primary importance to the professor's ability to spark intellectual growth. Of secondary importance was his method of instruction. The professor's traits connected to his academic status and his personality were of relatively little concern. There was unanimity among instructors from the two departments in their conception of what a “good professor” should be. They singled out characteristics that fall under the heading of delivery. A disparity exists between the instructor's conception of the “good professor” and the students' conception.     

Using a Social Work Professor's Autobiography as a Teaching Tool in Human Behavior and the Social Environment

Abstract

Social work, like other disciplines, has long used case studies as a (1) methodological approach to communicating a body of knowledge, and (2) as a tangible means to acquaint students with archetypical applications of realistic conditions. In social work, one required course sequence enhanced by case study assessments is Human Behavior and the Social Environment (HBSE). This paper describes the author's use of another social work professor's controversial and sensitive autobiography, To Ascend into the Shining World Againto instruct graduate students in HBSE courses. In his non-fictional account, the social work professor recalls the time when, during his own youth, he killed a teenager in 1967. The author recounts the way in which she incorporated the professor's story as a focus for analysis at The Ohio State University and how it was similarly examined in a course at the University of Louisville.     

Teaching elementary science methods to women: A male professor's experience from two perspectives

This is an action research study using an N of one (a case study) from the theoretical stance of symbolic interaction. This study of one male science education professor's experience teaching elementary science methods to females is told from two perspectives: the perspective of the professor and of a female coresearcher. In this study, the coresearchers present their perspectives of studying the gender difference between the male professor and his female elementary science method students and the attempts he makes to implement gender inclusive pedagogy. Discussion focuses on what each has learned through this study of examining the professor's practice as he takes action to improve the teaching and learning in his science method classes predominately populated by women. A key implication from this study is the assertion that male science methods professors have a special obligation to break the cycle of inequity in science teaching and learning for females by taking action to foster a female-friendly classroom climate and to encourage females to become engaged in class conversations and activities. However, professors should be aware that both female and male elementary teachers socialized in a system privileging men may not value efforts, or may even actively resist efforts to promote gender-inclusive science education during science methods. © 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. J Res Sci Teach 35: 919–949, 1998.     

“教授治学”途径探析——高校内部治理结构维度的思考

"教授治学"是中国特色现代大学制度的一个重要组成部分。"教授治学"旨在促进学术自由,完善大学治理结构,推动大学去行政化。在高校治理结构中,以"教授治学"为代表的学术权力应居于主导地位,是"教授治学"而非"教授治校",并要以学生为本位。应通过重塑大学精神,完善相关法律法规,加强组织与制度建设,拓展"教授治学"外延,来实现"教授治学"。     

The university system in Spain: An analysis of structure

While tradition is the basic factor that keeps the Spanish university system tied to rigid and outmoded academic programs, a second important factor is the vested interest of the senior faculty. University faculty attain their full professorship through an archaic open competition which has endowed the position with high social and political prestige and with the opportunity of earning a high income from consulting outside the university. Within the university the full professor is a government bureaucrat with life-time tenure, and all the lower ranked professors within his field of specialty work for him. With only minor success university students are rebelling against this archaic system in an effort to liberalize and modernize the academic programs. Even the Ministry of Education has avoided a frontal attack against the system. The government is establishing new autonomous universities, with flexible and modern academic programs, and an administration similar to that found in most American universities.     

Academic Mobbing in Relation to Leadership Practices: A New Perspective on an Old Issue

Abstract

Constant pressures emanating from internal and external environments of the academy have resulted in many changes, one of which is the workplace mobbing, an old issue for the broader field of organization science but a relatively new phenomenon in the academic context. This study investigated the relationship between workplace mobbing and academic leadership and the results indicated that the more positive leadership there is in an institution, the less mobbing behaviors are observed.     

Living learning theory through My Fair Lady

In My Fair Lady ( Lerner & Lowe, 1956 ), the play, the renowned linguistics professor, Henry Higgins, attempts to instruct the common flower‐vendor, Eliza Doolittle, in proper English etiquette and speech. Revisit the colourful story from the perspective of a twenty‐first century instructional designer. Set in the 1910s, but written in the heyday of behaviourism, the play reflects the idea that behavioural change is the evidence of learning. As we analyse Professor Higgins's applied theory of learning and instruction, we find unique examples of behaviourism, cognitivism and constructivism at work in the instructional strategies and activities and in the good professor's interpretations of Ms Doolittle's actions and attitudes toward learning.     

Responding to technical writing in an introductory engineering class: The role of genre and discipline

A case study of an experienced professor's comments on a design report in a first‐year engineering class was conducted over the period of an academic year. When compared with the commenting styles of technical writing teachers, the engineering professor's comments were found to be highly directive, and thus at odds with the preference for facilitative comments that prevails in composition studies. However, differences in genre conventions explain much of the discrepancy.     

To Alleviate Suffering: A Professor Reflects on the Moral Stakes of His Teaching

This article is a meditation on a professor's effort to fuse the personal and political in his teaching and, especially, to reframe the stakes away from the technical and toward the moral. As a teacher and educator, I consider two questions about my teaching that emerged from the mandate to reflect on teaching effectiveness during my promotion and tenure review process: Are my students more powerful in the world because of my teaching, and does my teaching alleviate suffering? I theorize what each question means for how I approach my classes to uncover larger questions about what it means to teach. In particular, I argue that any consideration of teaching reduced to a set of skills fails to attend to the sociocultural reality of students' lives, and thus reproduces suffering.     

A professor realizes the potential poison of Ivy

This clinical treatise discusses this author's concept of “professorial melancholia,” a progressive emotional process characterized by the negating of a university professor's professional motivation, positive attitudinal focus, and adequate personal self-esteem.     

IMMANUEL KANT'S ACCOUNT OF COGNITIVE EXPERIENCE AND HUMAN RIGHTS EDUCATION

In this essay Gregory Bynum seeks to show that Immanuel Kant's thought, which was conceived in an eighteenth‐century context of new, and newly widespread, pressures for nationally institutionalized human rights–based regimes (the American and French revolutions being the most prominent examples), can help us think in new and appreciative ways about how to approach human rights education more effectively in our own time. Kant's discussion of moral experience features prominently in Bynum's analysis, which emphasizes the following: Kant's conception of a Categorical Imperative to treat humanity as an end in itself; his conscious avoidance of, and his discussion of the necessity of avoiding, the limitations of empiricist and rationalist extremes of thought; and his discussion of moral experience in interrelated individual, community, and global aspects. Bynum demonstrates the usefulness of Kant's approach by using it as a lens through which to appreciatively examine a Japanese‐born university professor's account of her ultimately successful effort to teach American students about U.S.‐instigated human rights violations abroad.     

聘任制改革对高校青年教师 科研产出的影响研究 ——基于自然实验法的案例效果分析

为了激励高校教师提高知识生产动能，促进人才良性流动，我国在高等学校实行了教师聘任制改 革。本文以Z大学为观察点，沿着该校聘任制“高压力带来高产出”的政策逻辑，采用自然实验法，对制度的 实施效果进行了评估。研究发现，Z大学聘任制改革并未如预期显著促进青年教师科研产出的“质”，也未显 著提升其科研产出的“量”。为进一步优化聘任制，高校应专注于制度的人才筛选逻辑初衷，尊重自身于长 期实践摸索出的教师科研产出速率，为青年教师提供压力合理的教学科研发展环境。     

教授治学的条件、困境与出路

教授治学主要包括教授的教学育人、学术研究和学术事务管理三方面内容,它体现了大学的学术本质,对大学发展意义重大。影响教授治学的因素包括教授的学术水平、学术道德与学术责任等内在条件和学术资源、学术制度与学术文化环境等外在条件。我国大学教授治学存在诸多现实困境,保障教授治学的基本出路是完善教师的引进与培养使用制度,保证教授治学的内在条件;加大学术资源投入,营造自由宽松的学术文化环境;制定和落实与学术有关的法规制度,彰显教授学术权力;完善党委领导下的校长负责制,建立学术与行政分工治理的体系。     

高校教师管理的心理艺术运用研究

高校教师是一个知识密集、人才汇聚的群体,他们不可能像机器一样无条件地接受管理者的一切指令。管理者的指令即使被强迫执行了,也很容易使教师滋生逆反心理,为学校的管理带来隐患。因此对高校教师的管理要运用心理艺术,找准管理者与被管理者之间的心理契合点,并巧妙运用心理管理方法,让被管理者产生认同感、参与感、价值感和平衡感,以期最大限度调动高校教师的积极性和创造性,提升高校管理的科学化水平。     

Perceptions of Reform-Based Teaching and Learning in a College Mathematics Class

This study investigated, from the students',professor's, and researchers' perspectives, the effects of a reform-based introductory undergraduate mathematics course, and the efforts of a mathematics professor to teach such a course. The class had been designed for teacher candidates of middle school mathematics and science (Grades 4 to 8) but was open to all qualified students. We addressed the following research question: What perceptions about learning and teaching mathematics emerged through the participants' experiences in a reform-based mathematics course? Results of the analysis of the data suggested that the teacher candidates and the professor took an important first step toward enculturation into a reform-based vision of mathematics learning and teaching. Implications for mathematics faculty and teacher education faculty interested in promoting reform-based mathematics are presented.     

完善大学治理结构的思考与建议

当前,我国大学内部治理存在着内部权力配置不当,党、政、学关系不顺,学生、教工民主参与途径不畅等问题,极大地阻碍了高校的发展。完善大学内部治理结构,必须处理好大学内部政治权力、行政权力、学术权力、民主权力四种公共权力的配置与制衡关系;进一步优化由党委领导、校长负责、教授治学、共同参与、全委决策、民主管理六大要素构成的大学内部组织结构关系;建立和健全坚强有力的领导机制、民主科学的决策机制、行政权力与学术权力和谐发展的机制、深度对话与平等协商的共同参与机制和公开透明的权力调控机制。     

The Chilly Classroom: Beyond Gender

Abstract. Perceptions of student/professor competence and the reasons for a "chilly" classroom were investigated through a survey of 2,042 students from seventy-seven liberal arts colleges. Chi-square and Mann-Whitney tests showed statistically significant different responses by gender for all the questions. The perceptions of competence survey showed mixed results. With regards to professor competence, female students were much more likely to believe that male professors were viewed as more competent and treated with more respect. With regards to reasons for a "chilly" classroom, neither female nor minority students cited gender or race as a primary reason. In fact, the three most frequent reasons given by all students (regardless of race or gender) were difficulty of course content, professor's teaching style/personality, and personality style of classmates.     

Action research in the context of a school–university partnership: its value,problems, issues and benefits

The focus of the article is on action research in a school–university partnership, its problems, use and the value of the work from the viewpoint of a professor (university teacher-educator)[1] and two deans. The authors collaborate to first define a partnership. Secondly, they discuss the role and use of action research in the context of a partnership programme aimed at changing and improving kindergarten through 12th grade (K-12) schooling and teacher education. Thirdly, they identify the problems, issues and benefits associated with such work. A ‘tool,’ consisting of 10 questions is presented by the collaborators for university faculty and administrators to use to chart their initiation and institutional participation in action research in a school–university partnership. Selected problems and issues focused on university faculty productivity, and a college or university's reward system for tenure and promotion are discussed, together with the benefits and the ultimate value of the work.     

Defects 101

An English professor at a community college in New York City argues, by analogy with contentions made by the neurologist Oliver Sacks about some of his patients, that the testing his university system uses to evaluate his students' writing is only good at exposing deficiencies, not strengths; he claims that students write under constraints that no professor or professional writer would accept. He concludes that it is less important for his students to satisfy mandated rubrics than to satisfy his own rigorous responses as a professional and devoted reader of literature.     

论鲁迅对学院教授的弃绝

鲁迅虽然不乏优秀学者的基本素质,但担任专职教授的时间很短暂,考察其原因,既有来自内部的思想的、性格的矛盾和相关气质的作用,同时又有来自外力的不断拒斥,既有经济的、政治的因素的伤害,又有人格的、学术的技术性压制,而在1927年弃绝教授,更是多种元素水到渠成后的产物。鲁迅对教授的弃绝和批判也应该引起我们对学术技术体制以及政治限制的反省。