以促进高校教师专业发展为导向的教学评价模式改革

教学评价是高校提高教学质量的重要措施之一,目前高校教学评价制度多以考核、奖惩为目的,侧重于鉴定性功能,没有充分发挥对教师专业发展提供支持和帮助的作用。本文从教学评价制度设计的层面,分析传统评价模式存在的局限性,提出了以促进教师专业发展为导向,在评价目标、评价标准、评价主体、评价方法、评价结果等方面实现五个转变的改革思路。     

妇女赋权:赋权理论分析社会工作案例

赋权是西方现代社会工作理论和实践中的一个重要概念和工作方式,女性是弱势群体中数量最多、所占比例最大的一个群体,家庭妇女往往从夫居等传统文化原因,在家庭中权权力逐渐被剥夺,成为一个无权的个体。通过对妇女赋权的典型案例进行分析,探索妇女赋权的有效途径。     

Orienting Oracy: empowerment or enslavement

Abstract

article concerns the issues raised as a result of my intervention in the oral skills of a student teacher following a BA (Ed) programme at the College of Higher Education in the university sector where I teach. Communication skills are of utmost importance in the HE sector of education and are essential attributes of those about to enter the teaching profession. Moreover, it seems to be generally assumed that students starting Higher Education will already be equipped with whatever degree of communicative ability their course requires. However, it is becoming evident a large proportion of such students are unable to cope with the communicative demands made on them. Accordingly, the case study examined has taken the student's needs as a springboard for the development of innovative and appropriate strategies which should promote the extension of oral skills on an individually tailored basis. Although the individualised oracy programme was devised by myself, it arose and developed as a result of a teaching and learning relationship, with the student's observations and response playing a major role in his own intervention. The implications are that oracy is an extremely important and sensitive issue. Consequently, students classified as having difficulties with communication need to be involved in their own oracy development in order for any support to be relevant to their needs.     

Faculty Agency: Departmental Contexts that Matter in Faculty Careers

In a modern context of constrained resources and high demands, faculty exert agency to strategically navigate their careers (Baez 2000a; Neumann et al. 2006). Guided by the O’Meara et al. (2011) framework on agency in faculty professional lives, this study used Structural Equation Modeling to investigate which departmental factors (perceptions of tenure and promotion process, work-life climate, transparency, person-department fit, professional development resources, and collegiality) influenced faculty agentic perspective and agentic action. Results showed that faculty perceptions of certain departmental contexts do matter in faculty career agency, such as work-life climate, person-department fit, and professional development resources. These contexts have a particular influence on faculty agentic perspective. Results also showed a large effect of agentic perspective on agentic action. The study has important implications for administrators regarding departmental role in faculty agency and contributes to the growing body of literature on faculty sense of agency in academe.     

Faculty and Technology: Implications for Faculty Training and Technology Leadership

The purpose of this study was to explore the factors affecting ICT adoption process and the implications for faculty training and technology leadership. Respondents represented a wide range of academic and professional positions. They identified themselves as Assistant, Associate, and Professor as well as Instructional Designer, Director of Technology, Information Manager, eLearning Manager, Assistant Department Chair, Associate Vice President of Academic Affairs and Consultant. The respondents identified Organizational Support, Leadership, Training and Development, and Resources as the predominate themes affecting Information and Communication Technology (ICT) adoption process in higher education. Evidence from this study offers insights on how higher education administrators and technology leaders could help their faculty and staff to implement appropriate ICT tools and practices to improve student learning.     

Faculty Learning Matters: Organizational Conditions and Contexts that Shape Faculty Learning

This study explored the relationships between faculty scholarly learning, faculty teaching learning, institutional support, faculty demographics, disciplinary groups, working conditions, and career outcomes such as retention, productivity, satisfaction, and career agency. We found that the stronger the scholarly learning faculty members reported, the more institutional and unit support they perceived for learning, the more satisfied they were, the less likely they were to intend to leave their institution, and the more career agency they reported. Similarly, we found that faculty members who reported more learning related to teaching reported a decreased intent to leave the institution and increased career agency. We draw implications for the development of work environments that support scholarly and teaching learning.     

Technology and educational empowerment: Students' perspectives

As part of a two-year investigation of technological innovation in one secondary school, nine senior students participated in one-hour interviews that explored their perceptions of the proper role of technology in their schooling. Student responses were analyzed and compared to those of their teachers for similarities and differences in perceptions about desirable uses and goals for technology. Like their teachers, a majority preferred to adapt technology to support traditional, teacher-centered instruction. A minority valued technology as a facilitator of student-centered inquiry and appeared to differ from the majority in beliefs about schooling and in dispositional tolerances for uncertainty.This paper is based on work done as part of the author's doctoral dissertation at the University of Georgia. Portions of the paper were presented at the 9th Annual International Qualitative Research in Education Conference, Athens, GA, January, 1996.     

Lifelong learning to empowerment: beyond formal education

Abstract

This paper discusses the relevance of lifelong learning vis-à-vis the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and stresses the need for an approach blending formal education, non-formal and informal learning. The role of Open and Distance Learning (ODL) in moving beyond formal education and the importance of integrating pedagogy, andragogy and heutagogy in lifelong learning are raised as key factors in ensuring that education and learning can generate positive externalities and impact livelihoods. Through a case study in the agricultural sector, this paper analyses the role of lifelong learning in empowering smallholders of backyard poultry enterprises in Kenya and argues that lifelong learning needs to be placed in appropriate social and economic contexts to generate outcomes and impacts such as empowerment.     

Faculty writing: Redirection and renewal

Faculty devote their lives to higher education because of an early commitment to intellectual pursuits. Often, their interests narrow over time, as a result of publishing pressure, which may result in faculty writing burnout. Few university programs support more senior faculty to continue their writing. These faculty should be encouraged to provide their informed perspective through the popular media of the cultural, political and scientific dilemmas facing the twenty-first century. Because of the dialogue, not only will faculty feel renewed, but energy will be provided for their other scholarly pursuits. Strategies for regeneration are easily incorporated into faculty development programs.     

Faculty Meetings: Hidden Conversational Dynamics

In the everydayness of faculty meetings, collegial conversations mirror distinctive dynamics and practices, which either enhance or undercut organizational effectiveness. A cluster of conversational practices affect how colleagues connect, engage, interact, and influence others during faculty meetings in diverse educational settings. The principles embedded in the video games of middle-school and high-school students provide engaging insights into the essence of vibrant, productive faculty meetings.     

Faculty evaluation: A prickly pair

In this exploratory study reviewing an institution's faculty evaluation process, we found support for the judgmental aspects of appraisal, but a desire for greater focus upon development. The institutional culture supports a combined approach to the evaluations. Although this diminishes the focus of both forms of evaluation, it serves both the faculty and the institution.     

Faculty autonomy: Perspectives from Taiwan

Recent legislative initiatives indicate thatlong-standing traditions of centralized state controlof higher education in Taiwan are being displaced bynew arrangements emphasizing institutional autonomy. Autonomous institutions are assumed to be flexible andresponsive, given their relative freedom fromgovernment control. Institutional autonomy is assumedto ``trickle down' to organizational members, who arethen empowered to devise unique solutions to solveparticular problems. Asserted benefits ofinstitutional autonomy may not accrue, however, whereorganizational members are unable to determine thestructures and processes of their work. The purposeof this study was to examine relationships betweeninstitutional autonomy and dimensions of facultyautonomy. Findings lend conditional support to theclaim that faculty members work within the constraintsof ``regulated autonomy,' where their individualbehaviors are delimited by government and management.     

Faculty Workload: An Analytical Approach

Recent discussions of practices in higher education have tended toward muck-raking and self-styled exposure of cynical self-indulgence by faculty and administrators at the expense of students and their families, as usually occurs during periods of economic duress, rather than toward analytical studies designed to foster understanding This article looks briefly at some examples of this tendency and then offers an analytical approach to understanding faculty workloads and the ways of assessing and evaluating faculty work.