Juggling competing activities: academic staff as doctoral candidates

ABSTRACT

This article explores the experiences of a group of established academic staff in New Zealand and the UK, as they undertake a doctorate in their home institutions. Our interest is in how individuals negotiate this dual status from a cultural-historical activity theory (CHAT) stance that explores how rules, tools, community and divisions of labour, and interacting activity systems, shape doctoral experiences. The focus in this article, having analysed their detailed narrative accounts, is on how academics experience three interdependent activity systems: those surrounding the thesis, the institutional context, and the home-life spheres. Issues related to time, workload and supervision issues, variability in collegial support and impact on personal priorities and time emerged. There is a range of particularities – from easy access to resources/supervisors to inflexible institutional regulations – applicable to this group of doctoral candidates. Negotiating life as an academic with concurrent doctoral candidature provides positive outcomes in terms of teaching, research confidence and general personal and professional development. However, a range of difficulties can also be encountered, particularly in relation to personal and professional relationships, and workload management.     

College course scarcity and time to degree

College students are taking longer to earn baccalaureate degrees now than ever before, but little is known about institutional factors that may contribute to this trend. In this paper we investigate an important institutional constraint—course scarcity—that we hypothesize may be associated with increased time to degree. We employ a unique administrative dataset from a large, moderately selective, public institution and use an instrumental variables approach, identifying off the random registration times assigned to students. Results suggest that course scarcity does not delay students’ graduation. We explore alternative explanations for our findings and discuss a variety of other factors correlated with time to baccalaureate completion.     

积极心理教育在高职和谐宿舍建设中的应用

宿舍是高职学生中一种较为特殊的形式,这样一个群体具有＂正式群体＂与＂非正式群体＂两重性。根据这一群体的特点,运用积极心理教育来开展和谐宿舍的建设工作。     

Expanding opportunities to learn to support inclusive education through drama‐enhanced literacy practices

This study examines how the Early Years Educators at Play (EYEPlay) professional development (PD) programme supported inclusive learning settings for all children, including English language learners and students with disabilities. The EYEPlay PD model is a year‐long programme that integrates drama strategies into literacy practices within real‐classroom contexts. Inclusive education refers to ensuring equal opportunities to access and participation in learning activities for all students. Cultural‐historical activity theory was used to understand and unpack the drama practices. Twelve semi‐structured focus group interviews were conducted with 19 preschool teachers. The data were analysed via constant‐comparative and interpretive methods. The study findings showed that EYEPlay PD practices enhanced inclusive learning settings for diverse groups of students by increasing access and expanding opportunities to learn, and supporting a positive learning environment.     

高职专任师资实践能力建设的问题与构想

提升我国高职专任师资的实践能力,不仅关系到高职院校核心竞争能力的培育,更关系到当前社会对高技能人才巨大需求与供给矛盾的化解。针对高职专任师资实践能力薄弱的问题,政府、行业、企业和高职院校在加强高职专任师资实践能力建设上,应创新制度设计、加大经费投入、丰富培训资源、加强培训考核评价,以满足高职教育人才培养质量不断提高的新需要。     

Attitudes toward Dual Language Immersion Programs in China

With the development of economy and the English learning reform in China,the role of English has increased than ever before.Dual language immersion(DLI)programs,as a new way to offer both languages and content instructions,will gradually take place of traditional English learning and become a new tendency in China.The attitudes of related groups toward the DLI programs are very important to its further development.This paper will first give a brief introduction to the current situation in China,and then analyze the attitude toward DLI programs,includingones of students,teachers and administrators,to find out problems existing in current DLI programs.     

Teaching skills of student teachers: Calibration of an evaluation instrument and its value in predicting student academic engagement

Student teachers are expected to develop their teaching skills sooner and more rapidly. However, a sound evaluation instrument that can be used to diagnose and monitor the skilfulness level to aid formative assessment of student teachers is still limited. This article is aimed to calibrate and validate a teaching skill evaluation instrument for use in secondary education. A total of 264 student teachers in the Netherlands participated in the study. Rasch and multilevel analyses were used. Results suggest that the evaluation instrument meets the restrictive assumptions of the Rasch model and has predictive value for academic engagement. This adds validation evidence and justifies the calibration of the evaluation instrument to be used for monitoring the development of teacher's teaching skills.     

The Use of Augmented Reality Technology in Medical Specimen Museum Tours

Human anatomical specimen museums are commonly used by medical, nursing, and paramedical students. Through dissection and prosection, the specimens housed in these museums allow students to appreciate the complex relationships of organs and structures in more detail than textbooks could provide. However, it may be difficult for students, particularly novices, to identify the various parts of these anatomical structures without additional explanations from a docent or supplemental illustrations. Recently, augmented reality (AR) has been used in many museum exhibits to display virtual objects in videos captured from the real world. This technology can significantly enhance the learning experience. In this study, three AR-based support systems for tours in medical specimen museums were developed, and their usability and effectiveness for learning were examined. The first system was constructed using an AR marker. This system could display virtual label information for specimens by capturing AR markers using a tablet camera. Individual AR markers were required for all specimens, but their presence in and on the prosected specimens could also be obtrusive. The second system was developed to set the specimen image itself as an image marker, as most specimens were displayed in cross section. Visitors could then obtain the label information presented by AR without any markers intruding on the display or anatomical specimens. The third system was comprised of a head-mounted display combined with a natural click interface. The system could provide visitors with an environment for the natural manipulation of virtual objects with future scalability.     

在病理学教学中培养留学生医学人文素质的思考与实践

医学留学生的课程设置以专业课为主,涉及的人文学科及人文教育相对较少。将人文素质教育融入医学专业的教学过程中,不仅有助于提高留学生学习医学的兴趣,增强教学效果,而且对增强学生的社会责任感、使命感以及培养学生的科学思维和素养等方面具有深远的影响。文章主要介绍本系教师在病理学教学中培养留学生医学人文素质的思考及实践。