Learning Partnerships Research Articles

Assessing Pre-service Teachers' Beliefs About the Role of the Library Media Specialist

The revision of Information Power (1998) focuses on building partnerships for greater student learning. While not a radical departure from the previous edition (1988), the recent document emphasizes both greater collaboration and leadership and increased involvement with the technologies of information and learning. This study set out to determine whether teacher education programs were preparing tomorrow's teachers to expect and accept the redefined role of the school library media specialist. It involved the development and the administration of a scale to assess pre-service teachers' beliefs about the role of the school library media specialist. The results of the pilot study reported here are preliminary but suggest that while pre-service teachers distinguish three distinct sets of functions they place more emphasis on those functions associated with information access and delivery than on those related to learning and teaching. Further, pre-service teachers do not appear to understand the role areas of learning/teaching and program administration.

Computation and Learning Partnerships: Lessons from Wood Architecture, Engineering, and Construction Integration

Examining an interdisciplinary university course for architecture, wood science, and engineering students, this paper studies how the students’ ability to master digital workflows influenced their success in learning collaborative design skills. It highlights potential challenges and opportunities posed by the introduction of new digital tools to support emerging integrated building design in both education and professional practice. The particular course focuses on the wood industry, which is rapidly changing from a very traditional to a highly innovative sector and increasingly embracing the latest technological developments in computational design, simulation, and digital fabrication. This study explores the influence of parametric design on collaboration dynamics and workflow within an interdisciplinary group of students embodying the roles of manufacturer, engineer, and architect. Student-generated data of the first three years of the class is analyzed thematically to find correlations with productive collaborations. Focusing on a stage of an evolving teaching and learning process, this analysis allows identifications of common themes and patterns, suggesting implications for practice and future research. The course highlights the need to integrate data interoperability, collaboration skill-building, and material awareness in contemporary digitally enabled architecture, engineering, and construction education. The lessons learned in this course can be of value to academic programs and professional firms involved in incorporating digital design and interdisciplinary collaboration.

Transforming science and society? Methodological lessons from and for transformation research

Abstract Transformation research has in the past years emerged as a shared lens to study and support radical societal change towards sustainability. Given the nascent and exploratory—yet highly normative and ambitious—character of transformation research, we aim to enhance the understanding of transformation research: when do research designs qualify as transformation research, what is needed for putting transformation research into practice, and what are results? To this end, we develop a framework that identifies criteria for designing and reflecting on research results, design and processes as transformation research. We employ this framework to reflect on our work in a research project that was designed in the spirit of transformation research: The TRAFIS (Transformations towards resource-conserving and climate-resilient coupled infrastructures) project sought to understand and support the development of innovative coupled infrastructures to mobilize their critical role in achieving sustainability transformations. Our results yield lessons and recommendations about what transformation research looks like in practice and how it can be strengthened, focussing on 1, redefining and re-valuing research for societal impact; 2, redesigning research to integrate perspectives on radical societal change; and 3, re-equipping researchers and research partners for social learning. We conclude that while transformation research already contributes to framing and generating knowledge about real-world sustainability challenges, its transformative impact is still limited. Practicing transformation research requires far-reaching changes in the science system, but also continuous reflection about legitimacy, power relations, and impacts.

Association of a Health Equity Curriculum With Medical Students’ Knowledge of Social Determinants of Health and Confidence in Working With Underserved Populations

National organizations recommend that medical schools train students in the social determinants of health. To develop and evaluate a longitudinal health equity curriculum that was integrated into third-year clinical clerkships and provided experiential learning in partnership with community organizations. This longitudinal cohort study was conducted from June 2017 to October 2020 to evaluate the association of the curriculum with medical students' self-reported knowledge of social determinants of health and confidence working with underserved populations. Students from 1 large medical school in the southeastern US were included. Students in the class of 2019 and class of 2020 were surveyed at baseline (before the start of their third year), end of the third year, and graduation. The class of 2018 (No curriculum) was surveyed at graduation to serve as a control. Data analysis was conducted from June to September 2020. The curriculum began with a health equity simulation followed by a series of modules. The class of 2019 participated in the simulation and piloted the initial 3 modules (pilot), and the class of 2020 participated in the simulation and the full 9 modules (full). A linear mixed-effects model was used to evaluate the change in the self-reported knowledge and confidence scores over time (potential scores ranged from 0 to 32, with higher scores indicating higher self-reported knowledge and confidence working with underserved populations). In secondary analyses, a Kruskal-Wallis test was conducted to compare graduation scores between the no, pilot, and full curriculum classes. A total of 314 students (160 women [51.0%], 205 [65.3%] non-Hispanic White participants) completed at least 1 survey, including 125 students in the pilot, 121 in the full, and 68 in the no curriculum classes. One hundred forty-one students (44.9%) were interested in primary care. Total self-reported knowledge and confidence scores increased between baseline and end of clerkship (15.4 vs 23.7, P = .001) and baseline and graduation (15.4 vs 23.7, P = .001) for the pilot and full curriculum classes. Total scores at graduation were higher for the pilot curriculum (median, 24.0; interquartile range [IQR], 21.0-27.0; P = .001) and full curriculum classes (median, 23.0; IQR, 20.0-26.0; P = .01) compared with the no curriculum class (median, 20.5; IQR, 16.25-24.0). In this cohort study of medical students, a dedicated health equity curriculum was associated with a significant improvement in students' self-reported knowledge of social determinants of health and confidence working with underserved populations.

How Chinese Teach Mathematics: Canadian Teachers’ Perspectives

As part of a large reciprocal learning partnership project between Canada and China, this study explored Canadian teachers’ perceptions of mathematics teaching in elementary schools in China. Using reciprocal learning and Activity Theory as the theoretical lens, we collected data, i.e., classroom observations, group discussion, and informal exchanges from teachers in a pair of research sister-schools in Canada and China. Qualitative data analyses revealed four themes in Canadian teachers’ perceptions of the characteristics of Chinese mathematics teaching: an active teacher-student interaction model of questioning-responding, a mathematical knowledge-package summary at the end of each lesson, integration of the history of mathematics into teaching, and the development and implementation of well-structured lessons. Contributions, implications, and limitations of the study in mathematics education and research are discussed.

School and Public Libraries

Schools and public libraries in the U.S. have a long history of cooperation and collaboration. These relationships are described and the present status of such collaboration is detailed. Reasons why combined libraries may or may not be successful are discussed. New relationships are detailed, and suggestions for ways school and public librarians can work together to partner in student learning are suggested.

Fostering intercultural competence through videoconference exchange: using an external provider to match learners with trained native speakers and administer video calls

This practical case presents the use of an External Provider (EP) as an alternative approach to the traditional telecollaboration setting where a partnership with a foreign higher education institution is established. Usually, these partnerships involve language exchanges between learning partners who mutually practice each other’s native language. Instead, an eight-week cross-cultural Virtual Exchange (VE) in Spanish between US college students studying Spanish and trained Colombian university students was organized through an external language platform to foster the US students’ Intercultural Competence (IC). It is concluded that the use of an EP brings an undeniable level of flexibility to the organization of the VE, and makes manageable the integration of this type of program in higher education language classes. Additionally, this article assesses the value of this approach by looking at the effect of VE on the US students’ self- assessment of IC after the videoconference exchanges. Data from quantitative surveys and student blogs show a significant increase in the students’ IC after the program.

Anaesthetic nurse training in KwaZulu-Natal government hospitals : exploring strengths and deficiencies

Background: The anaesthetic nurse is a key assistant to the anaesthetist and integral to the provision of safe anaesthesia. Inadequate undergraduate training in South Africa necessitates anaesthetic nurses to acquire the requisite skills and knowledge in the workplace. Few studies explore the challenges faced by practising nurses to acquire such skills. This study sought to explore the experiences of working anaesthetic nurses to gain their perspectives on workplace-based learning, skills acquisition and how to improve anaesthetic nurse training. Methods: We used qualitative methodology comprising an English-medium, self-administered, anonymous questionnaire. A purposive sampling method was used, and 73 anaesthetic nurses working in five government hospitals in eThekwini, KwaZulu-Natal were recruited. Questionnaires were thematically analysed, and simple statistical analysis was used for quantitative data. Results: Most anaesthetic nurses received little or no undergraduate anaesthesia training and participants identified subsequent workplace-based training as inconsistent, and insufficient. Despite most participants’ arbitrary allocation to the position of anaesthetic nurse, the majority found their work stimulating and identified themselves as team-players, adaptable, and willing to learn. Further training and hands-on skills acquisition were keenly sought. Factors impacting positively on their learning and job satisfaction included a confident anaesthetist who was willing to teach and collaborate on learning, provide positive feedback, and include the anaesthetic nurse in case planning. Participants identified crucial areas for further development. In theatre teaching and practical group tutorials led by anaesthetists were suggested as preferred training modalities. Responses to hypothetical case scenarios demonstrated qualities in the participants that are valued in the anaesthetists’ non-technical skills framework. Conclusion: It is evident that there is insufficient formal training and inconsistent training methods of the current anaesthetic nurses in the five study hospitals. The workplace-based learning experiences of our study participants has given us a unique perspective from practising anaesthetic nurses and may be used to inform the formulation of appropriate training curricula and improve the learning partnership with anaesthetists. This should ultimately improve anaesthetic nurse job satisfaction and the theatre team experience.

Striking a Strategic Balance: Enhancing Corporate Philanthropy through Service Learning

Corporate giving is increasingly important to the nonprofit sector. However, corporate philanthropy has been slow to adopt insights from the sector’s decades-long experimentation with strategic philanthropy. This article explores the question of how corporate philanthropy might leverage service learning partnerships with students in university-based nonprofit education programs to enhance strategy and maximize social impact. We propose a model for strategic corporate philanthropy comprising two axes, on which the corporation can gauge whether its giving is more proactive or reactive, and technocratic or humanistic, to find a balance between strategy and rigidity. Qualitative data were collected from a service learning project between Toyota Motor North America, Master of Public Administration (MPA) students at a Texas university, and residents of an economically challenged area of West Dallas. Findings suggest that service learning partnerships can help corporate philanthropists strike an appropriate strategic balance, whereby the corporation, individuals being served, and students all benefit.

Zooming across cultures: Can a telecollaborative video exchange between language learning partners further the development of intercultural competences?

AbstractIn the context of learning a second language, the passing on of cultural information as a means to further the development of intercultural competences is primarily viewed as being unidirectional—the “native‐speaking culture” passing on information to the language learning student. However, in EFL (English as a foreign language) environments, the most relatable cultural norms available to the learners tend to be those associated with their homeland—the place they presently reside. As such, teaching language learning students using a unidirectional cultural frame ignores the wealth of cultural knowledge that such language learners possess. Offering cultural exchanges between groups of different language learners is one way to facilitate cultural learning in a bidirectional manner. In this study, 11 university students, six Japanese and five Taiwanese, took part in a cultural exchange project using the videoconferencing application Zoom. Findings from the data suggest that such telecollaborative video activities are mutually beneficial for exchanging local cultural information. We conclude that such exchanges develop intercultural competences via increased verbosity, the application of polite language, and of the utmost importance, by building interpersonal relationships. For language teachers who ascribe to a belief in the value of intercultural exchanges, applications like Zoom open up avenues for student interactions that are real, meaningful, and culturally rich.

Peer assisted academic support: a comparison of mentors’ and mentees’ experiences of a drop-in programme

ABSTRACT In Peer Assisted Learning (PAL) programmes, students provide academic and social support to fellow students. Recent PAL iterations include drop-in programmes to improve higher education students’ general academic literacy in an open, non-judgemental, learning environment led by experienced students. The majority of the PAL literature, however, focuses on curricular programmes, with limited understandings on processes enabling positive outcomes for students. This study contributes to the PAL literature through the investigation of factors and mentoring strategies underpinning effective peer learning in drop-in PAL programmes. Participants were students attending an academic drop-in PAL programme, and the peer mentors employed by the programme. Results suggest that students’ expectations about the type of support provided by PAL mentors may jeopardise the learning objectives of the programme. The analysis of PAL mentors’ experiences reveals how the use of strategies to enhance social and cognitive congruence between peers supports the development of effective peer learning partnerships. Mentors’ approachability alongside their ability to provide practical strategies and academic examples tailored to students’ learning needs characterised peer learning interactions between students. Mentors also encouraged students to engage in active help-seeking behaviours. This paper examines strategies to enhance peer learning interactions that support the development of independent and transferable academic skills in students seeking peer support.

Updated? Teaching Conservation Through Time-Based Media Art

Time-based media art challenges conventional conservation methodologies. Can the disruption caused by new modes of practice contribute to disciplinary development? This paper reflects on teaching cultural material conservation through time-based media art. In particular, it focuses on how producing documentation engages conservation students and collecting institutions in a learning partnership. The outcomes generated by documenting time-based media art foregrounds twenty-first century conservation practices. Reflexive analysis reveals the way persistent practices and critical situations order these new modes of practice, renewing core approaches to conservation education. This paper argues that time-based media subject design can integrate emergent and established knowledge, and the exchange created enables important disciplinary updates to occur.

Teaching in lockdown: Examining Scottish primary teachers’ resilience during national lockdowns

The Covid-19 pandemic resulted in an unprecedented move to emergency remote teaching. The present study examined the Scottish context of teacher resilience (TR) by considering the lived experiences of eight Scottish primary school teachers during ongoing lockdowns, referred to as ‘transitional emergency remote teaching’ (TERT). Data from virtual interviews was analysed following an inductive and experiential approach to Braun and Clarke’s (2013) six phases of reflexive thematic analysis. Four main themes were identified: ‘Teacher career adaptability’, ‘Relationships within school’, ‘Learning from home’ and ‘Continuous Professional Development’(CPD). Key findings suggest that teachers who demonstrated resilience adapted to TERT and identified new positive aspects to their teacher identities; senior management had a key role in supporting TR; TERT impacted positively on teacher-student relationships with parents increasingly viewed as partners in learning; and reflection promoted help-seeking behaviours, with practitioners desiring more formal reflective opportunities considering the impact of TERT.

When students interlink ideas in peer learning: Linguistic characteristics of transactivity in argumentative discourse

In peer learning, students’ cognitive processes can manifest in verbal communication. This study investigated how students use spoken language to interlink their ideas in partner work (transactivity). In 83 university students, transactive statements were coded by raters via students’ content-related ideas and their link to their partner’s ideas. Analyses resulted in 27 lexical units, grouped into four clusters, that occurred more often in transactive statements than in nontransactive statements. In a cross-validation, students’ use of the lexical units correlated positively with their coded transactive statements and their learning results. We interpret the use of the lexical units as students’ attempt to establish logical relations between their ideas and their learning partner’s ideas, to signal tentativeness and insecurity about their ideas, and to invite the partner to elaborate on their ideas.

Melissa N. Mallon. Partners in Teaching and Learning: Coordinating a Successful Academic Library Instruction Program. Lanham, MD: Rowan & Littlefield, 2020. 162p. Paper, $37.00 (ISBN 978-1-5381-1884-9).

The academic library’s role in teaching and learning on campus is vital to institutional initiatives. Melissa N. Mallon drives this point home by addressing the role of the library instruction program and the instruction coordinator in nine skillfully crafted chapters. Each chapter highlights the library’s agenda for teaching and learning within the greater context of its institution. Partners in Teaching and Learning is the eighth title to be published in the Beta Phi Mu Scholars Series, which publishes titles that contribute significantly to library and information sciences. The book is written in a way that offers practical resources and strategies for a multitude of instruction programs.

Closing the Feedback Loop

The study presented here is concerned with the pedagogical and technical issues around the provision of feedback. More specifically, it looks at how feedback is received and interpreted by students and how it can become integrated in a comprehensive plan for supporting philosophy students and helping them develop critical and analytical writing skills. It is especially relevant in post-Covid-19 educational settings, where face-to-face contact is limited and feedback is delivered remotely, potentially opening a gap between instructors’ intentions and student perceptions of the feedback they receive. I discuss tools for eliciting students’ responses to feedback and argue that having a strategy for receiving feedback from students can have a lot of benefits: it provides a timely tool for instructors to check on the effectiveness of their feedback, helps solidify the learning partnership and circumvents some of the problems digital technologies pose for teaching and learning.

Experiencing service learning partnership: A human development perspective of community members

Service–learning has, arguably, gained significant currency as a pedagogical and engagement mechanism within the broader discourse of universities and their role in community development. However, less emphasis has been placed on the human development dimensions of service–learning for community members, with the focus largely being on students’ experiential learning and other academic outcomes for the university. Though usually conceived as an integral part in university–community partnerships, community members’ role in the conception and implementation of service–learning initiatives is from a peripheral position. In this paper, we interrogate this lacuna by applying core tenets of the human development approach to document the experiences and perceptions of community members within a university–community service learning partnerships. From the analysis of qualitative data n = 22, we demonstrate that while service–learning enhances agency, it continues to operate within a historical context and contemporary political economy of South Africa, which obscure community members’ active participation and empowerment towards inclusive and sustainable valued outcomes.

Multiomics Characterization of Preterm Birth in Low- and Middle-Income Countries

Worldwide, preterm birth (PTB) is the single largest cause of deaths in the perinatal and neonatal period and is associated with increased morbidity in young children. The cause of PTB is multifactorial, and the development of generalizable biological models may enable early detection and guide therapeutic studies. To investigate the ability of transcriptomics and proteomics profiling of plasma and metabolomics analysis of urine to identify early biological measurements associated with PTB. This diagnostic/prognostic study analyzed plasma and urine samples collected from May 2014 to June 2017 from pregnant women in 5 biorepository cohorts in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs; ie, Matlab, Bangladesh; Lusaka, Zambia; Sylhet, Bangladesh; Karachi, Pakistan; and Pemba, Tanzania). These cohorts were established to study maternal and fetal outcomes and were supported by the Alliance for Maternal and Newborn Health Improvement and the Global Alliance to Prevent Prematurity and Stillbirth biorepositories. Data were analyzed from December 2018 to July 2019. Blood and urine specimens that were collected early during pregnancy (median sampling time of 13.6 weeks of gestation, according to ultrasonography) were processed, stored, and shipped to the laboratories under uniform protocols. Plasma samples were assayed for targeted measurement of proteins and untargeted cell-free ribonucleic acid profiling; urine samples were assayed for metabolites. The PTB phenotype was defined as the delivery of a live infant before completing 37 weeks of gestation. Of the 81 pregnant women included in this study, 39 had PTBs (48.1%) and 42 had term pregnancies (51.9%) (mean [SD] age of 24.8 [5.3] years). Univariate analysis demonstrated functional biological differences across the 5 cohorts. A cohort-adjusted machine learning algorithm was applied to each biological data set, and then a higher-level machine learning modeling combined the results into a final integrative model. The integrated model was more accurate, with an area under the receiver operating characteristic curve (AUROC) of 0.83 (95% CI, 0.72-0.91) compared with the models derived for each independent biological modality (transcriptomics AUROC, 0.73 [95% CI, 0.61-0.83]; metabolomics AUROC, 0.59 [95% CI, 0.47-0.72]; and proteomics AUROC, 0.75 [95% CI, 0.64-0.85]). Primary features associated with PTB included an inflammatory module as well as a metabolomic module measured in urine associated with the glutamine and glutamate metabolism and valine, leucine, and isoleucine biosynthesis pathways. This study found that, in LMICs and high PTB settings, major biological adaptations during term pregnancy follow a generalizable model and the predictive accuracy for PTB was augmented by combining various omics data sets, suggesting that PTB is a condition that manifests within multiple biological systems. These data sets, with machine learning partnerships, may be a key step in developing valuable predictive tests and intervention candidates for preventing PTB.

Students as Partners: A New Ethos for the Transformation of Teacher and Student Identities in Chinese Higher Education

Engaging students as partners (SaP) in teaching and learning is a growing arena of practice that shapes the mutually beneficial student-teacher relationship. Redefining student-teacher identities in pedagogical practice is one of the key implications of SaP. In the past decade, Chinese higher education institutions have paid increasing attention to student-centred pedagogies. Understanding and investigating new interpretations of student-teacher identities underpins the shift toward such pedagogical practices. In this theoretical discussion paper, based on the recent trends associated with Chinese higher education reform efforts revealed by large-scale and systematic survey results, we interrogate the concept of Chinese student-teacher identities as a learning partnership by drawing on the theorisations of SaP. Our intention is to contribute to the ongoing process of identity transformation within Chinese higher education. By calling for adapting SaP to the unique Chinese educational and cultural features, we provide a future vision for the cultivation of the teacher-student relationship.

Living and Learning Partnerships on Age-Friendly University Campuses

Campuses and communities have a long and varied history of partnerships around educational efforts. In response to current shifts in age demographics and the number of adults aged 65+ increasing dramatically, new partnerships around living and learning are emerging. In particular, university-based retirement communities (UBRCs) associated with institutions of higher education are growing as housing options for older adults in the United States. The establishment of the Age-friendly University (AFU) initiative offers a guiding framework for how UBRC partnerships may be effectively mounted. This presentation will use the case example of the Lasell University – Lasell Village partnership to demonstrate how AFU principles can be implemented through age-friendly curricular programming and intergenerational exchange. Logistical considerations such as individualized learning plans for UBRC residents, an on-campus location, shared resources, and governance policies will be also be discussed as components of successful partnerships.