Knowledge management: a neuro-hemispherical view of the field

Knowledge Management Research & Practice - The definition and subsequent use of knowledge within and across organisational and social contexts has been a vibrant and evolving growth area over...     

Faculty Liaisons: an embedded approach for enriching teaching and learning in higher education

This paper explores the experiences of a group of academic developers who support educational development work as Faculty Liaisons at a large, research-intensive university. These academic developers inhabit complex ‘third spaces’, providing support through an embedded partnership relationship that requires lateral movement across functional and organizational boundaries to create new professional spaces, knowledge, and relationships. The authors utilize narrative inquiry and auto-ethnographic approaches to present an interpretive qualitative analysis of their experiences supporting Faculty and University projects across complex and evolving organizational boundaries. From this analysis, they highlight key roles and responsibilities associated with their blended context and identify challenges that academic developers who occupy third spaces within academic organizations face as they negotiate competing interests, identities, and requirements associated with the diverse range of their projects and the blended experience of working in scholarly and administrative, central- and Faculty-based roles. The lessons they have learned from these experiences will be of particular interest to academic developers who are experiencing the flux of change within higher education settings that are impacting teaching and learning practices both for faculty in the classroom and for those across the institution who support them.     

A Person-Centered Approach to Understanding Teachers' Classroom Practices and Perceived School Goal Structures

ABSTRACT

We examined 179 teachers' perceptions of their own classroom practices and their school's motivational climate to illuminate the ways these perceptions work in concert. Using teachers' responses to two scales of the Patterns of Adaptive Learning Survey, a cluster analysis revealed three profiles of teachers described as cluster 1: Aligned: Performance Moderate, Mastery High: We agree with everything!; cluster 2: Aligned: Performance Low, Mastery High: Yea to Mastery! Nay to Performance!; and cluster 3: Unaligned: Classroom Mastery with School Performance: We're Mastery Structured in a Performance School. Cluster analyses revealed significant differences suggesting these teacher groups had distinct profiles. This study adds to the literature on goal theory aimed at understanding and advancing teachers' motivationally supportive practices and can be used in teacher education and development to help teachers identify, reflect on, and understand their classroom goal structures and how they relate to structures operating at the school level.     

Impact of a Brief Literacy Intervention on Urban Preschoolers

A pre-post study was conducted at an urban child-care center to study the hypothesis that a brief literacy intervention would result in improved receptive vocabulary for preschoolers. Parents attended a series of 4 workshops about reading to children. The children had a significant 7-point increase in their Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test scores at 7-month follow-up. Children of college-educated parents had a higher increase in scores than did children whose parents were not college educated.     

Innovation strategy, firm survival and relocation: The case of Hong Kong-owned manufacturing in Guangdong Province, China

Based on a survey adapted from the Fourth European Community Innovation Survey (CIS-4), this study finds that, in the changing manufacturing environment of Guangdong Province in China, Hong Kong-owned businesses that generate a higher share in new product sales as a percentage of total sales or engage in R&D or collaborative innovation activities in China are more likely to survive and remain in Guangdong. The study fills a gap in the literature by investigating the effects of innovation on the survival and relocation of Hong Kong-owned manufacturing firms in Guangdong. The results support policy initiatives that strengthen collaborative ties among key innovation system actors.     

Why use information and communications technology? Some theoretical and practical issues

Abstract

This article is concerned with theoretical issues of pedagogy and how they relate to the use of information and communications technology (ICT) in teaching. The article reviews the context of recent developments in ICT pedagogy. It also draws upon thinking about pedagogy which derives from learning theories. These provide a theoretical framework for research by the authors into the Smart Schoolinitiative in Malaysian schools. This initiative is attempting to change the pedagogy of Malaysian schools in a radical way. This involves the use of ICT alongside other innovations and a refocusing of the learning agenda for school-aged pupils. Some early impressions of the initiative are presented