Making More of Faculty Culture: An Experiment in Building Intellectual Community

With the increase in academic specialty,scholars and leaders have sought new ways tostrengthen intellectual community. Their strategiesinclude experimenting with organisational structuresto bring about desired change. This qualitative casestudy examines the influences of such a structure. The Luce Seminars was a programme designed to supportsustained faculty conversation across disciplines atEmory University, a research university located in theUnited States. The analysis found that key functional and symbolic aspects of the program contributed to intenseparticipant involvement, resulting in broadened anddeepened intellectual discourse, enhanced disciplinaryorientation, and expanded possibilities for teachingand research. The authors conclude that structuredfaculty conversation across disciplines strengtheneddimensions of faculty culture related to interactionand scholarship at the university and suggest somebroad areas for future research.     

Building a technology foundation for future teachers

It is fitting that the teachers of tomorrow are provided with the correct modeling of technology in their first education class. To separate technology from education is both impossible and foolish. The sooner college students are exposed to the latest forms of technology, the more equipped they will be to integrate these tools into their teaching strategies for the benefit of future learners.     

L’evaluation en classe: Mesure ou dialogue?

Proposals by psychologists to improve educational measurement lead to the construction of tests or of scales of development. For the assessment of pupils’ productions in the classroom, teachers seem to have other needs. Precise measurement is not required; what is wanted instead is qualitative information of a diagnostic nature, suggesting possible ways for doing remedial work. Information concerning one pupil rarely permits locating his position on a continuous scale of development, since learning does not proceed linearly. Assessment in the classroom should rather be considered as a communication process between teacher and pupils, leading after an unpredictable number of interactions, to a state of mastery of the educational objective. As experimental social psychology recently demonstrated, this mastery is not to be conceived as a personal characteristic of the pupil, but as the result of his adaptation to his social situation. Consequently, generalizing on the basis of this assessment is hazardous.     

Academic risk and resilience for children and young people in Asia

Abstract

In studies of academic resilience, researchers seek to identify factors that protect against adverse effects caused by risk and stress, and which ultimately assist students to be academically successful. However, because relatively few studies are conducted in Asian settings, Western-based research may have limited application for policy and prevention in the Asian context. It is therefore important to expand the context and culture in which resilience research takes place. This paper highlights academic resilience factors among Asian students that are located in the multiple levels of the social ecology (including individual, peers, family and school). This is consistent with results from the Western context. However, it also reports on some differences in academic resilience factors that are found both within Asian countries and between Asian and Western countries. From these results, we might thus conclude that alongside pan-human factors, Asian students’ academic success can also be considered in part due to uniquely Asian attributes. This reaffirms the importance of considering culture and national context in studies of academic resilience. Taken as a whole, this collection of papers showcases multiple approaches to building academic resilience and empowering students and their educators and caregivers across the Asian region.     

Information world mapping: A participatory arts-based elicitation method for information behavior interviews

Participatory, arts-based methods generate rich data with which researchers can explore information behavior in context, and may be particularly apt when engaging with youth or participants with low literacy levels. Information world mapping (IWM) is an innovative and interactive drawing-based interview technique for data elicitation. Initially developed for use in a study of young parents’ health information practices, IWM guides participants in depicting their personal social information worlds, including items, places, and relationships. Maps are then used to facilitate critical incident elicitation of participants' stories about, and interpretations of, their information practices. Within the young parent study, three styles of map were commonly seen: the directional map, the mind map, and the symbolic map. Use of IWM requires time and ethical care, but the method enables researchers to center participants’ own perspectives on information practices, triangulate data obtained via more traditional methods, and enrich understanding of social information worlds.     

Psychosomatic interactions

The cure of many diseases is unknown to the physicians of Hellas, because they disregard the whole, which ought to be studied also, for the part can never be well unless the whole is well. (Plato, in his dialogue Charmides).The links between mind and body — the psyche and the some — have long been recognised. Current research has focussed on their interaction and interdependence.This gives rise to the need for counsellors and physicians to study the compartmentalised and separate services that they provide. If they believe in the concept of the treatment of the whole person — holistic medicine — it behoves them to examine their own interactions and interdependence.The Author examines these issues and looks at the need for a change in attitude among professionals and a change in the curriculum of medical schools and counsellor training which could result in fundamental changes in Health Service provision.