Never On A Sunday: The Sabbath And The Christian Academic Library - Part 1

The article will appear in two parts. Part One examines the biblical basis for the positions taken and makes a general application. Part Two, in the next issue, will look at the application of Scripture to the world of Christian higher education and its libraries

Lifelong Learning & The Library Connection: A Perpectual Model For Tertiary Library Customer Education

The Lifelong Learning and Library Connection as a model for tertiary library customer education examined the transitional skill and ability expectations of undergraduate tertiary education students to propose a Perceptual Model of lifelong learning as an alternative to behavioural and relational models which are more experientially or practice based. The hypothesis of a recent study was that the personal perceptions of customers can mirror personal reality. What customers believe can predict what they will pursue. Therefore a Perceptual Model can offer the advantage of facilitating lifelong learning through library customer education approaches geared to the sequential levels of skills needed by customer groups

Why Your Academic Library Needs a Popular Reading Collection Now More Than Ever

Do popular reading materials belong in college and university libraries? Although some librarians think not, others believe there are compelling reasons for including them. The trend towards user-focused libraries, the importance of attracting patrons to libraries in the age of the Internet, and, most importantly, the need to promote literacy at a time when it has reached its lowest levels are all reasons why academic librarians are reconsidering their ideas about popular reading materials. Librarians who decide to implement a leisure reading collection should consider a number of key issues

The net generation and digital natives: implications for higher education

Executive Summary "Our students have changed radically. Today�s students are no longer the people our educational system was designed to teach." (Prensky 2001 p1) 1. There is no evidence that there is a single new generation of young students entering Higher Education and the terms Net Generation and Digital Native do not capture the processes of change that are taking place. 2. The complex changes that are taking place in the student body have an age related component that is most obvious with the newest waves of technology. Prominent amongst these are the uses made of social networking sites (e.g. Facebook), uploading and manipulation of multimedia (e.g. YouTube) and the use of handheld devices to access the mobile Internet. 3. Demographic factors interact with age to pattern students� responses to new technologies. The most important of these are gender, mode of study (distance or place-based) and the international or home status of the student. 4. The gap between students and their teachers is not fixed, nor is the gulf so large that it cannot be bridged. In many ways the relationship is determined by the requirements teachers place upon their students to make use of new technologies and the way teachers integrate new technologies in their courses. There is little evidence that students enter university with demands for new technologies that teachers and universities cannot meet. 5. Students persistently report that they prefer moderate use of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) in their courses. Care should be taken with this finding because the interpretation of what is �moderate� use of ICT may be changing as a range of new technologies take off and become embedded in social life and universities. 6. Universities should be confident in the provision of what might seem to be basic services. Students appreciate and make use of the foundational infrastructure for learning, even where this is often criticised as being an out of date and unimaginative use of new technology. Virtual Learning Environments (Learning or Course Management Systems) are used widely and seem to be well regarded. The provision by university libraries of online services, including the provision of online e-journals and e-books, are also positively received. 7. Students do not naturally make extensive use of many of the most discussed new technologies such as Blogs, Wikis and 3D Virtual Worlds. The use of 3D Virtual Worlds is notably low amongst students. The use of Wikis and Blogs is relatively low overall, but use does vary between different contexts, including national and regional contexts. Students who are required to use these technologies in their courses are unlikely to reject them and low use does not imply that they are inappropriate for educational use. The key point being made is that there is not a natural demand amongst students that teaching staff and universities should feel obliged to satisfy. 8. There is no obvious or consistent demand from students for changes to pedagogy at university (e.g. demands for team and group working). There may be good reasons why teachers and universities wish to revise their approaches to teaching and learning, or may wish to introduce new ways of working. Students will respond positively to changes in teaching and learning strategies that are well conceived, well explained and properly embedded in courses and degree programmes. However there is no evidence of a pent-up demand amongst students for changes in pedagogy or of a demand for greater collaboration. 9. There is no evidence of a consistent demand from students for the provision of highly individualised or personal university services. The development of university infrastructures, such as new kinds of learning environments (for example Personal Learning Environments) should be choices about the kinds of provision that the university wishes to make and not a response to general statements about what a new generation of students are demanding. 10. Advice derived from generational arguments should not be used by government and government agencies to promote changes in university structure designed to accommodate a Net Generation of Digital Natives. The evidence indicates that young students do not form a generational cohort and they do not express consistent or generationally organised demands. A key finding of this review is that political choices should be made explicit and not disguised by arguments about generational change

Users' trust in information resources in the Web environment: a status report

This study has three aims; to provide an overview of the ways in which trust is either assessed or asserted in relation to the use and provision of resources in the Web environment for research and learning; to assess what solutions might be worth further investigation and whether establishing ways to assert trust in academic information resources could assist the development of information literacy; to help increase understanding of how perceptions of trust influence the behaviour of information users

The Role of the University Library in supporting Information Literacy in UK Secondary Schools

Purpose – The purpose of this research is to report on the findings of the CrossEd-2 study which investigated the role of the university library in delivering information literacy skills relating to the use of e-resources to secondary schools in the UK. Design/methodology/approach – A quantitative survey of all university libraries in the UK was undertaken using an e-mail questionnaire to identify the incidence of current collaboration. A return rate of 36 per cent was achieved, and the data provided information on the types of collaboration taking place in a total of 20 universities. These were categorized and used to select a survey population of six university libraries for the qualitative study. Data collection for the case studies was by means of face-to-face and telephone interviews with university librarians, using semi-structured interview schedules. Findings – Six forms of collaboration were identified with a range of levels of information literacy skills evident. Collaboration is characteristically ad hoc, with little involvement of school librarians. The research revealed six distinct positive aspects of cross-sectoral collaboration for school pupils. A fundamental lack of understanding of the respective roles of secondary school and university librarians was demonstrated. Practical implications – A strategy and a national seminar to enhance collaboration in the UK are discussed. Originality and value – The first qualitative study that has explored the issues surrounding information literacy skills relating to the use of e-resources across the secondary and tertiary education sectors in the UK

Uncovering meanings: The discourses of New Zealand secondary teachers in context

Recent official policy discourses on student achievement have stressed the importance of teachers and the impact that effective teaching can have on student life chances and on national economic performance. There is also a body of research on the way teaching and learning are affected by school context. This article discusses research designed to investigate how and to what extent the contextual features of schools impacted on the beliefs New Zealand secondary teachers and principals held about teaching and learning, the extent to which they believed their agency could influence outcomes for their students, and the aspirations and goals they pursued. We interviewed principals and teachers in six secondary schools, two each in high, mid and low socio-economic areas. The findings show considerable commonality in teachers' pedagogical discourses and that the rhetoric of formal policy discourses is pervasive and normalized in schools. All the teachers believed they could make a difference to student achievement and life chances, tried to address diversity among their student bodies, and saw success as much wider than academic achievement. Concurrently we found that the institutional habitus of each school largely determined how discourses were enacted and that relationships, confidence, student-centredness and success were interpreted differently between schools. We argue that these differences must be taken into account if school policies and interventions are to be successful

A systematic review of pedagogical approaches that can effectively include children with special educational needs in mainstream classrooms with a particular focus on peer group interactive approaches

The broad background to this review is a long history of concepts of special pupils and special education, and a faith in special pedagogical approaches. The rise of inclusive schools and some important critiques of special pedagogy (e.g. Hart, 1996; Norwich and Lewis, 2001; Thomas and Loxley, 2001) have raised the profile of teaching approaches that ordinary teachers can and do use to include children with special educational needs in mainstream classrooms. Inclusive education itself is increasingly conceived as being about the quality of learning and participation that goes on in inclusive schools rather than simplistic matters of where children are place

A systematic review of whole class, subject based, pedagogies with reported outcomes for the academic and social inclusion of pupils with special educational needs in mainstream classrooms

Schools across the world have responded to international and national initiatives designed to further the development of inclusive education. In England, there is a statutory requirement for all schools to provide effective learning opportunities for all pupils (QCA, 2000) and children with special educational needs (SEN) are positioned as having a right to be within mainstream classrooms accessing an appropriate curriculum (SENDA, 2001). Previous reviews which have sought to identify classroom practices that support the inclusion of children with SEN have been technically non-systematic and hence a need for a systematic review within this area has been identified (Nind et al., 2004; Rix et al., 2006). This systematic literature review is the last in a series of three