Increasing Educational Attainment and Aspiration in an Underserved Community: The Perspective of Urban-Community Leaders

Latino students are significantly underrepresented in higher education. As the largest and fastest growing racial/ethnic population in the US, this is cause for national concern. Additionally, this rapid population growth is a call for community and school leaders from underserved communities to assess their service areas and focus on interventions to increase the college-going rates of youth. Maywood is a city located in Southeast Los Angeles. Like many other urban areas, Maywood’s largely Latino population is underrepresented in higher education. This research focused on interviewing Maywood’s community and school leaders (n = 24) to gain insight into their perceptions of their role and responsibility to address issues surrounding their community’s low levels of educational attainment. A key theme emerged revealing that leaders understand their community’s educational issues but do not see their role as leaders to directly address this issue to build a college-going culture. Implications for practice in strengthening community partnerships and developing a college-going culture are provided and a series of recommendations for the creation of a college-going culture are discussed.     

Assessment and teaching of science skills: whole of programme perceptions of graduating students

This study reports on science student perceptions of their skills (scientific knowledge, oral communication, scientific writing, quantitative skills, teamwork and ethical thinking) as they approach graduation. The focus is on which teaching activities and assessment tasks over the whole programme of study students thought utilised each of the six nominated skills. In this quantitative study involving two Australian research-intensive universities, the teaching activities identified by students as developing the broadest number of skills were laboratory classes and tutorials. Lectures were only effective for developing scientific knowledge and, to a limited extent, ethical thinking. Assessment tasks that students perceived to utilise the broadest range of skills were assignments and oral presentations. The findings of this study document the students’ perspective about their gains in skill sets, and the teaching activities and assessment tasks that require them to use and thus develop these skills. The findings provide an opportunity to evaluate the constructive alignment of skills development, teaching activities and assessment tasks from a student’s perspective. Further research is required to actually measure the skills that students gain over their whole programme of study.     

Comparing Lectures: Effects of the Technological Context of the Studio

This presentation compares how lectures are being performed in different technological contexts: that of the studio, for taping of videotapes, or in front of a camera for the purpose of videoconferencing, or, for a live presentation. The different contexts will be described according to the communication theory of the German sociologist Niklas Luhmann, and contrasted with findings from contemporary research on lecturing and teacher–student interaction. The comparison between the videotaped lecture and the live lecture reveals important differences as to style of communication. The taped lectures are more stringent and content-oriented, while the live-lectures are time-consuming and more focused on establishing dialogues with students. Videoconference-lecturing contains features that place it between the live- and videotaped lecture. This paper concludes that videoconferencing is problematic with serious problems to handle for students and teachers alike.     

Building Expertise: a process perspective on the development or change of teachers’ beliefs

Based on a process perspective of expertise development, eight experienced teachers were interviewed about their beliefs about student learning, i.e. the way they developed their beliefs, and to what extent they have changed and intend to further change these beliefs. Learning or expertise development by teachers appears to be highly personalised or subjective, and rarely based on enhanced reflection. Primarily, dissatisfaction about the actual situation and, subsequently, attempts to improve that situation encourage teachers to develop or change their beliefs. As is the case with most teachers the change which occurs is gradually based on cumulative experiences, although also a radical change of beliefs on the basis of key‐experiences may not be excluded. It is predominantly personal motives which seem to determine teacher learning. It is argued that collaborative learning by teachers should be promoted in schools, though individually initiated learning by teachers may also had to improvements that can be implemented by colleagues.     

Reading for meaning: the effects of Developmental Education on reading achievements of primary school students from low SES and ethnic minority families

The appropriateness of innovative educational concepts for students from a low socioeconomic status (SES) or ethnic minority background is sometimes called into question. Disadvantaged students are supposed to benefit more from traditional approaches with Programmatic Instruction (PI). We examined Developmental Education (DE), an innovative approach, inspired by Vygotskian theory, in which reading skills are developed through meaningful reading of texts corresponding to students’ self-generated problems. The effectiveness of DE is compared to PI in terms of reading comprehension, strategy knowledge, and reading motivation of 4th-grade students; 170 students from ethnic minority or low SES background participated in a pretest-posttest natural 2-group design. Outcomes were similar in both approaches, with one exception: Students with an ethnic minority background in DE performed better on strategy knowledge than similar students in PI. These results are discussed in relation to previous studies on the appropriateness of innovative curricula for disadvantaged students.     

Professional identities and emotions of teachers in the context of curriculum reform: a Chinese perspective

This study explores the changing professional identities of teachers and their emotional experiences during curriculum reform in Shenzhen in the southern part of China. A qualitative approach to research was adopted. Findings reveal that the informants display several teaching behaviours and diverse emotions ranging from pain and helplessness, fulfilment and anxiety, and other mixed emotions. The three types of influential factors that influence teachers' professional identities are also discussed in this study.     

Photographic Albums

Walter Herdeg Photographis 77: International Annual of Advertising and Editorial Photography (New York: Hastings House, 1977—$37.50)

Louis Stettner's Weegee (New York: Knopf, 1977—$15.00)

Shadow of Light: Photographs by Bill Brandt (New York: Da Capo Press, 1977—$14.50, paper)

Helmut Newton's White Women (New York: Stonehill, 1976—$25.00)

Roswell Angier's “...A Kind of Life,” Conversations in the Combat Zone (Danbury, N.H.: Addison House, 1976—$15.00)

Yvonne Kalmus, Rikki Ripp and Cheryl Wiesenfeld, eds. Women See Men (New York: McGraw- Hill, 1977.412.95/7.95)

Lew Thomas and Donna-Lee Phillips' Photography and Language (San Francisco: Camerawork Press, 1976—$6.95, paper)

Linda McCartney's Linda's Pictures: A Collection of Photographs (new York: Knopf, 1976-425.00, with a paperback edition now also available)     

Curriculum development for teacher education in the Southern Philippines: A simultaneous process of professional learning and syllabus enhancement

This paper reflects on the process of curriculum development in 21 tertiary education institutions in the Southern Philippines. Assisting capacity-building of the teaching profession is an ongoing need in developing countries, but rarely does it extend to pre-service education. In this study of one aspect of a three year AusAid-funded education development project, the process of developing syllabi for English, mathematics, science and practicum/pedagogy courses was an unfamiliar activity for the majority of the sixty Filipino teacher educators and their colleagues. These educators were used to following institution prescribed syllabi without question. The focus of this study was the educators’ participation in the intensive process of syllabus review, construction and enhancement which occurred concurrently with a series of regular professional development activities based on the needs and interests of the educators. The process was documented as it evolved and was evaluated at key stages. A major outcome was the enhancement, or construction, of more than 200 syllabi across the 21 tertiary institutions. However, an unexpected and significant outcome of the process was the development of strong cross-institutional and even cross-regional relationships and a level of collegiality not previously experienced by the participants. It is argued here that such an approach to curriculum development raises the potential for sustainable long-term outcomes in international development projects.