Education Commons^™

#Doesthatreallywork? Transforming The Traditional, Rethinking, Letting Go, Michelle Jacobs-Lustig, Sally Bryant

Sally Bryant

After a critical examination of the "traditional," Pepperdine University Libraries has made many dramatic, yet cost effective changes in Fall 2011. We have adopted an attitude of perpetual Beta for products and library services. We learned that sometimes it is not just out with the old, but out with the too new. At Pepperdine we completely redesigned our roles for our student workers to include learning outcomes and better customer service, we even had them work on LibGuides. We consolidated staff by merging our circulation and reference desk, creating the new iPoint (Get all of your library needs met in …

'Friday Is My Research Day': Chance, Time And Desire In The Search For The Teaching-Research Nexus In The Life Of A University Teacher, William Boyd, Meg O'Reilly, Karyn Rendall, Stephen Rowe, Erica Wilson, Kay Dimmock, Wendy Boyd, Elaine Nuske, Johan Edelheim, Daniel Bucher, Kath Fisher

Dr Meg O'Reilly

This paper builds on some ideas recently presented by Boyd et al. (2010). In that paper, the focus was on the ways in which experienced academic staff articulate the teaching-research nexus. By presenting six short case accounts, this paper describes how a reflective narrative activity enabled some ‘new to academe’ teachers to identify the teaching research nexus in their own work. For each of them, there was some particular reason or stimulus that led to them articulating the teaching-learning nexus in their work. Given the effectiveness of this method for enabling staff to consider the teaching-research nexus, this paper speculates …

From The Web To Writing: The Role Of Collaboration In Providing First Year University Students With The Skills To Succeed, Sarah E. O'Shea, Julie Mundy-Taylor

Professor Sarah O' Shea

In contemporary university environments not only have student populations become more diverse, but also institutions have embraced technological advances to create new facets to the teaching and learning process. The challenges offered by virtual learning as well as the impact of email and e-learning remain largely under-researched both broadly and in relation to first year transition. First year students are now expected to not only acquire the implicit academic discourse in a timely fashion but also master the computing skills so central to contemporary university delivery. Skills central to effective and efficient academic research and writing are often perceived in …

Adam Smith Goes To College: An Economist Becomes An Academic Administrator, Ronald G. Ehrenberg

Ronald G. Ehrenberg

[Excerpt] I have conducted research and taught classes on the economics of higher education for almost 20 years. I spent the last three years as a senior central administrator and executive officer of Cornell University. ... My experiences in this position opened my eyes to the use and uselessness of economic analysis in trying to help guide a major university and what I have learned is the focus of this essay. I begin by asking whether it is useful to view universities in a utility-maximizing framework, as I and others have done in the past. I show that the way …

Nomads In Diaspora Space: Exploring Women's Indentity Work In The University, Sarah O'Shea

Professor Sarah O' Shea

How individuals position themselves as ‘students’ within the university landscape can provide insight into the personal and actual experience of entering this environment. This article will explore how one group of female students narrated their identity work as they moved through the first year of study in an Australian university. These students were all first in the family to attend university and some had had a significant gap between educational experiences. In depth, semi-structured interviews were conducted with individuals as they commenced university study and these were repeated at four points during the year; this series of conversations captured the …

Understanding The Design Context For Australian University Teachers: Implications For The Future Of Learning Design, Susan Bennett, Lisa Thomas, Shirley Agostinho, Lori Lockyer, Jennifer Jones, Barry Harper

Professor Lori Lockyer

Based on the premise that providing support for university teachers in designing for their teaching will ultimately improve the quality of student learning outcomes, recent interest in the development of support tools and strategies has gained momentum. This article reports on a study that examined the context in which Australian university teachers design in order to understand what role design support tools and strategies could play. In-depth interviews were conducted with 30 academics across 16 Australian universities. The findings suggest that most Australian university teachers have a high degree of flexibility in their design decisions suggesting that opportunities exist for …

Learning Designs: Bridging The Gap Between Theory And Practice, S. Bennett, S. Agostinho, Lori Lockyer, Lisa Kosta, J. Jones, R. Koper, Barry Harper

Professor Lori Lockyer

This paper summarises the work being conducted in an ongoing research agenda focused on exploring how the ‘learning design’ construct can be used to support university educators to create both pedagogically sound and interoperable e-learning experiences. The premise of this work is that a learning design can be used to support the pedagogical design process and the integration of international e-learning standards, such as learning object metadata and IMS-LD, enabling resources and tools to be technically interoperable across different standards-compliant systems. The paper presents the rationale guiding this research focus, describes the features of the research that is underway, and …

Developing Quality Teaching Through Authentic Assessment And School-University Partnerships, Philip J. Pearson, Paul I. Webb, Gregory J. Forrest

Greg J Forrest

This paper examines the development of authentic assessment tasks focusing on the dimensions of quality teaching for pre-service teachers. Assessment tasks designed for students to continually put teaching skills into practice are essential to develop quality teachers. The process involved student and teacher consultation and the establishment of additional school-university partnerships. The purpose of the research was to review the school-university partnerships and to determine whether these links have been beneficial to the students and the schools involved. Forty physical and health education students in their final year of pre-service training were surveyed (questionnaire and interviews) along with personnel from …

Broom Closet Or Fish Bowl? An Ethnographic Exploration Of A University Queer Center And Oneself, Eric D. Teman Ph.D., Maria K. Lahman Ph.D.

Eric D Teman, J.D., Ph.D.