Seminar Leaders Research Articles

Does diversity matter? Explaining the effects of team diversity on team performance using data from a student’s business simulation game

Purpose The purpose of this study is to determine the impact of different diversity criteria (age and gender) on team performance using a business simulation game, where performance is operationalized by market valuation (Tobin’s Q) and profitability (cumulative net income). Design/methodology/approach The authors collected data of a business simulation game at a German public university (128 student groups and 645 individuals). Using multiple linear regression models, they investigated the impact of the different diversity criteria on team performance. Findings The authors found no significant effects of gender diversity on market valuation and profitability. However, the results of this study indicate a positive relationship between age diversity and both performance variables. Originality/value This paper contributes to the debate on the relationship between diversity and team performance by using data from a business simulation game. This study adds value by considering different diversity factors, objective performance indicators and the endogeneity of team formation (the seminar leaders randomly assign students to teams) which has not been applied in similar studies yet. Because of the setting of a simulated business game, the results could also be applied to the real economy where we observe working teams every day.

Baby’s well-being, baby’s discomfort; what about the observer?

ABSTRACTThe authors draw on detailed second readings of observation notes from two baby observations looking specifically at material where the babies were evidently either at ease or in discomfort. This review led to the choice of one observation of each state to re-examine one of discomfort in order to revisit each baby’s physical state and state of mind. The babies were discussed in separate observation seminars led by the same seminar leaders. There were three other observers in each seminar.

Work discussion presentations at the Vienna Conference in June 2016: introduction to the presentations

ABSTRACTThe article includes two presentations prepared for discussion at the Vienna Conference on Work Discussion where a pre-conference afternoon was devoted to group discussion of 26 presentations in English or in German each facilitated by two experienced work discussion seminar leaders. The successful event was enthusiastically received by the participants who felt this encouraged everyone to think about the task of Work Discussion to allow direct experience of other styles and approaches to facilitation and to hear the thoughts of some new to Work Discussion and others with considerable experience.

Induction seminars as professional learning communities for beginning teachers

This paper explores the operation and contribution of induction seminars operated as learning communities for new teachers. Mixed methods were used: 378 new teachers and 29 seminar leaders completed questionnaires, 16 new teachers and 14 seminar leaders were interviewed, and 20 seminar meetings were observed. Findings showed that seminar discussions focused primarily on coping with discipline problems, building self-confidence, and developing a professional identity. The main contribution of the seminars was emotional support provided in a non-threatening environment. Findings imply that seminars can be a significant supplement to in-school mentoring for the professional development and adjustment of new teachers.

Inquiries of the body: Novice questions and the instructable observability of endodontic scenes

This study explores questions posed by students in response to live video broadcasts of dental treatments. The aim of the study is to show and discuss the reflexive relationship between the questions, what they were occasioned by and how they are responded to. Procedures and anatomical features, that for the seminar leader are unproblematically seen in endodontic terms, repeatedly present problems for the students. Visible but unrecognized shifts in the dentist’s work, for instance, provide occasions for questions of the form ‘What is he doing now?’. In the midst of an ongoing procedure, questions tend to be formulated as noticings that elicit instruction either about some detail of the dentist’s actions or about what a generic ‘one should’ or ‘should not do’, what ‘frequently’ happens and so on. It is shown, however, that the movement between specific here-and-now features on the one hand and more general issues on the other characterizes the entire scope of the relevant material, particularly because the seminar leaders’ answers tend to place even minute details within more general endodontic considerations.

Infant observation and the Tavistock model of teaching and learning: continuity and change

This paper reviews the changing context of infant observation from the teaching perspective. It considers the benefits of infant observation (Bick's method) as set out by Martha Harris in 1976, and the challenges and opportunities posed to infant observation seminar leaders. These include the widening cultural, educational and social background of observers, the choice of family and the broader definition of what constitutes an ordinary family. The clinical context of public sector psychotherapy and its increasing emphasis on evidence-based work is also considered as a factor bearing on the seminar leader's capacities.

The seminar leader as ‘a new baby’: teaching observation for the first time

Every infant observation marks a beginning, most dramatically for the observed child and family, as well as for the observer, taking up an unfamiliar role. Sometimes, however, the seminar leader is also a ‘new baby’ teaching observational studies for the first time. The journal interviewed three tutors who recently started as seminar leaders in infant observation on the Psychoanalytical Observational Studies course based at the Tavistock Centre in London. Students on this course are expected to undertake a full two-year observation as well as a shorter young child observation. They attend weekly seminars usually made up of about five participants where a write up of a visit is considered in detail. Suzan Sayder began teaching at the Tavistock last year (October 2010) Tanya Leonard and Julie Klingert-Hall have both taught infant observation for two years in Liverpool. All three are child and adolescent psychotherapists.

‘Fondseeds’: Dublin James Joyce Summer School, 3–9 July 2011

‘Fondseeds’: Dublin James Joyce Summer School, 3–9 July 2011 Marion Quirici (bio) There is perhaps no better environment for a beginning Joycean to study James Joyce than in the city of his formative years: the city in which he chose, though in voluntary exile, to set all of his published works. Dublin is now recognized as a UNESCO City of Literature, with its fostering of Joyce as one of its qualifying factors. Deirdre Ellis-King, Dublin City Librarian, reflected on the city’s many literary attractions in an address to this year’s participants. Her welcome, given at the School’s opening reception in the National Library, set the atmosphere for a week of intense exploration of Joyce’s foundations in the city that helped make the master. For Ellis-King, public works such as the schools and libraries of Joyce’s childhood played an enormous role. Over the course of the week, we began to think about foundations more broadly: the foundations of Joyce’s texts, in terms of their composition and development; the social, political, historical, and material conditions of their production; as well as how they have served in their turn as the foundations of new [End Page 130] approaches to reading, writing, and language. As a metaphor for the atmosphere of discovery and inspiration advanced by the Summer School, the Wake word ‘fondseed’ (FW 4.31) provides an appropriately organic image. Uniting both the permanence of architectural foundations (Fr. fond) and the diversity of plant life, ‘fondseeds’ suggests a garden in which excavation and cultivation are simultaneous and symbiotic processes. The Annual Dublin James Joyce Summer School brings together a diverse group of enthusiasts, ranging from ambitious high school students to some of the most established contributors to the field. Lectures take place in the old Physics Theatre in Newman House on St Stephen’s Green. (It is difficult to map this cheerful setting, strewn with sunlight and conversation, onto its quiet, dusty doppelganger in A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man). The School’s patron, Fritz Senn, and its directors, Anne Fogarty and Luca Crispi, encourage the younger attendees to voice their questions after lectures. This encouragement, along with a group of speakers and seminar leaders who express genuine interest in students’ ideas, facilitates growth and communication among the group, and is the seed of collaboration. With some of Joyce’s works and manuscripts coming out of copyright at the start of 2012, there was considerable interest at this year’s School in what will become of the unpublished manuscripts, typescripts, notebooks, letters, and other materials. Luca Crispi and Sam Slote, both veteran genetic critics, led workshops on the drafts of Ulysses and Finnegans Wake respectively. Crispi argued that genetic criticism is most valuable when it can tell us something about an author’s creative processes. His workshop set an example: Crispi reconstructed Joyce’s processes of gathering material, transcribing, and revising his text, from notebook to draft to fair copy. Joyce was wont to add to his texts at every new phase of production — even final proofs — and rarely did he make cuts. His careful attention was necessary: when typists, for instance, left blank spaces rather than registering naughty words on the page. But if Joyce ran into textual trouble with Ulysses, the ‘correct’ transmission of Finnegans Wake was an even bigger challenge. Sam Slote began his workshop by pointing out the unprecedented elusiveness of this text, having no standard language, no plot, no fixed characters, and no singular setting. Finnegans Wake, Slote argued, stages the composition process itself. ‘To read genetically’, he said, ‘is to read the unfolding of ambiguation’. Participants in Terence Killeen’s seminar had the chance to explore the ‘ambiguation’ of Finnegans Wake further, in five detailed sessions. On day one, we reviewed how Finnegans Wake began: as a series of sketches, based on or [End Page 131] echoing Irish legends. Killeen’s account of Joyce expanding and inflating his sketches — at the level of the word — corroborated Slote’s arguments. The group did a close reading of chapter I.6, a semi-expository chapter which functions as an effective window onto other aspects of the text...

<i>Interdisciplinary Conversations: Challenging Habits of Thought</i> (review)

Reviewed by: Interdisciplinary Conversations: Challenging Habits of Thought Carolyn Haynes Interdisciplinary Conversations: Challenging Habits of Thought, by Myra H. Stober. Stanford University Press, 2011. $35.00 (cloth). 219 pp. ISBN : 978-0-8047-7231-0. Having been an interdisciplinary faculty member for almost two decades, I have long thought that the biggest indicator of effective interdisciplinary learning, teaching, and scholarship is the interpersonal maturity of those involved and their capacity for building relationships. Even if one overcomes the standard institutional barriers, such as the disciplinary bias of promotion and tenure and reward structures, the time-consuming nature of interdisciplinary work, and the acquisition of the necessary funding, interdisciplinary work (to coin a phrase from Stanley Fish) is “so very hard to do”—precisely because it typically involves people—people who come from different backgrounds and must talk to one another. Myra Strober’s book, Interdisciplinary Conversations: Challenging Habits of Thought, confirms this point by analyzing the perceptions of various faculty members who participated in year-long seminars at three private research universities. The six seminars addressed topics ranging from broad ones such as social sciences, science studies, and ethics to more focused ones such as inequality, ethics, representation, and consilience, yet all were designed to promote interdisciplinary exchange and ideally the creation of courses, research projects, and greater understanding of other disciplinary worldviews. All seminars included postdoctoral fellows along with faculty members from different departments, and most involved administrators. To collect her data, Strober engaged in ongoing conversations with seminar leaders, visited one session from each of the six seminars, and interviewed forty faculty members about their experiences with the different seminars. This book will be of interest to administrators heading interdisciplinary programs and faculty involved in interdisciplinary research, teaching or other collaborative projects. It complements the work of other interdisciplinary scholars who have theorized the interdisciplinary research process and the critical role of collaboration within it. For example, Kockelmans (1979), Newell and Green (1982), and Repko (2008) have underscored the need for interdisciplinarians to establish common ground when confronting conflicting disciplinary perspectives by “bringing out potential commonalties underlying the conflicting disciplinary and theory-based insights so that these can be reconciled and ultimately integrated” (Repko, 2008, p. 272). Newell, Szostak, and Repko (2011) have gone so far as to offer strategies for creating common ground, such as redefining concepts, extending theories to encompass other disciplinary concerns, [End Page 803] or transforming thinking by placing opposing insights on a continuum. Other scholars have reinforced the critical need for productive collaboration in the interdisciplinary process of knowledge construction (Amey & Brown 2004; Boix-Mansilla, 2006; Derry et al., 2005; Klein, 2008) and the importance of strong leaders in fostering interdisciplinary collaborations (Bronstein, 2003; Casey, 2010; Klein, 2010). Strober’s study enhances this literature by revealing that interdisciplinary exchange is thwarted for more fundamental reasons than the difficulty of translating terminology, reconciling conceptual conflicts or facilitating collaborative input. Surprisingly, she found little evidence of significant interdisciplinary communication among the seminar participants. Although some participants perceived the seminars as valuable (offering them new awareness and insights into other disciplines and disciplinary colleagues), none ended up collaborating with other faculty to create new courses or research proposals. She concludes that the reason for the seminars’ lack of tangible outcomes is that the leaders and participants were unable to accept the contrasting ways that colleagues from other disciplines understand knowledge—that is, their conceptions of what constitutes truth, their methods of evaluating and generating ideas, and their habits of interacting. After presenting an overview of interdisciplinarity—its definitions, differences from disciplinarity, challenges and assets— in Part 1, the book focuses in Part 2 on a detailed description of the seminar conversations. Part 3 presents her findings, including her explanations for why the goal of producing interdisciplinary teaching and research projects was not met, a review of the challenges of interdisciplinary work, and suggestions for how leaders can foster productive interdisciplinary communication. The book is at its best when the author describes and analyzes vivid and problematic examples of conversations, such as when a direct piece of criticism from an economist evoked the anger of a humanities seminar participant. The economist likely “did not think consciously at...

Interactive First-year Engineering Seminar Series

Six years ago, a Seminar Series was implemented in the Engineering Strategies and Practice course for first-year engineering at the University of Toronto. The learning objectives of the seminar series are to teach students communication as an engineer, independent learning, and systems thinking. Additionally the seminar series creates a forum for faculty, and other professional mentors, to imbue a passion for learning in a more intimate environment than is normally associated with first-year courses. The interactive seminar series has proven popular with both the students and the 40+ volunteer seminar leaders recruited from academia, industry, the local community, and non-profit organizations. These seminar leaders mentor their students through a discussion of the technical, social, environmental, economic, legal, ethical, political, and/or human factors associated with an engineering-related topic of the seminar leader's choosing. The past, present, and future of the seminar series will be discussed in this paper. By measure of self-reported growth the learning objectives are being met and as such the seminar series is considered a success. It is predicted to continue, with goals of continuous improvement, for years to come.

Teaching and Learning Guide for: Imagined Intergroup Contact: Theory, Paradigm, and Practice

A goal shared enthusiastically amongst many social psychologists is the improvement of intergroup relations. Conflict between groups is usually related to distinct, and in many cases opposing, identities, based on (for example) ethnicity, nationality, and religion, but also gender, age, sexual orientation and political or individual preferences. Our research has developed a new intervention for improving intergroup relations based on an integration of theory and empirical work on social cognition and intergroup relations. We've called the technique Imagined Contact because it is based on the mental simulation of intergroup contact experiences. Collectively, our research has focused on refining and evaluating imagined contact as an effective tool for the enhancement of intergroup relations. Our article in Social and Personality Psychology Compass provides a summary of the basic theory underlying imagined contact, a review of empirical findings to date, and a framework for developing practical applications of the intervention (in particular as a school-based intervention). We wanted to offer a teaching and learning guide for this article because we believe that the imagined contact task provides a flexible, effective, and easy-to-use tool for teachers, seminar leaders, students, and practitioners. The task can be used as a basis for encouraging more positive and open attitudes towards other groups, a way of preparing people for future intergroup encounters, a stimulus for discussions about the value in experiencing social diversity, and a way of illustrating the power of mental processes in forming and challenging attitudes about others.

Abdomensonografie 2008 – eine kurze Analyse des Dreiländertreffens in Davos

The contributions to sonography of the abdomen and retroperitoneum approximately equaled those of the previous years with respect to quantity and quality. CEUS received the greatest amount of attention as evidenced by the increase in the number of studies presented. However, the organizations and convention committees should make a serious effort to improve the scientific program. It was conducted largely by seminar leaders of the German Society for Ultrasound in Medicine, indicating a lack of new academics.

Reflections on the implications of technology-mediated learning: A teacher educator perspective

In this paper, I report on how my practice was influenced by re-designing an existing introductory teacher education course that included an online component. The purpose of the study was to explore the degree to which integrating technology affected my professional relationship with pre-service teachers and with sessional seminar leaders who taught the seminar portion of the course. The findings indicate positive benefits associated with the information technology. Two major themes characterizing my experiences are discussed: (1) relationships with students (seeking personal connections, engaging students in learning, and maximizing communication and expectations), and (2) relationships with seminar leaders (being an administrator and being a supporter). Overall, results indicate a number of issues: students embrace the technology as a way of learning, the electronic component of the course benefited face-to-face contact among students and instructors, and the online features of the course encouraged cooperation among students and instructors.

Esther Bick's legacy of infant observation at the Tavistock—some reflections 60 years on

This paper reviews the development of Infant Observation from its inception in 1948. It revisits Bick's original 1964 paper and explores current divergences from her original practice in the context of contemporary theories of psychoanalysis and adjacent disciplines and of relevant changes in society. It draws on the personal recollections of Bick's early students as well as the expanding published literature. It discusses seminar technique, the training of seminar leaders, and clinical and research applications of the observational method.

14: Sustaining the Undergraduate Seminar: On the Importance of Modeling and Giving Guidelines

Student-led discussion is a valuable means of involving students in the collaborative creation of knowledge. This activity becomes especially important in the seminar course where, either individually or in small groups, students lead their peers through a set of readings. Unfortunately, student-led discussions often focus more on summary than critical analysis, largely because seminar leaders, left to their own devices, do not know what a seminar should look like or how to lead one effectively. This chapter demonstrates that undergraduates can learn seminar leadership when provided with guidelines and opportunities to see the skill modeled.

Seminar on nonlinear dynamics of chemical reactions, processes, and reactors (seminar leaders: Yu.D. Tret’yakov, M.G. Slin’ko, and I.V. Melikhov)

Seminar on nonlinear dynamics of chemical reactions, processes, and reactors (seminar leaders: Yu.D. Tret’yakov, M.G. Slin’ko, and I.V. Melikhov)

Mental Health Issues Among Urban Korean American Immigrants

Korean immigrants' perception and understanding of mental health and illness were surveyed during four monthly mental health seminars in New York City. In all, 86 Korean immigrants attended the seminars and 34 completed the survey. The seminar participants were primarily financially stable Korean women who were married, educated, and had lived in America more than 10 years. All seminar leaders were Korean immigrants who were working in the mental health field and/or educational setting. Most of the participants acknowledged the need for mental health services but did not seek professional help and coped with the stressors of immigrant life by endurance, patience, and religion. Feedback from seminar leaders noted the following: (a) greater seminar attendance than anticipated, (b) participants' openness to their mental illness issues, (c) need for tailored mental health program for Koreans. Findings support an understanding of the Korean immigrants' mental health issues as complex, chronic, and serious.

Topicality and the structure of interactive talk in face‐to‐face seminar discussions: implications for research in distributed learning media

This article examines the structure of topic movement within face‐to‐face postgraduate university seminar discussion forums through a conversation analytic approach. The analysis of 12 audio recordings of seminars showed that in spite of clear differences in the management style of sessions by seminar leaders there were important consistencies in their normative structure of participation. Previous research has shown that the turn‐taking procedures used as a basic organisational feature of the talk have been seen to result in a regular change of topic within seminars. Although the research here supports these findings, the data showed that topic change was only one aspect of the topic negotiation process. The analysis in this article illustrates that topic negotiation was an ever‐present feature of the talk and that, in addition to frequent ‘successful’ changes of topic, there were also innumerable ‘unsuccessful’ topical interjections. One prominent source of such failure was the presence of overlap in the seminar talk. In addition to being of value to educationalists wishing to understand educational processes, this analysis is viewed as having significant relevance for the development of alternative distributed media for hosting interactive seminars as it shows the implications of the interactional ‘affordances’ of learning environments for the achievement of interactive talk. This article suggests, therefore, that research and development in this field would benefit from detailed studies of the affordances of these alternative hosting media.

Acceptability and perceived effectiveness of web-based self-instruction in clinical orthodontics

For a predoctoral course in advanced clinical orthodontics, we evaluated the acceptability to students (how well did you like it?) and the perceived effectiveness (how well did it help you learn?) of Web-based self-instruction plus small-group seminars. On a 10-point Likert scale, median scores for acceptability and effectiveness of the self-instructional modules and seminars were nine. More than half the students rated the modules as excellent, and two-thirds rated the seminars as excellent. No students rated either the modules or the seminars as poor. With the use of structured seminar outlines, there were no significant differences in seminar scores among the seminar leaders. Compared with their predecessors who had a traditional lecture course, students who had the new self-instructional course were less likely to report either the positive or negative extremes in confidence about their ability to recognize treatment alternatives for orthodontic problems. The results indicate that Web-based self-instruction plus small-group seminars coordinated by a course leader is at least as effective as traditional lectures. This approach offers a possible way to share faculty among orthodontic departments for both pre- and postdoctoral education, as a way to help overcome faculty shortages.

An Interactive Television Seminar Designed for Older Learners

When we think of educational delivery systems and technology we usually think first of computers, the Internet and e-mail. Interactive television is another electronic option that has the added advantage of multi-modal socialization opportunities; people get together in person at site locations, and they connect not only there but also with people at distant places. Participants have the advantage of communicating face-to-face via technology. They can exchange ideas and share information in small groups at one site, they can be grouped across two or three sites to work together via the interactive system by using a split-screen monitor, or they can communicate with everyone on the system at the same time. Interactive television can provide a more personal, and sometimes more effective, means of communicating than the other forms of technology used to impart information. A one-day seminar for 150 elders at 12 sites was conducted throughout the State of Vermont. The purpose of the seminar was to inform elders about Elder Cottage Housing Opportunity (ECHO), an economical housing option that offers an alternative to institutionalization and enables elders to remain in their local communities. ECHO units are self-contained, portable homes that may be placed next to existing dwellings. Elders can live in either the unit or the existing house while their adult children reside in the other dwelling. Our seminar about ECHO housing was developed because data analyses from 296 questionnaires completed by elders living in Rural Vermont revealed that over 50 percent of them would like to live next to their families or friends. Over 80 percent of the elders' adult children who responded said they would like their parents to live next to them. Ironically, though, only 80 percent of all the elders and their adult children had ever heard of ECHO. These findings led to our conclusion that more education about ECHO housing should be made available to elders and their families to, meet a need they had identified. How could we reach a large number of elders scattered in rural areas throughout Vermont? Interactive television was chosen because the two-way audio and video system gives the feeling of being in the same room with other participants, although they may actually be hundreds of miles apart. All participants can be involved in the educational experience simultaneously and can interact easily. To reach the 150 interested elders, the seminar leaders would need to repeat the program 12 times and travel to 12 different locations around the state. Consequently, interactive television saved both time and money. How did we access interactive television? Vermont Interactive Television commonly known as VIT, is a statewide video conferencing and distance learning system, which was established in 1988. The purpose of VIT is to increase access to education and training throughout the state and to offer organizations a way to conduct business more efficiently and economically. VIT does this by providing a means for people around the state to communicate with each other through two-way audio and video. This enables participants to see and hear each other almost as if they were in the same room. Because there is a VIT site within approximately 50 miles of every Vermont resident, people who have used the system have saved hours of driving time, seen significant savings in their travel budgets and, in many cases, reached many more people than ever before with their existing education programs. The system is used not only by education but also by business, government, and not-for-profit organizations. The 12 sites in the state are located in a hospital, Cooperative Extension office building, town hall, state office building, private school, public high school, vocational-technical-career centers, technical and private colleges, and the state university. How is VIT managed, funded, and governed? …