Professor or Knowledge Worker? The Politics of Defining Faculty Work

To define “contractual regulations and institutional practices” for university faculty we need to consider significant changes in academic work in the last two decades. On the one hand, there persists the traditional view of disciplinary knowledge as valuable for its own sake; on the other, universities are a driving force in providing intellectual capital for the new knowledge society. While academic contracts have traditionally focused on defining work regulations and guidelines, faculty freedoms, tenure and so on, within the disciplinary framework, today these issues are deeply dependent on how the university's post‐Fordist organizational model (centralized controls, disaggregated models for managing knowledge) delivers knowledge in which symbolic and exchange values can play conflicting roles.     

The effect of redundant text in multimedia instruction

The purpose of this study was to examine the redundancy effects obtained when spoken information was duplicated in writing during the learning of a multimedia document. Documents consisting of diagrams and spoken information on the development of memory models were presented to three groups of students. In the first group, no written text was presented. In the second, written sentences redundant with the spoken information were progressively presented on the screen while in the third group, these written sentences were presented together. The results show that whatever the type of text presentation (sequential or static), the duplication of information in the written mode led to a substantial impairment in subsequent retention and transfer tests as well as in a task in which the memorization of diagrams was evaluated. This last result supports the hypothesis that the visual channel is overloaded as the cognitive theory of multimedia learning suggests.     

Environmental science education in a small island state: integrating theory and local experience

Abstract

The importance of education to address current sustainability challenges in small island states has been widely recognized. Environmental education may increase knowledge, while also increasing environmental awareness and motivating students to become agents of change. Student engagement in introductory environmental science courses may benefit from operationalizing abstract concepts by embedding course material and activities within this local context. Here, we describe an introductory course in environmental science that has been tailored to the local context of a small island state in the Caribbean. In addition to reaching academic course goals, pre- and post-course surveys showed that course participants’ environmental awareness increased on the dimensions ‘Personal Value System’ and ‘Willingness to Take Environmental Action’. The described course provides a template for the development of a low-cost introductory environmental science course that integrates general theory and application within the context of Caribbean island states.     

Improvement of instruction and teacher effectiveness: are student ratings reliable and valid?

This paper reviews the evidence on whether student ratings are reliable and valid enough to be used for the purpose of the improvement of instruction and teacher effectiveness. A consensus of evidence available in the literature tends to show a measure of consistency, stability and validity of student ratings. Several variables such as sex of rater and ratee, class size, mood of students, rank of instructors, grades students were expecting, time of the day courses are taught, to mention only a few, have been found to have a low to high positive relationship, with student ratings. It also appears that the use of student ratings leads to the improvement of instruction, provided the evaluation data are fed back to the instructor and that an expert or consultant provides assistance to the instructor.     

Online Communities of Practice: A Catalyst for Faculty Development

This article addresses the concept of communities of practice and how it has come of age for the professional development of professors as teachers. Thanks to current technological options, faculty developers can enhance the opportunity for the entire faculty to learn through the use of online communities. Designing a faculty development portal using community of practice concepts can be an effective means to jump-start, facilitate, develop, and sustain faculty involvement in academic communities.     

Playful Disruptions

This article challenges the 'ghettoisation' of play in Early Years contexts and argues for a reassertion of its underlying importance for learning throughout the primary school and beyond. It argues for a rethinking of play in terms of 'flow' and the implications for teachers' understanding of their role when they intervene and participate 'inside the flow' of children's play. It illustrates and addresses these issues, which are crucial if 'lifelong learning' is to be anything other than a rhetorical gesture, through the experiences of teachers, trainees and children and challenges the 'mindblindness' of many current attitudes towards teaching and learning.     

The paradox in international cooperation: Institutionally embedded universities in a global environment

As a response to processes of globalisation and regional integration, internationalisation activities in universities have changed. Flows have become more massive, the range of activities has broadened, and internationalisation has shifted from a marginal activity to a central institutional issue with strategic importance (van der Wende 2001, European Journal of Education 36(4), 431–441). These shifts can also be observed in international cooperation among universities. One of the manifestations of this shift is the increase and change of inter-organisational arrangements in higher education. One type of such arrangements – higher education consortia – are analysed in detail in the study. This analysis takes inter-organisational diversity as a starting point (Parkhe 1991, Journal of International Business Studies 22(4), 579–601). The basic thesis is that partners need to be similar, yet different, or in other words, there needs to be sufficient complementarity as well as sufficient compatibility among the participating universities. The article also explores the ways in which the management of consortia can improve the levels of complementarity and compatibility and thus the success of such consortia. Eric Beerkens is a postdoctoral research fellow at the School of Policy & Practice, Faculty of Education and Social Work at the University of Sydney. In 2004 he completed his PhD at CHEPS on the study reported in this article. Marijk van der Wende is professor at CHEPS.     

Recapitulating the History of Sickle-Cell Anemia Research

This paper provides an argument in favor of a specific pedagogical method of using the history of science to help students develop more informed views about nature of science (NOS) issues. The paper describes a series of lesson plans devoted to encouraging students to engage, unbeknownst to them, in similar reasoning that led scientists to understand sickle-cell anemia from the perspective of multiple subdisciplines in biology. Students pursue their understanding of a ‘mystery disease’ by means of a series of open-ended problems that invite them to discuss it from the perspective of anatomy, physiology, ecology, evolution, and molecular and cell biology. Throughout this unit, instructors incorporate techniques that invite students to explicitly and reflectively discuss various NOS issues with reference to this example and more generally. It is argued on the grounds of constructivist tenets that this pedagogy has substantial advantages over more implicit approaches. The findings of an empirical study using an open-ended survey and follow-up, semi-structured interviews to assess students’ pre- and post-instruction NOS conceptions support the efficacy of this approach.