In practice: Harvard houses: The value of the tutorial system

Harvard University's residential colleges—living‐learning communities where faculty, graduate students, and academic professionals live alongside undergraduates—provide unparalleled support by integrating the academic with the everyday.     

Exposing the Challenges and Coping Strategies of Field-Ecology Graduate Students

In this paper, we expose the unique challenges confronting graduate field-ecology students and the coping strategies they adopt to overcome such challenges. To do so, we used a qualitative (in vivo) research method that combines interviews, observations and open questionnaires with a group of five Israeli graduate students. The two major challenges that the students faced were the uncontrolled nature of field research (or complexity), and the nature of field setting, which isolated the students from authoritative guidance. In response to these challenges, the students developed a set of research skills which were expressed in this study by a series of three (metacognitive) strategies which we designated as ‘protocol-dominated’, ‘intermediate’ or ‘field-dominated’. In order to develop such research skills, our subjects rely upon declarative and procedural knowledge. In contrast to declarative knowledge, learned in coursework, procedural knowledge is learned and activated via the situated experience of implementing research in authentic field environments. We also found that fieldwork complexity imposes itself the minute the students step into the field; potentially, this can negatively impact students' motivation. However, as the students accumulate field experience and acquire the knowledge and skills needed to overcome the field's complexity, their motivation improves. Recognizing the unique learning components connected to field research will help novice students better cope with fieldwork challenges, as well as help their advisers in guiding them. This work also has implications for designing inquiry curricula in field sciences for university and high-school students.     

Transition to the School as Workplace: Challenges of second career teachers

This article details the transition of second career teachers to the workplace called ‘school’. Post‐baccalaureate students at a mid‐size comprehensive state university completed surveys pre‐ and post‐student teaching. Participants responded to the personal and professional challenges in changing careers. Issues faced by the non‐traditional students emerged. An increasing number of adults are changing careers and entering teacher certification programs. The study was conducted to discover the special challenges graduate teacher certification students encountered when leaving a career field and becoming novice teachers. Forty graduate students in the study completed an extensive certification program of courses related to the art and science of teaching. Open‐ended surveys were used for the students to reflect on personal and professional expectations prior to and following the student teaching semester. Teacher educators who address the needs of second career teachers, such as increasing field experiences, providing classroom management and time management strategies, may lead second career teachers to use the unique competencies they bring to the teaching–learning setting.     

The Research Mentoring Program: Serving the Needs of Graduate and Undergraduate Researchers

Many institutions of higher education confront seemingly unrelated needs of graduate students, who need not only to complete their dissertations but also to learn how to become proficient mentors for undergraduates as they move on to faculty roles. The graduate students are increasingly searching out high-impact learning experiences such as involvement with undergraduate research. The program we describe in this article offers a solution to these issues by pairing undergraduates with graduate students to work on their dissertation research. Undergraduates undertake hands-on research while learning about graduate school, and the graduate students learn about the mentoring process while receiving assistance that allows them to keep their dissertations moving toward completion.     

Toward a Holistic View of Undergraduate Research Experiences: An Exploratory Study of Impact on Graduate/Postdoctoral Mentors

Involvement in research has become a fixture in undergraduate science education across the United States. Graduate and postdoctoral students are often called upon to mentor undergraduates at research universities, yet mentoring relationships in undergraduate—graduate/postdoctoral student dyads and undergraduate—graduate/postdoctoral student—faculty triads have been largely unexamined. Here, we present findings of an exploratory case study framed by relational theory that identifies the motives, gains, and challenges reported by graduate/postdoctoral students who mentored undergraduates in research. Graduate/postdoctoral mentors experienced a wide range of gains, including improved qualifications and career preparation, cognitive and socioemotional growth, improved teaching and communication skills, and greater enjoyment of their own apprenticeship experience. Notably, graduate/postdoctoral mentors reported twice as many gains as challenges, neither of which were limited by their motives for mentoring. Indeed, their motives were fairly narrow and immediate, focusing on how mentoring would serve as a means to an end, while the gains and challenges they reported indicated a longer-term vision of how mentoring influenced their personal, cognitive, and professional growth. We propose that understanding the impact of mentoring undergraduates on the education and training of graduate/postdoctoral students may uncover new ideas about the benefits reaped through undergraduate research experiences.     

Beyond the comfort zone: A curriculum and assessment “immersion” experience in graduate early childhood teacher education

Abstract

A graduate course in Early Childhood Education assessment which combines coursework and a practicum with young children is designed and implemented using constructivist principles and practice. Teacher education is more effective when field work and coursework are combined, and when students are able to apply what they learn in class to real life experiences with young children [Journal of Early Childhood Teacher Education 21 (1) (2000) 65], learning is enhanced. This course was constructed in a way that incorporated theory, application, reflection, and reconstruction, allowing students an opportunity to rethink their teaching practice through the experience of an early childhood practicum. The key components of the model — the components that are thought to most effectively help students to apply theory to practice, change some of their ways of thinking about teaching and learning are the following: the relationship of the coursework to the setting, continuity from previous courses, the laboratory school environment, the intensive faculty involvement, the co‐constructivist, collaborative nature of the faculty team, the collaborative nature of student work, the use of the three curriculum models, the use of embedded assessment, formative nature of the assessment, informed teaching (on‐going use of student feedback), the tools provided to student that assist in the process, and the practical hands‐on assessment techniques.

Changing students’ ways of thinking about the teaching, learning and assessment process is considered a vital part of the course. [Journal of Early Childhood Teacher Education 17(1) (Marshall, 1996) 43] has identified constructivist principles to guide teacher education. She believes that students must experience first‐hand those behaviors that she hopes they would exhibit in their own teaching (Rand, 1999, p. 126). It is through the processes of the course that graduate students are challenged to experience the implementation of emergent curriculum, examine their own beliefs in relation to their practice, articulate why they do what they do and see how classroom assessment strategies help to support meaningful teaching and learning. Furthermore, collaborative practice is considered an important factor that encourages and facilitates reflection, supports a more multi‐dimensional view of teaching and assessing young children, and enables students to listen and observe more effectively and look for the impact of children making choices. Through participation in this course, students became more aware of the impact their view of children and respect for children has on their ability to implement effective and appropriate assessment practices in the classroom. Students gained more of a conceptual understanding of the role of assessment in informed teaching, and were better able to meet individual children's instructional needs.

Finlly, students learned how to use tools inquiry, collaboration and reflection that are likely to assist them in future personal professional growth.     

The Bologna Process and Lifelong Education: Problem‐Based Learning

This article describes the application of Problem‐Based Learning (PBL) methodology in the context of a student congress, arguing that such new approaches to learning are best‐suited to the goals of the Bologna Process. The Congress in question enabled Spanish graduate students in Psychology, many of them mid‐career professionals, to increase their learning motivation, delve deeper into the learning experience, and further apply their learning and research. By taking an interdisciplinary approach, all the teachers concerned were able to coordinate their involvement. Feedback received from students and professors confirms that the Congress promoted new strategies and skills including self‐directed learning.     

Posting,Sharing, Networking,and Connecting: Use of Social Media Content by Graduate Students

The purpose of the present investigation was to better understand graduate students’ use of the content shared in the social media channels of their programs and the perceived impact that their participation in these social media spaces has on the graduate students’ transformation as professionals. Seventy-seven instructional design and technology (ID&T) graduate students completed an electronic questionnaire. The results revealed that although graduate students use social media for personal purposes, they are not always followers or members of the social media spaces of their ID&T program. However, those who follow the social media of their ID&T program found tremendous benefits from the experience. These benefits range from feelings of belonging to a community of ID&T professionals, to career opportunities for networking, and cross country interactions.     

金融危机下英语专业本科毕业生的就业形势与对策探究

由于受到全球金融危机的影响,英语专业本科毕业生正面临着日趋严重的就业困难,这一困难的出现与当前整体就业环境恶化、英语专业就业竞争力以及毕业生就业期望值高等因素密切相关,这就要求国家、学校和学生个人必须以积极的态度来面对这一问题,并不断采取有效举措来彻底摆脱当前英语专业的就业困境。     

When inputs are outputs: The case of graduate student instructors

We examine graduate student teaching as an input to two production processes: the education of undergraduates and the development of graduate students themselves. Using fluctuations in full-time faculty availability as an instrument, we find undergraduates are more likely to major in a subject if their first course in the subject was taught by a graduate student, a result opposite of estimates that ignore selection. Additionally, graduate students who teach more frequently graduate earlier and are more likely to subsequently be employed by a college or university.     

The Unmistakable Professional Promise of a Young Educational Psychology Researcher and Scholar

This article focuses on the early research domains investigated by Michael Pressley, along with the integrations and initiatives that were inspired by them. These research domains include verbal and imagery elaboration memory strategies, and developmental aspects of them; interrogative elaboration; pictorial strategies for language and literacy skill development (including the mnemonic keyword method of vocabulary learning and pictorial strategies for remembering text information); and memory strategy monitoring and test preparation. The article is liberally sprinkled with personal accounts and anecdotes of Mike's early career experiences (as a graduate student, postgraduate researcher, and young professor). From the very beginning, there was no mistaking the professional promise of this young educational psychology researcher and scholar.     

Reducing Student Bias Against Older Adults Through the Use of Literature

Human services educators must address the issue of students’ bias toward older adults to encourage interest and meet the growing need for professionals in the field. The use of literature can challenge students’ preconceptions of older adults while innovative teaching methods can guide their development of more tolerant views and introduce them to a field that they may have previously given little consideration. Based on a model of cultural competence development, teaching strategies, learning objectives, literature, and an evaluation are suggested.     

Teaching Scientific Measurement and Uncertainty in Elementary School

The concept of measurement is fundamental in science. In order to be meaningful, the value of a measurement must be given with a certain level of uncertainty. In this paper we try to identify and develop the reasoning of young French pupils about measurement variability. In France, official instructions for elementary school thus argue for having students do activities of measurement, followed by treatments and analysis of the data. The notion of measurement ‘uncertainty’ appears in fourth and fifth grades. A similar approach is proposed in the USA. We present a teaching sequence divided into two parts: the first part in grade 4, the second one in grade 5, the following year, with the same students. The main sources of data were field notes, videotapes, as well as the intermediate written traces produced, individual written tests given each year and clinical interview. We showed that the pupils were capable of entertaining all three possible causes of uncertainty (the quantity being measured, the measuring instrument, and the measurer). Concerning data organization and handling, we found that after teaching, most of them were able to construct a frequency table and a bar chart from a list of N measures of the same quantity. When interpreting this type of chart, some of them were able to argue in terms of a confidence interval. We have also shown that the proposed instructional units allowed pupils to become aware of the need to repeat measurements.     

Education on the rails: a textual ethnography of university advertising in mobile contexts

ABSTRACT

As universities have succumbed to market discourses, they have adopted advertising strategies. It is not uncommon to see advertisements for them displayed in such mobile spaces as railway stations and alongside highways. Whilst it is true that such environments have always sought to take advantage of populations in transit, the fact that higher education institutions have turned to them as promotional sites, reflects the fact that the ‘transit’ demographic now includes large numbers of young people and high school students. In this paper, a sample of higher education advertisements found in Sydney’s transit spaces is analysed along with the ‘rationale’ provided by advertising companies responsible for their design. It is argued their existence reflects the fact that universities compete against one another for students and need to develop a persuasive ‘brand’. Thus in line with neo-liberalist constructions of subjectivity, they individualise the educational experience, and translate that experience into an economic asset, as a value-adding process. It is of note then that much of the imagery and copy of the advertising ‘visualises’ education as a journey and underpins the fact that mobility is an inescapable predicate of quotidian life.     

Reimagining Obesity

This article draws on Mills’ sociological imagination (from the 1959 publication The Sociological Imagination) to consider the connections between personal trouble and social issues when it comes to the causes and consequences of obesity. These connections may be important for assuaging the “obesity bias” that pervades our discipline, particularly as it manifests in our undergraduate students and influences the ways they will act as future professionals.     

A personal connection: Promoting positive attitudes towards teaching and learning

Students' attitudes towards teaching and learning must be addressed with the same seriousness and effort as we address content. Establishing a personal connection and addressing our students' basic psychological needs will produce positive attitudes towards teaching and learning and develop life‐long learners. It will also promote constructive student‐teacher relationships that have a profound influence on our students' approach towards school. To begin this process, consider the major tenets of the Self‐Determination Theory. The Self‐Determination Theory of human motivation focuses on our students' innate psychological needs and the degree to which an individual's behavior is self‐motivated and self‐determined. Faculty can satisfy the innate psychological needs by addressing our students' desire for relatedness, competence and autonomy. Relatedness refers to our students' need to feel connected to others, to be a member of a group, to have a sense of communion and to develop close relationships with others. Competence is believing our students can succeed_, challenging them to do so and imparting that belief in them. Autonomy involves considering the perspectives of the student and providing relevant information and opportunities for student choice and initiating and regulating their own behaviors. Establishing a personal connection and addressing our students' basic psychological needs will improve our teaching, inspire and engage our students and promote positive attitudes towards teaching and learning while reducing competition and increasing compassion. These are important goals because unless students are inspired and motivated and have positive attitudes towards teaching and learning our efforts will fail to meet their full potential. Anat Sci Educ 10: 503–507. © 2017 American Association of Anatomists.     

Converting to belong: immigration,education and nationalisation among young ‘Russian’ immigrant women

The paper examines religious conversion to Judaism among young ‘Russian’ immigrant girls in Israel. Looking into the process of conversion in religious boarding schools for girls only (Ulpana) and in the broader context of the Israeli nation‐state, we examine the strategies the educators contrive in inculcating religiosity among the girls, how they legitimise and facilitate their self‐transformation, and mobilise them to desire a religious subjectivity. At the same time, we study the experiences of the Russian girls in the Ulpana, and the meanings they assign to their conversion as depicted in the personal stories they narrated to us. The paper reveals how the Ulpana operates as a major nationalisation agent that cultivates a path for the girls to belong to the national religious camp, thus assuring their affiliation to Israeli‐Jewish society at large.     

Cultivating minority scientists: Undergraduate research increases self‐efficacy and career ambitions for underrepresented students in STEM

In this study, Social Cognitive Career Theory (SCCT) is used to explore changes in the career intentions of students in an undergraduate research experience (URE) program at a large public minority‐serving college. Our URE model addresses the challenges of establishing an undergraduate research program within an urban, commuter, underfunded, Minority‐Serving Institution (MSI). However, our model reaches beyond a focus on retention and remediation toward scholarly contributions and shifted career aspirations. From a student's first days at the College to beyond their graduation, we have encouraged them to explore their own potential as scientists in a coordinated, sequential, and self‐reflective process. As a result, while the program's graduates have traditionally pursued entry‐level STEM jobs, graduates participating in mentored research are increasingly focused on professional and academic STEM career tracks involving post‐graduate study. In addition to providing an increasingly expected experience and building students’ skills, participation in undergraduate research is seen to have a transformative effect on career ambitions for many students at MSIs. While undergraduate research is often thought of in context of majority‐serving institutions, we propose that it serves as a powerful equalizer at MSIs. Building on the institutional characteristics that drive diversity, our students produce scholarly work and pursue graduate degrees, in order to address the long‐standing under‐representation of minorities in the sciences. © 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Res Sci Teach 54: 169–194, 2017