Education for Digitization: How Do We Prepare?

This paper examines the characteristics and variety of digitization training initiatives in North America and to a lesser extent, Europe, and the growing development of credit-bearing courses and programs within higher education relating to digitization, with a specific focus on librarianship. Information was collected in response to an inquiry posted in late July 2004 on the ARLIS, JESSE, and DIGLIB listservs, supplemented by ongoing perusal of these sources, Web searches, and suggestions from colleagues. It also briefly discusses the benefits and challenges associated with the development of digitized library resources, and the need for greater attention to professional development for those working in digitization.     

Interactive Processes Between University Students: Structures of Interactions and Related Cognitive Development

Interactions between peers as well as between students and teachers play an important role in social learning. Although much research investigates the structure of (peer) discourse and its relation to learning outcomes, only a few studies try to describe in detail how individuals create meaning for content developed within the dialogues. Thus, it often remains unclear which contents and structures of the discourse contributed to the development of individual knowledge and which did not. This paper describes a study that investigated in great detail peer discourse and its relation to the cognitive development of every participating learner. In total, 27 university students were followed with video while working in pairs during physics laboratory exercises on electrodynamics. Students' cognitive processes developed during their interactions were reconstructed from the video by a small step analysis and students' meaning-making of other participants' contributions was investigated. Results show that students only interact about topics they already know whereas they develop new meaning outside of interactive processes.     

Creating New Identities in Design Education

An international education opportunity has been created for design students at West Virginia University. This experience is unique because it takes an interdisciplinary approach to design that exposes students to the idea of a larger design methodology common to design professions. Students take core courses with students from a variety of design fields, including interior design, fashion design, fashion merchandising, landscape architecture, art, and graphic design. Through this interaction, students gain an understanding of the interrelationships among design fields, learn to appreciate new perspectives, and begin to appreciate the place of their field as part of the design community as a whole.     

Lesson study in teacher development: A paradigm shift from a culture of receiving to a culture of acting and reflecting

This article describes how lesson study creates a process of teacher learning whilst developing student learning through collaborative planning, guided observation and reflection. It presents a framework for conducting lesson study in a teacher development programme in Lower Austria. The role of knowledgeable others in the development of ownership for educational change towards competence‐oriented teaching and learning is explored and an overview of the organisational requirements and practical effects in the implementation of professional learning communities is given. In doing so, the article sheds light on training strategies and material development. Thus, insights on a paradigm shift in teacher development towards learning focused on discourse and reflected action are presented.     

Justice judgments concerning grading in school

This article investigates justice judgments concerning grading. In two studies with secondary students (N₁ = 350 academic-track students; N₂ = 225 intermediate [n = 81] and academic-track students [n = 144]) attending the 7th to the 12th grade level, participants were presented with vignettes describing three different grading systems: criterion-referenced grading, norm-referenced grading, and individual-referenced grading. The subjects graded and other situational characteristics were varied. In both studies, factor analyses consistently revealed that students’ justice judgments were contingent on the comparison standard applied, but independent of other situational characteristics. Criterion-referenced grading was rated as the most just practice, individual-referenced grading as almost just, and norm-referenced grading as almost unjust. The better the grades received the more the students evaluated criterion-referenced grading to be just. Students attending intermediate-track schools did not object to norm-referenced grading as strongly as their peers at academic-track schools did. Consequences for teachers’ grading practices are discussed.     

Guidance in inquiry-based instruction – an attempt to disentangle a manifold construct

Inquiry-based instruction is an important teaching strategy in science education that can be implemented to achieve different learning goals (e.g. the learning of science content or of inquiry skills and strategies). Inquiry-based instruction is often combined with guidance attempting to assist students to effectively engage in inquiry activities and, through this engagement, reach the intended goals. In recent research, the type and amount of guidance needed to foster student’s learninghas received considerable attention. One challenge in interpreting the results of this line of research is the manifold meanings of the term ‘guidance’ and its implementation in inquiry-based instruction. Moreover, the effectiveness of a particular type and amount of guidance may also depend on the learning goal that is to be achieved. In this paper, we draw on existing research and theoretical considerations in attempting to disentangle three major dimensions in which the implementation of guidance may vary: (a) the degree of autonomy, (b) the degree of conceptual information, and (c) the cognitive domain of guidance. We discuss how these dimensions can be used to capture and systemise fidings of existing studies as well as to infer desiderata for further research on the role of guidance in inquiry-based instruction.     

Wege in die Wissenschaft

Zusammenfassung Dieser Artikel besch?ftigt sich mit einem Themengebiet, das in der erziehungswissenschaftlichen Wissenschafts-, Hochschul-und Berufsforschung bislang kaum analysiert worden ist. Unter Bezug auf die Ergebnisse einer schriftlichen Befragung von rund 3.800 Absolventen erziehungswissenschaftlicher Hauptfachstudieng?nge (Diplom, Magister) in ganz Deutschland wird die Frage untersucht, wie gro? die Gruppe der Studierenden aus diesen Studieng?ngen ist, die sich einige Jahre nach dem Studienabschluss im Arbeitsfeld Hochschule und Forschung beruflich platzieren kann bzw. promoviert, durch welche Merkmale diese Gruppe gekennzeichnet ist und welche Bedingungsfaktoren den Weg in die Wissenschaft beeinflussen. Nach einem überblick über den bisherigen Stand der Forschung und der Darstellung zentraler Resultate des Diplom-und Magister-Surveys zum Weg in die Wissenschaft werden abschlie?end einige Konsequenzen diskutiert, die sich aus den Befunden für eine Reform der bisherigen Hauptfachstudieng?nge bzw. für die zukünftige Gestaltung neuer Studieng?nge mit Blick auf eine Verbesserung der Nachwuchsf?rderung für das Fach Erziehungswissenschaft ergeben.

---

Summary Paths into Science: The Results of a National Survey of Graduates from Diplom and Magister Programs in Educational Science This article examines a topic which has hardly been dealt with in the field of Educational Science. A survey of around 3,800 graduates of Educational Science in both Diplom and Magister programs in Germany asked what proportion of graduates went on to work or commence a Ph.D. in higher education. It also investigated the characteristics of such graduates and the conditions which determined their path into science. Following an overview of preceding research in this area and a presentation of the central results of the survey, the consequences of the findings for a reform of courses and an improvement in the training of academics in the field of Educational Science will be discussed.

     

Let the right one in: ethnic boundaries in a Colombian immigrant youth program

Although research on minority youth has established the value of coethnic spaces for safe ethnic identity exploration, research has seldom examined how youth in these spaces draw ethnic boundaries or offered appropriate frameworks addressing boundary-setting. This study uses Berry’s acculturation framework to explore ethnic boundary-setting within a Colombian immigrant youth dance program in the US. Seven members participated in a multi-year qualitative study that triangulated surveys, interviews, and responses to a hypothetical multicultural dilemma that ‘positioned’ Colombian participants as part of an in-group on the basis of their ethnicity. Specifically, it explores the strategies they employed to deal with the dilemma and the role context played in those strategies. With findings that reveal how youth incorporate the arguments found in mainstream immigration debates to justify integration, segregation, and exclusion of non-Colombians, this study argues that to understand strategies employed, it is necessary to examine local, national, and transnational contexts.