Mentoring and the Changing Paradigm

This study examined mentoring and organizational socialization among law faculty at American Bar Association (ABA) approved law schools. Data obtained from respondents (n = 298) captured the types of mentoring (formal or informal) occurring in law schools and faculty perceptions of the effectiveness of each type of mentoring. Comparative analysis was used to examine mentoring as an antecedent of organizational socialization by comparing senior mentored faculty to senior non‐mentored faculty, junior formally mentored faculty to junior faculty with more informal types of mentoring, male to female faculty, and majority to non‐majority faculty. Results indicated that senior mentored faculty had higher mean scores than senior non‐mentored faculty on two of the six organizational socialization subscales. However, organizational socialization differences were not significant for other comparisons. The findings regarding mentoring are discussed within the context of diversity and suggestions for future research are provided.     

INNOVATIONS IN TEACHING COMPUTER LITERACY: A CLASSROOM RESEARCH PROJECT

In Fall 1989, the author revamped his coursse syllabus for Computer Literacy by introducing individualized learning contracts, along with journal writing and journal sharing. This self‐study summarizes the author's experiences with that new syllabus, examines student outcomes in terms of student satisfaction and student success rates, and compares these results with those obtained by the same instructor in the same course the previous year. The results suggest that students are more satisfied with the new format and that some student subgroups, especially females and blacks, were more successful.     

鲍勃·帕森斯的16条成功法则

世界最大的域名注册商GoDaddy公司的CEO鲍勃·帕森斯在自己的博客中总结了自己事业和生活成功的16条法则,其中也包含了一些中国的古谚语和哲学,帕森斯给这些流传千年的古谚语注入了新时代的含义。     

Open Learning and New Technologies in Teacher Education: new paradigms for development

This paper suggests that teacher education is undergoing significant transformation. In most countries there is a recognition that the quality and extent of provision will need to be raised. Open and distance education, utilising new interactive forms of technology, will have a crucial, perhaps major, role to play in this process. The school will act increasingly as a ‘site’ for learning within evolving models of initial and in‐service teacher education. All forms of teacher education will exploit new technologies. There will be an increasing convergence between conventional and open and distance modes of delivery. New assessments of costs and effectiveness will need to be made. Changes in technology has rendered ‘out‐of‐date’ much of the previous evaluative evidence. National and international expertise in open and distance education, new methodologies and teacher education will need to be developed.     

The Reconstruction of Primary Teachers' Identities

Primary teachers have had to reconstruct their identities in response to the reconstruction of the education system. The holism, humanism and vocationalism of the old Plowden self-identity has been challenged by a new assigned social identity signalled in the assault on child-centred philosophy, the diminution of elementary trust, and changes in the teacher role. These challenges have thrown up new dilemmas for teachers, and represent 'fateful moments' in the careers of their identities. In trying to resolve the dilemmas, teachers have engaged in identity work, characterised mainly by identity talk, and a number of emotional and intellectual strategies. The result has been a partitioning of the old Plowden self-identity, with the 'real self' being largely withheld from the new personal identity and the sense of vocationalism being set to one side. The new personal identity in teaching represents a more instrumental and situational outlook, with the substantial self finding more expression elsewhere. Identity work is still in progress and seems set to continue while teachers have to find ways of relating to two or more competing discourses.     

School Art — What's in it?

In 2003/4 NFER undertook a study of the content of the art curriculum in secondary schools in England on behalf of the Arts Council England (ACE) and Tate Galleries [1]. In 18 schools, eight of which were identified as engaged with contemporary art practice (referred to throughout the article as the CAP schools), 54 art teachers were asked to describe the content of their most recently completed art module. ‘Content’ was taken as: the media and materials in which pupils worked; the artistic and cultural references used to support the teaching; the skills taught; and the thinking processes used. They were also questioned about the factors that influenced their choice of curriculum content and the aims that guided their choice of content. Most of the teachers (excluding the heads of department) were asked which of a set of six art images they would include in their teaching, and the reasons for their decisions. Teachers in the CAP schools were also asked to explain why they chose to include contemporary art. The findings revealed substantial differences between the two cohorts of schools, not all of which were related to the inclusion of contemporary art practice. A preoccupation with the teaching of skills was more apparent in the randomly selected schools, which also drew very heavily on the early twentieth century for their artistic references. Unsurprisingly, the CAP schools drew heavily on contemporary references, but included many from other periods, cited twice as many references overall, and had a generally more eclectic view of the purposes of teaching art.