More library materials budget justifications

In the Winter 1990 issue of BRQ, Frederick C. Lynden outlined a strategy for justifying library materials budgest based on his experience at Brown University. Albert Henderson elaborates on this process by offering three additional arguments to justify increased funding at research libraries. These arguments are based on the accelerating publication rate, the shrinking of library budgets as a percentage of GNP, and the consequences for research of inadequate library holdings. Albert Henderson, presidents of Henderson Associates is a consultant to scholarly and professional publishers. He was previously an editor with Johnson Reprint and vice-president for marketing and production with Pergamon Press.     

Exploring dimensions of social inclusion among alternative learning centres in the USA

Increasing disparities in out-of-school suspension and dropout rates have led a number of school districts to develop alternative models of education to include alternative learning centres (ALCs). Using an exploratory mixed methods design, this study explores dimensions of social inclusion among ALCs, located in the southeastern region of the USA. In the first phase, case-study analyses across two sites contextualised student experiences from the perspective of students, teachers, and assistant principals. In the second phase, data explored student outcomes among a sample of 593 students across 28 ALCs in the school district. Qualitative findings revealed varying dimensions of social inclusion through access, success through empowerment, and participation and engagement. Quantitative findings revealed a majority of students transitioned back to the traditional school environment. There were no clear student or school advantages associated with student transitions; however, high school students were more likely to transition back to the traditional school environment than middle school students. Discussion centres on the challenges school districts experience in promoting social inclusion and implications for inclusive models of education.     

‘Trying to decide … what sort of teacher I wanted to be’: mentoring as a dialogic practice

Mentoring of pre-service teachers in school contexts is acknowledged as an important part of initial teacher education. However, finding sufficient school-based professional experience placements for pre-service teachers, ensuring the quality of the learning experiences provided by such placements, and gaining a clear understanding of what teachers actually learn during placements continue to be of concern to all involved in this component of teacher education. In this paper, three interconnected perspectives are provided as a university-based teacher educator, a school-based teacher educator and a pre-service teacher learn together in a dialogic mentoring relationship. The work of Mikhail Bakhtin and Valentin Voloshinov is employed to theorise the nature of dialogic relationships and how such relationships differ from ‘having a conversation’.     

Place and student subjectivities in Higher Education ‘cold spots’

Abstract

This article uses an analytical framework informed by social geographies to explore the complex relationships between Higher Education Institution, undergraduate student and place. Drawing on findings from a qualitative study exploring the experiences of college-based Higher Education students studying degree courses in Further Education Colleges in England, the article sees student subjectivities as structured through inequalities of institutional positioning in a stratified system as well as through layered local histories of industrial loss. Taken as an instance of undergraduate education in a massified and geographically unequal national context, the findings in this article offer an insight into the contradictory role played by Higher Education in its local area, particularly where a local area is defined by both a lack of and a need for increased educational opportunity.     

The scholarship of teaching and learning: A Special Niche for Faculty at Comprehensive Universities?

We investigated the involvement of faculty members at comprehensive universities in scholarship of teaching and learning publishing activities in four disciplines. Compared to to their publishing rates in research-oriented journals, comprehensive university faculty members were more involved in publishing articles and serving on editorial boards for pedagogical journals. Over the past three decades, the relative involvement in the scholarship of teaching and learning journals by faculty members at comprehensive universities and liberal arts colleges has increased whereas participation by faculty members at research universities has declined.     

Simultaneous contrast in the goldfish

In this, as in two prior experiments, goldfish trained with small reward for response to one color and large reward for response to another color performed less well for the small reward than control animals trained with small reward for response to both colors. The results obtained in the present experiment (with liquid food as reward) cannot be explained in terms of postingestive inhibition (evidence from the prior experiments withTubifex worms as reward being inconsistent on this point) or in terms of within-sessions decrement in drive. The results bear on the phyletic generality of simultaneous contrast and on the relation of simultaneous to successive contrast, a phenomenon that has thus far failed to appear in goldfish.     

Self-regulated learning: Implications for the design of instructional media

This paper describes the implications of principles derived from cognitive social learning theory and Vygotsky's socially oriented developmental perspective for the design of technology-based instructional materials. Vygotsky's ideas about the kinds of experience that facilitate intellectual growth in the “zone of proximal development” suggest that contemporary mathematics instruction (usually characterized by presentations to large groups, or by individualized instruction dominated by worksheets) deny students opportunities for individual interaction with and supportive guidance by adult experts or competent peers. It is proposed that such instruction fails to support the transfer of regulatory responsibility from teacher to student. The derivation of design specifications for the use of instructional technologies to overcome these limitations of contemporary instruction in mathematics is described. Instructional materials designed to promote self-regulation strategies as well as procedural and declarative knowledge in mathematics are presented.