Farewell from the Founding Editor-in-Chief

On June 14, 2011, the world of higher education lost a great editor and scholar. D. Barry Lumsden passed away that morning, leaving behind three excellent journals and a legacy of scholarship. Dr. Lumsden had edited the Community College Journal of Research and Practice since he founded it in 1976, and we feel his loss keenly. Our sympathies go out to his family, friends and colleagues for their loss.

I have had the pleasure of working with Barry since joining Taylor & Francis (T&F) in 1984. He was one of the more colorful characters I have come across in 30 years of publishing. He referred to me, as you will see below, as Brother Kevin. He always brought a smile to my face when I would pick up the phone (he is from a generation that still picks up the phone and talks to people) and hear him say hello. He cared deeply about the journals he worked on and the contribution he was making to the field. His legacy has been established by the contributions that he has made and, for me, he will always bring a smile to my face when I think of him.

In early 2011, on Dr. Lumsden's recommendation, we appointed Deborah L. Floyd as his successor. Dr. Floyd has worked on the journal for several years, both as an editorial board member and a guest editor, and we know she will do a fine job in her new role as editor-in-chief. We are saddened by Dr. Lumsden's passing, but look forward to working with Dr. Floyd as she continues the work he started three decades ago. The following editorial was to be his farewell to the Community College Journal of Research and Practice, the journal he edited for 35 years.

Kevin Bradley, President

Taylor & Francis US Journals Program     

The CoVis Project: Building a Large-Scale Science Education Testbed*

This paper describes the construction and research program of the Learning Through Collaborative Visualization (CoVis) Project, a testbed for exploring science education reform with telecommunications technology. The CoVis testbed is contrasted with other forms of educational research in an “ecology of paradigms,” which argues that testbeds are in fact a new setting for research with different requirements and challenges for the researcher. Two extended examples of telecommunications research are provided as examples of the kind of research that testbeds are well suited to explore. The first example is the evolution of videoconferencing in the CoVis testbed. The second example is the design and development of a networked groupware application called the Collaboratory Notebook.     

Changing academic identities in changing academic workplaces: learning from academics’ everyday professional writing practices

In this article we examine issues of academic identity through the lens of academics’ everyday workplace writing, offering a complementary perspective to those already evident in the higher education research literature. Motivated by an interest in the relationship between routine writing and aspects of professional practice, we draw on data from interviews with 30 academics across three different universities. Our discussion is illustrated with excerpts from interview data, and is organised around three emerging themes: ‘reconstructing academic identities in a shifting academic workplace’, ‘considering new articulations of disciplinarity’, and ‘moving on from the golden age’. We conclude that the reconstruction of academic identities, through engagement with established and emerging workplace documents, may well be enabling academics to build new identities within the changing university.     

中美大对比:在哪儿幸福更容易?

在中国涌现"出国热"的那几年,我们的父辈以及我们都在向往着国外的福利、教育和生活环境。有时候梦见自己身处国外都会是一件乐事,值得人们茶余饭后聊上半天。长大以后,随着国外的YouTube、Twitter和国内各类视频网站以及微博客的兴起,我们越来越多地了解到国外也有贫民窟、国外也有经济危机和失业、国外也有腐败和民主上的不完善,而更可怕的是,国外还有允许携带私人枪支的国民……出国,真的有那么好吗?在这篇文章里,一个地地道道的纽约人将向你叙述一个他自己总结出的结论:在中国,要幸福,并不需要太多。     

Digitizing more for less: Digital preservation at The College of New Jersey

ABSTRACT

This article explores the challenges faced and overcome by The College of New Jersey Library while digitizing a large amount of delicate material without any staff specially dedicated to the project and without any funds allocated specifically to support it. To achieve the project's goals without incurring additional cost, project management surveyed the utilization rates of existing library resources. This led to the discovery that underutilized resources and previously purchased equipment in the library could be assigned to the project, without negatively impacting other areas of the library. Allocating these resources to the project resulted in increased digitization progress without incurring additional staffing or equipment costs. Support from and collaboration with other departments on campus also assisted in staffing and promoting the project.     

Computer laboratory workshops as learning environments for university business statistics: validation of questionnaires

Learning Environments Research - Research on learning environments at the higher-education level has been quite sparse compared with studies at other educational levels. Because statistics is...     

Indonesia's Small Schools Project: A fresh look at a persistent problem

The delivery of quality education to elementary school students in remote and isolated areas continues to be a major problem in most countries. Solutions to this problem should be inexpensive, easy to develop and implement, and straightforward enough for local educational officials and teachers to understand and use. The Small Schools Project of the Indonesian Ministry of Education is attempting to solve this problem through an imaginative programme unique in its provision of an interrelated group of educational interventions of proven effectiveness. These interventions are: self-paced learning modules covering basic subject matter areas, self-paced evaluation for the content covered, learning groups of six to eight students led by peer tutors, supportive rather than didactic teacher behaviours and regular teacher training sessions to impart these behaviours, active support from the community, repair of school buildings, a small number of carefully chosen supplementary materials, larger teaching staffs, planning which integrates a variety of government offices at different levels, cooperative arrangements with universities and teacher training high schools, continuous formative evaluation, and a handbook which describes programme materials, policies and procedures. Preliminary evaluation indicates that the programme is succeeding. The problems of educating isolated youth are strikingly similar across cultures and temporal periods, and given the universality of this problem, other imaginative solutions should be studied and the results of these studies disseminated.

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Zusammenfassung Für die meisten Länder ist es immer noch ein Schlüsselproblem, Elementarschülern in abgelegenen und isolierten Gegenden Unterricht von angemessener Qualität zu erteilen. Lösungen dieses Problems sollten nicht kostspielig, einfach zu entwickeln und durchzuführen und für örtliche Erziehungsbeamte und Lehrer leicht verständlich und anwendbar sein. Das Kleinschulprojekt des indonesischen Erziehungsministeriums bemüht sich, dieses Problem durch ein phantasiereiches Programm zu lösen, das in seiner Vorkehrung einzigartig ist, Gruppen durch erzieherische Maßnahmen von bewährter Wirksamkeit miteinander zu verbinden. Diese Maßnahmen sind: selbstgesteuerte Bausteine, die Grundthemen der Gegenstandsbereiche abdecken, selbstgesteuerte Bewertung der Lerninhalte, Lerngruppen von sechs bis acht Schülern unter Leitung gleichaltriger Tutoren, ein Lehrerverhalten, das mehr anregend als belehrend ist und regelmäßige Fortbildungsveranstaltungen, um die Lehrer mit diesem Verhalten vertraut zu machen, aktive Unterstützung durch die Gemeinden, Ausbesserungen der Schulgebäude, eine geringe Anzahl sorgfältig ausgewählten, zusätzlichen Materials, größere Lehrerkollegien, eine Planung, die eine Vielzahl von Regierungsbehörden auf verschiedenen Ebenen, untereinander verbendet, Vereinbarungen zur Zusammenarbeit zwischen Universitäten und höheren Schulen zur Lehrerausbildung, fortgesetzte Bildungsbewertung und ein Handbuch, das Lehrmateriale, Richtlinien und Verfahren beschreibt. Eine Zwischenauswertung hat ergeben, daß dieses Programm erfolgreich ist. Die Probleme, isolierte Jugendliche zu unterrichten, weisen auffallende Ähnlichkeiten in verschiedenen Kulturbereichen und zu verschiedenen Zeitepochen auf. Angesichts der Universalität dieses Problems sollten andere phantasiereiche Lösungen untersucht und die Ergebnisse dieser Berichte verbreitet werden.

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Résumé Dispenser un enseignement de qualité aux élèves des classes élémentaires se trouvant dans des zones reculées et lointaines reste un grand problème dans de nombreux pays. Les solutions à ce problème ne doivent pas être onereuses, mais faciles à développer et à réaliser; elles doivent être assez simples à comprendre et à utiliser pour les administrations locales de l'éducation et les enseignants. Le Projet du Ministère de l'Education indonésien concernant l'école élémentaire vise à résoudre ce problème à travers un programme ingénieux et unique en son genre par l'offre d'un ensemble étroitement lié d'interventions éducatives d'une efficacité pédagogique reconnue. Ces moyens sont: des éléments pour l'auto-apprentissage couvrant les matières fondamentales; une auto-évaluation du contenu donné, des groups d'apprentissage de six à huit élèves avec des répétiteurs de même niveau, des enseignants adoptant un comportement plutôt d'assistance que didactique, des sessions régulières de formation des enseignants afin de transmettre ces comportments, un aide active des communes, la réparation des établissements scolaires, un petit nombre de matériels pédagogiques soigneusement choisis, un personnel plus nombreux, une planification qui intègre une quantité d'institutions publiques à différents niveaux, des arrangements prévoyant une coopération entre universités et écoles de pédagogie, une évaluation continue de la formation, et un manuel décrivant les materiels du programme, les buts et les procédés. Une première évaluation montre que le programme est prometteur. Les problèmes d'éducation des jeunes vivant dans des régions isolées sont très similaires à travers les différentes cultures et à travers tous les temps, ainsi, étant donné l'universalité de ce problème, d'autres solutions astucieuses devraient être étudiées et les résultats de ces études diffusés.

     

Gender differences in science achievement: Do school effects make a difference?

The problem of the underrepresentation of girls in science in Australian schools is often attributed to their poor performance. Yet the role of both the home and the school in affecting female science achievement is rarely examined empirically. The comprehensiveness of the Second International Science Study database provided an excellent opportunity to investigate the presence of gender differences in science achievement. Although previous studies of gender differences in science achievement have relied on methodology that has not adequately accounted for the school effects, this study used the design effect and hierarchical linear modeling (multilevel analysis) to explore whether there were significant gender differences. The relative contribution of schools to student achievement was examined, and school-level differences were found to contribute significantly toward explaining variations in student performance. Although statistically significant sex differences were found in physics achievement for 10-year-old, 14-year-old, and year-12 students, school effects were much more powerful in explaining student differences (9–19%) when compared with gender (3%).     

The Discourses of Social Justice in Education

What the existing organization of schooling presupposes...is that in consumption terms, the world consists of equally powerful individual actors. Such, of course, is not the case in a hierarchically ordered capitalist system, where labour and capital, and indeed different forms of both, have differential access to resources enabling them to consume. By largely intervening only in provisional relations, the state fails to recognize the central dynamic of education ‐‐ that provision and consumption are not coterminous. In essence, state intervention does not go far enough. (Lynch, 1989, p.127)