Non-academic Programs Research Articles

E-Learning in Pharmacology and Pharmacy

Computer-based learning facilitates a shift from externally controlled to self-directed learning. Universities and other educational institutions are challenged by these developments and must react appropriately to meet the requirements of education. The term e-learning has been coined to describe a wide range of diverse learning and teaching strategies based on the use of electronic devices. Recently developed concepts in the science of education and learning provide appropriate frameworks for novel e-learning scenarios. The present review introduces strategies and concepts for the implementation of e-learning in academic and non-academic programs and gives an overview of current e-learning activities in pharmacology.

Oatmeal facials and sock wrestling: the perils and promises of extra-curricular strategies for ‘fixing’ boys' education

Advocates for boys' education have forwarded numerous ‘fixes’ for boys' supposed educational woes, including both academic and non-academic programs and strategies. This article focuses on the lesser-discussed non-academic, extra-curricular means suggested, specifically outdoor education. Using qualitative analysis of an Australian school's outdoor education program, I demonstrate that outdoor and other non-academic sites and strategies for addressing boys' education have particular gendered dangers alongside progressive possibilities. The dangers include reproducing dominant masculinist gender regimes through social interaction, requirements for gendered self-disclosure, and philosophies of the ‘uses’ of nature. Progressive possibilities, conversely, include re-imagining outdoor education as a space for explicit resistance to gender or reimagining the uses of nature to eschew gender altogether.

Beyond Academic Outcomes

it may seem, because it lies behind many of the contemporary debates that circulate around and within either side of the academic-nonacademic outcomes discussions. For example, when critics within multicultural education argue that a reliance on programs that focus mostly on celebrations of difference and the recognition and valuing of nondominant cultures leaves unaddressed issues of structural transformation and the redistribution of power, they are building from the fundamental recognition that the institution of schooling functions as both a universal and differential mechanism of recognition and (re)distribution. Herein rests the reason it is possible to find variants of race theory, or multicultural education, that self-identify as race theory or multiculturalism. The critical impulse to understand and with the differentiating functions of schooling, as part of the larger societal apparatuses of structural inequality, will apply in any debate about what outcomes schooling does, could, or should produce. Herein lies the reason skepticism remains about the ultimate efficacy of programs that focus on celebrations and recognition of difference or identity in the critical pursuit of structural transformation (Badiou, 2008). Ultimately, however, such debates are not going to be settled by theoretical fiat or analytical nuance. The questions about what outcomes schools might produce and what their effects may be in the larger distributions of primary goods beyond schooling can be advanced beyond irreconcilable theoretical debate only if they are understood as questions of lived experience, empirical effects, and social collective experience. In 1981, Harold Berlak and Ann Berlak pointed out a paradox facing progressive educators who are concerned with educating the whole child. That is, as one of their dilemmas of schooling, Berlak and Berlak named a tension that lies between understanding the child as a person versus the child as a client. Applied to our current discussion, teachers focusing on the child as a client might be more inclined to This content downloaded from 157.55.39.130 on Wed, 23 Nov 2016 04:55:20 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms 138 Review of Research in Education, 34 focus on academic outcomes, whereas those concerned about the child as a person might lean toward focusing on nonacademic outcomes. However, as tempting as it is, as Berlak and Berlak pointed out, the more sides of a child's life we address as teachers, the more we open the whole child to our surveillance and control. Herein lies one of the paradoxes faced in debates about nonacademic outcomes. At the same time, though, it is very hard to know which outcomes to promote (or choose not to promote) without much more research into which nonacademic programs actually do work and which have lasting, powerful outcomes.

Duty-Hour Restrictions and the Work of Surgical Faculty: Results of a Multi-Institutional Study

To examine whether duty-hour restrictions have been consequential for various aspects of the work of surgical faculty and if those consequences differ for faculty in academic and nonacademic general surgery residency programs. Questionnaires were distributed in 2004 to 233 faculty members in five academic and four nonacademic U.S. residency programs in general surgery. Participation was restricted to those who had been faculty for at least one year. Ten items on the questionnaire probed faculty work experiences. Results include means, percentages, and t-tests on mean differences. Of the 146 faculty members (63%) who completed the questionnaire, 101 volunteered to be interviewed. Of these, 28 were randomly chosen for follow-up interviews that probed experiences and rationales underlying items on the questionnaire. Interview transcripts (187 single-spaced pages) were analyzed for main themes. Questionnaire respondents and interviewees associated duty-hour restrictions with lowered faculty expectations and standards for residents, little change in the supervision of residents, a loss of time for teaching, increased work and stress, and less satisfaction. No significant differences in these perceptions (p < or = .05) were found for faculty in academic and nonacademic programs. Main themes from the interviews included a shift of routine work from residents to faculty, a transfer of responsibility to faculty, more frequent skill gaps at night, a loss of time for research, and the challenges of controlling residents' hours. Duty-hour restrictions have been consequential for the work of surgical faculty. Faculty should not be overlooked in future studies of duty-hour restrictions.

Reading Effects of IBM’s “Writing to Read” Program: A Review of Evaluations

This article reviews evaluations of IBM’s Writing to Read program in kindergartens and first grades. In Writing to Read (WTR), students rotate through five learning stations to learn and practice phonics, to write stories, and to listen to recorded books. Two of these stations involve computers. Twenty-one studies of Writing to Read in kindergartens found a median effect size of 0.23, but in many cases this effect may be due to comparisons of WTR with nonacademic programs. Across 13 first-grade studies, the median effect size was .00. Two-year (K-l) implementations and one-year follow-up studies found no consistent achievement effects. The commercial success of WTR is discussed in light of these disappointing findings and of the existence of more effective and far less expensive alternatives

Smaller and better: The university of Michigan experience

This paper discusses several hierarchical and sequential reduction options, including Balderston's budgetary strategies and this author's curricular change options. The latter are based on data gathered in a 1979-80 survey of 46 states on patterns of program reduction. Having introduced various reduction categories, the paper then focuses on the institutional shrinkage process currently being implemented at the University of Michigan. Four specific strategies are being discussed: (1) across-the-board cuts, (2) reduction of nonacademic programs; (3) long-range faculty reduction procedures, and (4) program discontinuance. A host of potential problems regarding the elimination of academic programs is described. The paper concludes by providing several general recommendations for institutional shrinkage procedures.

Electrical Engineering Education in Israel

The Israeli engineering educational system, though essentially based on European and American traditions, is influenced by the country's geographical, ethnic, political, and economic conditions. Besides the well-established Technion, the newer Tel-Aviv University and Ben-Gurion University are also offering degree programs in electrical engineering. The article discusses both academic and non-academic programs, including continuing education for engineers, and describes some characteristics of the Israeli EE student and the professional environment of faculty.

On Statistical Studies of University Education

On Statistical Studies of University Education