Writing regulation processes in higher education: a review of two decades of empirical research

In Higher Education (HE), writers need to regulate their writing processes in order to achieve their communicative goals. Although critical for academic success and knowledge construction, writing regulation processes have been mainly researched in compulsory education rather than in HE, with no systematic review focused on this context. The purpose of this article was to build a comprehensive picture of the state of writing regulation research in HE by conducting a systematic analysis of the studies on this topic in the last two decades. Studies’ characteristics were analysed in light of both their theoretical perspective and objectives. Results indicated the three theoretical perspectives and diversity of objectives were equally represented. Some methodological characteristics, such as context of study, were significantly related to theoretical perspectives, while the selection of instruments depended on their objectives. A qualitative analysis of the studies showed that cognitive studies methods’ varied in relation to their objectives, while sociocognitive studies used heterogeneous methods, and sociocultural studies used similar methods regardless their objective. Writing regulation in HE is a growing field with great variety of topics and objectives, yet there are still some underdeveloped issues and research challenges such as integrating emotions in the analysis, looking for more comprehensive methods that account for regulation in situated HE writing contexts, and clarifying the conceptual underpinnings of the perspective of writing regulation adopted in each study.     

Granulomatous hypophysitis: two case reports and literature review

Granulomatous hypophysitis (GRH) is extremely rare and commonly presents with chronic inflammatory of the enlarged pituitary gland. In our study, 66-year-old and 57-year-old women, both Chinese, were diagnosed with GRH presenting preoperatively definite imageology characters as pituitary adenoma. The 66-year-old woman presented with a year of headache,half a year of gradual decrease of visual acuity, and one month of right ptosis. Serum prolactin level was slightly elevated.Screening computed tomography (CT) scanning revealed typical low density mass found on the enlarged sella, which demonstrated invasive extension from the sella to the right cavernous sinus by contrast enhanced magnetic resonance imaging (MRI).Consequently, the patient was diagnosed with probable invasive pituitary adenoma. The other 57-year-old woman complained a light headache and had been previously treated as nonfunctional pituitary adenoma in other hospital. Finally these two patients underwent transsphenoidal microsurgery and were diagnosed with GRH according to postoperative histopathology. They then were treated with steroid. During the follow-up, the clinical symptoms such as headache, visual damage, and ptosis vanished, and the mass of the sellae dramatically shrank on repeated MR images. Clinically and radiologically, GRH is a rare sellar entity easily to be misdiagnosed as a pituitary adenoma. Trans-sphenoidal surgery can decompress the optical nerve or oculomotornerve as a therapeutic strategy, and support biopsy or further pathological diagnosis. However, the hormonal therapy should be emphasized both as diagnostic and therapeutic strategies. Conservative and tentative steroid treatment should be performed in preoperative period without acute nerve damage.     

Restorative Practice: Developing a Community of Storytellers

ABSTRACT

The interruption of the school-to-prison pipeline has had a greater presence in many educational policies across the nation, many of these outlining Restorative Justice as a step toward the deconstruction of that system. In looking at policy asks, a question comes up as to how a culture change can be funded that can allow restorative practices to thrive in communities. The practice of storytelling sets valuable foundations for how restorative practices can thrive in groups on a microlevel while moving communities at-large toward potentials of social transformation. By examining transformational justice and the deconstruction of anti-Blackness in communities, best practices that form storytelling development, and their relationship to the current state of identity politics, we can find new ways to see restorative practices and their ability to grow within communities.     

Building Partnerships: Developing a Quality of Life Index

Cochise College, Cochise County, and the Cochise Community Foundation partnered to create the Cochise County Quality of Life Index—the first to be developed in Arizona. The project brought together stakeholders to address shared problems in new ways, based on non-traditional partnerships. The college's Center for Economic Research provided technical expertise.     

Developing professionals: student experiences of a real-client project

This study investigated the learning potential of the student experience of working with real clients in a final-year undergraduate unit that aims to develop professional skills. Students, working in consultancy teams, developed communication strategies for a not-for-profit organisation. A teaching intervention was trialled late in semester to promote the sharing of client-interaction experiences amongst student teams. Student worksheets were analysed to explore student perceptions of the challenges of the client project and their responses to those challenges. The findings revealed that assumptions cannot be made about the value of real-client projects and suggest that such learning activities need to be carefully structured to make the links between academic learning and professional development explicit and beneficial.     

Developing a Student-Scientist Partnership: Boreal Forest Watch

A student-scientist partnership outreach program was funded by the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration's Boreal Ecosystem-Atmosphere Study (BOREAS) to involve students and teachers in scientific investigations pertinent to global change research occurring within the boreal region of Canada. Boreal Forest Watch was planned, designed and piloted by an interdisciplinary group of education and science professionals from the University of New Hampshire, the Prince Albert National Park, and several schools in central Saskatchewan, Canada. A two goal approach was adopted to 1) ensure the educational significance of the program and 2) introduce scientifically valid methods for collection of research data pertinent to global change scientists. Professional educators and school administrators from Saskatchewan were recruited to assist in project planning to ensure that the proposed activities fit within the existing curriculum framework. This process was essential for successful adoption of the program by participating teachers. The process and approach of initiating Boreal Forest Watch are presented in this paper. This program became fully functional in September, 1996 with the training of several participating teachers. Perspectives of the program and its future are provided by members of the design team. Boreal Forest Watch is a unique opportunity for both Canadian students and their teachers to explore their natural environment, learn scientific methods and principles, and contribute data to the global change research community.     

Developing a community of thinking: assessment of environmental education

This paper discusses an oral assessment intervention in environmental education at two tertiary institutions in South Africa. A qualitative study grounded in a social constructivist framework, the inquiry locates learning and assessment of environmental education based on practical activities and first‐hand experience within the framework of situated learning, and explores processes of constructing and assessing knowledge within the learner's community of practice. The paper focuses on how communities of practice can be used as a possible learning approach in environmental education to address the diversity and challenges of classrooms, and on the efficacy of oral assessments structured to encourage thinking through dialog in such settings.     

Improving Critical Thinking: a review

Abstract This review paper sets out some of the questions that arise when considering critical thinking and its place in the process of education. Key issues are identified and discussed including the meaning of the term ‘critical thought’, the possibility of devising effective ways of facilitating critical thinking skills and the generalisability of those skills. This review is followed by an analysis of how children use thinking skills in problem‐solving situations and the kind of factors that teachers need to consider when designing problem‐solving activities. In conclusion, observations are made about the direction of research.     

English Teachers 'On-line': Developing a New Community of Discourse

This article presents the case study of an on-line conference for students of English studying on an initial teacher education course. It is argued that electronic conferencing reveals the inadequacy of the concept of the ‘reflective practitioner’ both to describe and analyse the complex process of teacher development. Whilst the primary focus of reflective practice is the individual, this on-line community demonstrates the essentially social character of learning, highlighting the place of joint practice in the process of becoming a teacher.     

Developing a Deeper Involvement with Science: Keith's Story

Much research in science education has focused on the conflicts that exist between individuals' ways of knowing the world and science. We have been left without an image of the compatibility or congruency that is necessary for science to occupy a fundamental position in a person's life. In this study we argue that Keith, a Jamaican American pre-service teacher, provides us with such an image. Using narrative, we trace the development of Keith's relationship with science over time and space in order to understand how Keith has constructed an identity through science amid the larger structures and contexts that comprise his life. We believe Keith's stories of practicing science in and out of the classroom illustrate how science, while taking an essential position in his lifeworld, extends and articulates Keith's subjective stances on experience. As part of his lifeworld, Keith finds a sense of value in science that turns it into a discipline that is part of the person he both is and wants to be and the world he wants to shape as a teacher. Richard Kozoll is an assistant professor of science education at the School of Education of DePaul University. His research interests include students' identity constructs as a means to understand engagement with and participation in science and inform inclusive science teaching practices. An additional line of research includes the use of narrative in science education research. Margery Osborne is an Associate Professor in the College of Education at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. She teaches early childhood and elementary science education courses. Her research interests, located within the intersections constructed between ideas of reflective practice and research on critical and feminist pedagogy, include exploring the dynamic and complex nature of teacher knowledge.     

Consultation: Developing a comprehensive approach to service delivery

This article brings together some of the thinking that seems important in illuminating key aspects of a consultation approach to the work of an educational psychology service. It begins by considering some current forces that influence the pattern of service, and the value of locating these forces historically. Definitions, assumptions and underlying psychological models for a comprehensive consultation approach to educational psychology service are considered, and an outline is offered of how it is carried out, how it works and its outcomes. Common pitfalls regarding consultation and the implications for change in a service context are described.