Professional development in teaching and learning for early career academic geographers: Contexts, practices and tensions

This is an Accepted Manuscript of an article published by Taylor & Francis in Journal of Geography in Higher Education on 16th May 2011, available online: doi: 10.1080/03098265.2011.563380This paper provides a review of the practices and tensions informing approaches to professional development for early career academic geographers who are teaching in higher education. We offer examples from Britain, Canada, Nigeria and the USA. The tensions include: institutional and departmental cultures; models that offer generic and discipline-specific approaches; the credibility of alternative settings for professional development in teaching and learning; the valuing of professional development and of teaching in academic systems of reward and recognition; and the challenges of balancing professional and personal life. We summarize concepts of good practice and suggest opportunities for future research

The Undergraduate–Postgraduate–Faculty Triad: Unique Functions and Tensions Associated with Undergraduate Research Experiences at Research Universities

We present an exploratory study of how undergraduates' involvement in research influences postgraduates (i.e., graduate and postdoctoral researchers) and faculty. We used a qualitative approach to examine the relationships among undergraduates, postgraduates, and the faculty head in a research group. In this group, undergraduates viewed postgraduates as more approachable than the faculty head both literally and figuratively. Mentorship by postgraduates presented unique challenges for undergraduates, including unrealistic expectations and varying abilities to mentor. The postgraduates and faculty head concurred that undergraduates contributed to the group's success and served as a source of frustration. Postgraduates appreciated the opportunity to observe multiple approaches to mentoring as they saw the faculty head and other postgraduates interact with undergraduates. The faculty head viewed undergraduate research as important for propagating the research community and for gaining insights into undergraduates and their postgraduate mentors. These results highlight how the involvement of undergraduates and postgraduates in research can limit and enhance the research experiences of members of the undergraduate–postgraduate–faculty triad. A number of tensions emerge that we hypothesize are intrinsic to undergraduate research experiences at research universities. Future studies can focus on determining the generalizability of these findings to other groups and disciplines

Absence of snapshot memory of the target view interferes with place navigation learning by rats in the water maze

Contribution of visual and nonvisual mechanisms to spatial behavior of rats in the Morris water maze was studied with a computerized infrared tracking system, which switched off the room lights when the subject entered the inner circular area of the pool with an escape platform. Naive rats trained under light-dark conditions (L-D) found the escape platform more slowly than rats trained in permanent light (L). After group members were swapped, the L-pretrained rats found under L-D conditions the same target faster and eventually approached latencies attained during L navigation. Performance of L-D-trained rats deteriorated in permanent darkness (D) but improved with continued D training. Thus L-D navigation improves gradually by procedural learning (extrapolation of the start-target azimuth into the zero-visibility zone) but remains impaired by lack of immediate visual feedback rather than by absence of the snapshot memory of the target view

Results of Optic Nerve Sheath Fenestration for Pseudotumor Cerebri: The Lateral Orbitotomy Approach

• Twenty-eight patients with pseudotumor cerebri underwent 40 optic nerve sheath fenestrations for relief of visual loss or to preserve vision. Twenty women and eight men underwent 16 unilateral fenestrations and 12 bilateral operations. Papilledema disappeared or was strikingly reduced in 24 of 28 patients. The other four patients had gliotic discs (two patients) or were followed up for only a short time. Visual acuity improved in 12 of 40 eyes and remained the same in 22 of 40 eyes. Seventeen eyes had preoperative visual acuity of 20/30 or better. In six eyes visual acuity decreased. Of eight eyes operated on that had visual acuity of 20/200 or worse, only three showed improvement. Visual fields improved in 21 of 40 eyes and remained the same in ten eyes. Five of the ten eyes that did not change had poor vision before surgery. Eight eyes in five patients continued to lose acuity postoperatively. Each of these eight eyes had a concomitant loss of visual field. An additional two eyes developed visual field loss with preserved visual acuity. The indications for surgery are early evidence of progressive loss of visual field or acuity in a patient with pseudotumor cerebri. Severe vision loss presents little opportunity for improvement but fenestration may be used in a last effort to preserve or restore vision

Optic Nerve Sheath Fenestration in Pseudotumor Cerebri: A Lateral Orbitotomy Approach

• In patients with pseudotumor cerebri accompanied by loss of vision, optic nerve sheath fenestration is an effective route to prompt recovery of vision. A lateral orbitotomy approach to decompression of the optic nerve is appropriate for the ophthalmologist with adequate orbital experience. A rectangular window of dura and arachnoid, measuring approximately 3 × 5 mm, is excised from the bulbous portion of the optic nerve. It is important that the arachnoid within the window is excised because an intact arachnoid is an effective barrier to cerebrospinal fluid egress. The use of operating microscope, microsurgical instrument, and microdissecting techniques are emphasized. Twenty-eight patients (40 eyes) with progressive visual loss were treated by surgical nerve sheath fenestration. A study of the indications, results, and complications of this procedure is presented in a companion article

Evaluation of the Relative Afferent Pupillary Defect in Pseudotumor Cerebri in Regard to Surgical Intervention-Reply

IN REPLY. —We agree with Dr Frenkel that an RAPD when considered alone, without paying attention to other indicators of optic nerve dysfunction, may be misleading or confusing. The RAPD reflects the difference between the two eyes and can be used to judge progression in bilateral disease if the visual acuity and visual field are also known. Unilateral visual field loss and the RAPD follow each other closely.Despite its usual bilaterality, papilledema due to pseudotumor cerebri rarely damages vision equally in both eyes. If a new RAPD appears, or if it changes in either direction or disappears, then subjective correlates should be looked for (visual acuity, color vision, flicker fusion, visual fields).We have, of course, used the RAPD only as a measure of difference in pupillomotor input between the two eyes and have kept this so constantly in mind that it seemed obvious and unworthy of special mentio