Advising time inventory: Consequences of the general college individualized baccalaureate degree program on faculty advising,activities, and academic load

Faculty of the General College are assigned advising responsibilities in addition to their teaching load. Full-time members, for example, advise 35–40 students per year. When the College initiated an individualized baccalaureate degree program in 1971, little provision was made for consequent changes on the advising function and the academic load. As a result, advisers, faced with the complex and time-consuming matters that adhere to individualized learning programs, felt mounting pressure. Large numbers of evening school students were attracted to the program and sought advice and, upon admission, expected to be assigned a faculty adviser. The College made no formal acknowledgment of the addition of the non-day school advisees to advisers' loads. Strained by the overburden, faculty participated in this study to identify how much real time they spend in advising, with whom, and on what kinds of activities. Evidence from this study was used to support their request for recognition by the College of the changed nature and full scope of their advising work.The author wishes to acknowledge Drs. Paul J. Feltovich and Thomas Brothen for their help with the researching of this paper.     

Learning How (and How Not) to Weld: Vocational Learning in Technical Vocational Education

This article focuses on vocational learning in technical vocational education in upper-secondary school, with a special focus on the object of learning to weld. A concrete teaching situation where the learning object to weld is the focus of the interaction between a vocational teacher and an upper-secondary student was documented by a video camera and then analysed from two different perspectives: a conversation analytical perspective and a variation theory perspective. The combination of the two perspectives allows a study of learning that deals with issues regarding both form and content, which may increase our understanding of vocational learning in technical vocational education in upper-secondary school.     

Designing a growth-producing environment

The purpose of this article is to describe how one university counseling center went about the process of changing its management style and subsequent service delivery. In a relatively short period of time the center went from the traditional director-staff relationship to a collective governance process. This shared governance process is based on the assumptions that the product of collective planning, shared responsibilities, and group decision making enhance morale, creativity, and productivity. As a result of the arduous tasks involved in the shift of administrative styles, the center has established group accountability, collective decision making, open communication, and total group program development. For this center's staff the transition to nonauthoritarian governance has been both stimulating and exciting. However, the process of change involves high risks, continual cooperation, and a climate of support. Without these ingredients the potential for creative management will be sharply reduced.     

Beginning literacy: links among teacher knowledge, teacher practice, and student learning

Although the importance of phonological awareness has been discussed widely in the research literature, the concept is not well understood by many classroom teachers. In the study described here, we worked with groups of kindergarten and first-grade teachers (the experimental group) during a 2-week summer institute and throughout the school year. We shared with them research about learning disabilities and effective instruction, stressing the importance of explicit instruction in phonological and orthographic awareness. We followed the experimental group and a control group into their classrooms for a year, assessing teachers' classroom practices and their students' (n = 779) learning. The study yielded three major findings: We can deepen teachers' own knowledge of the role of phonological and orthographic information in literacy instruction; teachers can use that knowledge to change classroom practice; and changes in teacher knowledge and classroom practice can improve student learning.     

Recognition and adult education: an incongruent opportunity

Building on narratives of students in adult education in Sweden, where the majority of the students are young adults, this paper argues that adult education has both negative and positive aspects in helping individuals to be recognised as valuable. Students, often part of the precariat class, have not always been able to survive in the job market and have a history of failing in upper secondary school. By drawing on the recognition theory of Axel Honneth, the results show that municipal adult education has the potential to be a transitory learning platform in which the individual can regain esteem that has been lost due to unemployment, precarious employment and failure in upper secondary school. It provides temporary stability. Yet, most students are in a sense forced to study and it is not patent that adult education can help them in their struggle for self-actualisation.     

Teachers’ Perspectives on Promoting Reading and Writing for Pupils with Various Linguistic Backgrounds in Grade 1 of Primary School

ABSTRACT

The aim of this study is to gain a deeper understanding of teachers’ perspectives on promoting reading and writing for pupils with various linguistic backgrounds in grade 1. Focus group interviews were conducted with 17 teachers who work in preschool classes and in grade 1. The teachers’ perspectives on reading and writing can be characterised as balanced, in the sense that the teachers describe how they work with both the technical and the learning-oriented dimension. The number of different languages spoken in their classes is regarded in a positive manner, but it also leads to major challenges, such as not having enough time for all of the pupils and not having sufficient knowledge of multilingualism.     

Administrative and structural changes in student evaluations of teaching and their effects on overall instructor scores

Using nine years of student evaluation of teaching (SET) data from a large US research university, we examine whether changes to the SET instrument have a substantial impact on overall instructor scores. Our study exploits four distinct natural experiments that arose when the SET instrument was changed. To maximise power, we compare the same course/instructor before and after each of the four changes occurred. We find that switching from in-class, paper course evaluations to online evaluations generates an average change of ?0.14 points on a five-point scale, or 0.25 standard deviations (SDs) in the overall instructor ratings. Changing labelling of the scale and the wording of the overall instructor question generates another decrease in the average rating: ?0.15 of a point (0.27 SDs). In contrast, extending the evaluation period to include the final examination and offering an incentive (early grade release) for completing the evaluations do not have a statistically significant effect on the overall instructor rating. The cumulative impact of these individual changes is ?0.29 points (0.52 SDs). This large decrease shows that SET scores are not comparable over time when instruments change. Therefore, administrators should measure and account for such changes when using historical benchmarks for evaluative purposes (e.g. appointments and compensation).     

日常家庭生活中父母——儿童互动对儿童数学发展的影响

本研究观察并分析了两组4岁儿童在家庭日常生活中与父母的互动及所涉及的数的学习。组1儿童为书面数符号表征高分者，组2儿童为低分者。57对儿童-父母对子参加了研究。结果表明，本研究所观察到的儿童日常活动内容丰富多样；大概有三分之一的被试对子所从事的活动涉及到不同类型的阅读和数学学习活动，但这些活动大多由父母发起；儿童早期数学发展水平可能与家庭教育的如下因素有关：家庭日常生活中父母-儿童共同活动的内容与频次，高分组儿童的父母在家中可能更加注意发起或者更加成功地发起了阅读与数学学习活动；高分组父母在与儿童互动的某些策略的运用上可能更有利于儿童的数学学习；高分组的父亲在家中可能与孩子一起参与共同活动的时间更长；高分组父母之所以更加成功地发起了与阅读和数学学习有关的活动可能与儿童本身的因素有关。     

Acquisition of three word knowledge aspects through reading

A number of studies have shown that second or foreign language learners can acquire vocabulary through reading. The aim of the study was to investigate (a) the effects of reading an authentic novel on the acquisition of 3 aspects of word knowledge: spelling, meaning, and collocation; (b) the influence of reading on the acquisition of partial and deeper knowledge of the words; and (c) the relationship between word frequency and learning gains. The results show that there was significant improvement in all three aspects of word knowledge. The measuring instrument detected greater partial than deeper knowledge gains in word meanings and collocations. The greatest learning gains in all three aspects of word knowledge were demonstrated for the words that occurred between 11 and 20 times in the text. The findings suggest that incorporation of extensive reading into language learning programs can contribute to significant improvement of learners' vocabulary knowledge.