Care,thoughtfulness, and tact: a conceptual framework for university supervisors

The pedagogical work of university supervisors has received little attention in teacher education literature. Based on this concern, this paper provides a conceptual framework for university supervisors, recasting their role as teacher pedagogues focused on responding to the particular contextual needs of student teachers as they learn to teach. Using care, thoughtfulness, and tact as a conceptual framework, the author argues for an interactive and responsive pedagogy of field‐based teacher education grounded in the university supervisor’s concern for the development of the student teacher.     

利用第二课堂,选准高校辅导员工作在学风建设中的着力点

当前高校学风建设中辅导员队伍一直处于被动地位,其辅助作用不能得到很好的发挥;辅导员若能充分利用学生第二课堂,结合自身工作的优势,同样能在学风建设中发挥积极主动的、别人无法替代的作用。     

School administrators and university practicum supervisors as boundary brokers for initial teacher education in Chile

The study examines school administrators' perspectives on a central problem of the school-based component of initial teacher preparation: the distance between schools and universities. Data obtained through in-depth interviews and focus groups with administrators (N = 51) from 36 schools were analyzed using Wenger's (2000) theory of inter-organizational learning. Findings suggest that an expansion of the roles supervisors and school administrators have traditionally played in the practicum may help reduce this gap. As brokers for their respective institutions they can coordinate actions by gaining access to the meanings each community assigns to practices and acknowledging the competence each brings to the practicum.     

Perceptions of university assessment and feedback among post-16 school pupils

The transition between school and university can be problematic for students. Understanding students’ expectations about the system they are entering is crucial in effecting a smooth transition. The school system involves small classes, often with teachers who know their students well. In contrast, university involves large class sizes and a degree of anonymity for the student. In the UK, National Student Survey responses for universities show that students are generally less happy about feedback relative to most other issues. The current study investigates school students’ expectations about assessment and feedback practices at university. Students were surveyed across Great Britain in 2006 and 2013. There were some significantly different responses from students between the two years of study in how coursework would be handled, but there were also many areas of consistency, demonstrating a clear pattern of expectation. For example, in both years of study 80% of students expected personal verbal feedback on their university assignments. This study discusses how student expectations may be based on their school experiences, rather than considering the reality of the university system they are entering. Misconceptions may be affecting students’ responses to surveys on assessment and feedback.     

Perceptions and intentions of secondary students in rural Australia to progress to university

ABSTRACT

This article explores four critical factors in the determining of regional and remote school students’ intentions to progress to university. Three of these factors are based on the theory of planned behaviour (TPB): students’ attitudes, the opinions of their significant others (social capital), and students’ perceptions of control. A fourth factor, students’ knowledge about university, is also examined, extending the TPB. The research model tested used the responses of a survey of 620 school students from remote and regional areas in New South Wales, Australia. Results show that students’ attitudes towards university and perceptions about social capital are the most important predictors of their intentions to progress to university. In addition, students’ knowledge about university was found to be a significant contributor to students’ attitudes and perceptions of control.     

Training preservice teachers rapidly: The need to articulate the training given by university supervisors and cooperating teachers

This study evaluated the impact of a specific program on the training of preservice teachers; the program consisted of alternating periods of “condensed” and autonomous classroom work and training sequences with university supervisors and cooperating teachers in order to prepare for these practical work periods. Borrowing from an original theoretical conceptualization of teacher training and professional development based on the postulates of Wittgenstein's analytical philosophy (In G.E.M. Anscomb and G.H. Von Wright (Eds.). (1996). Remarques philosophiques [Philosophical Investigations]. Oxford: Blackwell.), this study (i) examined the circumstances in which preservice teachers are able to use experiences from training situations for professional growth in the training situations and/or in later classroom situations and (ii) proposes ideas for articulating the training work of university supervisors and cooperating teachers.     

Supporting the work arrangements of cooperating teachers and university supervisors to better train preservice teachers: a new theoretical contribution

This longitudinal case study examines whether a school-based training scheme that brings together different categories of teacher educators (university supervisors and cooperating teachers) engenders true collective training activity and, if so, whether this collective work contributes to pre-service teacher education. The scheme grew out of a recent French reform policy. The study is based on an original theoretical conception of teacher education that borrows postulates from a theory of learning and collective action (Wittgenstein 1996). Illustrated by excerpts from post-lesson meetings and self-confrontation interviews, the results suggest that the training scheme does not always lead to collective training activity. The difficulties are notably due to disagreement between the educators about attributing meaning to the pre-service teacher’s classroom activity, which hampers professional development. On this basis, proposals are made to contribute to an effective and authentically shared supervision process and to reposition training activity at the heart of the processes of pre-service teacher professional development.     

浅谈高校辅导员职业倦怠

辅导员是学校对大学生进行素质教育的直接组织者和主要实施者,对于促进大学生的成长成才具有直接影响力。高校要培养出适应社会主义和谐社会建设的合格人才,在一定程度上,建设一支政治素质过硬、业务能力强的辅导员队伍至关重要,而辅导员职业倦怠则是横亘在辅导员素质建设上的一块绊脚石,如何对辅导员职业倦怠进行调适,保障辅导员队伍建设的质量,本文对此进行了有益的探索。     

Perceptions of tutoring roles and psychological distance among instructors,tutors and students at a Korean university

This study explores issues related to the tutor’s role when initiating tutoring as an institutional strategy at a conventional university. Based on a pilot tutoring program implemented in four college courses, we investigated the perceptions of instructors, tutors and students regarding the role of tutoring and whether it affected the psychological distance between the different types of participants. The results indicated that instructors’ perceptions of the tutor’s primary role and the psychological distance from the students and the tutors differed from the perceptions of the tutors and the students, perhaps because the instructors perceived tutors as a source of instructor support rather than student support. Implications and suggestions are discussed.     

Perceptions of the university climate among students in different academic majors at two colleges of arts and sciences

This study employed the semantic differential technique to investigate the consistency of differences in perceptions of the institutional climate among humanities, social science, and natural science majors in two colleges of arts and sciences. Significant differences were obtained on two of four factors. Humanities majors at one institution rated the institutional climate significantly higher on an Aestheticism/Idealism factor than their peers in the social sciences. A more significant finding was that social science majors at both universities rated the climate of their institution significantly higher on a Bureaucracy factor than either humanities or natural science majors. A possible explanation for this latter finding as the interaction of initial student dispositions and subsequent major field experiences is outlined.     

Images of a new sub-culture in the Australian university: Perceptions of non-nurse academics of the discipline of nursing

It is crucial to the development and credibility of the nursing profession that its knowledge base be recognised as legitimate scholarly endeavour by established members of academia. For that reason, this report concerns examination of the attitudes and values of a group of non-nurse academics employed in universities in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia and the degree to which they view nursing as an epistemic entity. Perceptions are considered within the dual contexts of recent major changes in nursing education and in academia. Naturalistic Inquiry, informed by a hermeneutic attitude, is employed as a heuristic to examine the sub-culture of nursing within the broad culture of academia. Analysis of extensive interview data provided by the contemplation of study participants provides emergent themes. Several metaphors are chosen to explicate the findings that nursing is largely perceived to be nebulous, atheoretical, and subservient to the medical profession. Implications are discussed and recommendations are made with the view to encourage modernisation of the university through improving internal communication and challenging traditional models of operations within the tertiary sector.     

Female supervisors of Arab school education in Israel

This paper discusses the characteristics of women discipline supervisors in the Arab education system in Israel, through their professional development to their attainment of senior supervisory posts. It examines how they attain supervision posts and perform various managerial functions in what is considered a male role, in a patriarchal society, highlighting changes they introduce. In-depth interviews elucidated the life stories of four women supervisors in the Arab education system in Israel. Findings point up the need for a policy of gender equality in role appointments, and the need for mentoring and support to encourage women to undertake senior roles in education.     

Synthesis of Petri net supervisors enforcing general constraints

INTRODUCTION Petri net (PN) (Murata, 1989) is a powerful tool due to its graphical and algebraic representation abil- ity, especially when applied in the Discrete Event System (DES). As supervisor synthesis is an essential issue in DES, efficient methods (Giua et al., 1992; Giua and Dicesare, 1994; Holloway and Krogh, 1990; Li and Wonham, 1994; Yamalidou and Moody, 1996) have been proposed for the design of supervisory controller enforcing the marking terms μ of a Petri net satis…     

Mapping Stakeholder Perceptions of the Importance of Environmental Issues and the Success in Delivery: A university case study

Environmental responsibility has become a major theme for universities. Most have an Environment Committee that advises their top administrators on practical approaches to enhancing environmental practices and education in the university with a broad mandate to develop a University Environment Policy and Implementation Strategy. An essential input into this process is the response from stakeholders to the performance of the policy and the strategy in terms of actions that are seen as both important to stakeholders and successful in achieving the desired outcomes. While not denying that stakeholders' perceptions may not reflect the actual environmental benefits of a policy, these perceptions are often influential in establishing the effectiveness and acceptability of a suite of environmental strategies. This paper focuses on establishing a framework within which a university can identify how important an issue is to stakeholders and track how successful it has been in addressing the issues of importance. A specific focus is placed on the mapping of these perceptions with each stakeholder segment to reveal the relative degrees of support. As part of the development of the University of Sydney's Environment Policy, the Institute of Transport Studies was commissioned to undertake a survey to identify the views of the university's key stakeholders on a number of environmental issues.     

The role of Practicum supervisors in behaviour management education

The role of college supervisors in imparting knowledge and training student teachers to cope with behaviour problems has been examined in the present research. The background of the study was the need of the educational system to equip teachers with tools to cope with behaviour management, and the complaints about lack of training in this field. The research included observations in student teachers’ classes and in feedback sessions with 15 college supervisors from secular colleges of education in Israel who participated in the research and in in-depth open interviews. Over 1000 comments regarding children's behaviour were counted in student teachers’ classes. Supervisors ignored problems of coping with behaviour management by the student teachers in the feedback sessions. An attempt has been made to examine the reasons for this disregard. It would appear that the problem stems mainly from the pedagogical belief system of the college supervisors.