The university in the 1980s: An anachronism?

The purposes of universities as traditionally defined and as specified in both the Carnegie Commission in the USA and the Loi d'Orientation de l'Enseignement Supérieur of 1968 in France, are considered in the context of the profound changes which have occurred in western industrialized societies in recent decades. Some of these changes may make it more difficult for universities to fulfull properly such traditional purposes as providing an independent critique of society's evolution, asking questions about the ways in which moral, material and technological problems are handled and the maintenance of that spirit of free enquiry which is an essential part of human freedom.This paper derives from an address given to Education Section L of the British Association meeting at the University of Lancaster in September 1976.     

Students' expectations about peer pressure to engage in misconduct.

Previous research suggests that students with learning disabilities may differ from other students in their expectations of how peers are likely to propose engaging in misconduct. This study followed up on these findings using a methodology that did not require the participants to produce their responses verbally. Participants were 74 students with learning disabilities (53 male, 21 female) and 85 students without disabilities (40 male, 45 female) from high schools in three types of communities (urban, primarily black; urban, primarily Hispanic; suburban, primarily white). The students were presented with a series of pairs of statements that might be made by a teenager trying to entice a peer into misconduct and were asked to indicate which statement in each pair was the more persuasive. The results partially replicated the earlier research. The methodological and social implications of these results are discussed.     

Moving on and Moving up: Confronting the Complexities of School Improvement in the Improving Schools Project

Despite recent advances, the research literature on school effectiveness, school improvement and educational change has relatively little to say about how schools become effective over time, and what strategies or combination of strategies work best to improve schools at different levels of effectiveness. A recent British research study – ‘The Improving Schools’ project funded by the Economic and Social Research Council – has been designed to explore these (and other) issues. This article describes the rationale for the fieldwork aspect of the project, which includes 13 secondary schools from 3 English local education authorities and presents 4 themes that have emerged from the first phase of the research that cast some light on the phenomena of the ‘improving school’. These themes – multiple starting points, the complex interactive and intuitive nature of school improvement strategies, the missing instructional level, and the importance of context – are described. The article concludes that given the non-linear and unpredictable nature of improvement seen in the case studies, schools need to become more skilled in ‘change agentry’ in order to continue to improve.     

Chapter 8

PIE-J [Presentation and Identification of E-Journals] is a set of developing National Information Standards Organization–recommended practices that tries to resolve some of the “pain points” associated with electronic journals. Regina Reynolds, at the Mississippi State University Libraries eResource & Emerging Technologies Summit in August 2012, presented these pain points and the attempts of PIE-J to overcome the obstacles.     

Assessing,Analyzing, and Adapting: Improving a Graduate Student Instruction Program Through Needs Assessment

This article highlights an assessment of library instruction needs among graduate students in the social sciences. The article addresses the development and implementation of the assessment and the application of assessment results to an established set of library instruction workshops. The article provides a detailed summary of assessment findings and a discussion of how the findings were successfully used to create a user-centered instruction program. The findings were used to make significant changes in workshop content, as well as refinements in the overall number and format of workshops offered, schedule of workshops, and marketing of the instruction program.     

Linking School Effectiveness Knowledge and School Improvement Practice: Towards a Synergy

A survey is undertaken of the ‘paradigms’ of the academic communities of school effectiveness and school improvement researchers, practitioners and scholars. It is argued that the two ‘paradigms’ are very different, and that this has hindered the improvement of educational practice. Examples are given of programmes which are a ‘blend’ of the two different approaches, and detail is given as to how the school effectiveness and school improvement communities can meet the knowledge needs necessary for improving the quality of schooling.     

School Effectiveness and Teacher Effectiveness in Mathematics: Some Preliminary Findings from the Evaluation of the Mathematics Enhancement Programme (Primary)

In this study the effect of teacher behaviours and classroom organisation on pupils' progress in mathematics was studied in years 1, 3 and 5 of primary schools in the UK participating in a mathematics intervention programme. Data on a total of 78 teachers and 2,128 pupils was collected. Teacher behaviours were measured using a classroom observation instrument developed for the project, and pupils were tested in March and July of 1998 using a curriculum-appropriate Numeracy test developed by the National Foundation for Educational Research. Background data on pupils was also collected at both testing occasions. Using multilevel modelling techniques it was found that teacher behaviours were able to explain between 60% and 100% of pupils' progress on the Numeracy tests. Amount of time spent teaching the whole class was not related directly to pupils' progress, but structural equation models were tested in which time spent teaching the whole class was found to be related to effective teaching behaviours and thus indirectly to pupil progress. The implications of the study for British educational policies and for educational research more generally are discussed.     

Dancing in the ditches: reflecting on the capacity of a university/school partnership to clarify the role of a teacher educator

This paper used the data collected from reflective diaries, semi-structured interviews and surveys to identify and examine common themes identified in the roles required and/or perceived for teacher educators by both teachers and teacher educators. Collaboration, discussion and critique enabled personal reflection as teacher educators worked as partners to schools in a state-sponsored teaching and learning skills project. We have termed the collaboration in such an interactive project as one of ‘dancing in the ditches’, often requiring both groups to get out of their comfortable spaces and engage with each other in constantly moving situations. The teacher educators were required to be change agents at the interface of theory and practice and their experiences reflected individual journeys, but their reflections have ongoing implications for clarifying and professionalising the role of teacher educators.     

Depth psychology and giftedness: Bringing soul to the field of talent development and giftedness

While the field of gifted education has relied on educational, cognitive, counseling, behavioral, developmental, and social psychology, the domain of depth psychology offers special insights into giftedness, especially with regard to individuation. The notion of passion, or the thorn (J. S. Piirto, 1999, 2002), the incurable mad spot (F. C. Reynolds 1997, 2001), the acorn (J. Hillman, 1996, 1999), the daimon (C. G. Jung, 1965); the importance of integration through the arts and through dreams; the existence of the collective unconscious; the presence of archetypes; and the transcendent psyche—all have resonance with the binary etymological idea of “gift” as both blessing and poison. Depth psychology offers a way of understanding that is physical, psychological, and spiritual.     

The World Trade Center Attacks and Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder

Reflective decision making is an important component in a teacher's professional expertise, and aptness for integrating it into professional practice can be nurtured in most teachers. This article uses vignettes from student teachers’ journals to describe four modes of thinking that can provide a useful framework for fostering growth in novice and veteran teachers’ conceptualization of reflective decision making and the ability to incorporate it into their repertoire of professional competencies.