Emergent identity and dilemmatic spaces: pre-service teachers’ engagement with EAL collaboration

Integrationist policies that promote the mainstreaming of English language learners are well established in many English-speaking countries. This has led to the embedding of English as an additional language (EAL) methodology in teacher education, and also to the notion of collaboration between English language teachers and content area teachers. Teacher positioning is integral to the processes of collaboration, and in this article it is argued that both sociocultural identity constructs and the notion of dilemmatic spaces can be used jointly to explore this positioning. A framework that draws upon these two theoretical perspectives is discussed. It was developed to investigate pre-service teachers’ (PSTs’) perceptions of collaboration with EAL teachers, and is applied to three secondary PSTs who were undertaking an EAL methodology course in an Australian university.     

Learning Multi‐unit Number Concepts and Understanding Decimal Place Value

Research indicates that many errors in secondary school mathematics can be attributed to lack of understanding of decimal place value. Recently it has been suggested that this arises from an underlying weakness in integer place value concepts and perception of multidigit numbers in unitary terms rather than base ten, multi‐unit structures. Development of place value and multidigit number concepts was examined in individual interviews with 262 primary school pupils, aged between 7 and 12 years, using subjects’ concrete representations of written numerals and associated verbal explanations. Almost all the children had some understanding of integer place value; most older children had multi‐unit concepts of three‐ or four‐digit numbers; but two‐digit numbers, especially values of 20 or less, were frequently perceived in terms of units by all age groups. This was particularly common for the value ten where 55% of subjects displayed unitary concepts. Implications for understanding and teaching decimal place value are discussed.     

Why are fewer women than men from top UK universities still not securing Graduate Level Jobs?

Research shows that a lower proportion of women than men are in graduate level jobs, six months after leaving seven top UK universities. This paper presents new empirical evidence from a unique dataset on the significantly different attitudes and behaviours between Oxford men and women undergraduates that might explain why women are less likely to have secured a graduate level job than men. Lower self-assurance, firmer beliefs in gender stereotypes, strong prestige and gender-characterisation of occupations, and favouring sectors with informal and low-status entry, all contribute to a lower proportion of women securing graduate level jobs. Despite many advances in recent years narrowing the gap between men and women, there remain policy implications for curriculum delivery and co-curricular courses to increase women’s self-assurance and assertiveness, and thereby enable them to aspire to and then secure a wider range of higher prestige occupations.     

Two-Sample Non-parametric Detectors Using Dependent Samples

The performance of two-sample non-parametric detectors using dependent samples is considered. It is shown that in the situation in which square-law envelope detection is employed, the signals to be detected fluctuate in accordance with a chi-square distribution and the background interference is additive Gaussian noise; the two-sample Generalized Sign (GS), Mann-Whitney (MW), Modified Savage (MS) and Modified Rank Square (MRS) detectors have superior asymptotic processing times to those that are obtained when independent samples are used. Also, it is shown that in addition to the advantage of improved performance, detection using dependent samples can have implementation advantages as compared with detection based on the use of independent samples.     

Schools in China and Canada

编者按：Brad曾来中国做过几年“教书匠”。对中国的教育现状有一定了解。那么,在这位“加拿大老外”的眼中。两国的学校究竟有何异同？能分出高下吗？     

Comparing the Information Needs and Experiences of Undergraduate Students and Practicing Engineers

Practicing engineers and undergraduate engineering and technology students seek and use information differently within the research and design process. This paper presents the results of a survey conducted by librarians at Purdue University and information specialists at Caterpillar Inc. to analyze self-reported information habits and challenges of both user populations. The authors created surveys containing similar questions for each user group, using a framework that asked participants to think about their information needs and use during a recent engineering project. The survey questions discerned users' confidence in their information abilities, and their preferences and barriers for finding and using information.The results of this study reveal differences between students and engineers and are informative for both academic and corporate librarians. Key findings affirm previous research that novices are more confident in their abilities than experts. Additionally, the findings suggest undergraduates prefer quick, easy to digest content like online videos and news, while engineers are more likely to learn by consulting a colleague or other subject expert, and through reading journals and trade literature. While students rated themselves as more confident information users, engineers reported working in a more complex information landscape, which includes internal document management systems and numerous places to look for technical information. Findings within this paper can inform the development of information literacy curricula that better parallels the corporate environment, and can give corporate librarians insight into how recent graduates may expect to interact with information in a new work environment.     

Examining the Impact of Pedagogy on Student Application of Learning: Acquiring,Sharing, and Using Knowledge for Organizational Decision Making

In this pilot research we examine the impact of two leadership development training programs on the ability of students to acquire knowledge, share knowledge, and apply knowledge for organizational decision making. One program emphasized concepts and case‐based application based on a technical learning paradigm. The other program used a game‐based computer simulation, Virtual Leader, grounded in an experiential or situated learning paradigm. After training, students from both programs engaged in a complex in‐basket exercise to examine the quality of their leadership and managerial abilities. In this exercise, participants from each training intervention worked with their trained cohort to accomplish a day of managerial work. Participants were observed and their individual and collective actions and decisions on behalf of the organization were evaluated. Using qualitative research we compared the organizational decisions associated with each group to determine which pedagogical technique resulted in the most effective application of student learning. While technical learning pedagogy was associated with greater information acquisition, the game‐based computer simulation (an experiential, social‐interaction oriented pedagogy) was associated with better decision quality and more shared cognition. Evidence suggests that students taught with the game‐based computer simulation collectively demonstrated a greater ability to apply what they learned.     

Leadership in Libraries

A summary of recent articles on leadership in library and information science literature.