Using observational feedback to promote academic development

The purpose of this paper is to illustrate how professional consultants can use observational feedback to improve instructional effectiveness and to strengthen the academic identity of university teachers. To this end, a three-step approach is presented together with guidelines for giving feedback. A case example, based on the author's own practice, is used to highlight the complexities involved and to draw attention to the need for professionals to use their expert-power base judiciously.     

The politics of method: from leftist ethnography to educative research

In the last two decades, ethnography has become the dominant methodology of the American educational left. While debates have raged over the use of this method, for the most part they have focused on concepts of reliability and validity. Unfortunately, this emphasis has obscured the relation between method and what the researcher is trying to achieve through the method ‐ its political moment. We strive to put the political moment back in the methodological debate by considering the potential of ethnography to foster emancipatory change ‐ the express purpose of the left. Our analysis suggests that the separation of understanding and application, as well as that of the researcher from those researched, constrains the potential of ethnography to inform and foster emancipatory change.     

Boys Will Be Boys; Cows Will Be Cows: Children's Essentialist Reasoning About Gender Categories and Animal Species

Two studies ( N =  456) compared the development of concepts of animal species and human gender, using a switched-at-birth reasoning task. Younger children (5- and 6-year-olds) treated animal species and human gender as equivalent; they made similar levels of category-based inferences and endorsed similar explanations for development in these 2 domains. In contrast, 10-year-olds and adults treated gender and species concepts as distinct from one another. They viewed gender-linked behavioral properties as open to environmental influence and endorsed environment-based mechanisms to explain gender development. At all ages, children demonstrated differentiated reasoning about physical and behavioral properties, although this differentiation became more stable with age. The role of psychological essentialism in guiding conceptual development is discussed.     

The cost of it all

The price of a service or product is the actual amount paid by the consumer and reflects the cost of manufacture, distribution, and marketing, as well as the profit for each business involved. Unlike soap, child care services are usually priced below their real costs. How can providers do this and still serve their consumers?