Nurturing faculty vitality by matching institutional interventions with career-stage needs

A questionnaire study, modeled after Baldwin's 1979 research on faculty at a liberal arts college, was conducted with 42 Lilly Teaching Fellows and Lilly Mentors at a large, public, research-oriented university in the Southeast U.S.A. Results from the study support the notion that one of the keys to a successful instructional and faculty development program is to target activities to the academic career stage of the faculty member.Patricia Kalivoda works in the Office of Instructional Development at The University of Georgia. She holds an MBA and an Ed.D. from The University of Georgia. Her research focuses on faculty career development and faculty vitality. Geraldine Rogers Sorrell is Special Populations Coordinator at Middle Georgia Technical Institute. She holds an M.Ed.and an Ed.D. from The University of Georgia. She specializes in faculty and staff development, and career counseling. Ronald D. Simpson is Director of the Office of Instructional Development at The University of Georgia, where he also is professor of Higher Education and Science Education. He holds degrees from The University of Tennessee and The University of Georgia.     

An Article by the 2003 Award Winner CCCC Outstanding Dissertation Award in Technical CommunicationEmergent Genres in Young Disciplines: The Case of Ethnological Science

Although the rhetoric of relatively stable scientific disciplines has been studied extensively, less attention has been paid to discourse formation in young disciplines. The author extends recent theories of genre and disciplinary discourse in a close rhetorical analysis of early papers in ethnological science. Practitioners apply extant rhetorical resources to new disciplinary problems as they learn to identify themselves as participants in a collective project. The young discipline “learns” its discourse from its practitioners.     

Structured study questions as a social work teaching method: A controlled experimental study

Two prior studies have described and provided initial empirical support for the effectiveness of structured study questions as a method of instruction within didactic social work education. The present report describes the design, conduct and results of a more methodologically rigorous experimental study, comparing the effectiveness of study questions versus a method of teaching called learning through discussion in promoting M.S.W. students learning of sophisticated research skills. Using a pretest-posttest alternative treatment group design, with blind evaluations of student performance, the study question method was found to be superior to learning through discussion. These results support the more extensive use of the study question method of instruction within social work education.Bruce A. Thyer is a professor of social work at the University of Georgia, where he obtained his M.S.W. degree in 1978. Dr. Thyer earned his Ph.D. in social work and psychology from the University of Michigan in 1982. His research interests involve promoting applied behavior analysis within social work. Geraldine Jackson-White is an instructor of social work at the University of Georgia, where she obtained her M.S.W. in 1977. Ms. Jackson-White is a doctoral candidate in public administration at the University of Georgia. Richard Sutphen has an M.A. in sociology from Memphis State University and an M.S.W. from the University of Georgia where he is currently a doctoral student in social work. Dorothy F. Carrillo received her M.S.W. from Atlanta University and is currently a doctoral student in social work at the University of Georgia where she is also an instructor of social work.Tim Stocks of the University of Texas at Arlington School of Social Work provided valuable statistical consultation.     

Relating Teacher PCK and Teacher Practice Using Classroom Observation

Research in Science Education - Science teachers’ pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) has been researched in many studies, yet little empirical evidence has been found to determine how this...     

What can age by grade tell us about education in Australia?

The education systems in the States and Territories of Australia are analyzed using age by grade (Year) tables produced by the Australian Bureau of Statistics from the 1 July returns from government and nongovernment schools. The demographic patterns of 8-year-olds at Year levels show that the system of promotion through school and the rates of retention in the early years differ by State and Territory. The factors producing these variations are explored. Indigenous/non-indigenous differences in school progress are uneven across States and Territories and there are small differences favoring girls. Policy implications for the findings are discussed.     

Frontal Lobe Activity and Affective Behavior of Infants of Mothers with Depressive Symptoms

Studies of adults and infants indicate that the left frontal brain region is specialized for approach emotions, such as joy, whereas the right frontal region is specialized for withdrawal emotions, such as distress. Furthermore, depressed adults have been found to show reduced brain activity in the left frontal region. In this study, frontal and parietal electroencephalographic (EEG) activity was recorded from 27 infants aged 11-17 months (13 of whose mothers reported elevated depressive symptoms) during baseline and emotion-eliciting conditions. Compared with infants of nonsymptomatic mothers, infants of symptomatic mothers exhibited reduced left frontal brain activity during playful interactions with their mothers and failed to exhibit the typical pattern of greater right frontal activity during a condition designed to elicit distress (maternal separation). Infants of symptomatic mothers also showed less distress during maternal separation; however, no group differences in behavior were found during the playful condition. Group differences were evident in the frontal region, but not in parietal brain activity.