Developing a Mentoring Scheme in Primary Initial Teacher Education

Researchers have shown the benefits of mentoring in both personal and professional growth. It would seem that group mentoring would only enhance those benefits. This work represents a literature review of peer-reviewed articles and dissertations that contribute to the theory and research of group mentoring. This work reviews the articles that contributed to the development of group mentoring theory as well as relevant research. Four primary types of group mentoring emerge—peer group, one-to-many, many-to-one, and many-to-many. Despite over 20 years of research, significant gaps remain in the research methods, demographic focus, and fields of study. The review concludes with recommendations for future research.     

Teachers’ Perceptions of Professional Incompetence and Barriers to the Dismissal Process

The problem of teacher incompetence is a serious one, affecting large numbers of American public school students. There is a significant discrepancy between estimated rates of incompetent teachers and the number of teachers actually dismissed on grounds of incompetence. This study sought to uncover the perceptions of teachers regarding a definition of professional incompetence, strategies used with incompetent teachers, and barriers to the dismissal process, through the use of a survey with more than 200 elementary school teachers in Virginia and follow-up interviews with seven of these participants. The researcher found that teachers rated classroom behaviors to be the most important factors towards a definition of professional incompetence. The teachers involved also rated the commonness of strategies used with incompetent teachers, placing dismissal among the least common actions taken by administrators, and revealed that they believed union protection, legal and other expenses, and difficulty providing documentation prevented administrators from dismissing incompetent teachers.     

Curiosity, interest and engagement in technology-pervasive learning environments: a new research agenda

This paper identifies the need for developing new ways to study curiosity in the context of today’s pervasive technologies and unprecedented information access. Curiosity is defined in this paper in a way which incorporates the concomitant constructs of interest and engagement. A theoretical model for curiosity, interest and engagement in new media technology-pervasive learning environments is advanced, taking into consideration personal, situational and contextual factors as influencing variables. While the path associated with curiosity, interest, and engagement during learning and research has remained essentially the same, how individuals tackle research and information-seeking tasks and factors which sustain such efforts have changed. Learning modalities for promoting this theoretical model are discussed leading to a series of recommendations for future research. This article offers a multi-lens perspective on curiosity and suggests a multi-method research agenda for validating such a perspective.     

Investigating the quality of interactions and public engagement around scientific papers on Twitter

This study explores science communication on Twitter by investigating a sample of tweets referring to academic papers in five different scientific fields. The specifications of science communicators on Twitter, the characteristics of those who initiate actions (by tweeting), the extent and quality of reactions (retweeting), individual and group interactions, and the distribution of tweets across types of engagement in the process of science communication (i.e., dissemination, consultation, and evaluation) were explored. A broad array of actors is involved in the communication of science on Twitter, with individual citizens and individual researchers playing an important role. In principle, this is promising for creating direct interaction, which can be difficult through more traditional mass media. The vast majority of communication activities regarding academic papers is undigested dissemination with almost no sign of debate, contestation, or collective reflection. Another general finding of this study is that bot accounts play a major role in the science communication landscape on Twitter.     

A Symbiosis of Access: Proliferating STEM PhD Training in the U.S. from 1920–2010

Minerva - Over the course of the 20th century, unprecedented growth in scientific discovery was fueled by broad growth in the number of university-based scientists. During this period the American...     

我院学生日常活动及膳食调查

为促进高校学生身心健康成长,随机抽取122名学生,对其进行日常活动及膳食情况的调查,结果显示,能量的消耗与摄入处于不平衡状态.对此提出了相应的对策与建议.     

A suggested approach to a library building program

The preliminary building program suggested in this paper makes use of outlines, graphs, charts, and lists, rather than long-winded paragraphs, to describe the needs, objectives, and philosophy of the library. It is hoped that a short, concise, but detailed, report using these methods will save time and make the report more attractive to read, thereby encouraging the many people who will need to assist in the building planning to use the report.