‘Becoming and being writers’: the experiences of doctoral students in writing groups

The use of writing groups to support students undertaking post-graduate research within universities has begun to receive attention from academic supervisors and doctoral researchers. Very little has been written by doctoral students themselves on the benefits of working within such writing groups. In this article, the experiences of working within a doctoral writing group at an Australian University are presented, primarily from the perspective of students. The authors identify two main benefits they have experienced through participating in a writing group using a ‘multi-voiced’ approach. First, they discuss the kind of learning that they achieved through working in a writing group. They do this with reference to key principles of peer learning and of peer review. Second, they focus on the ways the group worked as a community of discursive social practice. An overarching message for them in participating in the group and now writing this article is the shift in their thinking and experience of writing from seeing writing as an essentially private and implicit process to writing becoming a matter of public and shared work. These two notions are bound by the concept of identity building, drawing from the literature on communities of practice.     

An experience in teaching English in china by the direct method

Democracy and Mission Education in Korea. By James Earnest Fisher. New York: Bureau of Publications, Teachers College, Columbia University, 1928. Pp. xiii +187.

Sir Henry Clinton Maps. By Randolph G. Adams. Ann Arbor: The William Clements Library, 1928. Pp. 144. Price, $1.50.

The Growth of Teachers in Service. By F. L. Whitney. The Century Co., New York, 1927. (Century Education Series.) Pp. xxxix + 308.

Essentials of Civilization. A Study in Social Values. By Thomas Jesse Jones, Educational Director, Phelps‐Stokes Fund. Henry Holt &; Co., 1929. Pp. 264. Price, $2.50.

New Civic Biology. By George William Hunter (Knox College, Galesburg, Ill). New York: American Book Co., 1926. Pp. xii + 448.

Mother Goose Book. By Emma M. Bolenius and Marion G. Kellogg. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co., 1929. Pp. 128. Price, 68 cents.

The Problem Child at Home. By Mary Buell Sayles. New York: The Commonwealth Fund Division of Publications, 1928. Pp. x + 342. Price, $1.50.

Education for World Citizenship. By William G. Carr. Stanford University: Stanford University Press, 1928. Pp. ix + 225. Price, $2.50.

School Building Programs in American Cities. By N. L. Englehaedt. New York: Bureau of Publications, Teachers College, 1928. Pp. xxv + 560. Price, $5.

Algebra for Secondary Schools. By Stephen Emery and Eva E. Jeffs. New York: D. Van Nostrand Co., Inc., 1928. Pp. xu + 626. Price, $1.85.

Laboratory Experiments in Organic Chemistry. By Roger Adams and John R. Johnson. New York: The Macmillan Co., 1928. Pp. xii + 304.

Modern Solid Geometry. By John R. Clark and Arthur S. Otis. Yonkers: World Book Co., 1928. Pp. xix + 323, 461.

Engines. By E. N. DA C. Andrade. New York: Harcourt, Brace &; Co., 1928. Pp. xvi + 267.

Testing Intelligence and Achievement. By Albert J. Levine and Louisa Marks. New York: The Macmillan Co., 1928. Pp. viii + 399. Price, $2.

The Questionnaire in Education. By Leonard V. Koos. New York: The Macmillan Co., 1928. Pp. 178.

Essays of Our Day. Edited by Bertha Evans Ward. New York: D. Appleton &; Co., 1929. Pp. xvi + 412.

The Fundamentals of Quantitative Analysis. By Walter C. Blasdales. New York: D. Van Nostrand Co., Inc., 1928. Pp. vi + 403. Price, $3.75.

Short Plays from Great Stories. By Roland English Hartley and Caroline Marguerite Power. New York: The Macmillan Co., 1928. Pp. xiv + 238.

College Algebra. By Bolling H. Crenshaw and Duncan C. Harkin. Philadelphia: P. Blakiston's Son &; Co., 1929. Pp. xiii + 224. Price, $1.75.

Short Course in Spherical Trigonometry. By Pauline Sperry. Richmond: Johnson Publishing Co., 1928. Pp. xii + 60. Price, $1.

The Child‐Centered School. By Harold Rugg and Ann Shumaker. Yonkers: World Book Co., 1928. Pp. xiv + 359.

The Fundamental Skills of Algebra. By John P. Everett. New York: Teachers College, Columbia University, 1928. Pp. 109.

The National Council of Teachers of Mathematics. Fourth Yearbook. New York: Bureau of Publications, Teachers College, 1929. Pp. x+ 186.

Capri‐Erinnerungen. By Paul Heyse and August Kopisch. New York: F. S. Crofts &; Co., 1929. Pp. xviii + 163.

The Southwest in Literature. Edited by Mabel Major and Rebecca W. Smith. New York: The Macmillan Co., 1929. Pp. xvii + 370.

Great English Plays. A Panorama of the English Drama from the Fourteenth to the Nineteenth Centuries in a Sequence of Twenty‐six Complete Plays. Edited by H. F. Rubinstein. New York: Harper &; Brothers, 1928. Pp. 1152. Price, $2.50.

Plane Geometry. By Joseph A. Nyberg. New York: American Book Co., 1929. Pp. viii + 292. Price, $1.24.

Two Essays of Lowell. By Tucker Brooke. New York: Henry Holt &; Co., 1927. Pp. xxxi +121.

Teaching Health in Fargo. By Maude A. Brown. New York: The Commonwealth Fund Division of Publications, 1929. Pp. xiv + 142. Price, $1.50.     

Korean mature women students’ various subjectivities in relation to their motivation for higher education: generational differences amongst women

This qualitative case study attempts to conceptualize certain ‘patterns’ and ‘processes’ of which 28 mature women undergraduates give meanings to their motivation for higher education in their life contexts. Particular attention has been paid to include diverse groups of women according to their age, prior educational background, marital and occupational status. This was to seek for possibilities of differences amongst the mature women undergraduates, which is a scholarly neglected issue in the existing literature. Life history interviews were conducted with individual participants aged 25–75. Based on a combination of grounded theory approach and feminist post-structuralist theory, three types of learners were identified primarily in different generation—an age cohort that shares certain experiences in common. They are younger ‘careerist learners’, ‘personal growth learners’ and older ‘vicarious living learners’. Although the motivations for these three types of learners overlap to some extent, they disclose distinct gendered subjectivities. The analysis suggests that this partly reflects the historical dynamics of gender relations in Korean society. Drawing on empirical findings, this paper argues that more attention needs to be paid to diversities among mature women students and to socio-historical contexts under which those learners’ motivations and perspectives are constructed.     

Developmental Changes in Executive Functioning

Although early studies of executive functioning in children supported Miyake et al.'s (2000) three‐factor model, more recent findings supported a variety of undifferentiated or two‐factor structures. Using a cohort‐sequential design, this study examined whether there were age‐related differences in the structure of executive functioning among 6‐ to 15‐year‐olds (N = 688). Children were tested annually on tasks designed to measure updating and working memory, inhibition, and switch efficiency. There was substantial task‐based variation in developmental patterns on the various tasks. Confirmatory factor analyses and tests for longitudinal factorial invariance showed that data from the 5‐ to 13‐year‐olds conformed to a two‐factor structure. For the 15‐year‐olds, a well‐separated three‐factor structure was found.     

Imitative Youth (Russian and American Youth Movements)

Through a leadership for learning approach, a school–university partnership in a large, urban district was able to recruit, develop, and retain new and existing school leaders. Two cohorts of new leaders were trained while existing leaders enhanced their skills through professional development. Data indicated that the school–university partnership increased the overall percentage of new district leaders by over 19 percent, and met or exceeded all seven of its established targets for leadership development and sustainability.