Using Virtual Field Trips to Connect Students with University Scientists: Core Elements and Evaluation of zipTrips?

Physical field trips to scientists?? work places have been shown to enhance student perceptions of science, scientists and science careers. Although virtual field trips (VFTs) have emerged as viable alternatives (or supplements) to traditional physical fieldtrips, little is known about the potential of virtual field trips to provide the same or similar science career exploration advantages as physical field trips. The overarching goal of this paper is to describe a VFT, zipTrips?, designed to provide middle school students, especially those in resource limited rural areas, with access to university scientists. Using zipTrips as a case example, the paper identifies and describes some of the core characteristics and elements of high quality authentic VFTs that foster student-scientist interactions. In addition, the paper uses program evaluation data to examine the impact of zipTrips on student perceptions of scientists.     

Te Wero—the challenge: reimagining universities from an indigenous world view

This paper provides a foundational framework to bring into conversation indigenous world views in reimagining universities. Highlighting a specific indigenous world view, the university is presented as a site for critical conversation and transformative praxis. We discuss the workplace experiences of indigenous staff in a university and infer from these how management practices related to indigenous staff could be enhanced. Building on our study of Māori academic and administrative staff in a New Zealand university, an indigenous typology and a Wero or challenge matrix is offered, which locates different positions and actions that universities adhere to or seek to emulate. The paper argues for universities to reimagine their policies and practices by drawing from the complex richness of indigenous world views.     

Trans-nationalization of educational policy making: from European innovation projects in adult education to an emerging European space for lifelong learning: what model for the European vocational education and training policy?

This article is drawn from broader qualitative research on innovation in the field of professional adult training within the framework of European pilot projects such as the LEONARDO projects. This research aims at contributing to a general understanding of the phenomenon of innovation, in the context of European calls for projects, as an instrument of the European Vocational Education and Training (VET) Policy, which is supposed to transform the national training systems of EU member states according to the Lisbon Strategy. For this article, the author has chosen to present some of the results of the analysis of the European VET Policy and its transition to a lifelong learning policy. The first part of this article describes the conceptual framework and more especially three of the main concepts examined: public policy, social innovation and European space. The second part distinguishes three periods in the European VET policy’s history, identified through a genealogical examination from its first step within the European Coal and Steel Community to the present lifelong learning policy. The third part highlights the specificity of this supranational public policy model and the links between the European VET policy, the LEONARDO programme and the pilot projects. In conclusion, this article supports the idea of antagonistic logics in the evolution of this policy, on at least three levels: decision-making powers, conception of VET systems and conception of learning.     

Philosophy and Education: a personal retrospective

This article reports a follow‐up study of students who had failed or had not completed the first year of an Advanced General National Vocational Qualification (GNVQ‐‐an academic qualification with a vocational focus intended mainly for 16‐18 year‐olds) in Business Studies in 1995‐96. Failure is usually attributed to student deficiency or deficient course‐related factors. Yet student accountability assumes capability, understanding and lack of coercion in making choices. In the present research these assumptions were critically examined and found misleading. The students’ career histories since the end of the course first year are sketched and the way in which the subjects made sense of their decisions and experience is reported. It is argued that simple ideas of choice, while supporting assignment of blame to failing students and exonerating their institutions, do not illuminate factors involved in making poor choices, or the way in which students who are ‘at risk’ can be supported.     

Recorded Student Interviews in Improving Instruction

Abstract

A Valuable Resource: Key Resources on Teaching, Learning, Curriculum, and Faculty Development By Robert J. Menges and B. Claude Mathis San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1988, 406 pages, index, $35. Reviewed by Ohmer Milton

Accomplished Advocates for Change: Women in Academe: Outsiders in the Sacred Grove By Nadya Aisenberg and Mona Harrington Amherst: The University of Massachusetts Press, 1988, xii + 207 pages. Reviewed by Amy A. Kass

The Power of Scientific Thought: The Cultural Meaning of the Scientific Revolution By Margaret C. Jacob Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1988, xii + 274 pages, $29.95. Reviewed by Robert L. Spaeth     

Reprints of Interest

Parker Tyler, The Hollywood Hallucination (originally published in 1944) and The Magic and Myth of the Movies (originally published in 1947)

Jerome Agel's The Making of Kubrick's 2001 (Signet Books, $1.50)     

Practical Guides

THE ART AND SCIENCE OF RADIO, by Linda Busby and Donald Parker (Boston: Allyn and Bacon, 1984-$20.00).

ELECTRONIC ARTS OF SOUND AND LIGHT, by Ronald Pellegrino (New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold, 1983—$28.50).

TELECONFERENCING HANDBOOK: A GUIDE TO COST-EFFECTIVE COMMUNICATION, by Ellen Lazar et al. (White Plains, New York: Knowledge Industry Publications, 1983—$34.95).

THE CREATIVE CONNECTION: ADVERTISING COPYWRITING AND IDEA VISUALIZATION, by Arthur A. Winters and Shirley F. Milton (New York: Fairchild Publications, 1982—$16.50).

BROADCAST NEWSWRITING AS PROCESS and BROADCAST COPYWRITING AS PROCESS by J. Clark Weaver (New York: Longman, 1984—price not given, paper).

PUBLIC RELATIONS/PUBLICITY: A KEY LINK IN COMMUNICATIONS, by Lois Ehrenkranz and Gilbert Kahn (New York: Fairchild, 1983—$14.50).

EXPERTS IN ACTION: INSIDE PUBLIC RELATIONS, by Bill Cantor (New York: Longman, 1984—$29.95/ 14.95).     

Are first-circulation patterns for monographs in the humanities different from the sciences?

How many monographs acquired in a particular year circulate in that year? What percentage have their first circulation each successive year? Does the pattern differ for different broad subject areas, i.e., humanities, the sciences, and the social sciences? This article tests the assumption that the first-circulation pattern differs by subject. We conclude that the pattern does not differ. The finding is important for decisions about off-site storage, assessing collection development, maintaining departmental libraries, etc. Regardless of subject, if a book has not circulated at least once within a few years after acquisition, it is unlikely to find its reader.     

A Comparison of the Paris Principles and the International Cataloguing Principles

After more than forty-five years of cataloging experience with the Paris Principles and their impact on the international sharing of bibliographic data, the process of replacing them with a wider and deeper set of International Cataloguing Principles has been completed. This article compares the scope, technological context, process of decision making, conceptual framework, and amount of change involved in the adoption of the two different statements.