Staff development planning in an academic health sciences library.

OBJECTIVE: A staff development committee (SDC) was convened to implement staff development opportunities for an academic health sciences library system comprised of three separate facilities. The charge for the SDC was to: (1) develop programs to enhance workplace skills and personal growth, (2) communicate the availability of existing programs at the university and medical center, and (3) encourage the staff to participate in these opportunities. PROGRAM: The committee created goals and objectives and developed a survey designed to give staff the opportunity to provide input for this initiative. With an 80% response rate, the survey results were used to plan 15 events based on staff needs and preferences. First-year attendance for SDC-sponsored events was 459. Committee members served as liaisons for each event. Two forms were developed to facilitate event planning. A monthly announcement sheet, email reminders, and the library's local area network are used to communicate upcoming SDC events and encourage attendance. CONCLUSION: This approach can serve as a useful model for similar program planning in any organization.     

A model to explain information seeking behaviour by individuals in the response phase of a disaster

This Australian study establishes a model that provides a foundation for communication channels and tools selection by agencies in the post-warning response phase of a disaster. The model, developed from disaster and information seeking literature, attempts to predict information source and channel selection by people after their community has received a warning for a disaster. It provides the coding framework for analysis of 51 semi-structured interviews with disaster-affected Australians. The interviews tested the model for accommodation of channels and sources that people chose, found most useful, and used most in bushfire, slow flood, flash flood, and cyclone situations. The order of initial sources was investigated and preliminary information seeking pathways established across disaster types. The disaster information seeking model supports this investigation of information seeking behaviour, though improvements are suggested. The resulting model could guide agency response communication for different disaster types.     

The deployment,training and teacher relationships of teaching assistants supporting pupils with autistic spectrum disorders (ASD) in mainstream secondary schools

Growing numbers of pupils with autistic spectrum disorders (ASD) are attending mainstream schools, and increasing numbers of additional staff are being deployed to support them. Recent research has cast doubt on the effectiveness of this support, by highlighting issues relating to deployment and training, and to relationships with class teachers. This study, conducted by Wendy Symes, who is a Research Associate at the University of Manchester, and Neil Humphrey, who is Professor of Education in the same university, interviewed 15 teaching assistants supporting pupils with ASD in four mainstream secondary schools in the north‐west of England to explore these issues. Analysis yielded several key findings. The majority of teaching assistants worked with just one pupil at a time and worked in a variety of lessons. Their role primarily involved helping pupils to stay focused and follow instructions. Many teaching assistants had no experience of ASD prior to starting their job. The amount of training received varied, but all felt that generic training about ASD was not helpful. A lack of time for joint planning with teachers was raised as a key concern. These findings are discussed in relation to the growing literature on inclusive education for pupils with ASD.     

Restorative Practice in New Zealand Schools: Social development through relational justice

This article proposes that restorative justice practices (RJPs), as used in New Zealand schools, are better understood as an instrument of social development than a behaviour management practice. Concerns about the achievement of Māori students are relocated, from an individualised psychological and pedagogical problem to an interdisciplinary context of historical and social development. Social constructionist theory is suggested as a lens through which RJPs in schools may be seen as the intentional production of respectful social relationships, rather than as behaviour management. A restorative process has the productive capacity to restore healthy relational functioning, both for those who have been offended against and those who have offended. It is argued that the primary function of restorative justice in schools is not about resolving specific conflicts, but rather, about the production and maintenance of respectful relationship, which is the antithesis of colonised relationship. Such a position reflects accountability on a communal, rather than individualised basis, and accords with recent moves in the United Nations Development Programme to look at Human Development as building agentive capacity.     

Teacher Beliefs in Action: A Cross-Sectional,Longitudinal Follow-Up Study of Teachers' Personal Practical Theories

Based on a cross-sectional, longitudinal follow-up study of graduates from our master's-level elementary education program, in this article we examined changes in espoused beliefs elicited in the form of personal practical theories (PPTs) of three graduates with 2, 4, and 6 years of experience teaching in the same partnership school where they did their student teaching. We compared their original PPTs collected during their teacher education program with their current PPTs elicited in follow-up interviews, and then observed their classroom practices. Case summaries of these teachers are presented, and analysis and implications focus on changes in their PPTs, how their PPTs played out in their classrooms, and perceived barriers and supports to enacting their beliefs.     

Floating collection in an academic library: An audacious experiment that succeeded

Can a floating collection thrive in a large multicampus academic research library? Floating collections have been successful in public libraries for some time, but it is uncommon for academic libraries and unheard of for a large academic library system. This article will discuss the investigation into the feasibility of a floating collection at Penn State University Libraries, its implementation, and continuation for a period covering 2009 through 2015. Attaining the floating collection, limited to monographs in the general stacks of campus libraries, proved to be easier to implement than imagined and resulted in unintended benefits as well as some surprises.