(Mis)Measuring Developmental Math Success: Classroom Participants’ Perspectives on Learning

ABSTRACT

Poor completion outcomes in community colleges’ developmental education programs have spurred reforms in developmental education policies and practices in order to increase students’ chances of success. In the case of developmental math, the focus of this article, such changes include revisions to testing and placement policies, amendments to the intended curriculum, and restructuring of the format and sequencing of courses. However, the measures that have highlighted the inadequacies of developmental math are, in themselves, insufficient for assessing the effectiveness of reforms to developmental math. Drawing on interview data from a classroom-level study of a community college’s pilot reform initiative in developmental math, we explore the learning goals articulated by the instructors and a sample of students across four pre-algebra classrooms. Through our analysis of their goals, as well as the extent to which students reported accomplishing those goals, our research underscores the important distinction between course completion and learning. This study highlights the need to assess the effectiveness of developmental math coursework in ways that extend beyond completion rates.     

Accommodations: staff identity and university space

Space has been of growing significance in social theory in recent years, yet, explorations of it in the scholarship of higher education have been limited. This is surprising, given the critical role space has in shaping staff and students' engagement with the university. Taking a practice-based approach and focusing on academic identities, this article analyses the spatial experience of an institution by defamiliarising spaces encountered in everyday work. We identify formative pressures upon institutional space, and how space then shapes experience: university spaces are designed for one purpose but come to be used for many, so that working within them can be a diverse and contradictory experience. The identification of academics with spaces is complex, and there are no simple experiences of belonging; rather, there is a constant project of identity-formation and change within mutable spaces.     

From peripheral to full participation in a blended trade bargaining simulation

This article considers the extent and nature of student participation in a trade bargaining simulation from a community of practice perspective. This third‐year economics module included a blend of online communication (through email, online chats and online discussions) and face‐to‐face meetings, both in smaller bargaining groups and in whole class plenary meetings. Our method of analysis includes the use of Exchange Structure Analysis of text chats and face‐to‐face learning conversations, triangulated by observation, survey and interview data. The focus on community of practice enables us to offer a nuanced interpretation of differences in crude participation data derived from the online chats. Superficially, the data may suggest marginalisation of participants, but Wenger's (1988 ) notion of peripheral participation with a trajectory towards full participation reframes the disparities in terms of an active community of practice. Some members are fully engaged with the practices of trade bargaining from the early stages of the simulation, while others move towards full participation over the duration of the simulation. Our results suggest that the laboratory‐based online text chats did provide opportunities for student participation in the simulation, and that male and female students exhibited different patterns of participation in the chats.     

New Directions for Academic Libraries in Research Staffing: A Case Study at National University of Ireland Galway

ABSTRACT

New research needs, global developments and local shifts in emphasis are demanding a broader range of interactions by librarians with researchers and are challenging previous staffing structures. Research has a higher institutional profile and academic libraries have responded by creating new roles and staffing models, with stronger linkage across campus as partners rather than supporters. Particular circumstances at National University of Ireland Galway have shaped its Library's staffing configuration for research. These include the emergence of digital scholarship across campus, opportunities offered by a new research building, the growing importance of archives and the publication of a new institutional strategy. Significant reductions in staffing and budget are influential too. Distinctive features in the revised staffing model are organization by function instead of subject, prioritization of engagement with digital scholarship, distributed management of archives and special collections, and a particular emphasis on contribution across multiple teams. This case study reports early gains and challenges.     

Engaging with ‘English in a Historical Perspective’ Through Analysing Texts

Though there is little in the literature on the teaching of the history of English, criticism of textbooks which over-simplify the story as the rise of the standard variety has been more vocal of late. Meanwhile, some academics have argued for focusing teaching on the analysis of texts. This article reports on a unit/module taught at a British university that makes the analysis of texts central to teaching and assessment. It sets out to demonstrate what can be learned from approaching the subject in this way by presenting composite textual analyses created by the first-named author drawing on the work of his co-authors (five of his final-year undergraduate students). This was for two assignments, one focusing on an Early Modern English text and the other a more contemporary piece. A discussion highlights the benefits of making the analysis of texts central to the unit, and considers practical applications for teachers of the subject in other parts of the world.     

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.     

At-risk readers developing expertise in register switching: evidence from cohesion analysis

Register refers to the variety of language that is appropriate for a particular situational context. This study examines young children’s development of register switching expertise as they become independent readers. Participants were 17 first graders identified by their classroom teachers as at-risk readers and admitted into an early literacy intervention program called Reading Recovery. At both the beginning and end of Reading Recovery, each child was asked to share a story about a personally relevant topic in a face-to-face, conversational context and then dictate that same oral tale as an autonomous/written text intended for a reader audience. The 68 texts (34 oral and 34 written) were analysed for their use of register-appropriate cohesive linguistic choices. It was found that as these at-risk children grew from emergent to independent, strategic readers, they were concurrently developing skills in constructing written register texts by recontextualising the cohesion language patterns in their oral register texts. It is suggested that developing expertise in register switching may compose part of the process of learning to read and write. This finding is discussed in the light of relevant literacy and educational research.