Serving the distant student: Implications for external degree programming

The results of a questionnaire survey of 132 students enrolled in the University Without Walls (UWW) program at the University of Minnesota regarding how they assessed their UWW experience in general and the services provided by faculty in particular is presented. Readers will find a special focus on how local students who reside within commuting distance to campus compare with students who live a distance from campus. Comparisons are made in terms of students' frequency and mode of communication with faculty, general satisfaction with UWW, and satisfaction with faculty services. The majority of students responded favorably to the faculty with whom they worked. Implications of the study are considered for enhancing educational services for distant students.     

Letter writing instruction for children: Case-sensitive letter frequencies in children’s handwriting workbooks

Reading and Writing - Children’s ability to write letters automatically has been linked to academic achievement. Despite the importance of handwriting, handwriting instruction is often...     

The failure of progressive paradigm reversal

The student-centred, progressive paradigm has not had sustained success in changing teacher-centred, formalistic practices in ‘developing’ country classrooms. Does ‘Gestalt-switch’ and paradigm reversal demonstrate that progressive theory has realigned with formalistic reality, or has it remained axiomatic in the research and evaluation literature? This review classifies the literature about progressive reforms into six types of findings from positive to negative. Claims for progressive successes are embedded in widespread validity, reliability, generalisability and relevance limitations. Different approaches to culture exist, while migrating definitions of child- and learner-centred education indicate semantic confusion and cognitive dissonance. Axiomatic assumptions about progressivism continue, while there is little indication of Gestalt-switch or paradigm reversal. Thus, formalism should replace progressivism as the primary frame of reference for classroom change in contexts where it is appropriate. Meanwhile, the progressive paradigm has become a heavily distorted ahistorical cage showing classic symptoms of resistance to intellectual change.     

Shaping Expectations: Defining and Refining the Role of Technical Services in New Resource Rollouts

ABSTRACT

From trial to implementation, technical services staff play an important role in shaping awareness and expectations of new or updated electronic resources. With appropriate message control during the rollout process, technical services staff can positively influence understanding and awareness of resources while keeping co-workers’ and patrons’ expectations in check. At the same time, by embracing this public service role, technical services acts as a full partner with public services in mediating resources to patrons. This article explores technical services’ public-facing role by describing a protocol for managing rollouts that emphasizes timing internal and external communications, providing training and support materials, and maintaining accuracy and objectivity in all rollout communications.     

Reform must begin with K-12

This essay was originally presented as part of the panel “Can Higher Education Be Mass Education?” at “What Should a University Be?” the fourth national conference of the National Association of Scholars, held in San Francisco, 16–18 April 1993.     

Towards a Richer Conception of Vocational Preparation

This paper identifies the key assumptions underpinning current arrangements in vocational education and training (VET) in the UK. These assumptions, and the idea of vocational capability they denote, are rejected in favour of a more coherent conception—a conception centred not on the traditional dichotomy of 'knowing how-knowing that' but on what I refer to as the 'constitutive understandings' from which both practical and theoretical capabilities can be seen to derive. It is argued that an account of vocational capability in these terms suggests a far richer conception of vocational preparation than current arrangements are able to admit.     

``Who are the actors in the government of French universities? The paradoxal victory of deliberative leadership.'

Empirical research of the C.S.O. on highereducation in the eighties showed that thecapacity of French universities for collectivedecision was very weak. Since that time, legislators have attempted toreinforce universities autonomy by creatingexecutive boards whose capacity forconstructing university policies is nowindisputable. The analysis focuses on thefollowing issue: what are the consequences ofthe strengthening of central management on thebalance of powers between executive boards,faculties, and democratic elected assemblies?     

New Learning Environments and Constructivism: The Students’ Perspective

Research into students’ perceptions of their learning environments reveals the impact of these perceptions on the way students cope with these learning environments. Consequently, students’ perceptions affect the results of their learning. This study aims to investigate whether students in a new learning environment (NLE) perceive it to be more constructivist when compared with the perceptions students have of a conventional lecture-based environment. Using a questionnaire consisting of seven key factors of constructivist learning environments, the results show that students in the NLE perceive it to be more constructivist when compared to the perceptions of students in a conventional lecture-based environment. The difference was statistically significant for four of the seven factors. According to the effect size, as measured by the d-index, the difference in perception between the two groups was greatest for the factor ‘conceptual conflicts and dilemmas’. in final form: 31 May 2005     

Transfer of a taste aversion from food to water under various states of deprivation

The importance of ingestive contexts (feeding and drinking) and deprivation states to rats’ transfer of a taste aversion were examined, In Experiments 1 and 2, rats were trained with novel saccharin-treated foods while either food deprived or food and water deprived, They were then tested with a 1,0% saccharin solution while either water deprived or food and water deprived, Comparable aversions to the solution were displayed regardless of deprivation states, Two further experiments examined transfer to a .1% saccharin solution in conjunction with deprivation state change, When both stimulus properties and deprivation were widely discrepant from training to test, reduced transfer was noted. The results suggest that stimulus similarity was a stronger controlling variable than deprivation state similarity in facilitating the transfer of an aversion from a feeding context to a drinking context, The results were viewed as being consistent with the known parameters affecting generalization gradients.     

The role of personal practice theories in the professional development of a beginning high school chemistry teacher

The notion of deliberated teacher reflection as a means of improving professional teaching practice has become one of the most pervasive concepts to influence science teacher education during the past decade. In this case study, we use the notion of teacher reflection and Lytle and Cochran‐Smith's ( 1990 ) typology of teacher research to examine the relationships between a beginning high school chemistry teacher's articulated personal practice theories and his actions as demonstrated by his curricular decisions and instructional practices. In so doing, we describe the ways in which the formal articulations of this teacher's personal practice theories lent themselves to his development as a teacher/researcher and propose this development as a useful model of science teacher practitioner professionalism. © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. J Res Sci Teach 38: 408–441, 2001