Student mentoring in higher education: Hong Kong Baptist University

There is a developing interest in mentoring in the educational system in Hong Kong, especially in higher education. Mentoring is looked at as a retention and enhancement strategy for undergraduate education. With the setting up of a mentoring system during the freshmen year, it is hoped that student retention can be increased and academic achievement can be promoted. The study aims to find out the current mentoring practices carried out at the Hong Kong Baptist University. Results are based upon quantitative data collected from 456 students and 79 faculty members engaging in the mentoring programme of the University Life Programme at the university in 1998. The author also conducted insight interviews into the student–mentor relationship and the problems encountered by mentors. The study focuses upon students' perspectives of an ‘effective’ mentor. The implications for resources are discussed as part of a review of the mentoring programme at the university.     

Succession planning in England: new leaders and new forms of leadership

There are concerns about the supply of head teachers in many countries. In England, this problem arises from demographic changes and the perceived difficulty of the job. The National College responded to this problem by initiating a Succession Planning programme. This article reports the main findings from the external evaluation of the programme and links them to the wider literature.     

Teaching Peacemaking in Criminal Justice: Experiential Applications

As educators, we recognize that students often come to the classroom with preconceived notions about the criminal justice system that shape their subsequent learning. One such notion revolves around the effectiveness of the “war on crime” model of the criminal justice system. Many students feel that this model is the best way to achieve “justice.” Teaching peacemaking represents an opportunity to introduce the students to a new way of thinking about the criminal justice system. This paper explores how experiential learning strategies can facilitate students’ learning of peacemaking. Suggestions also are made about how peacemaking can be implemented into the pedagogy of criminal justice professors.     

Assessing What Matters: Improving College Readiness 50 Years Beyond Brown

50 years after the Brown v. Board of Education decision, a high-stakes testing movement, significantly boosted by provisions contained in No Child Left Behind Act of 2001, has emerged with the potential of both positive and negative implications. This paper argues that assessment generally is not tied to the 3 positive outcomes of urban, suburban, or rural schools—admission to college, military, and workforce entry—which are relevant to the private and public sectors, and to students and their parents. Benchmarking performance directly in relation to positive outcomes that matter is crucial if high-stakes testing, which ostensibly has as its purpose the improvement of overall system performance, is to be tied to all the desired outcomes that matter.     

Investigation of science faculty with education specialties within the largest university system in the United States

Efforts to improve science education include university science departments hiring Science Faculty with Education Specialties (SFES), scientists who take on specialized roles in science education within their discipline. Although these positions have existed for decades and may be growing more common, few reports have investigated the SFES approach to improving science education. We present comprehensive data on the SFES in the California State University (CSU) system, the largest university system in the United States. We found that CSU SFES were engaged in three key arenas including K-12 science education, undergraduate science education, and discipline-based science education research. As such, CSU SFES appeared to be well-positioned to have an impact on science education from within science departments. However, there appeared to be a lack of clarity and agreement about the purpose of these SFES positions. In addition, formal training in science education among CSU SFES was limited. Although over 75% of CSU SFES were fulfilled by their teaching, scholarship, and service, our results revealed that almost 40% of CSU SFES were seriously considering leaving their positions. Our data suggest that science departments would likely benefit from explicit discussions about the role of SFES and strategies for supporting their professional activities.     

Instructional leadership in centralised systems: evidence from Greek high-performing secondary schools

This paper examines the enactment of instructional leadership (IL) in high-performing secondary schools (HPSS), and the relationship between leadership and learning in raising student outcomes and encouraging teachers’ professional learning in the highly centralised context of Greece. It reports part of a comparative research study focused on whether, and to what extent, IL has been embraced by Greek school leaders. The study is exploratory, using a qualitative multiple case design to examine two HPSS in Athens. The research design involved a qualitative approach using several different methods, including semi-structured interviews with school principals, deputy heads, subject teachers and subject advisers, plus observation of leadership practice and meetings and scrutiny of relevant policy documents. The findings show that IL is conceptualised as an informal collaborative leadership practice, interwoven with the official multi-dimension role of Greek principals and their ‘semi-IL’ role. In the absence of official IL ‘actors’, teachers’ leadership has been expanding.     

“We've Got to Keep Meeting Like This”: A Pilot Study Comparing Academic Performance in Shifting-Membership Cooperative Groups Versus Stable-Membership Cooperative Groups in an Introductory-Level Lab

This study examined possible ways to increase student engagement in small sections of a large, introductory-level, required university course. Research shows that cooperative group learning boosts achievement through fostering better interpersonal relationships between students. Cooperative group learning is an evidence-based instructional practice engaging students in active learning. The present study investigated whether cooperative groups with sustained-membership functioned more effectively for boosting performance than shifting-membership cooperative groups. Findings indicated that the amount of class time spent in groups influenced the impact of shifting or sustained-membership. A significant difference in performance was found for sustained-group students when group activities were used the majority of the time during recitation.     

A continuous integraph

A mechanical integraph has been developed which plots continuously the integral of the product of two functions. It uses the principle of the electrical integrating watthour-meter combined with a moving table. Errors of the machine have been reduced to an average of 1 per cent. for common uses. By cross-connecting the device in a simple mechanical way, it is possible to solve certain types of integral equations. A link motion has been added which plots the product of two given functions. Various uses have been made of the instrument for solving problems in connection with electrical circuits, continuous beams, etc., and certain problems involving integral equations.     

Reinforcing contingencies for sex-role behaviors in preschool children

Two groups of disadvantaged Afro-American children, a total of 30 boys and 25 girls, mean age about 42 months; and two groups of middle- and upper-middle-class children, most of them white, 35 boys and 31 girls, mean age about 44.5 months, were observed for patterns of sex-role-characteristic behavior and peer and teacher response to such behavior. At all times, the children in the two experimental groups were being taught by seven women and seven or eight men, about half of whom were Afro-American, half white-Anglo, and who were mixed in the two schools by race but evenly divided by sex. Boys engaged in 16% sex-characteristic behavior, 5.7% cross-sex behavior. The same figures for girls were 18 and 6%. There were no pattern or percentage differences by race or social status of children. Women teachers gave most of their sex-role connected rewards for feminine behavior to both boys and girls. Men teachers rewarded more equably, masculine behaviors for boys, feminine behaviors for girls. Children rewarded mainly their own sex, and gave rewards for sex characteristic behavior. The pattern was even clearer for boys than for girls. In Discussion, comparisons are made with other somewhat similar studies.