Store Per: Norwegian-American "Paul Bunyan" of the Prairie

Review of: "Store Per: Norwegian-American "Paul Bunyan" of the Prairie," by Peter Tjernagel Harstad

Into the Marginal Zone. An Autoethnographic Journey through Teaching Experience

This autoethnographic study explores how potentials of learning and new hope emerge in decisive events where a teacher and marginalized students in Norwegian upper secondary school are involved. The events are based on my own teaching experience, and are brought into the study as four narratives. These narratives are analyzed by means of the concept of chronotope (timespace) developed by the Russian philosopher M. M. Bakhtin. His philosophy of time, space, the act and dialogicality provides the theoretical backdrop of the study, and has been used to discuss the findings. The Norwegian Government's white paper on education and social equalisation provides an educational context, and is discussed with the findings and the theoretical perspective. The aim of the study has been to investigate what knowledge of importance for the way we approach marginalized students that can be drawn from the narrated events and the methods used to analyze them. The philosophical question of what it means to be human in educational settings and context is not part of the aims of the study, but is a perspective on which the study rests. The findings of this study are the identification of four new chronotopes, where the chronotope of relation could be said to be the more important among the four. The study promotes the relation as basic for creating change in challenging educational situations, and in particular for changing the life story of marginalized students. More importantly, the knowledge of how to initiate, develop and maintain a relationship is found to be of such crucial importance for the students to manage well in society that it has to be a main educational aim together with basic skills and other types of knowledge. The study sums up with the development of a concept of chronotopical thinking, which is an embodied and relational way of thinking. The study points to further perspectives for education and educational research as a consequence of the findings. Chronotopical thinking could be a new and fruitful approach in teaching and learning. The concept also calls for further research, with regards to its difference to cognitive and analytical forms of rationality. The study sums up with a challenge for policymakers to acknowledge the view that humans are relational, and make this a reality in further policy planning.Denne autoetnografiske studien utforsker hvordan potensial for læring og nytt håp kan oppstå i avgjørende hendelser der en lærer og marginaliserte elever i norsk videregående skole er involvert. Hendelsene er basert på min egen lærererfaring, og bringes inn i denne studien som fire fortellinger. Disse fortellingene er analysert ved hjelp av kronotop-begrepet som ble utviklet av den russiske filosofen M. M. Bakhtin. Hans filosofi om tid, rom, handling og dialogisitet utgjør studiens teoretiske bakteppe, og har blitt brukt i diskusjonen av studiens funn. Den norske regjerings ”white paper” om utdanning og sosial utjevning har blitt brakt inn i studien som en utdanningskontekst, og den blir diskutert sammen med funnene og det teoretiske perspektivet. Målene med studien har vært å undersøke ha slags kunnskap som er viktig for måten vi forholder oss til marginaliserte elever på. Denne kunnskapen har blitt hentet ut av fortellingene gjennom analysen av dem. Et annet perspektiv, som likevel ikke utgjør noe mål for studien, men heller danner basis for tenkningen i den, er det filosofiske spørsmålet om hva det vil si å være menneske i utdanningssituasjoner og deres kontekst. Funnene i studien er identifikasjonen av fire nye kronotoper, der relasjonskronotopen kan sies å være den viktigste. Studien fremholder relasjon som et grunnlag for endring i utfordrende situasjoner, og spesielt med tanke på endring i marginaliserte elevers livsfortellinger. Men et viktigere poeng er at kunnskapen om hvordan en kan innlede, bevare og utvikle en god relasjon er så avgjørende viktig for hvordan marginaliserte elever skal klare seg videre i samfunnet, at den ikke kan sees atskilt fra andre utdanningsmål. Studien oppsummeres ved utviklingen av et nytt begrep; kronotopisk tenkning, som er en kroppsliggjort og relasjonell tenkemåte. Studien peker mot videre perspektiver for utdannning og utdanningsforskning som en konsekvens av disse funnene. Kronotopisk tenkning kan være en ny og fruktbar tilnærming til undervisning og læring. Begrepet påkaller vider forskning, spesielt med tanke på å utforske forskjellene mellom kronotopisk tenkning og kognitiv, analytisk rasjonalitet. Studien oppsummeres med en utfordring til policymakers, om å anerkjenne synet på mennesket som relasjonelt, og ta dette med i videre utdanningsplanlegging.PED395MAPS-PE

Teacher educators reflecting on case-based teaching – a collective self-study

The current study is a collective self-study on how we as 15 teacher educators at a university in Norway tried to improve our teaching through working with cases with the aim of better supporting student teachers in making links between theory and practice. We wanted to address the common criticism in teacher education concerning a perceived gap between practice and theory. Our presupposition was that one way to prepare student teachers for work and bring together theoretical and practical knowledge would be through case-based teaching. We agreed that we wanted to try different ways of working with cases and to follow our own actions with research and conduct a self-study. Throughout the project, each teacher educator experienced to learn about case-based teaching, but our joint learning was limited due to practical issues and lack of time. With teacher education as a shared responsibility, our conclusion is that teacher educators need time to develop as a team, not only as individual teachers.publishedVersio

Stripping the Boss : The Powerful Role of Humor in the Egyptian Revolution 2011

The Egyptian Revolution 2011 has shaken the Arab world and stirred up Middle-East politics. Moreover, it caused a rush in political science and the neighboring disciplines, which had not predicted an event like this and now have troubles explaining it. While many things can be learned from the popular uprising, and from the limitations of previous scholarship, our focus will be on a moral resource, which has occasionally been noticed, but not sufficiently explored: the role of humor in keeping up the spirit of the Revolution. For eighteen days, protestors persevered at Liberation Square in Central Cairo, the epicenter of resistance; at times a few dozens, at times hundreds of thousands. What they did was to fight the terror of the regime, which reached absurd peaks during those days, with humor – successfully. We offer a social-functionalist account of the uprising, which includes behavioral as well as cultural levels of analysis, and illuminates how humorous means helped to achieve deadly serious goals. By reconstructing how Egyptians laughed themselves into democracy, we outline a social psychology of resistance, which uses humor both as a sword and a shield.Peer reviewe

The right person, in the right job, with the right skills, at the right time: A workforce-planning model that goes beyond metrics

Purpose – The paper aims to describe a workforce-planning model developed in-house in an Australian university library that is based on rigorous environmental scanning of an institution, the profession and the sector. Design/methodology/approach – The paper uses a case study that describes the stages of the planning process undertaken to develop the Library’s Workforce Plan and the documentation produced. Findings – While it has been found that the process has had successful and productive outcomes, workforce planning is an ongoing process. To remain effective, the workforce plan needs to be reviewed annually in the context of the library’s overall planning program. This is imperative if the plan is to remain current and to be regarded as a living document that will continue to guide library practice. Research limitations/implications – Although a single case study, the work has been contextualized within the wider research into workforce planning. Practical implications – The paper provides a model that can easily be deployed within a library without external or specialist consultant skills, and due to its scalability can be applied at department or wider level. Originality/value – The paper identifies the trends impacting on, and the emerging opportunities for, university libraries and provides a model for workforce planning that recognizes the context and culture of the organization as key drivers in determining workforce planning. Keywords - Australia, University libraries, Academic libraries, Change management, Manpower planning Paper type - Case stud

eResearch: access and support to university researchers

The way research is undertaken is changing fundamentally with eResearch, the uptake of web technologies and the application of advanced computational techniques. At the same time, rapid changes are underway in scholarly publishing and communication so that research outputs - both articles and data - are available in new and different ways. What does this mean for university libraries in our work to support research? Many university libraries are establishing and populating institutional repositories, undertaking e publishing of university journals and entering the field of research data management and curation with the consequential need for training researchers in data management skills. In addition to considering how these new endeavours integrate with our established roles in supporting research such as liaison librarian services, provision of information resources, current awareness, information literacy training, and document delivery, libraries need to explore what new services and roles we can offer in our universities. We need to consider research support from the researcher\u27s perspective. We need to redevelop partnerships within the university with areas such as the Office of Research, IT Services, and national and international eResearch infrastructure. We need to work collaboratively across university departments to form new teams and develop new skill sets amongst staff to meet the emerging needs of researchers in this greatly changing environment. The QUT Library has broadened its role in supporting research. In doing so, we saw we needed not only a Library Strategic Plan but a Divisional Research Support Plan. (At QUT the Library is located in a broader support Division with other elements such as IT Services.) The Plan which is for the next three years, encompasses establishing key partnerships in the University, creation of an eResearch Support Service Team including development of a model of support for research data management, Divisional research liaison initiatives, provision and access to information resources, management of the institutional repository and assumption of an expert role in the University a specialist advisor on scholarly communication