Joint Appointments and the Professoriate: Two Houses but no Home?

Interdisciplinary work within higher education has increased significantly over past decades (Amey 2004; Creamer and Lattuca 2005). However, the professional implications of interdisciplinary research and instruction for the faculty members who engage in such academic work remain unclear. This study of science educators who hold appointments in two academic departments begins to address this empirical gap. The outcomes provide insight into the factors that influence the professional lives of these faculty members. The knowledge gained from the study will provide mentors, colleagues, and administrators insight into the challenges facing academics undertaking this work. Further, this research seeks to inform policy makers in regard to how tenure and promotion is determined for jointly appointed faculty in science education and other interdisciplinary fields.

Everything is illuminated: What big data can tell us about teacher commentary

What happens to writing instructors’ feedback when they use a common rubric and an online tool to respond to student papers in a first-year composition course at a large state university in the United States? To investigate this question, we analyze the 118,611 comments instructors made when responding to 17,433 student essays. Using concordance software to quantify teachers’ use of rubric terms, we found instructors were primarily concerned with global, substantive, higher-order concerns—such as responding to students’ rhetorical situations, use of reason, and organization—rather than lower-order concerns about grammar or formatting. Given past research has determined teachers overemphasize lower-order concerns such as grammar, mechanics, and punctuation (Connors and Lunsford, 1988, Lunsford and Lunsford, 2008, Moxley and Joseph, 1989, Moxley and Joseph, 1992, Schwartz, 1984, Sommers, 1982, Stern and Solomon, 2006), these results may suggest the possibility of a generational shift when it comes to response to student writing. Aggregating teacher commentary, student work, and peer review responses via digital tools and employing concordance software to identify big-data patterns illuminates a new assessment practice for Writing Program Administrators—the practice of Deep Assessment.     

Empowerment and relationships: A classroom model to enhance student motivation

This project focused on the goal of establishing a classroom model of motivation in which the source of student motivation is based on internal mechanisms or structures, along with the establishment of greater self-regulatory opportunities for students, and which results in greater student empowerment and motivation. One-hundred current elementary and secondary teachers and 100 university preservice teacher education students completed a 40-item Likert-type questionnaire that focused on four classroom dimensions of affirmation, rejection, student empowerment and teacher control. The results of this project suggested that, although veteran and preservice teachers agreed on the need for teacher control in the classroom, there was less agreement about their perceptions of the need to create a classroom environment of positive affirmation and student empowerment. Implications for future research and the need for creating an affirming, empowering, motivational classroom environment are discussed in light of the limitations for teachers and schools to encourage these constructs associated with recent federal legislative policies.     

Perfusion systems that minimize vascular volume fraction in engineered tissues

This study determines the optimal vascular designs for perfusing engineered tissues. Here, "optimal" describes a geometry that minimizes vascular volume fraction (the fractional volume of a tissue that is occupied by vessels) while maintaining oxygen concentration above a set threshold throughout the tissue. Computational modeling showed that optimal geometries depended on parameters that affected vascular fluid transport and oxygen consumption. Approximate analytical expressions predicted optima that agreed well with the results of modeling. Our results suggest one basis for comparing the effectiveness of designs for microvascular tissue engineering.     

Confucius Institutes and China’s soft power: practices and paradoxes

Since China’s implementation of the Confucius Institute (CI) project in 2004, most academic works have been written on its objectives, nature, features, development, problems and challenges, especially in terms of soft power projection. Though some of them could unravel the tensions and paradoxes in the CI project, there is a paucity of in-depth and focused analysis on the related issues with a more systematic framework. Utilising Tellis et al.’s tripartite taxonomy approach to power – resources, strategies and outcomes – and integrating it with Nye’s tripartite approach to exercising power – coercion, inducement and attraction – this paper aims to fill this research gap. The findings can shed light on the tensions and paradoxes in China’s development of soft power by providing a more systematic and integrated framework for analysing the dilemmas and predicaments in the exercise of its power strategies in the global age.