Search results

This study proposes to examine whether tales from childhood influence the psyche and self of the adult in their professional role as a leader in a large organization. It is positioned within a social constructionist and postmodernist framework.

The methodology development was challenging; to capture the level of abstraction within which it was positioned. Using narrative inquiry allowed for a less rigid methodology, data collection and analysis. The data were collected using a non‐structured single interview with a known subject, the data analysed using an initial thematic analysis followed by an in‐depth analysis of the themes against the background of an Enid Blyton novel.

This research project has shown how all are products of their whole life experiences to date; thus the tales from childhood must also impact on adult lives. This project identified links between the adult professional self and the characters in the tales, which were read as children. Leadership can be read as an adventure story or fairy tale, a myth born out of the narratives and language often used to describe it, reflecting tales of quest and achievement.

The interpretations on offer are only one version; another reader or teller would experience a different interpretation; finding her own story, while constructing herself as a researcher, was unexpected and surprising. There are at least two stories running throughout predominantly: the subjects’ story and the story of the research.

The purpose of this chapter is to explore the use of a web-based collaborative platform for virtual literacy coaching and how the technology influenced reflective practice.

This qualitative study explored the use of virtual literacy coaching by examining 18 coaching sessions between a university-based literacy coach and a first-grade reading interventionist using Adobe® Connect, a web-based collaborative tool. The application provided a virtual meeting space and through the use of video pods the teacher and coach had synchronous audio and video communication. Each coaching session lasted approximately one hour and included a pre-observation discussion, an observation of a 30-minute individualized lesson with a struggling reader, and a debriefing conversation. Data, including transcriptions of the coaching sessions, interviews with participants, field notes, and journal entries were analyzed using the constant-comparative method.

Findings showed the ability to link teachers and coaches in a virtual space creates new possibilities for engaging in reflective practice that certainly are not trouble-free, but do provide opportunities to think deeply about teaching and learning without being face-to-face.

As school districts continue to experience budgetary cuts, it is important to explore alternative ways to support teachers. The findings identified in this study underscore the differences between face-to-face and virtual coaching. Understanding and accepting the limitations of the technology and recognizing the importance of the teacher/coach relationship could provide a starting point for school districts interested in computer-mediated communication.

In order for a software system to better serve the user, it should be able to adjust its behavior according to the changing needs in the environment. Oftentimes, selecting a particular action may depend upon various non‐functional requirements (NFRs) such as safety, cost, and so on. In the past, the many possible alternatives for an adaptation action by and large have not been considered systematically and rationally, keeping various NFRs in mind, hence, resulting in low‐level of confidence that such an action is indeed a best possible one that is really desirable. The purpose of this paper is to present a goal‐oriented approach to select alternative(s) based on a particular contextual event, while considering important NFRs.

The paper proposes a goal‐oriented approach in which various NFRs are treated as softgoals to be satisficed and used in exploring, analyzing and selecting among possible adaptation alternatives, in consideration of the particular contextual event.

Without the goal‐oriented methodology, which offers an ontology enriched with the notion of goals for contextual information and also integrates rules for triggering adaptation, the authors feel, through their scenario study applied to their smart‐phone application, that some critical issues might not have been considered in building a usable, useful system.

The concepts introduced in this paper provide a systematic and rational approach to select adaptation alternative(s), considering NFRs along with detecting a contextual event.

This case study describes the use of antipsychotic medication by an adult woman with learning disabilities. The study first provides detailed clinical information about Jane, drawing on a comprehensive mental health assessment and then provides a thematic analysis of Jane's experiences of antipsychotic medication.

Since a teacher's identity is the result of ongoing discussion, explanation, negotiation and justification, famous education quotes were integrated into a language teacher practicum in a teacher education program in the northwest university in Taiwan. This study aims to explore the influence of discussing education quotes on 10 English as a foreign language student teachers' professional identities. This study also aims to discuss the following research questions.

This case study focused on 10 student teachers' identity construction in a practicum class under one advisor. According to Merriam (1998), a case is a “thing, a single entity, a unit around which there are boundaries” (p. 27). The case was a practicum and the unit of analysis was participants' identity construction.

First, reading and discussing famous quotes was a useful “discourse” and “language” for student teachers to construct and negotiate their identities. Second, through the integration of reading and discussing quotes, participants revealed more professional identity in knowledge and expertise, particularly in English instruction in the post-test.

This study examined the influence of discussing educational quotes of 10 students’ professional identity. However, given the nature of the study, there were some limitations. First, although the small sample size offered rich data through observation, artifacts and pre-and post-tests, it restricts our ability to generalize the results.

This study is highly practical (i.e. learning by discussion) and strongly interactive among the participant in a professional and social context. The conceptual framework in Figure 1 presents a theoretical framework supporting reading and discussing quotes as the discourse for the student teachers for their professional identity construction. Social context and relationship shape their professional identity (Izadinia, 2013). Student teachers spent much of their time with their cooperating teachers and administrators in their cooperating schools. In order to foster student teachers’ professional identity construction, it is recommended that student teachers should be encouraged to read and discuss educational quotes with teachers and administrators in their cooperating schools as a mean of professional dialogue and learning.

In this study, it was argued that educational or English teaching quotes could be used as viable, effective and appropriate materials in documenting student teachers' professional identity construction out of their classroom practice in their practicum. The findings of this study derived from the nature of 10 student teachers' professional learning via discussing famous education sayings, and professional learning took place during the practicum.

Most of the studies reviewed above were small-scale and qualitative case studies. Some involved only one or two single cases (e.g. Antonek et al., 1997; Calandra et al., 2006; Camp, 2013). Only a few studies were analyzed and explored based on theoretical frameworks (e.g. Chasteen, 2015). No explicit references were made to any theoretical frameworks in most of the studies. This study included both qualitative (observation and artifacts) and quantitative data (pretest and posttest) to explore the influence of discussing education quotes on 10 student teachers' professional identities and reflective practices.

Geertz is well known for his methodology. Many Symbolic Interactionists refer to his notion of “thick description.” They may not know his work on Indonesia in general, but they often know his famous essay on the Balinese cockfight: “Deep Play” (Geertz, 1972, 1973). That essay is often held up as an exemplary “model” of ethnographic fieldwork. But we need to examine what he calls “thick description” more carefully. After the first few pages of the essay there is actually very little “idiographic description” per se. Much of the paper concerns general description and analysis. We do not get a blow-by-blow account of a cockfight as viewed by Geertz. Instead we get an analysis that is based on Jeremy Bentham’s Utilitarianism (Parekh, 1998). There is a good deal missing from the broader analysis as well. Much of that can be found in other work (Geertz, 1959, 1966, 1980, 1995). Students who only read “Deep Play” often form a superficial impression of the method of “thick description” and a distorted sense of Balinese culture (Howe, 2001; Vickers, 1996 [1981]; Warren, 1993). This essay supplements Geertz’s essay with a discussion of a religious ceremony of far more importance than the largely secular cockfight. I touch on a central feature of Balinese society not emphasized by Geertz: the temple anniversary festival. It is called an odalan (Belo, 1966 [1953a]; Eiseman, 1990; Geertz, 2004). But the problem is not just restricted to the “Deep Play” essay. Geertz’s other work is often also not based primarily on ethnographic thick description. It concerns historical and sociological generalizations. Those are often based on archives and general fieldwork. Geertz also benefits from reading of Dutch research not available in English. The celebrations which take place at a temple are “deeper” than more immediate, largely secular games like a cockfight. Geertz’s oeuvre is well worth reading, but his notion of “thick description” needs to be seen in a broader, comparative historical sociological context. That involves Interpretive research paradigms that Geertz, as a symbolic anthropologist, distanced himself from, including Symbolic Interactionism and Weberian verstehende Soziologie.

In the novel, The Member of the Wedding, Carson McCullers probes the American malaise through the longings of a young adolescent girl. Twelve‐year‐old Frankie no longer sees the world as round and inviting as a school globe. No, the world is huge and cracked and turning a thousand miles an hour. Indeed, the world seems separate from herself. In the midst of chaos, Frankie sees her brother's upcoming wedding as a chance to feel connected, to feel that she matters. The story focuses on Frankie's efforts to be a “member of the wedding,” as she recognizes, “they are the we of me.”

The idea for this hugely successful event at the Crucible Theatre on 7 June, came first from the pages of New Library World, believe it or not. Reading one of Jane Little's articles advertising Feminist Book Fortnight, I noticed that there was not going to be a feminist book fair in this country this year, and that the main fair was to be in Oslo. It seemed an ideal opportunity to alter Sheffield's image as the macho snooker playing capital of the North and the idea for the First Sheffield Women's Book Fair was born.

What access did readers have to fiction in Britain during the Romantic period? To what extent might the fiction market have been segmented into readers who borrowed their novels from libraries ‐ sometimes stealing or failing to return them ‐ and those who bought them new or second‐hand at bookshops? Many circulating‐library proprietors would also serve the novel‐reading population in their capacity as professional booksellers. As librarians, they would promote the value‐for‐money aspect of renting fiction to readers of limited means; as booksellers, they enabled readers to purchase their particular favourites among their bookstocks as well. Purchasing a book, though, did not equate with genuinely wishing and intending to read it. Failing to return a circulating‐library novel, or stealing one, may have been a stronger indication that a title was indeed being selected to be read ‐ and then being retained to be re‐read.