Innovaton and Emulation: Lessons from American Universities in Selling Private Rights to Public Knowledge

American universities are purported to excel at technology transfer. This assumption, however, masks important features of American innovation. Attempts to emulate the US example must recognize the heterogeneity of its industries and institutions of higher education. Stanford University and the biomedical cluster in Boston, Massachusetts, illustrate the diversities that characterize this dynamic system.     

Realising the Value of Self-assessment: The influence of the Business Excellence Model on teacher professionalism

In the UK across all phases of education very different models of self-assessment are being introduced. The paper identifies three 'grammars' of self-assessment. The Business Excellence Model currently being implemented in UK schools is characterised by the 'creative' grammar. This paper examines the value of this self-assessment model, and its impact on teacher professionalism. The findings are that teachers using this model are compelled to redefine their professional roles. Self-assessment can offer a structure, and a language for understanding the critical process of continuing professional development. Au Royaume-Uni, à tous les niveaux d'éducation, des modèles très distincts d'évaluation commencement à être introduits. Cet article contient les trois 'grammaires' de l'auto-évaluation. Le 'Business Excellence Model' que l'on emploie actuellement dans les écoles du Royaume-Uni est caractérisé par 'une grammaire créatrice'. L'article examine la valeur de ce modèle d'auto-évaluation et son impact sur l'aspect professionnel de l'enseignement. Les résultats font apparaître que les enseignants utilisant ce modèle sont obligés de remettre en question leur rôle professionnel. L'auto-évaluation est en mesure d'offrir une structure et un langage pour mieux comprendre le processus critique du développement professionnel continu. En el Reino Unido, al interior de todas las fases de la educación, nuevos y distintos modelos de autoevaluación empiezan a introducirse. El artículo identifica tres 'gramáticas' de autoevaluación. El modelo de 'Business Excellence Model ' implementado actualmente en escuelas británicas se caracteriza por una gramática 'creativa'. El presente artículo estudia la validez de este modelo de autoevaluación, y su impacto en el profesionalismo de los maestros. Se concluye que los profesores que emplean este modelo se ven obligados a redefinir su rol profesional. La autoevaluación puede ofrecer una estructura y un lenguaje que permitan comprender plenamente el proceso crítico de un desarrollo profesional continuo. In Großbritannien werden in allen Ausbildungsphasen sehr unterschiedliche Modelle der Eigenbewertung eingeführt. Dieser Artikel identifiziert drei verschiedene 'Grammatiken' der Eigenbewertung. Das 'Business Excellence Model', welches momentan an britischen Schulen eingeführt wird, kennzeichnet sich durch sogenannte kreative Grammatik. Der Artikel prüft den Wert dieses Modells und untersucht die Auswirkungen auf den Profes sionalismus der Lehrer. Es scheint, daß Lehrer, die dieses Modell benutzen, gezwungen sind, ihre Rolle als Lehrfachkräfte neu zu definieren. Eigenbewertung kann eine Struktur und eine Sprache für das Verständnis des kritischen Prozesses der fachlichen Weiterbildung bieten.     

The governmentality of childhood obesity: Coca-Cola,public health and primary schools

In this paper, we examine the emergence of what might seem an unexpected policy outcome – a large multinational corporation, frequently blamed for exacerbating childhood obesity, operating as an officially sanctioned driver of anti-obesity initiatives in primary schools across the globe. We draw on Foucault's notion of governmentality to examine the pedagogical work of two international programmes devised and funded by Coca-Cola. We demonstrate how these programmes work simultaneously as marketing campaigns and as governmental strategies to position children as responsible for their own health, conflate (ill)health with body weight and strategically employ the concept of energy balance. We argue that these programmes not only act to unite the interests of corporations, governments and schools, but also seek to use schools to reshape the very ideas of health and a ‘healthy life’. We conclude by considering two sets of ethical and political issues that come sharply as corporations like Coca-Cola continue to exploit the policy space created by the ‘obesity epidemic’.     

Environmental education program evaluation in the new millennium: what do we measure and what have we learned?

We conducted a systematic literature review of peer-reviewed research studies published between 1999 and 2010 that empirically evaluated the outcomes of environmental education (EE) programs for youth (ages 18 and younger) in an attempt to address the following objectives: (1) to seek reported empirical evidence for what works (or does not) in EE programming and (2) to uncover lessons regarding promising approaches for future EE initiatives and their evaluation. While the review generally supports consensus-based best practices, such as those published in the North American Association for Environmental Education’s Guidelines for Excellence, we also identified additional themes that may drive positive outcomes, including the provision of holistic experiences and the characteristics and delivery styles of environmental educators. Overall, the evidence in support of these themes contained in the 66 articles reviewed is mostly circumstantial. Few studies attempted to empirically isolate the characteristics of programs responsible for measured outcomes. We discuss general trends in research design and the associated implications for future research and EE programming.     

University vs. Research Institute? The Dual Pillars of German Science Production, 1950–2010

The world’s third largest producer of scientific research, Germany, is the origin of the research university and the independent, extra-university research institute. Its dual-pillar research policy differentiates these organizational forms functionally: universities specialize in advanced research-based teaching; institutes specialize intensely on research. Over the past decades this policy affected each sector differently: while universities suffered a lingering “legitimation crisis,” institutes enjoyed deepening “favored sponsorship”—financial and reputational advantages. Universities led the nation’s reestablishment of scientific prominence among the highly competitive European and global science systems after WWII. But sectoral analysis of contributions to science, technology, engineering, mathematics, and medical and health journal publications (1950–2010) finds that Germany’s small to medium-sized independent research institutes have made significant, growing contributions, particularly in publishing in higher impact journals proportionally more than their size. Simultaneously—despite dual-pillar policy implications—the university sector continues to be absolutely and relatively successful; not eclipsed by the institutes. Universities have consistently produced two-thirds of the nation’s publications in the highest quality journals since at least 1980 and have increased publications at a logarithmic rate; higher than the international mean. Indeed, they led Germany into the global mega-science style of production. Contrary to assumed benefits of functional differentiation, our results indicate that relative to their size, each sector has produced approximately similar publication records. While institutes have succeeded, the larger university sector, despite much less funding growth, has remained fundamental to German science production. Considering these findings, we discuss the future utility of the dual-pillar policy.

     

Workshop for Graduate Teaching Assistants

There are limited studies with conflicting results examining textbook use and student performance at the university level. To learn more, we surveyed instructors and over one thousand students in 12 undergraduate introductory science courses. The majority (77%) of the students reported reading the textbook either “often” (>75% of the assigned reading) or “sometimes” (25%–75% of the assigned reading). Those who read “often” had better final marks those who read “sometimes,” but surprisingly, those who reported “rarely” reading the textbook did as well as those who read “often.” Perceptions of the usefulness of the textbook were generally more favorable in courses in which some marks were based solely on the readings. We conclude that there appears to be different types of learners: some may need to read the textbook “often” to do well, while others do not.     

The relationship between rapid naming and word spelling in English

A study of the concurrent relationships between naming speed, phonological awareness and spelling ability in 146 children in Years 3 and 4 of state‐funded schools in South‐East England (equivalent to US Grades 2 and 3) is reported. Seventy‐two children identified as having normal phonological awareness but reduced rapid automatised naming (RAN) performance (1 standard deviation below the mean) participated in the study. A group of 74 children was further identified. These children were matched on phonological awareness, verbal and nonverbal IQ and visual acuity, but all members of this group showed normal RAN performance. RAN made a significant unique contribution to spelling performance. Further analyses showed that participants with low naming performance were significantly poorer spellers overall and had a specific difficulty in spelling irregular words. The findings support the view that RAN may be indexing processes that are implicated in the establishment of fully specified orthographic representations.     

“It’s not them,it’s me”: competing discourses in one aspiring teacher’s talk

In this paper, we deploy M.M. Bakhtin’s notions about how language works to understand aspiring teachers’ struggles about the intersecting roles race, class, gender, language background, and sexual orientation play in students’ school lives and learning. Through life-history interviews and document analysis, we investigated the authoritative and internally persuasive discourses one aspiring teacher brought with her and took from a 15-week long course on a predominantly White Midwestern public university campus. Ideas she encountered in the course and its required tutoring component challenged her thinking about how various facets of people’s lives (such as those we list above) and the contexts in which they live, work and are schooled, affect how they are perceived, what they know, and can do.