Roots and Wings Community Mentoring: An Evaluation of the Manchester Pilot

This article is a continuation of the exploration started by Sylvia Ashley in Mentoring and Tutoring, Autumn 1994, of the ‘Roots and Wings' mentoring initiative. The Roots and Wings programme is a Business in the Community initiative using the principles of community group mentoring. Sylvia Astley reported on the London and Bristol pilots. We follow this through with a digest of the evaluation of the Manchester pilot. In this pilot the British Telecom Personal Communications division offered mentoring support to the pupils from a Manchester high school. The evaluation attempted to capture the experiences of the mentors and mentees and the perspectives of the teaching staff involved. Recommendations were made with a view to expanding the scheme into other schools and businesses.     

Education for Integrated Rural Development: transformative learning in a complex and uncertain world

A key question addressed in this article is: How does the increased pressure for expertise in IRD translate itself into the demand for educational services and the design of appropriate curricula on a European-wide basis? This article examines these issues and generates a number of stepping stones for the development of Education and Training for Integrated Rural Development (ETIRD) in tertiary education, based on a two-year inter-institutional curriculum development project carried out under the umbrella of the AFANetⁱ.     

Integrating ICT in Kenyan secondary schools: an exploratory case study of a professional development programme

This study explores the introduction of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) in Kenyan secondary schools. Specifically, it is a case study of four schools with no previous access to ICT. The professional development programme from which data for this study were drawn was designed to support teachers learning to integrate ICT in the curriculum. Using a mixed-method research approach, the authors collected data from multiple sources and triangulated the views of various stakeholders: questionnaires with teachers, focus groups with teachers, school leaders and ICT coordinators, field observations and document analysis. While the broader programme focused on the use of ICT, the results highlighted in this study focus on the development of the four schools with respect to 1) vision building, 2) leadership, 3) collaboration, 4) expertise and 5) access to adequate resources. The discussion centres on the challenges and opportunities inherent in understanding how to prepare schools in developing countries to integrate ICT in education.     

Teaching Organization Theory and Practice: An Experiential and Reflective Approach

The organization is often the overlooked level in social work's ecological perspective. However, organizational realities exert a profound influence on human development and well‐being as well as the nature and quality of social work practice. This article describes a model of teaching organization theory and practice which requires master's social work students to assess their school of social work as well as their field placement agencies. Teaching organization theory and practice experientially may help students understand how organizations influence practice and empower them to see organization practice as a legitimate and important aspect of their work.     

Reflections on teaching observations and the use of a personal development journal in medical teacher education

In this article, I reflect on the events and experiences that occurred during (and after) my studies for a Diploma in Teacher Education. The elements required for the award of Diploma included a professional development journal, a number of peer teaching observations and an action research project. At an early stage, I selected vaguely ‘peer teaching observation’ as the topic for my research. As the course progressed my journal began to contain an increasing amount of material relating to the teaching observations and finally the three components – journal, teaching observations and research project merged into one. Through a process of progressive focusing, the project was clarified and came to be about my role in the observation. I was surprised to find it became a very personal examination of myself in order that I could understand more fully the process of teaching observation. In the end, almost everything else diminished compared to the insights I gained about myself. I concluded that, for myself, perhaps a direct critical self-examination was too threatening and potentially painful to endure. However, by looking at myself as an observer of teaching then the very objectivity that was potentially so safe turned out to allow me to reflect on myself as a person. To become a reflective practitioner is not easy, yet the process can be intellectually engaging.     

On PAR with young people: learnings from the SARUA project

The Student Action Research for University Access (SARUA) is a participatory action research project between groups of senior high school students, their schoolteachers and university staff. During the 8 years of its activities in at least 17 high schools in the greater metropolitan area of Brisbane, Australia significant learnings have developed about working with students on projects that affect their own lives. This article problematises aspects of partnerships and collaboration between two diverse cultures of the university and the school and discusses the benefits of such collaboration, some of the challenges faced and the responsibilities of the university partners in facilitating action research with young people.     

Reading the Signs: What is Really Happening with Digital Publishing in China?

Based upon a recent review of the relevant literature in both English and Chinese, this paper assess the current state of and future prospects for digital publishing in China. It addresses developments both in the context of ongoing technological and organizational change and with regard to the wider social and cultural dimensions. Embodying a simulated SWOT exercise it considers the current and likely future state of digital publishing in China through the eyes of western publishers seeking to do business in that country. Digital publishing in China is still in its infancy, while perhaps remaining more opaque to western observers than was expected. Issues around ownership, industry structure, operating platforms, stakeholders, piracy and intellectual property remain critical. Perhaps more than anything, and certainly much more than in the West, the issue of culture, not only in terms of national values and perspectives but also in terms of how things are done, remains a potent influence on business relationships with foreigners. In the West this continues to feed perceptions of legal and commercial uncertainties, risks to intellectual capital and obstacles to the production and distribution of knowledge and ideas. Whatever the perceived downside to such phenomena however, China is still regarded as a major growth market for western publishers. It concludes that whereas there are many opportunities for both parties, and that both can learn from each other, the learning curve is likely to be much steeper on the western side, owing to the significance of the social and cultural dimension.