Exploring ‘learning lives’: community,identity, literacy and meaning

This article explores the term ‘learning lives’ by reporting on three research projects conducted by members of the Oslo‐based research group TransActions. By stressing the term ‘learning lives’ within a range of social ‘educational’ contexts, the article aims to look at learning within and across different learning sites exploring the positioning and repositioning of learner identity across these different ‘locations’. We emphasise how the individual learner relates to other people and objects, drawing on deeper trajectories or narratives of the self as it exists within and outside the immediate learning contexts. We pay attention to processes occurring between people which we find significant for the individual's identity, literacy and learning. By doing so we hope to make explicit the mobilisation of resources within and across specific contexts, in the ‘learning lives’ of Norwegian youngsters.     

What Are the New Implications of Chaos for Unpredictability?

From the beginning of chaos research until today, the unpredictabilityof chaos has been a central theme. It is widely believed andclaimed by philosophers, mathematicians and physicists alikethat chaos has a new implication for unpredictability, meaningthat chaotic systems are unpredictable in a way that other deterministicsystems are not. Hence, one might expect that the question ‘Whatare the new implications of chaos for unpredictability?’has already been answered in a satisfactory way. However, thisis not the case. I will critically evaluate the existing answersand argue that they do not fit the bill. Then I will approachthis question by showing that chaos can be defined via mixing,which has never before been explicitly argued for. Based onthis insight, I will propose that the sought-after new implicationof chaos for unpredictability is the following: for predictingany event, all sufficiently past events are approximately probabilisticallyirrelevant.

1. Introduction
2. Dynamical Systems and Unpredictability

   2.1 Dynamical systems

   2.2 Natural invariant measures

   2.3Unpredictability

3. Chaos

   3.1 Defining chaos

   3.2 Definingchaos via mixing

4. Criticism of Answers in the Literature

   4.1 Asymptotic unpredictability?

   4.2 Unpredictability dueto rapid or exponential divergence?

   4.3 Macro-predictabilityand Micro-unpredictability?

5. A General New Implication ofChaos for Unpredictability

   5.1Approximate probabilistic irrelevance

   5.2 Sufficiently pastevents are approximately probabilisticallyirrelevant for predictions

6. Conclusion

     

Psychometric Characteristics of the Revised Procrastination Inventory

The Procrastination Inventory developed for use with doctoral students in clinical psychology was modified for use with ABD students and doctoral graduates in a College of Education. The original Procrastination Inventory contained 43 items with 11 subscales. The structure of the revised measure was analyzed both through factor and Rasch analyses and three subscales that were more generalized were found instead of the eleven originally posited. The three subscales were: (1) procrastination, 20 items, alpha = .88, (2) perfectionism, 9 items, alpha = .64, and (3) graduate school comfort, 6 items, alpha = .59. Eight items were deleted after Rasch and factor analyses, resulting in a 35-item scale. Validity was demonstrated by the measure's ability to predict dissertation completion and through correlations with related measures. The Procrastination Inventory is useful in the study of attrition from doctoral programs, particularly at the dissertation stage.     

Inviting Conversations? Dialogic difficulties in the corporate university

The paper experiments with, and reflects on, the limited possibilities for collaboration and communication across disparate groups within the university setting. The authors respond to the strong imperative to bring management, academics and support staff together, and so move beyond the entrenched positions and interests that those groups often display. They highlight the implications that this may have for collaborative academic publication. The text of the paper works as a research exercise in which each author's contribution constitutes data as well as providing reflections upon their own distinct identity and its consequences for communication in universities. The authors argue that attempts to enact ‘better communication’ is in many senses a failed project, but that it is this very fact which makes the experiment instructive. They conclude that calls to collaboration must acknowledge the fact that such relationships will always be relations of power, and are therefore not easily negotiated or understood.     

Distance education: relationship between academic performance and technology-adept adult students

Advances in technology assisted education are revolutionizing the educational process as most know it today. What impact, if any, does technology-assisted education have on the future of higher education? In this study, we examine data from an ongoing evaluation of the distance education program for graduate level business students in a private university. The study addresses the impact of technology-assisted learning on academic performance among distance learners and their on-campus counterparts. The study further explores the relationship between academic performance and students' technological adeptability. The findings indicate, when adjusted for gender (females out-performed males), there were no significant differences in academic performance between distance learners and their on-campus counterparts. Analysis also shows no significant differences in overall academic performance between technology-adept students and those without technological skills. These findings may remove at least some perceived barriers in the decision to initiate distance education programs.     

Web tutorials: bibliographic instruction in a new medium

Libraries are adding electronic resources of all kinds at an increasing pace to provide service to users outside the library and around the world. To meet this new demand, libraries are turning more and more to the use of online tutorials as a valuable means of providing instruction on how to access and use important resources. This article describes the Health Sciences Library and Biocommunications Center's work and experiences while creating tutorials, the ideas used, and ways the work was evaluated.     

Creating a Context for Chemistry

Until relatively recently, the teaching of chemistry at the college and university level in the United States has been quite traditional and oriented primarily toward the preparation of chemists. Students not concentrating in the sciences have often been poorly served by existing courses. Chemistry in Context: Applying Chemistry to Society, a textbook for nonscience majors developed under the sponsorship of the American Chemical Society, is an effort to address the needs and interests of this audience. The book introduces the phenomena and principles of chemistry within the context of socially significant issues such as global warming, ozone depletion, alternate energy sources, nutrition, and genetic engineering. The chemistry is presented as needed to inform an understanding of the central topics, and the text features student-centered activities designed to promote critical thinking and risk-benefit analysis as well as an understanding of chemical principles. This paper summarizes the origin, development, content, pedagogy, evaluation, and influence of Chemistry in Context and considers its potential implications for other disciplines and the instruction of science majors.     

1991 Census - The Ethnic Question

The British 1991 Census will include for the first time ever a question on race. This article describes the pilot surveys which were used to test the feasibility of including such a question.     

New roles for the medical librarian in an information management environment.

Over the course of the next twenty years libraries will be undergoing significant retooling so that they can move beyond their traditional roles and become the manager of the medical center's information network. As libraries automatic, the role of the medical librarian will change. To manage the change with ease librarians must begin now to equip themselves, their libraries and their clientele to function effectively in the new environment. Developing formalized instructional programs that link individuals to information and to systems that provide those individuals with personal memory extenders and lifelong learning supports will be among the librarian's top priorities.