Lifelong Learning: An Enduring Mandate for Higher Education

Lifelong learning is not only an established psychological fact, it is a compelling political and educational slogan that appeals equally to those concerned with the fulfilment and realisation of human potential, and those who are interested in the pragmatic need to keep up with rapid social and technological change.

A number of recent discussion papers and government reports (see, e.g., Aulich, 1990; Australia Council, 1990; Butler, 1989; Dawkins, 1988; DEET, 1990; Johnson, 1990) have mentioned the concept of lifelong learning as either a cause or an effect of recommended changes in the structure, administration or policy of higher education in Australia.

The purpose of this paper is to examine lifelong learning and to distinguish it from a number of other concepts and practices with which it is frequently associated. The paper then moves on to a consideration of lifelong learning in the Australian context, and in particular in higher education. It is argued that in many instances the rhetoric has outstripped the reality. Yet there are positive signs that notwithstanding the dominant ideology of instrumentalism so prominent at present, there are many initiatives and programs which, taken together, are contributing towards the fulfilment of lifelong learning. It is concluded that Australian higher education institutions are able to realise the ideal of contributing to a learning society, while at the same time being more pragmatic and accountable in aspects of their work.     

Early Islam in British Higher Education

Abstract

In an educational environment where interest in Arabic and Islam is growing, I ask the place of revisionist/critical approaches to early Islam in Higher Education. This paper uses 15 semi-structured interviews with Lecturers in early Islam to investigate how they treat controversial subject matter in the classroom. The paper examines how the different approaches taken by lecturers are linked to different kinds of academic training, and asks what kinds of approach are suited to different student demographics. It concludes by suggesting how critical ways of teaching this subject are linked to new approaches in interfaith engagement, which acknowledge the political context for the development of Scriptures.     

MicroObservatory Net: A Network of Automated Remote Telescopes Dedicated to Educational Use

Many students have a deep interest in astronomy, but a limited opportunity to use telescopes to explore the heavens. The MicroObservatory Network of automated telescopes is designed to provide access to classroom teachers who wish their students to conduct projects over the World Wide Web. The intuitive interface makes it easy for even 10-year-olds to take pictures. Telescopes can be remotely pointed and focused: filters, field of view, and exposure times can be changed easily. Images are archived at the website, along with sample challenges and a user bulletin board, all of which encourage collaboration among schools. Wide geographic separation of instruments provides access to distant night skies during local daytime. Since first light in 1995, we have learned much about remote troubleshooting, designing for unattended use, and for acquiring the kinds of images that students desire. This network can be scaled up from its present capability of 240,000 images each year to provide telescope access for all US students with an interest in astronomy. Our WWW address is http://mo-www.harvard.edu/MicroObservatory/     

Keeping Secrets: ESP/LSP and the sociology of knowledge

Summary This article examines the notions of ‘specialisation’ or ‘specificity’ as they are used in expressions such as ‘English for special purposes’ (ESP) or languages for specific purposes’ (LSP). It is argued that a given variety of language is not ‘special’ or ‘specific’ in some absolute or objective way, inherent to its formal structures, topics and norms. ‘Specificity’ is, rather, the result of a particular relationship between participant and discourse, between two cultures or worlds of knowledge. For these reasons, it is often not particularly helpful to attempt to describe specific varieties in terms of linguistic features. Instead, we need to situate the problem within a general theory of the sociology of knowledge by asking fundamental questions such as ‘Specialised for who?’ and ‘Who knows what?’, ‘How do they acquire and use their knowledge?’. Such a theory will necessarily be both relative and social: relative to the individual and to the way in which knowledge is socially distributed. But it will also be a theory of discourse, since interactive language‐use is the principal mechanism by which individuals acquire, stock and share all knowledge, ‘specialised’ or otherwise. It is suggested that two factors need to be kept in mind by the didactician interested in LSP. First, is the discourse asymmetric?, i.e. does it assume or contain knowledge which the learner does not have? Secondly, is the discourse non‐collaborative?, i.e. one where no attempt is made to share the knowledge with uninitiated participants.     

Relative preferences for various bivalued ratio schedules

Widely cited experiments on optimal foraging have used bivalued distributions as representing environmental stochasticity, characterizing these in terms of their arithmetic means. In contrast, research on free-operant choice has established that organisms prefer variable patterns of food delivery, relative to fixed patterns with the same mean values. To explore such departures from linear averaging, specifically with respect to bivalued alternatives, pigeons were given choices between a fixed-ratio (FR) schedule of food delivery that required 15, 30, or 60 responses and bivalued variable-ratio schedules with an arithmetic mean of 60,5 or 60, A bivalued schedule of 1 and 120 was preferred almost exclusively over each of the FR values. With a bivalued schedule of 15 and 105, there was a shift of preference, most notably in the FR-15 condition, but in no case was linear averaging a good predictor of the birds’ choices. Geometric averaging fared better, but even this failed to represent the apparent salience of the minimum value of the bivalued schedule in some conditions.     

Factors influencing success in introductory college chemistry

Previous research has found a wide range of predictors of student performance in introductory college chemistry. These predictors are associated with both the students' backgrounds and their high school learning experiences. The purpose of this research study was to examine the link between high school chemistry pedagogical experiences and performance in introductory college chemistry while accounting for individual educational and demographic differences. The researchers surveyed 1531 students enrolled in first‐semester introductory college chemistry courses for science and engineering majors at 12 different U.S. colleges and universities. Using multiple regression analysis, the researchers uncovered several interesting high school pedagogical experiences that appeared to be linked with varying levels of performance in college chemistry. Most notably, the researchers found that repeating chemistry labs for understanding was associated with higher student grades, whereas overemphasis on lab procedure in high school chemistry was associated with lower grades in college. These results suggest that high school teachers' pedagogical choices may have a link to future student performance. © 2005 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Res Sci Teach 42: 987–1012, 2005     

New settings and changing norms for principal development

During the 1980s, the field of professional development for school leaders expanded in numerous respects: raw enrollment figures, intensity and breadth of participation, types and number of in-service providers, approaches to program governance, variety of curricular and instructional approaches. Previous analyses have compared this new inservice movement with traditional efforts to prepare school administrators. Typically these comparisons have sought to highlight differences between pre- and post-1980 development efforts, thereby unintentionally masking important organizational and programmatic differences among the emergent programs. This article focuses specifically on describing and assessing the range of variation among the predominant professional development programs born in the 1980s. We highlight divergent trends with respect to the organizational processes and program content that characterize these programs and identify their varying potential for reaching competing policy goals. Finally, we suggest implications for both policy and practice in the field of administrative development.     

Rhymes and phonemes in the common unit task: replications and implications for beginning reading

Theorists and practitioners in the field of reading development are currently debating the importance of rhymes and phonemes in beginning reading. In a recent study, Duncan, Seymour and Hill (1997) provided evidence that explicit or meta- awareness of sound is closely linked to reading strategy. Meta-awareness was measured by asking beginning readers to identify the ‘common unit’ shared by two spoken words. Results showed that meta-awareness of phonemes emerged prior to meta-awareness of rhyme, and that reading strategy followed a similar small-to-large progression. This study reports on a replication of the ‘common unit’ task which includes modifications to the original procedure (randomisation of conditions, increased practice, removal of positional references from instructions). The results confirm the pattern observed in the original study. Beginning readers learning by a mixed method can identify shared phonemes but not shared rimes in the common unit task. The implications of this and similar replications are discussed.