Fashion in the classroom II: Instructor immediacy and attire

Results of a 2 (immediacy conditions) X 3 (attire conditions) experimental study indicated lesser effects of attire on person perceptions when studied in a live interaction context as opposed to responses to photographs, as has been typical in previous studies. Influence of attire was largely limited to ratings of instructor extroversion, while immediacy influenced perceptions of extroversion, composure, character, competence, homophily, and learning. There was no statistically significant interaction between attire and immediacy; i.e., there was no indication that strategic choice of attire bolsters student ratings of non‐immediate instructors, or that “non professional” attire hurts judgements of immediate instructors.     

Scenario planning in public libraries: a discussion

The authors explore the use of scenario planning in public libraries via a Q&A discussion. They discuss the impact of unexpected events and unwelcome trends on libraries’ future, explain the distinction between scenario work and forecasting, and outline a practical approach to devising and delivering scenario planning activities at a local library level. This discussion, which took place at Oxford University’s Said Business School on 23 August 2018, explores the use of scenario planning in public libraries.     

The Three R's: Rapport,Relationship, and Reference

In the eyes of our patrons, the success of a library transaction depends on both the accuracy of the information conveyed and the quality of the patron/staff interaction. We each experience rapport naturally many times during the day. Skills borrowed from the field of neuro-linguistic programming allow us to learn to quickly create a state of rapport with anyone we encounter. By learning to create rapport intentionally with our patrons, we can improve the quality of their library experience.     

Institutional branding: a content analysis of public service announcements from American universities

American universities receive millions of dollars worth of media exposure every year via Public Service Announcements (PSAs) broadcast during their respective school's athletic competitions. This research explores the message strategies and executional devices used by NCAA FBS (National Collegiate Athletic Association Football Bowl Subdivision) classification schools during the 2010 football season. This study is the most comprehensive content analysis of this subject matter to date. 115 PSAs were examined, representing 111 of the 120 schools which comprise this tier of American higher education institutions. 51 variables were operationalised and are detailed in this article. These variables include messaging specific to institutional communications, as well as common creative approaches used within television advertising. Findings suggest that there is indeed a ‘sea of sameness’ across these communications and that few schools are creating unique messages. This article continues the theoretical work in this field by refining extant models for communication messages employed by higher education institutions.     

Collaborative knowledge-making in the everyday practice of youth suicide prevention education

The development and implementation of a new school‐based suicide prevention education programme in one secondary school in Vancouver, British Columbia, recently provided us with an opportunity to conduct an in‐depth, qualitative case study. The purpose of our study was to deepen our understanding of how school‐based suicide prevention education programmes like this one get planned and enacted in particular, local settings. We argue that the narrow range of methodologies that have traditionally been deployed to study school‐based youth suicide prevention education programmes have hindered our ability to see the complexities and potentialities of this work. Through the presentation of a sub‐set of findings, we aim to show the possibilities for fresh thinking and contextualized understandings that a qualitative case study, informed by a constructionist methodology, invites.     

Computational support for teachers’ design thinking: its feasibility and acceptability to practitioners and institutions

A significant area of learning design research has been the development of software applications that guide teachers’ thinking as they plan, construct and revise learning events for their students. In this paper, we review conceptualisations of, and approaches to, the activity of pedagogic design and highlight the implications for the provision of computational support for this activity. We then outline different ways in which that support has been implemented in three digital tools: Phoebe, the LAMS Activity Planner and the Learning Designer. We consider the challenges to, and implications of, deploying these tools from the perspectives of three groups of stakeholders: developers, teachers and institutions. Our findings suggest that, while such tools are acceptable in principle, they face a number of technological and socio-cultural challenges to their acceptability from teachers’ perspectives and to their deployment within institutional strategies for teaching and learning in a digital age.     

New Public Management in an age of austerity: knowledge and experience in further education

This article originates in a piece of educational research into the experiences of further education (FE) student teachers in the West Midlands region of England. This cohort of students experienced significant upheaval in their college workplaces and placements during the 2010/2011 academic year. Pressures on FE funding were exacerbated by a Comprehensive Spending Review by the coalition government in late 2010 – prompted by the on-going global economic crisis. Some of the repercussions of these funding cuts for staff and students in the sector are discussed in this article, as perceived by this cohort of student teachers working in a range of FE providers across the West Midlands. Many of these repercussions can broadly be seen as an extension of existing managerialist practices, as the justification for an increasing squeeze on local resource allocation continues to be a wider appeal to global market ‘realities’. But we theorise that new public management (NPM) plays an important role in a reductive kind of knowledge production for policy-makers which fuels and legitimises on-going policy intervention, and we see this as an important shaping force in the emerging professional identity of these new teachers.     

ACT UP 25: HIV/AIDS,Archival Queers,and Mnemonic World Making

Audre Lorde's speech, “The Transformation of Silence into Language and Action, “sheds light on the margins of rhetoric in the sense of the public speech because she examines factors that may cause some people to remain silent while enabling others to speak and act. “Margins” refers both to the parameters employed for defining a practice and the relative place or value of varied activities exemplifying the practice. Lorde interweaves her commentary on the silence surrounding breast cancer with insights about silence drawn from her experiences as a member of several subordinated communities, especially as they relate to the misuse of power to silence those who are different. Her speech comments on silencing and power, sexism, verbal abuse, violence and sexualized aggression, shame, the taboo, and hostile social environments. Paradoxically, Lorde's speech is as much about the possibilities of rhetoric as its limits.     

The communal constraints on parody: The symbolic death of Joe Bob Briggs

Arguments and Addresses of Joseph H. Choate. Collected and edited by Frederick C. Hicks, LL. B., Litt. D. With a Memorial by Elihu. Boot. St. Paul: West Publishing Company, 1927. 1189 pp.

Great Speeches, by Elizabeth W. Baker. New York: Allyn and Bacon, 1927. Pp. 191 and Appendix.

The Speech Arts, by Alice Evelyn Craig. New York: The Macmillan Company, 1926. 500 pp.

The Memoirs of William Jennings Bryan. Philadelphia: Winston and Company, 1925. 556 pp.

The Growth of the Mind—An Introduction to Child‐Psychology. By Kurt Koffka. Translated by R. M. Ogden. New York: Harcourt, Brace and Company, 1924. xvi + 383 pp.

Psychology and Education, by Robert Morris Ogden. New York: Harcourt, Brace and Company, 1926. xiii + 364 pp.

Causes and Their Champions, by M. A. DeWolfe Howe. Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1926.

Trumpets of Jubilee, by Constance Mayfield Rourke. New York: Harcourt, Brace and Company, 1927.

The Pocket Oxford Dictionary, by P. G. Fowler and H. W. Fowler. American Edition, revised by George Van Santvoord. Oxford University Press, American Branch. Pp. xvi +1029.

The Romance of Words, by Ernest Weekley, M. A. New York: E. P. Dutton and Company, 1927. Pp. xi + 225.