The Media and Creativity

Sooner or later, all educational techniques are examined from the point of view of creativity. The concept of creativity is difficult to define and in the same way the examination, too, runs the risk of being too vague. With regard to the media, it is possible to perform a more modest examination of the situation of the receiver, according to the indices of his passivity or his activity.     

Gender Differences in Faculty Member Job Satisfaction: Equity Forestalled?

Guided by Hagedorn’s (2000) theory of faculty job satisfaction, mindful of social and organizational structures of higher education, and acknowledging recent changes in the academic labor market, this study examines satisfaction for approximately 30,000 tenured and tenure-track faculty members in 100 US colleges and universities. Findings revealed similarity between female and male faculty members in some aspects of work satisfaction, but difference in other areas in which women reported lower satisfaction. Findings also revealed that perceptions of department fit, recognition, work role balance, and mentoring are more important to women faculty’s satisfaction than male peers. Implications for policy and practice are discussed.     

Taking the Scientist’s Perspective

The Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS Lead States 2013) mandates that schools provide students an understanding of the skills and knowledge that scientists use to engage in scientific practices. In this article, I argue that one of the best ways to accomplish this goal is to have students take the perspective of the scientist by reading nonfiction narratives written by scientists and science writers. I explore the anthropological and neurological evidence that suggests that perspective-taking is an essential component in the learning process. It has been shown that by around age 4, the human child begins to be able to take the perspective of others—a process that neuroscientists have shown engages episodic memory, a memory type that some neurocognitive scientists believe is central in organizing human cognition. Neuroscientists have shown that the brain regions in which episodic memory resides undergo pronounced anatomical changes during adolescence, suggesting that perspective-taking assumes an even greater role in cognition during adolescence and young adulthood. Moreover, I argue that the practice of science itself is narrative in nature. With each new observation and experiment, the scientist is acting to reveal an emerging story. It is the story-like nature of science that motivates the scientist to push onward with new experiments and new observations. It is also the story-like nature of the practice of science that can potentially engage the student. The classroom studies that I review here confirm the power of the narrative in increasing students’ understanding of science.     

Crafting policies about controversial values: How wording disputes manage a group dilemma

Over a six-month time period a school board and its community discussed their district's strategic plan goals about diversity. This article analyzes that discussion within the practical theory frame articulated by Craig. Meeting talk and documents were analyzed to determine how the group's policy deliberation became an argument over what words to have (or avoid) in the strategic plan document. Proposals about document language were framed as technical editing, as inadvertent changing of a policy, and as wordsmithing. In addition to each frame being used, each was also challenged as to its being used to advance some group members' interests at the expense of others. Moving back and forth between using and resisting wording proposal frames, we suggest, is a reasonable way for groups to manage a dilemma they face in crafting policies about controversial, abstract issues. The paper concludes by identifying implications for dilemma theorizing and future study of groups.