Management frameworks and the broader perspective

ABSTRACT

The development of management frameworks over time is reviewed as a management framework provides an effective way to help communicate the value of the public library. The use of a Logic Model is recommended as a management framework that will resonate with most funding decision makers.     

College Student Feedback About Librarian-Created Instructional Videos: Why Aren't They Using Them?

Library instruction videos can enhance student instruction. At a community college, librarian-created videos provided students with academic support. However, the videos were rarely used. In this article, students were sent online surveys to rate videos discussing the American Psychological Association (APA) format. Students were also asked why they did not use the videos. Participants rated several video features, including length, technical aspects, narration, and style. While they overwhelmingly responded that the videos were useful, the students did not know where they were located. The major complaint was related to the videos' technical aspects. Students also reported that they were more inclined to ask for help after watching the video.     

Constructivism and empiricism: An incomplete divorce

The paper outlines the significant influence of constructivism in contemporary science and mathematics education, and emphasises the central role that epistemology plays in constructivist theory and practice. It is claimed that despite the anti-empiricism of much constructivist writing, in most forms its epistemology is nevertheless firmly empiricist. In particular it is subject-centered and experience-based. It is argued that its relativist, if not skeptical conclusions, only follow given these empiricist assumptions. Further it is suggested that such assumptions belong to Aristotelian science, and were effectively overthrown with the modern science of Galileo and Newton. Thus constructivism cannot provide understanding of post-Aristotelian science. Specializations: history, philosophy and science teaching.     

Integrating service learning and technical communication: Benefits and challenges

Our ethnographic study of a service‐learning class revealed some students benefited in developing civic values, improving academic learning, and accepting responsibility for their own education. Other students struggled to see the connection between technical communication and service learning, felt frustrated with nonacademic writing, and experienced team conflict. We must redefine both technical communication and service learning, help students make the transition to the workplace, and educate community organizations about the role of technical communicators.     

Toward educative communities: teacher education and the quest for the reflective practitioner

The current effort to reform teacher education around the aim of developing reflective teachers is unlikely to make a significant difference unless it is tied to a larger project that challenges the training orientation that dominates our understanding of teaching and schooling. The authors argue that the development of educative communities, based upon an ethic of caring and the establishment of dialogicalrelations, can serve as such an ideal. A discussion of this ideal is followed by two case studies that focus on ways that prcservice programs can link values and meaning to technical concerns, honor and examine what preservice teachers believe and know, and encourage the development of collegial relations.