Meeting the growing demand for sustainability-focused management education: a case study of a PRME academic institution

The current business landscape has created the impetus to develop management graduates with capabilities that foster responsible leadership and sustainability. Through the lens of Gitsham's 3C Model (Complexity, Context and Connection) of graduate capabilities, this paper discusses the experience of implementing the United Nations Principles for Responsible Management Education (UNPRME) at the Graduate School of Management, La Trobe University Australia. The case highlights that universities should use both a top-down and bottom-up approach, engaging students in the implementation process. The analysis also shows that educational institutions face similar challenges to business organizations in terms of resource limitations, inertia and resistance to change. While significant inroads have been made at the course and discipline level, more work needs to be done. The use of the UNPRME as a guide for delivering sustainability-focused management education has provided an opportunity to structure the change process and to provide support through partnerships.     

Factors Influencing Science Content Accuracy in Elementary Inquiry Science Lessons

Elementary teachers face increasing demands to engage children in authentic science process and argument while simultaneously preparing them with knowledge of science facts, vocabulary, and concepts. This reform is particularly challenging due to concerns that elementary teachers lack adequate science background to teach science accurately. This study examined 81 in-classroom inquiry science lessons for preservice education majors and their cooperating teachers to determine the accuracy of the science content delivered in elementary classrooms. Our results showed that 74 % of experienced teachers and 50 % of student teachers presented science lessons with greater than 90 % accuracy. Eleven of the 81 lessons (9 preservice, 2 cooperating teachers) failed to deliver accurate science content to the class. Science content accuracy was highly correlated with the use of kit-based resources supported with professional development, a preference for teaching science, and grade level. There was no correlation between the accuracy of science content and some common measures of teacher content knowledge (i.e., number of college science courses, science grades, or scores on a general science content test). Our study concluded that when provided with high quality curricular materials and targeted professional development, elementary teachers learn needed science content and present it accurately to their students.     

Transactivism and Postmodernity: An Agonistic Analysis of Transliterature

Combining scholarship on hurtful messages with research on humor as a communication strategy, this investigation compared humorously and non‐humorously phrased comments that hurt recipients’ feelings. The topics of hurtful messages, the relationship between recipients and the person who hurt their feelings, as well as recipients’ perceptions about the amount of hurt elicited and about the speaker's intentions and feelings were examined. The results indicated that humorous messages used to convey hurtful information were seen as less intentionally hurtful, as expressing less intense feelings across most message topics, and as causing less hurt as compared to non‐humorously phrased comments. These findings suggest that incorporating humor may make hurt‐evoking statements more palatable to recipients than non‐humorously phrased hurtful comments. The implications of this project for future research on hurtful communication and humor usage in personal relationships are discussed.     

The Function of Parental Communication Patterns: Reflection-Enhancing and Reflection-Discouraging Approaches

This study explored patterns and effects of communication apprehension and classroom apprehension in Nigerian classrooms. Significant correlation was found between student communication apprehension and student classroom apprehension. Analysis of variance revealed significant differences in classroom apprehension by class type, but no significant differences in communication apprehension by choice of occupation. Perceptions of academic performance were negatively associated with classroom apprehension scores.     

The Influence of Parodies on Mental Models: Exploring the Tina Fey–Sarah Palin Phenomenon

During the 2008 presidential campaign season, Tina Fey's timely impersonations of Sarah Palin on Saturday Night Live attracted overwhelming attention, both on television and online. Throughout the campaign, press buzzed about a possible “Fey Effect”: a negative impact of Fey's impersonations on Palin's favorability ratings and a subsequent decline in the GOP ticket. The current study seeks to test for this effect by measuring if Fey's impersonations of Palin rendered caricatured traits more salient in viewers' mental constructions of the candidate, namely character traits central to the Fey impersonation, including issues of intelligence, competence, experience and the Governor's rural background. Findings show that exposure to both the interview and its parody cause viewers to devote more cognitive attention to Palin's intelligence, competence and experience. In addition, the SNL parody is unique in its influence in rendering rural traits more salient in associations with Palin. Ultimately, this research finds that the agency of influence rests in the real Palin, allowing us to establish evidence of a “Palin Effect.”     

Using Blackboard and Skype for Mentoring Beginning Teachers

Abstract

The purpose of this article is to examine the nature of the Blackboard and Skype-based electronic mentoring system for beginning teachers. The Quality Teachers for Quality Students project developed an electronic mentoring system between beginning teachers and experienced teachers to support beginning teachers' instructional and classroom management skills with regard to the unique needs of English language learners (ELLs) in Southern California. The data analysis indicated that the combination of using Blackboard and Skype tools was beneficial to beginning teachers' effective teaching of ELLs.     

Dispositional Statements on Student Teacher Evaluation Instruments: Commonalities Across Institutions

The purpose of this study was to investigate summative student teacher evaluation instruments to determine the most common dispositions evaluated by teacher preparatory programs. Thirty-two (32) final student teaching instruments were purposely selected from across the United States and examined. Thirteen disposition categories emerged from the data: (a) Acceptance of Criticism, (b) Critical Thinking, (c) Enthusiasm, (d) Ethics, (e) Leadership, (f) Personality, (g) Professional Growth, (h) Reflectivity, (i) Relationships, (j) Respect for Learner, (k) Self-confidence, (l) Service to Student, School and Community, and (m) Work Habits. Although there was no consensus as to specific behaviors or characteristics that were evaluated, three themed areas were found that were common across evaluation instruments: Professional Behaviors, Professional Ways of Thinking, and Personality Characteristics.     

Exploring Relational Communication Patterns in Prereferral Intervention Teams

The purpose of this research was to understand the relational communication patterns that characterize school-based prereferral intervention teams (PITs). Fifteen PIT meetings were used as the basis for analyses, with each meeting audiotaped, transcribed, and coded using the Family Relational Communication Control Coding System (Heatherington & Friedlander, 1987 Heatherington, L. and Friedlander, M. L. 1987. Family relational communication control coding system manual. (Available from Laurie Heatherington, Psychology Department, Williams College, Williamstown, MA 01267.) [Google Scholar]). Additionally, the PIT Meeting Evaluation Coding Form was used to assess each meeting's adherence to a traditional problem-solving framework. Important results included (a) relatively consistent domineeringness (i.e., attempted influence) scores across participants, with the exception of the referring teacher; (b) relatively consistent dominance (i.e., successful influence) scores across participants; (c) significantly greater (p < .05) domineeringness displayed by the school psychologist compared with the referring teacher; and (d) no significant differences in dominance scores between the school psychologist and teacher. In sum, this study represents an important first step in understanding communication patterns found in school-based problem-solving groups.     

Beyond Performance: A Motivational Experiences Model of Stereotype Threat

The contributing role of stereotype threat (ST) to learning and performance decrements for stigmatized students in highly evaluative situations has been vastly documented and is now widely known by educators and policy makers. However, recent research illustrates that underrepresented and stigmatized students’ academic and career motivations are influenced by ST more broadly, particularly through influences on achievement orientations, sense of belonging, and intrinsic motivation. Such a focus moves conceptualizations of ST effects in education beyond the influence on a student’s performance, skill level, and feelings of self-efficacy per se to experiencing greater belonging uncertainty and lower interest in stereotyped tasks and domains. These negative experiences are associated with important outcomes such as decreased persistence and domain identification, even among students who are high in achievement motivation. In this vein, we present and review support for the Motivational Experience Model of ST, a self-regulatory model framework for integrating research on ST, achievement goals, sense of belonging, and intrinsic motivation to make predictions for how stigmatized students’ motivational experiences are maintained or disrupted, particularly over long periods of time.