Americans Teaching English: Reflections on Experience as Sojourners in Another Country

Sojourners are visitors to another country for a defined period of time where occupation is the primary reason for the visit. Study participants spent at least one academic year teaching English as a Foreign Language at a university in another country. Working in the context of a university in another country means teaching in a system predicated upon the local culture’s values and assumptions. Though all returned sojourners in this study attended a pre-departure orientation which included information about teaching in the assigned host culture, this kind of pre-departure preparation does not mean sojourner adjustment to the host culture will be without unexpected events. While daily life skills typically become more manageable over time, teaching in a host culture presents challenges that are less easy to resolve. This narrative inquiry explored how American instructors described their sojourner experience. Participant narratives of experience consisted of data sourced from interviews as well as from written and visual documents composed during the sojourn. An analysis of participant narratives suggests certain attitudes- being open to intercultural learning and having a sense of humor- help sojourners adjust to living and working in another country. This study also found sojourners encountered different cultural perspectives about teaching and learning, cultural informants helped sojourners navigate culturally-based challenges, and sojourners engaged in mutual intercultural exchange by acting as cultural informants about American culture. Returned sojourner narratives indicate a developing understanding of their own and others’ culturally-based perspectives. Sojourners’ personal narratives provide examples of the challenges and rewards of living and working in another country, and this study’s four findings are important for administrators and others interested in intercultural exchange

Getting the Info You Need: Designing Targeted Surveys and Questionnaires

This webinar, made available by Maricopa Advanced Technology Education Center (MATEC), discusses how instructors can maximize the usefulness of student survey data by designing quality student surveys. The webinar was presented by Dr. Catherine Nameth, Education Coordinator at UCLA. Topics covered include why surveying students is important, how to design quality survey questions based on desired or needed information, and how to improve upon survey content. The webinar recording runs 52:03 minutes in length

Identifying the Underlying Assumptions of an Interdisciplinary Collaboration on Curriculum Development

This reflective analysis focuses on a successful interdisciplinary collaboration between two academics from two different areas of expertise, chemistry and education, who worked together on a curriculum development project. The authors identify three underlying assumptions integral to their successful partnership (being ready for learning, having a commitment to collaborative learning, and seeing each other as peers) and state that their partnership led to new ways of knowing and learning. This article is framed within the field of adult learning and development, and views the authors as learners, thus offering insights into understanding the value of interdisciplinary research partnerships in higher education.

Nanomaterial categorization for assessing risk potential to facilitate regulatory decision-making

For nanotechnology to meet its potential as a game-changing and sustainable technology, it is important to ensure that the engineered nanomaterials and nanoenabled products that gain entry to the marketplace are safe and effective. Tools and methods are needed for regulatory purposes to allow rapid material categorization according to human health and environmental risk potential, so that materials of high concern can be targeted for additional scrutiny, while material categories that pose the least risk can receive expedited review. Using carbon nanotubes as an example, we discuss how data from alternative testing strategies can be used to facilitate engineered nanomaterial categorization according to risk potential and how such an approach could facilitate regulatory decision-making in the future

Nanomaterial categorization for assessing risk potential to facilitate regulatory decision-making.

For nanotechnology to meet its potential as a game-changing and sustainable technology, it is important to ensure that the engineered nanomaterials and nanoenabled products that gain entry to the marketplace are safe and effective. Tools and methods are needed for regulatory purposes to allow rapid material categorization according to human health and environmental risk potential, so that materials of high concern can be targeted for additional scrutiny, while material categories that pose the least risk can receive expedited review. Using carbon nanotubes as an example, we discuss how data from alternative testing strategies can be used to facilitate engineered nanomaterial categorization according to risk potential and how such an approach could facilitate regulatory decision-making in the future