Against the odds: Small firms in Australia successfully introducing new technology on construction projects

The methods by which small firms overcome the disadvantages of their size to implement innovation on construction projects are examined here through five Australian case studies. It is found that such methods include working with advanced clients, prioritising relationship-building strategies and using patents to protect intellectual property. Key obstacles to innovation implementation by small firms on construction projects are found to be bias in the allocation of government business assistance and regulatory inefficiencies under federal systems of government. The study’s findings derive from a theoretical framework which emphasises firm capabilities and environment, and innovation typologies. Further research is recommended into the impact of government assistance and regulation on small innovative construction firms.     

Grandparents Speak: Museum Conversations across the Generations

Abstract The research results from the Museum Learning Collaborative (MLC) indicate that learning in museums (defined as conversational elaboration) is strongly influenced by three factors: 1) the learning environment (defined as the response to large design features); 2) conversational engagement (defined as explanatory, analytic and synthetic discussions of objects); 3) group identity (defined as knowledge, experience, and motivation). These results were consistent across different museum types and different visiting populations (Leinhardt and Knutson 2004). This case study uses the experiences and conversations of one group—four members of an intergenerational grandparent‐grandchild group—and one dimension of the model: identity. It examines how this particular group of grandparents used the museum setting to take on diverse roles in ways that reflected identities: the role of storyteller (a sharer of information and family knowledge); the role of playmate (a learner and teacher who can enjoy an environment); the role of modeler of caring social interactions (a harmonizer who can experience conversational coherence and dissonance with grace). The conversational segments reproduced here are a means of unpacking the MLC model and exploring the discourse behaviors of this particularly interesting group.     

The Role of Living–Learning Programs in Women’s Plans to Attend Graduate School in STEM Fields

This paper examines the role of living–learning (L/L) programs in undergraduate women’s plans to attend graduate school in STEM fields. Using data from the 2004–2007 National Study of Living Learning Programs (NSLLP), the only existing multi-institutional, longitudinal dataset examining L/L program outcomes, the findings show that women’s participation in women-only STEM-focused L/L programs is positively associated with STEM graduate school aspirations, in comparison to residing in co-educational STEM L/L programs, all other L/L programs, and traditional residence halls. Socially supportive residence hall climates and women’s self-assessments as performing better than men in STEM contexts were also positively associated with STEM graduate school plans, while academically supportive residence hall climates and visiting the work setting of a STEM professional held negative relationships with the outcome. Implications are discussed for L/L programs and the utility of women-only programming within coeducational institutions of higher education.     

Progressive Presentations of Place-Based Identities in Meg Rosoff’s How I Live Now

This article provides a close reading of Meg Rosoff’s award-winning novel How I Live Now. It argues that an understanding of the text can be extended through an application of ideas found in contemporary spatial discourse concerning place. Reading the novel within this context allows a discussion of ways in which it draws on established traditions within children’s literature, but also of ways in which it challenges a view of place-based identities, and the social relations inherent within those, as being nostalgic and fixed. Whilst not unique in this respect, How I Live Now offers a particularly strong challenge to conceptions of place as being rooted in stability, a challenge which is pertinent to young readers negotiating postmodern contexts, and which offers them an optimistic and progressive consideration of place. The novel draws on some literary traditions which could be viewed as nostalgic—the imagined rural idyll, the country house and garden, the escape from the city—but Rosoff offers a subtle subversion of these traditions through her progressive consideration of place-based identities.     

An Approach to Economic Evaluation in Undergraduate Anatomy Education

Medical education research is becoming increasingly concerned with the value (defined as “educational outcomes per dollar spent”) of different teaching approaches. However, the financial costs of various approaches to teaching anatomy are under-researched, making evidence-based comparisons of the value of different teaching approaches impossible. Therefore, the aims of this study were to report the cost of six popular anatomy teaching methods through a specific, yet generalizable approach, and to demonstrate a process in which these results can be used in conjunction with existing effectiveness data to undertake an economic evaluation. A cost analysis was conducted to report the direct and indirect costs of six anatomy teaching methods, using an established approach to cost-reporting. The financial information was then combined with previously published information about the effectiveness of these six teaching methods in increasing anatomy knowledge, thereby demonstrating how estimations of value can be made. Dissection was reported as the most expensive teaching approach and computer aided instruction/learning (CAI/L) was the least, based on an estimation of total cost per student per year and assuming a student cohort size of just over 1,000 (the United Kingdom average). The demonstrated approach to economic evaluation suggested computer aided instruction/learning as the approach that provided the most value, in terms of education outcomes per dollar spent. The study concludes by suggesting that future medical education research should incorporate substantially greater consideration of cost, in order to draw important conclusions about value for learners.     

Material-Mind-Method: On the Teaching of Reference Incorporating Feminist Pedagogies in Reference Education

ABSTRACT

Reference education instruction is compatible with the theories and praxis of feminism. This column features key concepts in feminist theories and provides examples of how current education for future reference librarians illustrates and encompasses these theories.     

Common Core State Standards,Writing, and Students with LD: Recommendations

This article examines the Common Core State Standards as they apply to writing and students with learning disabilities (LD). We first consider why the implementation of these standards is advantageous to writing instruction for students with LD as well as the challenges in implementing them. Next, we make the following four recommendations in terms of their implementation: (1) increase general and special education teachers’ knowledge about writing development; (2) create a writing environment in which students with LD can thrive; (3) employ evidence‐based writing practices in general education classes (where most students with LD are taught); and (4) use evidence‐based writing practices effective with students with LD. We conclude by considering research that still needs to be undertaken to help educators maximize the probability that students with and without LD meet the writing benchmarks proposed in these Standards.     

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.