Fellow Of College Research Articles

Learning whilst working

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to examine student learner perceptions of benefits, barriers and enablers in learning whilst working, specifically focussing, on learning transfer from a university MSc in human resource management to students’ professional roles as human resource practitioners. Design/methodology/approach The study used in-depth semi-structured interviews with alumni of the programme who had graduated between one to three years previously. Findings The study found benefits (increased self-confidence, credibility and networking skills) as well as unanticipated challenges relating to individual learner characteristics, organisational culture and work-related support that hindered learning transfer. Research limitations/implications The study contributes to understanding the mechanisms required to support part-time learners on continuing vocational education programmes from a variety of stakeholders including students, their managers, their university and work colleagues, and academic staff. It highlights the benefits of activities designed to help students relate theory to practice and facilitate the transfer of knowledge between academic and practitioner environments. Practical implications The study highlights learner perspectives that are focussed on how organisational culture and line managers might play a more central role in influencing how people learn at work and facilitate the transfer of learning from formal educational interventions. Originality/value The study is valuable to academics and practitioners interested in improving learning transfer from formal educational to professional settings.

The Mediating Role of Cognitive Flexibility in the Influence of Counter-Stereotypes on Creativity.

The aim of this study is to explore the relationship between counter-stereotypes and creativity, and further explore the mechanism underlying the impact of priming counter-stereotypic information on individual creativity. More importantly, here we have proposed cognitive and emotional dual processing pathways, which may mediate the influences of counter-stereotypes on creativity. Two experiments examined how counter-stereotypes impacted creativity through the dual processing pathways. A total of 152 university students were recruited to test their creativity performance. In Experiment 1, we replicated results of past studies. Participants were randomly allocated to different priming conditions (stereotype or counter-stereotype), in which descriptions of male governors and female nurses served as priming of stereotypes, whereas descriptions of male nurses and female governors served as priming of counter-stereotypes. Measurements of creativity were based on the poster paradigm. The poster paradigm required participants to design a poster for a college fellowship party. In Experiment 2, we recruited 104 participants to examine the mediating roles of emotions and cognitive flexibility. The procedure of Experiment 2 was similar to that of Experiment 1, except for the measurement of creativity, which was Chinese idiom riddle test. Participants who selected more creative answers were more creative, based on the criteria of our experimental design. Also, we included measurements of emotions (i.e., surprise and delight) and cognitive flexibility (using the Cognitive Flexibility Scale) after priming of stereotypes and counter-stereotypes in Experiment 2. We also verified the credibility of our counter-stereotype measurements. The results of Experiment 1—which replicated previous studies—demonstrated that priming of counter-stereotypes promoted creative performance compared with priming of stereotypes in the poster paradigm. However, our proposed dual processing pathways were not fully verified by Experiment 2. The results of this experiment showed that neither surprising nor delighted emotion mediated the influence of counter-stereotypes on creativity, whereas cognitive flexibility did. In conclusion, our current study reveals a mechanism of creative performance in terms of cognitive flexibility, and further inspires us to focus on the positive influence of counter-stereotypes on creativity.

Royal College of Physicians of London: a 1793 entrant, fabled fellow or member malcontent.

The adverse fallout following the Royal Australasian College of Physician's (RACP) introduction to computer-based testing that was disrupted in the February 2018 examinations, aroused great sympathy for the candidates and perhaps rekindled worrying memories by the College fellowship. The RACP's entrance procedures have slowly and steadily evolved since 1938 when the first 41of 45 practitioners were admitted to membership. Powerful emotive experiences accompany most applicants' progress to membership, perhaps no greater an ordeal than visited upon a 1793 anonymous entrant to the Royal College of Physicians of London, facing far different but no less stressful predicaments.

Introduction: Advances in Palaeogeography

This special issue of Geological Magazine is dedicated to the memory of Dr Alan Gilbert Smith, Fellow of St John's College and Emeritus Reader in Geology at the University of Cambridge, who passed away on 13 August 2017 at the age of 80. I first met Alan at the 5th International Symposium on Eastern Mediterranean Geology in Thessaloniki, Greece, in spring 2004 and later on several occasions when I was working on the Cambridge Arctic Shelf Programme (CASP) in Cambridge. The palaeotectonic evolution of Greece was one of our common interests. Alan was one of the pathfinders in palaeogeographic research in the 20th century. Together with Sir Edward Bullard (1907–1980) and Jim E. Everett, he published the first computational approach in palaeogeography in their famous paper ‘The fit of the continents around the Atlantic’ (Bullard, Everett & Smith, 1965), which shows a very accurate geometrical fit of the circum-Atlantic continents using the early Cambridge University EDSAC 2 computer. Later, in a contribution in Nature entitled ‘The fit of the southern continents’, Smith & Hallam (1970) presented the first computer fit of the contour of the southern continents forming Gondwanaland. Worth mentioning also are his detailed palaeogeographical maps of the entire Earth, down to epoch level (e.g. Smith, Briden & Drewry 1973; Smith, Hurley & Briden 1981) and his work on the first three editions of A Geologic Time Scale (Harland et al.1982, 1990; Gradstein, Ogg & Smith 2005). Alan's great achievements in the Earth sciences have stimulated new ideas and had a huge impact on geological research, including palaeogeography.

Pursuing Middle English Manuscripts and their Texts. Essays in Honour of Ralph Hanna ed. by Simon Horobin, and Aditi Nafde

Reviewed by: Pursuing Middle English Manuscripts and their Texts. Essays in Honour of Ralph Hanna ed. by Simon Horobin, and Aditi Nafde Jenna Mead Horobin, Simon, and Aditi Nafde, eds, Pursuing Middle English Manuscripts and their Texts. Essays in Honour of Ralph Hanna (Texts and Transitions, 10), Turnhout, Brepols, 2017; cloth; pp. xviii, 262; 9 b/w illustrations; R.R.P. €75.00; ISBN 9782503566702. Festschriften divide opinion: for some, the appearance of such a volume signals the end of a career, but here the word 'pursuing' conveys the zing of momentum and excitement. 'As Ralph continues to publish, unhindered by retirement', editors Simon Horobin and Aditi Nafde enthuse, referring to twenty-five books, all with prestigious publishers, arising from individual and collaborative authorship, as well as 140 articles and counting, 'this list [of publications] will soon be out of date' (p. 241). This Festschrift begins with Vincent Gillespie's panegyric for his friend and colleague of more than thirty years that culminates in the word 'noble': I have not read such genuine praise, unreserved respect or acute judgement anywhere else. Gillespie traces 'Ralph's' distinguished and influential career from his first degree, [End Page 204] taken at Amherst College when it was still a men's college (1963), through his MA at Yale, then the PhD, also Yale, directed by Marie Borroff (1966); his sustained and wide-reaching contribution at the University of California, Riverside; his appointment, succeeding Malcolm Parkes, as university lecturer in palaeography and fellow of Keble College, Oxford, followed by promotion and tenure as Professor of Palaeography until his (official only) retirement in 2011. Above all, Gillespie honours Hanna's great humanist allegiance to 'lived experience and practice' that are, in Hanna's own words, 'complex and fractured, and include resistances, as well as joys' (p. xiv). This volume exemplifies the aggregated practices Gillespie calls 'total codicology' (p. xiv) and counts the great and the good among its contributors: Derek Pearsall, Linne Mooney, Thorlac Turville-Petre, A. I. Doyle, Anne Hudson, Alastair Minnis, Richard Beadle, Traugott Lawler among those providing essays; others, including Mary-Jo Arn, the inestimable editor of Charles d'Orléans, Toshiyuki Takamiya, the great collector, and celebrated younger scholars like Andrew Cole and Daniel Wakelin sparkling on the tabula gratulatoria. The essays instantiate 'the tight networks of affinity and kinship within book-making, book reading and book-transmitting' (p. xiv). Ian Doyle is hard-headed about the contents of Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Ashmole 750, 'a volume in a simple calf binding […] with four raised bands […] now [comprising] over 205 numbered leaves', twice catalogued by William H. Black and Larry M. Eldredge and identified by C. H. Talbot as a commonplace book 'once the possession of John Kyllyng, monk of Vale Royal, Cheshire' (p. 113–14). 'That is not however the whole story, or even the last of it' (p. 114): first, this manuscript is not a 'commonplace book' (p. 114) and, secondly, in the midst of it all, Doyle asks: 'What was brother John Kyllyng doing, being paid a regular stipend for his services, by an extensive list of inhabitants of […] neighbouring villages, clergy and laity?' (p. 121). Hanna would approve the question. Andrew Galloway uses Hanna's codicological achievements in 'reframing London['s] literary and intellectual history' and the textual ambit of 'the Augustinian canons and their hangers-on' (p. 178) to model a discerning investigation of Peter of Cornwall's Liber disputationum, Pantheologus and, especially, Peter's most sustained work, Liber revelationum—a huge compendium of visions, surviving in a single witness, now London, Lambeth Palace, MS 51. Galloway identifies Peter as an ambitious book-maker, a clever and innovative editor, for all that he is thrillingly appreciative of rhetorical brilliance (such as expressed in Bishop Gilbert Foliot's sermons). Crucially, Peter is alert ad utilitatem multorum, to the needs of 'a more "public" or civic milieu than an academic or remotely monastic one' (p. 196), a wider, bigger, more diversified community. In other words, Galloway identifies another version of Hanna's 'affinity' (p. xiv). Anne Middleton contributes a masterly account of both the scholarship and codicology of the 'distinctive array of paratextual marks and signals' including the 'transmitters...

Boy with a Ball

Boy with a Ball Slavko Mihalić (bio) Translated from Croatian by Dasha C. Nisula Slavko Mihalić, Dasha C. Nisula, poetry Look only at your own ballNot sideways but straight onLet everything else turn offHouses that drown or fly to the skyMorning cries of angry womenMen's rushing with horns, bells The ball is your new earthCarefully hit it with your palmExactly in the center so it gathers all into oneAnd flies to the ground exactly as you commandThen it smiles recognizing the gameAnd returns to the extended hand Don't think about the hit, it's already in youIt waits to be awakened by two fiery eyesTo be lifted from within intuitivelyTo grow strong in the hand and land on the ballVisually always vertically yet a centimeter furtherUnwinding in silvery space Don't listen to the voices around youIn them idles your indecisivenessOnly one incorrect hit: too hard or too softOnly one hit from the sideAnd your planet will extinguishIn some puddle, on some sad hearth [End Page 78] This ball is you yourself, your own worldThis is you rebounding, this is you returningTaking down spider threads of boundariesThis is you extending, this is you multiplyingIn a game that has no other purposeExcept to play yourself to the end [End Page 79] Slavko Mihalić One of the giants in Croatian literature of the second half of the twentieth century, slavko mihalić was born in 1928 in Karlovac, Croatia. He moved to Zagreb, where he worked for a newspaper and published his first book of poetry, Komorna muzika (Chamber Music) in 1954. He authored over twenty books of poetry and established several literary journals, including Most (Bridge), which brought Croatian literature to international readers. Translated into many major world languages, he won numerous literary awards, among them City of Zagreb, Matica Hrvatska, Miroslav Krleža, Goranov Vjenac, and others. Dasha C. Nisula dasha c. nisula is a professor emerita and Lee Honors College Fellow at Western Michigan University. Author of four books, her translations have appeared in An Anthology of South Slavic Literatures, and in such journals as Modern Poetry in Translation, International Poetry Review, Colorado Review,and American Journal of Ophthalmology among others. A member of the American Literary Translators Association, she lives and works in Kalamazoo, MI. Copyright © 2019 The Massachusetts Review, Inc.

Mentoring in a resource-constrained context: A single-institutional cross-sectional study of the prevalence, benefits, barriers and predictors among post-graduate medical college fellows and members in South-Eastern Nigeria.

Globally, the post-graduate medical education has undergone tremendous changes with emphasis on training, services and research to equip trainees with competence for independent professional development. However, not all the fellows and members of the West African Post-graduate Medical College and the National Post-graduate Medical College of Nigeria recognise the values of mentoring in achieving the career success. The study was aimed at describing the prevalence, benefits, barriers and predictors of mentoring in a cross-section of the Post-graduate Medical College fellows and members in a tertiary health institution in South-Eastern Nigeria. A cross-sectional study was carried out among 168 study participants who were sampled from the Post-graduate Medical College fellows and members in the Federal Medical Centre, Umuahia, Nigeria. Data collection was done using a pre-tested, self-administered questionnaire that elicited information on awareness, prevalence, barriers and benefits of mentoring. The age of participants ranged from 26 to 59 (41 ± 9.4) years. All the respondents were aware of the mentorship. The prevalence of mentoring was 33.3%. The most common benefit was personal and professional growth and development (100.0%). The most common barrier was the pressure of professional duties and personal exigencies (100.0%). The most significant predictor of mentoring had departmental mentoring programme participants who had departmental mentoring programmes were two times more likely to have mentoring relationships when compared to their counterparts who had none (adjusted odds ratio = 2.32; 95% confidence interval: 1.20-3.10; P = 0.002). The level of awareness of mentoring was very high but did not translate to appropriate involvement in mentoring. The most common benefit was personal and professional growth and development. The most common barrier was the pressure of professional duties and personal exigencies. The most significant predictor of mentoring relationship had departmental mentoring programme.

Elie Wiesel: Teacher, Mentor, and Friend ed. by Alan L. Berger

Reviewed by: Elie Wiesel: Teacher, Mentor, and Friend ed. by Alan L. Berger Eugene J. Fisher Elie Wiesel: Teacher, Mentor, and Friend. Edited by Alan L. Berger. Eugene, OR: Wipf and Stock/Cascade, 2018. Pp. 107. $18.00, paper. When Elie Wiesel, whom Alan Berger aptly describes as “Holocaust survivor, author, teacher, advisor to presidents of both parties, human rights activist” (p. xvii), won the 1986 Nobel Peace Prize, he and his wife Marion set up the Elie Wiesel Foundation for Humanity. One of the foundation’s first acts was the Elie Wiesel Prize in Ethics, an essay competition for college juniors and seniors, which has received more than 6,500 essays on the moral challenges facing the world. The authors in this deeply moving and enlightening book have served as the judges of the contest. Their articles reflect on what they have learned from the essays, each other, and especially from Wiesel, whom they consider their teacher, mentor, and friend. This is a book for both scholars and the general reader, especially for those interested in ecumenical and Jewish-Christian relations, since the authors are Jewish, Protestant, and Catholic scholars who are deeply involved in Holocaust studies and the dialogue that began with the liberation of the death camps. Rabbi Irving Greenberg, long a leader in the dialogue, describes Wiesel— famous for his works such as Night (a memoir of his time in the camps)—as a tzaddik (righteous one), a rebbe (mentor/pastor/guide) to his students and fellow university teachers, and lamed-vovnik, one of the saintly thirty-six humans in every generation, according to rabbinic tradition, whose lives and deeds uplift all humanity and help to bring about tikkun olam, healing the world in preparation for the coming (for Jews) or return (for Christians) of the Messiah who will usher in the Messianic Age, when all humanity will live in peace and harmony, justice, and well-being. [End Page 467] Judith Ginsberg, executive director of the Nash Family Foundation, which supports Jewish welfare organizations in New York and Israel, focuses on what she has learned from reading the students’ essays. Barbara Helfgott Hyett (who has taught poetry and literature at Boston University, MIT, Harvard, and Holy Cross) and Caroline Johnston (professor of history and American studies at Eckerd College) consider what they have learned from Wiesel on how to think and act ethically and how to teach students to do so. John K. Roth (Founding Director of the Center for the Study of Holocaust, Genocide, and Human Rights at Claremont McKenna College) and Henry Knight (professor of Holocaust and genocide studies at Keene State College) have furthered Wiesel’s probing questions about our religious traditions and Christian history of the teaching of contempt for Jews and Judaism over the centuries, which paved the way for the Shoah. They embody Wiesel’s challenge to Christians to repent and renew Christian teaching about Jesus the Jew and the Jewish people. Alan Rosen and David Patterson delve into the writings and teachings of Wiesel as a profoundly Jewish visionary (some would say a prophet), who challenged and enlightened Jews and all other humans who read his works or were influenced by him, helping them to focus on caring for those in need or those persecuted anywhere for their beliefs, race, or disabilities. The editor (Eminent Scholar Chair for Holocaust Studies at Florida Atlantic University) worked closely with Wiesel over the years. Berger shows how in his novels and other writings Wiesel took readers deeply into Jewish-Christian history and challenged Christians to reflect, repent, and work to redeem our broken world, while also honoring the small number of Christians (the Righteous among the Nations) who helped European Jews to survive the Nazi attempt to exterminate Jews and many other “sub-humans.” Berger centers on Wiesel as one who participated in and greatly furthered the Jewish-Christian dialogue, spurring the development of numerous ongoing centers connected with universities around the U.S. He also details the profound dialogue between Wiesel and noted Catholic author, Francois Mauriac, and how their meeting and subsequent dialogues deeply influenced the work of both. Carol Rittner, RSM, writes a stirring Afterword. A major leader in...

Exploring the use of social media by community-engaged university people

ABSTRACTThis article describes one aspect of a research project that sought to describe and interpret the perspectives of university colleagues who are community-engaged, about their community-engagement, within one research-intensive university in New Zealand. We explored the communication devices and processes used during community engagement, with a focus on social media, and in the context of identifying the professional development needs of colleagues within our institution. Our research involved an inductive analysis of 25 interviews with community-engaged university people, supported by context-generating discussions and workshops. Our data reveals reoccurring themes involving varying degrees of successful targeted use of social media, disappointment in the performance of social media, and confidence in traditional communication approaches. Overall we identified rational decision-making to find workable approaches, in an academic environment supported by skill transfer from private life to work life. We discuss the implications of our research to the roles and practices of academic development.

The Education and Training Role of Australian Academic Librarians

ABSTRACTMany academic librarians in university libraries perform a role in the education and training of university students, faculty staff and/or colleagues in areas related to information literacy. Anecdotal and empirical evidence suggests not all librarians are comfortable with this aspect of their position. How an individual conceives and understands their role may be influenced by complex historical, societal, national and personal contexts. The research student project summarised in this article will focus on an exploration of the relationships between education and training backgrounds and understanding and perceptions of the educative role by academic librarians in Victoria, Australia. The second aim of the study is to explore academic librarians’ definitions and descriptions of their educative role. Using role theory as a framework to define the concept of role and phenomenography as an underpinning approach and research methodology, in-depth interviews with Australian academic librarians will be undertaken in 2019 in order to explore the connections between librarians’ understanding of their educative role and their knowledge and practice of education and training.

Boats Against the Current: The Honeymoon Summer of Scott and Zelda: Westport, Connecticut, 1920

Boats Against the Current: The Honeymoon Summer of Scott and Zelda: Westport, Connecticut, 1920

RN-to-BSN Education. Global and Population Health Project: Think Global, Act Local

PurposeAn associate degree in nursing (ADN) is an established pathway to becoming a Registered Nurse (RN) in the United States (US) however there is a push for ADN trained RNs to pursue further training and obtain a Bachelor of Science in Nursing (BSN). Within the AACN Essentials, Essential VII: Clinical Prevention and Population Health a Community Health and Population-Focused Health Promotion Activity is required to be met for all BSN trained RNs. This manuscript outlines a novel way of meeting this requirement which allows students to develop knowledge and skills around public health, health promotion and disease prevention at the individual and population level. MethodsThe Community Health and Population-Focused Health Promotion Activity which the RN to BSN students undertook required them to choose a topic that addresses the National Health Initiatives, Strategies & Action Plans. From these broad health topics groups of students (3-4) developed a health promotion activity (HPA) on a public university campus which included a poster during their HPA. The poster presented the health topic and addressed why it was important globally, nationally, locally, and specifically to the university community using a variety of resources specific to the question. Prior to development, students were required to do an abbreviated community assessment on how the health promotion activity task would be presented to interact and engage fellow university students. An evaluation of the health promotion exercise was undertaken through a simple online survey using Qualitrics © accessed either by computers or tablets provided. ResultsAfter the health promotion activity, the planning for the project, the poster and syntheses of the data which was collected on the HPA was presented to their peers in class. Further analysis of the project was done on an individual basis requiring the students to submit an individual assignment on their health promotion topic, the activity and their individual analysis of the HPA. ConclusionThis activity aligns with the Community Health and Population-Focused Health Promotion Activity for RN to BSN which is a requirement for the AACN The Essentials of Baccalaureate Education for Professional Nursing Practice and is a model for alternative practice for RN to BSN curriculum.

Common pesticide impairs bees’ social behavior

Using robotic cameras, researchers have observed for the first time how a common neonicotinoid pesticide affects bee behavior inside the nest (Science 2018, DOI: 10.1126/science.aat1598). Chronic exposure to neonicotinoids, which are neurotoxic, is known to impair foraging bumblebees’ ability to navigate and recognize flowers, but behavior inside the nest has been a black box. Harvard University postdoc James Crall and colleagues used superglue to tag individual bees with unique paper QR codes, and then dispatched robotic cameras to film the bees inside the nest. The team dosed some bee colonies’ sucrose feed with 6 ppb of imidacloprid, a common neonicotinoid. Wild and agricultural forager bees are likely to accumulate this level of neonicotinoids in their nectar, Crall says. Software analysis of the footage revealed previously hidden behavioral changes. For example, after 12 days, exposed bees spent less time feeding larvae and maintaining the nest, and they interacted less with others

Progress breeding for resistance to eastern filbert blight in the eastern United States

Eastern filbert blight (EFB) is a hazelnut disease caused by Anisogramma anomala, a fungus endemic to North America where it can be found associated with the wild hazelnut Corylus americana. While C. americana is resistant to EFB, the commercial hazelnut C. avellana is highly susceptible and typically dies within 5 years from exposure. A hazelnut breeding program was initiated in 1996 at Rutgers University in New Brunswick, New Jersey. The early objective was to identify sources of resistance to EFB for use in breeding regionally adapted, EFB-resistant plants to support the establishment of a hazelnut industry in eastern USA. By working with Oregon State University (OSU) and international colleagues, germplasm collections were made in Russia, Ukraine, Poland, Georgia, Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, Italy, and Turkey. Over 5,000 seedlings were grown and evaluated for response to EFB. While most plants succumbed to EFB, about three percent were found to be resistant. Interestingly, the resistant plants spanned nearly all collection locations and molecular markers have shown them to be highly diverse. Today, we have access to over 100 EFB-resistant accessions selected from more than 60 locations, which represents a significant pool of germplasm to support breeding. Recent studies have shown that most resistance seems to be controlled by only one or a few major genes; R-gene mapping projects are underway at Rutgers as well as Oregon State University. We continue to study new sources of resistance for use in a focused cultivar improvement program.

Shattering the glass ceiling: the world’s first Chinese PhD graduate

ABSTRACTOn 14 June 1905 a Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) degree was conferred on a Chinese person for the first time in history. On this day, the trailblazer, Yen Chin Yung, earned his doctorate in Constitutional Law at Columbia University. This was quite an impressive accomplishment, given that modern university education was only introduced into China towards the end of the nineteenth century. Yet, the world’s first Chinese PhD holder Yen Chin Yung appears to be absent from existing literature on the history of early Chinese legal scholars. This article strives to fill this void by bringing to light the details of Yen’s graduate studies at Columbia University, with particular attention paid to his receipt of the distinguished university fellowship, the contents of his doctoral thesis written on a most quintessential American topic: “The Rights of Citizens and Persons under the Fourteenth Amendment”, and the uncovering of his mysterious post-graduation disappearance.

Modernity's Past, Present, and Future in the Middle East

Nathan Citino uses the theme of “modernization” to explain U.S.-Middle East relations between 1945 and 1967. He demonstrates how, after the Second World War, modernization became manifest in “not only economic development policies, but also the ideas elites used to explain social change” (1). Those elites, Arab and American, considered the quantitative and qualitative aspects of modernization within the legacy of Ottoman reforms, the prospect of secular nation-building, the politics of the Cold War, and the Palestinian question. A veteran researcher of American and Arab histories, Citino reconstructs the many lives of a generation that “envisioned an Arab future” with “a shared set of widely held concepts” and in “a Middle Eastern and a universal framework” (1). Citino’s methodological aim is, to borrow from a recent piece written by his Rice University colleague, Ussama Makdisi, to “de-exceptionalize” the study of U.S.-Middle East relations.1 Ussama Makdisi, “The Privilege of Acting Upon Others: The Middle Eastern Exception to Anti-Exceptionalist Histories of the U.S. and the World,” in Explaining the History of American Foreign Relations, eds. Frank Costigliola and Michael Hogan (Cambridge, UK, 2016), 203–16.

Chinese as a second language teachers’ cognition in teaching intercultural communicative competence

The development of intercultural communicative competence has recently emerged as one of the major foci in language education. The rise of Chinese as an international language has increased demand for studies exploring how Chinese language teachers teach intercultural communicative competence. This study investigated: (1) Chinese language teachers' pedagogical cultural knowledge and objectives in teaching intercultural communicative competence; and (2) the contextual factors (i.e., overall university surroundings, computer accessibility, academic atmosphere, and colleagues and superiors) influencing their pedagogical cultural knowledge and objectives in teaching intercultural communicative competence. Based on a survey of 43 university teachers from China, it shows that the participants had different degrees of familiarity with pedagogical cultural knowledge and that contextual factors affected their pedagogical cultural knowledge development. Moreover, the participants’ objectives in teaching intercultural communicative competence were more skill-than knowledge- and attitude-oriented, and had different relationships with different contextual factors. The findings inform the development of in-service and pre-service teacher education programmes to help Chinese language teachers become effective intercultural language teachers.

Saxophone Colossus: An Interview with Sonny Rollins

Saxophone ColossusAn Interview with Sonny Rollins John A. McCluskey Jr. (bio) Click for larger view View full resolution Sonny Rollins playing at Voll-Damm Barcelona Jazz Festival in Palau de la Musica Catalana on November 20, 2012 in Barcelona, Spain. Photo courtesy of Shutterstock. [End Page 14] Sonny Rollins was one of the most relentless and fearless improvisers, tireless performers, and imaginative composers of his generation. Though no longer performing, he was the leader of his own jazz groups for some sixty years. He commands the deep respect of his peers and sidemen as well as the enduring admiration of audiences around the world. His awards have been many, among them ten honorary degrees from American colleges and universities, a Guggenheim Fellowship for composition (1972), a Grammy Award for Lifetime Achievement (2004), and a National Medal of Arts (2010) conferred by President Barack Obama. Journey to his music to dance ("St. Thomas," "Valse Hot," "Brownskin Girl"), to applaud ("Autumn Nocturne," any version of "Without a Song"), to smile "Alfie's Theme," "I'm an Old Cowhand"), to brood ("Why was I Born?"). It's all there, as the music has always been there to pull you through challenging times. Walter Theodore "Sonny" Rollins was born September 7, 1930 in New York City. He makes his home in Woodstock, New York. The phone interview that follows took place in early November, 2018. Drawing upon the film "Sonny Rollins: Beyond the Notes," my initial question was to Mr. Rollins' formal experience as a teacher and mentor. An early technical glitch in the sound quality was addressed, then resolved. JMc: Okay, I'm back now and again want to say thank you for letting me have a little bit of your time this afternoon, and I'm going back to the question of teaching and mentoring. Specifically: have you been in that situation before where you're actually working with young people, teaching them, mentoring them, encouraging them? SR: Well I never taught, per se … as it goes. But I've had some—I did another film about some young students playing. But I'm not very good at teaching. I had a student one time—a guy that was studying with me. He wasn't a youngster, he was a little older. But I realized I got more involved in the teaching than he was in the learning. And it was very disconcerting to me, because I was really trying to get myself together to show him something … but it was disconcerting. So I realized that was not my forté. So I'm not involved in really teaching. If some listener over the years learned something from the myriad records I have made, then that's the way I have taught. But I've never really had too much engagement with students. [End Page 15] JMc: Okay, along that line, I saw something about the Oberlin College fellowships that you established. I think they were called The Sonny Fellows program.1 What went into that? How did that idea evolve? SR: Well, the way it evolved was that I wanted to leave my archives to a school. And there were many schools here that I had gotten degrees from: Julliard; I had gotten a degree from New England Conservatory, and from the Berklee School of Music. So before I did anything, somebody brought up to me that Oberlin might be a good place because Oberlin had such a long history, a long social history in the United States. JMc: Oh, yes. SR: As you know, going back to the Underground Railroad. John Brown. Everything that had to do with it. It was the first school to have a black matriculate, and the first school to have a woman matriculate. It happened at Oberlin. It's a great school. There is no school that has better credentials. So there's some great music people like Will Marion Cook who was a teacher of Duke Ellington. And so, Oberlin, I realized: that was where I wanted to … not place my archives, but establish a teaching … something that people might be able to learn from. I would have a place to have myself associated...

Classroom-Based Research Projects for Computing Teachers

The introduction of Computing to the national curriculum in England has led to a situation where in-service teachers need to develop subject knowledge and pedagogical expertise in computer science, which presents a significant challenge. Professional learning opportunities can support this; these may be most effective when situated in the teachers’ own working practices. This article describes a project to support Computing teachers in developing pedagogical skills by carrying out classroom-based research in their schools. A group of 22 primary (Grades K--5) and secondary (Grades 6--10) teachers from schools across England planned, designed, and implemented research projects either individually or in small groups, supported by a team of university colleagues. Inter and intra group progress was shared online and face-to-face within a distributed community of inquiry. Data collection included surveys, video data, and the projects completed by the teachers. The findings from the project are analysed using Clarke and Hollingsworth’s Interconnected Model of Teacher Professional Growth (IMTPG), which enables an identification and exploration of teacher change. Results of the analysis demonstrate that the approach can foster “growth networks”—the construct used within IMTPG to indicate teacher change which is likely to be sustained and fundamental to teachers’ understanding. The individual nature of this change indicates that the approach supports personal change related to each teacher’s specific situation. Although there is a huge literature on action research as part of teacher professional learning, we believe this to be the first time this has been carried out in the context of computer science education. We conclude by critically reflecting on the lessons that we have learned in leading this project.

John Duncan Holden

John Duncan Holden had strong links to the Royal College of General Practitioners, having been a fellow, council member, provost of Mersey Faculty, and recipient of the president’s medal. He...