College Student Access: How Articulation Agreements Support Rural Students

Students from rural areas face additional burdens, such as affordability, academic preparation, and lack of college-going resources that make seeking, enrolling, and attending college more difficult. Community colleges offer hope to achieve a college degree for many rural students, and well-developed articulation agreements can be one way of improving access for these students.     

Public access to congressional records: Present policy and reform considerations

While the records of the Senate and House of Representatives are among the most valuable sources of information for enhancing public knowledge of congressional operations and decisions, they largely have not been available for examination unless they have been distributed as an official publication. Some have suggested that this situation could be rectified by making Congress subject to the requirements of the Freedom of Information Act. There are, however, both constitutional and practical problems in this approach. Nonetheless, there are those within the two Houses who are aware of the need for reform in this area, and efforts have been made to modify archival policies. Arguably, both citizens and legislators can benefit from improved records access arrangements.     

A Schooling in English

John Dixon's Growth Through English was a seminal text in the development of NATE and a major influence on a whole generation of teachers. In his new book A Schooling in English² , to be published later this year, he traces some of the historical developments which led up to that point, a series of ideological and institutional struggles that are still continuing. We are pleased to publish here a brief synopsis, written for the UEA Language and Literacy Convention in April, together with a review of the book itself.     

Assessment for learning: a catalyst for student self-regulation

The development of students as lifelong, self-regulating learners is a valued outcome of higher education. To this end, the current project investigated how students in an undergraduate course experienced and responded to a teaching–learning environment where they were expected to take responsibility for their learning. The pedagogic environment of this course was grounded in strategies and activities associated with assessment for learning (AfL). As such, students were expected to participate in activities that provided them with opportunities to exercise control over their learning. Data gathering comprised individual semi-structured interviews and the collection of artefacts. Findings indicated goals helped students know where they were going; exemplars provided insights into what was expected and what constituted quality work; course activities elicited evidence of learning; dialogic interactions around these generated feedback about understandings and progress; the evaluation of exemplars developed evaluative knowledge, skill and expertise; peer review and feedback provided an authentic context for evaluation and monitoring of works-in-progress. It was concluded that, while each of the AfL strategies contributed to student self-regulation, the full impact of AfL as a catalyst for self-regulated learning was realised in the cumulative and recursive effect these strategies had on students’ thinking, actions and feelings.