Part-time Teachers Research Articles

The Use of Practitioners as Part-Time Faculty in Postsecondary Professional Education

Donald Schon’s theory of reflective learning (1983, 1987) has been the model of professional education for decades. Yet little research is done to examine the role of practitioners as part-time teachers in professional education in light of his ideas. This research investigated four programmes of professional education in Hong Kong: (a) a master degree in journalism, (b) a top-up degree in architecture, (c) a professional diploma in architecture, and (d) a higher diploma in visual communication (design). Interviews were conducted with teachers and students. The results confirm Schon’s (1983, 1987) concepts about the experiential and artistic nature of professional education, in which coaching and mentoring in practicum are the most effective pedagogy. As development of Schon's theory, the role of practitioner-educators, in the use of professional experience and knowledge rather than textbook in helping students to develop reflective practice, is critical in bridging the gap between the academic and professional worlds. These findings indicated the importance of a restructuring of curriculum and pedagogy and the institutionalization of the role of practitioners as part-time teachers, in order to improve professional education.

Construction trial of a practical education curriculum for game development by industry–university collaboration in Japan

Games together with manga and anime as represented by Japanese technological advances are highly evaluated in other countries. In recent years, games have been developing at a fast rate and a deep understanding of the game development procedures is needed in order to keep up with the advancements in technology. Yet, there has been no consistent education program designed specifically for game production in the Japanese higher education institutions. In contrast to this, game education is on the rise among American and European Universities. A curriculum framework has even been created by the International Game Developers Association (IGDA) with positive progress shown by cooperating with the industry. As very few efforts have been made so far in Japan to develop an education program for game development, there was no common ground where production methodology could be designed and taught. Due to this the industry developed its own unique production styles, and production methods became a trade secret, complicating the relationship between the universities and the industry. Current game development education in Japan consists mostly of lectures conducted by part-time teaching staff hired by several colleges. In response to this, at the Tokyo University of Technology (TUT), we have designed a curriculum in collaboration with Premium Agency, Inc. that aims to offer training in the practical aptitudes that are demanded by the game development industry. We have added lessons to the traditional faculty curriculum, combining lectures and exercises in a game development context, leading to the number of students that are acquiring knowledge in game development skills such as programming, CG and planning to grow year by year. As a result, the development of this game oriented curriculum has been strongly welcomed by the game industry.

Bar Codes May Have Poorer Error Rates Than Commonly Believed

By most accounts (1), the development of bar code technology is credited to 2 graduate students at Drexel University. In 1948, Bernard Silver had overheard the president of a local grocery chain asking a dean at the University whether they could develop a system to read product information at checkout. Silver told his colleague Norman Woodland of this request. After one failed idea involving ultraviolet light, Woodland, convinced that he could solve this problem, quit his part-time teaching position at Drexel and moved to Florida to live with his grandfather. While walking on the beach one day and with the inspiration of the Morse code, he used sand to extend the dots and dashes of the codes downward in thin and thick lines. Silver and Woodland filed a US patent application on October 20, 1949, entitled “Classifying Apparatus and Method.” The patent, 2 612 994, was issued on October 7, 1952. It described both a bull's-eye printing pattern of codes as well as a linear pattern similar to that of the bar codes we know today. The initial adoption of bar code technology was slow. Attempts to track railroad cars, vehicles with monthly passes crossing a toll bridge, and US Post Office trucks all had limited success. A trial in which Kal Kan used bar codes to track cases of pet food for inventory control sparked the interest of the grocery industry, and a meeting of the National Association of Food Chains in 1966 discussed the use of automated checkout systems. Progress continued to be slow, but in 1974 the first successful scan of a Universal Product Code (UPC) code on a package of chewing gum at a grocery store in Troy, Ohio, ushered in the bar code era (1). Today, more than 2 dozen different linear bar code …

Teaching medical information retrieval and application courses in Chinese universities: a case study

An important aspect of Chinese academic health science libraries is their involvement in teaching medical information retrieval courses as part of the medical curriculum. Health science librarians in China have a more formal teaching role than is generally found in Western countries, including many full-time teaching positions. This article provides a case study of Kunming Medical University Library, where courses are provided as credit units at both undergraduate and postgraduate levels. The teaching practices of Chinese health science libraries are compared with teaching experiences reported in Western countries. It is noted that Chinese government's educational policy is similar to that of the United States in promoting the role of the library in teaching subjects as part of the medical curriculum. In China, this has lead to the development of teaching departments within health science libraries and the appointment of full and part-time teacher librarians.

MA in European Regional & Minority Cultures A Novel University Initiative in Dublin

University College Dublin (UCD), Ireland's largest university, offers a one year full time/two year part time taught Magister Artium degree course in European Regional and Minority Cultures. This 90 ECTS (European Credit Transfer and Accumulation System) credit MA is the first of its kind in any European University as it draws together the wide expertise and scholarship of UCD's academic staff across numerous disciplines to provide a comprehensive multi-disciplinary programme focused on European regionalism and minorities in Europe.

Changing Conceptions of Effective Teacher Education: The journey of a novice teacher educator

This article examines my three-year journey developing a personal pedagogy of teacher education. As an autobiographical self-study, nodal moments are revealed that raise and reflect the tensions I experienced and the challenges I encountered. These included developing an awareness of my incomplete understandings of key components of teacher education, particularly the importance of fostering critical reflection. Acknowledgement of the benefits and complexities of first facilitating and later assessing reflective practice followed next. My transformation from a confident school-board resource teacher to an uncertain teacher educator, who reiteratively questions her practices as she comes to understand and teach to promote conceptual change, resonates with the uncertain terrain of teacher education. I explore the implications of this self-study by discussing the need for support, suggesting that teacher educators, particularly part-time instructors, be provided with opportunities to examine their teacher education beliefs. I recommend self-study groups as vehicles for this support.

Teaching socialization and graduate student preparation for the biomedical professoriate: divergent graduate student paths and perspectives of teaching during PhD training

The socialization (SC) process of doctoral students for the professoriate (PF) ideally should reflect the career they aspire to enter. However university needs for research dollars often supersede graduate student educational demands. Higher educational research suggests rethinking of the academy's values and structural organization is needed to address the issue of insufficient departmental graduate student PF SC. Even so, many research intensive departments at major land grant universities do not require graduate students to teach, creating a gap in necessary training tools. To bridge this gap, graduates students become responsible for seeking out teaching opportunities, independent of their graduate program or department. Two different testimonies are presented here of biomedical graduate students’ self‐SC for the PF and illustrate a divergent track of choices and options that ultimately lead to a common goal of gaining valuable teaching experience. These testimonies expand on the variety of opportunities available (ranging from formal training in a Minor in College Teaching Program to practical experience gained from part‐time teaching at the university and at other surrounding private colleges), the experiences gained, and the lessons learned.

Study on the training model of clinical nursing part-time teachers

An effective training model of clinical part-time nursing teachers was introduced in this article, and its key measures including the part-time teachers' qualification, the procedure to engage, teaching skill training plan, performance review were defined.It emphasize that the students-centered educational view, scientific part-time nursing teachers' admittance system, effective competition mechanism and fair teaching evaluation system are not only helpful for the stability and continual development of clinical part-time nursing staff but also improving the quality of clinical nursing education. Key words: Nursing; Part-time teacher; Train

The importance of and an approach to comprehensive reflective practice

The importance of and an approach to comprehensive reflective practice

"All That Is Solid Melts into Air": Frank Donoghue, The Last Professors: The Corporate University and the Fate of the Humanities

"All That Is Solid Melts into Air":Frank Donoghue, The Last Professors: The Corporate University and the Fate of the Humanities D. R. Koukal (bio) Every year or two, a promising major approaches me about going to graduate school in philosophy, and I invite the student to my office for what I call "the talk." I tell my potential wisdom-seeker that I count myself as fortunate to be a teacher of young minds, that I find my research gratifying, that I savor the intellectual stimulation of my colleagues, and that, on balance, I wouldn't trade jobs with anyone. But then I somberly caution that though her studies have filled her with love of wisdom, she should think very carefully before making the serious commitment to pursue an advanced degree in any humanistic discipline. I tell her that securing a tenure-track position is unlikely, because today well over half of those teaching college-level classes in the United States are part-time instructors, with no prospect of tenure. These positions provide an abundance of teaching, but come with low wages, no benefits, no job security, and,more often than not, no office space in which to meet students. Furthermore, adjuncts are typically deprived of any meaningful relationship with colleagues, they are provided no funding for conferences, and they are robbed of the time needed for research or any other kind of professional development. "You will in all likelihood be denigrated, exploited, impoverished, worked like a dog, and exiled," I say sternly. "If you insist on doing this, adopt the attitude of a saint to be martyred and do it out of the blind faith of love, because there are no rational reasons to pursue an advanced degree in the humanities." Frank Donoghue makes the same grim point and more in The Last Professors: The Corporate University and the Fate of the Humanities (New York: Fordham University Press, 2008, pp. xix+180, $65). Donoghue, an associate professor of English at Ohio State University, focuses on the daunting challenges facing new humanities Ph.D.s in an increasingly corporatized academy. The Last Professors is only one of the more recent contributions to the [End Page 227] growing literature on the crisis of the humanities in our universities, but Donoghue's book is unique in three respects. The first is its focus on the figure of the professor as presently conceived—as an autonomous, tenured, accredited scholar afforded the time to research and write as well as teach—and how the dynamics of the corporate university is undermining this image. Second,Donoghue explicitly eschews the rhetoric of "crisis" because he contends that professors in the humanities—as defined above—have already lost the power to save themselves and are irreversibly on the road to extinction; hence, the "fate of the humanities" of his subtitle. And third, he documents the degree to which the humanities have been complicit in their own demise. These last two points make The Last Professors an especially sobering read. Donoghue's argument starts on familiar ground, where he traces out the history of capitalism's ambivalent and at times openly hostile attitude toward the humanities' place in higher education, starting with industrial giants like Andrew Carnegie, who denigrated the humanities as useless, and coming down to the Reagan era, when corporate America viewed the university as a vexing labor problem to be solved in the face of increasing college enrollments. In Donoghue's account, the "casualization" of academic labor started at this point, which marks the beginning of the dismantling of the American professoriate. But Donoghue's main focus in this history is on the constancy with which the techniques and vocabulary of business have been deployed to undermine the humanities, from the Gilded Age to the 1980s and beyond. Donoghue argues that the Tayloristic ideology of efficiency, productivity, and utility has come to figure prominently in academe and has driven the humanities into a permanently defensive stance. Relentlessly judged by a standard of "usefulness" defined in strictly economic terms,Donoghue claims that humanists have no ready answer to the question of, say, how the study of philosophy or literature could be considered "market-smart" in this...

Tenure: Expiration Time

In the Education Forum “Tenure and the future of the university” (29 May, p. [1147][1]), D. Clawson used several statements as arguments for tenure that were in fact unfounded or unrelated to the issue of tenure. Clawson proposed that when administrators cut costs by increasing the percentage of non–tenure-track and part-time faculty positions, the process of teaching becomes a process of content delivery, teaching to the test, and delivering a standard curriculum determined from above. There is no connection between these two scenarios. I have a full-time teaching position at a for-profit college and a part-time teaching position at a community college. Neither position is tenure-track. Both colleges have programs in place to help all faculty develop teaching methods, creative lesson plans, and sensitivity to students'learning styles. Content delivery and teaching to the test are unfortunately all too common, but they are unrelated to issues of tenure or employment status. Arguably, without the incentive of a need to prove themselves daily, tenured faculty may be more likely to resort to such practices. Clawson's references to professionalism were also misdirected. The term “professional” applies as much to non–tenure-track and part-time faculty as to tenured faculty. It also applies equally to those engaged in many endeavors outside of academia. The term in no way implies an exclusive right to self-evaluate or self-police. All professionals, including all faculty, are accountable to others and therefore subject to outside evaluation. Clawson pointed out that first-year students are less likely to return if their courses are taught by part-time faculty. This comparison between full-time and part-time faculty is unrelated to the issue of tenure. Clawson also noted that, given a choice, faculty prefer jobs in the tenure system. The implication was that the tenure system is inherently superior. However, it is more likely that a preference for such a position simply reflects a preference for greater job security and comfort. The elitist view that tenured faculty are somehow above scrutiny, have a more altruistic vision of a larger good than others, and are the exclusive champions of education, is a view whose time has expired. It is time for the tenure system to expire as well, and to move forward with a system in which all faculty must prove themselves daily. This system works efficiently and fairly in other professions and could work efficiently and fairly in the academic professions as well. [1]: /lookup/doi/10.1126/science.1172995

EXPERIENCES AND TENSIONS OF TUTURING AT ALLAMA IQBAL OPEN UNIVERSITY (AIOU) PAKISTAN

Pakistan is a country with thick population of 160 million. Its geographical area is 796,096-sq. Km. Its 69% of population lives in rural areas and rest in urban. Since the education of rural people is a difficult task for the government therefore, there emerged a need of open and distance in Pakistan. Allama Iqbal Open University (AIOU) is the first Open University in Asia. It was established in 1974 and now has earned the status of Mega University. AIOU is a Distance Education institution, which provides multi disciplinary education from basic to doctoral level programs. The university employs non-formal method of correspondence, radio and television broadcasts, special textbooks and reading materials prepared on self-learning basis, part-time teachers (tutors) engaged nearest to the student's residences. The university has more than 36 regional campuses and centers in various parts of the country to coordinate and facilitate decentralized system of education of the university. The regional directors keep a roster of qualified teachers and experts in each field of study in their area and enlist them as the university’s part-time tutors.The number of registered tutors with AIOU is more than 30,000. Each group of students is entrusted to a tutor for guidance. Assignments written by the students are evaluated by the tutors and returned to them, with comments. The regional campuses also arrange practical training, teaching practice, workshops and seminars and facilitate holding of examinations in their own areas. This study presents data from a study of experiences of distance education tutors at Allama Iqbal Open University (AIOU), Pakistan, in the use of face-to-face tuition to support their students undertaking teacher training programmes at a distance. It explores the tensions for ‘face-to-face’ teachers involved in ‘distance teaching’ courses, and discusses these in terms of the tutors’ perceptions of the ways in which face-to-face tutorials are used to manage these tensions.

Improving mentoring for part-time trainee teachers in Further Education Colleges in the South West

Mentoring for trainee teachers in the learning and skills sector has taken on a greater significance due to the recent demands of providing subject-specialist support in what is otherwise a generic training programme. This article reports on one of the research projects undertaken on behalf of the Peninsular CETT that were commissioned in order to improve the understanding of and the practice of mentoring in the region. The research focussed on investigating what factors contributed to successful mentoring relationships for part-time trainees who were working in Further Education (FE) colleges. The findings, based on case-study analysis emphasise the importance of personal relationships in the mentoring process, alongside the benefits of frequent and informal meetings based on mutual respect. The findings also highlighted the need for a clear definition and understanding of roles and responsibilities and adequate training and time for mentors. While these points are not surprising they do pose challenges for a system that now demands more formality and has to cover a very wide range of trainees working in different circumstances.

Who Is Teaching Undergraduate Prosthodontics in US Dental Schools, 2007?

The shortage of full-time dental school faculty along with a slow steady increase in student enrollment is not a new phenomenon. The purpose of this study was to determine who is teaching undergraduate prosthodontics in US dental schools-what percent are full-time faculty; what percent are prosthodontists; and what percent are board-certified prosthodontists-to allow schools to make a real-time comparison of the composition of instructors they have teaching prosthodontics to the apparent status quo. A short, ten-question survey was sent via e-mail to representatives at the 55 undergraduate US dental schools. A cover letter explained the nature of the study and requested participation and electronic return of the survey. Three weeks after the initial request, an aggressive follow-up was conducted to schools that had not returned the survey. Answers were converted to percentages to compensate for differences between schools with many or few instructors. Schools were also grouped by location to see if regional differences exist. Thirty-eight (69%) of the surveys were completed and returned. In general, the division between full-time and part-time instructors is about 50%. More removable prosthodontic instructors (60%) than fixed instructors (44%) are prosthodontists, and only a small percentage of the total (18% removable and 15% fixed) have completed board certification. The South and Midwest had the highest percentage of prosthodontists involved in teaching; the South had the highest percentage with specialty board certification. This study indicated that only a few schools are fortunate enough to have sufficient full-time, specialty-trained faculty available for complete coverage of all undergraduate prosthodontic courses and clinics. The information presented serves as a baseline for future comparison to see if the percentage of full-time and/or specialty-certified prosthodontic faculty changes.

Clinical Faculty

There has never been a more urgent time for clinically expert nurses to consider the clinical faculty role. Whether they are making a full-time "leap" into academia or combining a successful staff nurse role with a part-time clinical teaching position, nurses should consider teaching as a good career move. Practical tips and resources are described for making the transition into a clinical faculty role a smooth one.

Clinical Faculty

There has never been a more urgent time for clinically expert nurses to consider the clinical faculty role. Whether they are making a full-time “leap” into academia or combining a successful staff nurse role with a part-time clinical teaching position, nurses should consider teaching as a good career move. Practical tips and resources are described for making the transition into a clinical faculty role a smooth one.

Measuring Success in Summer Bridge Programs: Retention Efforts and Basic Writing

Retention experts have developed summer bridge programs as one tool to strengthen students academically and socially in preparation for the challenges of the first year of college. A summer bridge program is a short, intense introduction to college designed to assist underprepared first- year students. Incoming students may be required to successfully complete a summer bridge program as a condition of their being admitted. Or participation in such a program may be recommended to incoming students who show potential but are judged to lack academic or social readiness. Many two-year and four-year colleges as well as universities with a variety of missions offer bridge programs in an attempt to connect students’ educational experiences with institutional expectations. The “bridge” may consist of both academic and social components, often with emphases that reflect the overall mission of the institution. Since many programs focus on academic content such as composition, part-time instructors of basic writing often provide valuable help developing and staffing these programs. The reading and writing that students do in summer bridge initiate them into the discourse practices of higher education, and therefore teachers of basic writing should help ensure that bridge programs do not lose sight of the most important aspects of teach

Survey on the present condition of bssic structure about undergraduate nursing education teachers in Heilongjiang province

Objective To understand the basic structure of undergraduate nursing education teachers in Heilongjiang province in order to provide the scientific reference for the construction of our provincal nurse teachers troop.Methods Using self-made questionnaires and in the form of mail,the investigation about the basic structure and existing problems of undergraduate nursing education teachers in Heilongjiang province was carried out from December 2006 to March 2007.Results The finding was that at present some disparities existed between the basic situation of the teachers troop and higher nursing education development request.Number of professional and part-time teachers bad very wide difference;the professional title distribution was unreasonable in various schools and the proportion of double-teacher type was somewhat low,education background levels were different and the teachers who had hish education qualification were scarce;the teachers'insufficient teaching experience caused the poor teaching basic skills and so on.Conclusions There exists certain problems in undergraduate nursing education teachers in Heilongjiang province.Not until the positive countermeasures according to the cause were taken,can we construct a nursing teachers troop which has the required education background,the reasonable structure and the developmental potential. Key words: Heilongjiang province; Undergraduate nursing education; Professional teacher; Part-time teacher; Structure investigation

Teacher Professional Development in Congregational Settings1

This article describes the impact of sustained professional development programs in two Jewish congregational schools. This research suggests that contrary to common assumptions, part-time teachers in Jewish congregational schools will invest time in professional development when it is of high quality, interactive and engaging and based at their school. These programs have significantly affected teacher collegiality, knowledge of pedagogy and Jewish content, and reflection about teachers' own teaching practices and practice of Judaism. The role of the educational leader is a salient feature of the program success.

Creating Links: An Inclusive Faculty Development Initiative

There's so little contact between part and full-time faculty. I don't even think they know you're alive. You just go in, you do what you do and you go home. If nobody complains about you, I guess they figure you're doing ok ... I went to one workshop ... and I was glad to be there and I was glad to meet some of the people that I only know by their signature on something. That was fine. But you know, I had to go pay my own parking. I had to give up 4 hours' of my time and 2 hours of traveling for an adjunct. We live on hourly wages. It was good, but I just laugh. Giving me a glass of orange juice and a sticky bun does not constitute payment for 6 hours of my life (Johnson, 2007, p. 174). The above quote is from a 40-year adjunct who teaches for several schools. She refers to herself as a R-O-A-D-S Scholar (Johnson, 2007, p. 174). The American Association of University Professors reports that 48% of all faculty in 2005 were part-timers. This number has increased steadily since 1975, when part-time faculty accounted for 30% (American Association of University Professors). Gappa (2000) states many part-time instructors feel anger and frustration over what they perceive as their second-class status (p. 77). These faculty members often feel invisible due to the lack of inclusion they experience in campus or departmental decisions. In addition to the increase in adjunct or part-time instructors, Fletcher and Patrick (1998) explain that higher education in the United States is going through some of the most dramatic changes in its history. Reasons for these significant changes include social, economic, and political factors which involve external forces, such as technology, public skepticism and the call for increased accountability, along with decreased financial support. These issues have impacted the role of faculty. As institutions are scrutinized because of greater-than-inflation tuition increases, they need to demonstrate willingness to improve teaching effectiveness of their faculty (Dotolo, 1999). While this should include both full-time and part-time faculty members, it often does not. The role of the instructor is often more significant in adult programs compared to traditional programs. Studies have demonstrated that traditional students learn significantly from participation in the college environment outside the classroom. In contrast, the classroom is central to the learning in adult students' experience. Adult students attribute the relationships they develop with faculty members and their in-class learning experiences as more meaningful to them than for their traditional-age peers (Imel, 2001). Additionally, research on adults' perceptions of exemplary collegiate instruction suggests that the social aspects of instruction (i.e., development of a community of learners within classes and having a respectful and caring instructor) are critical factors for adult students. A number of researchers have offered evidence that for adults, the classroom is the center stage for their learning (Graham, Donaldson, Kasworm, & Dirkx, 2000). This article focuses on a recently-developed faculty development initiative created to address the needs of a group of adjunct instructors. The goals of the program included informing the adjunct faculty on departmental issues as well as connecting them to the department and the institution in a meaningful way. An inclusive and welcoming environment for all faculty, regardless of part-time or full-time status, is desired. In addition, there is an opportunity available for professional growth for the adjunct instructors. Background Information A private university in the Midwest serves a large number of adult learners at the undergraduate and graduate levels. They hold classes at various locations, including several campuses, corporations, and community colleges. Many of the academic departments employ a large number of adjunct instructors. …