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This chapter examines the acquisition of assets (real estate) and companies in the Chinese real estate industry. We propose a nuanced view of state ownership (beyond state being the largest shareholder) and argue that firms with a combination of state and private ownership may be in a unique position to acquire real assets. We conduct an analysis of the growth and funding of the industry for the period and also analyze the successful acquisitions in the industry over 2004–2007. Our analysis is supportive of the nuanced view about state-owned enterprises (SOEs) and their advantageous position for acquiring real estate assets from the government. Our analysis also sheds light on the two-stage marketization process in the Chinese real estate industry where SOEs endowed with real estate assets are sold to non-SOEs.

I present a background on the use and effectiveness of podcasting in higher education, and provide guidance on developing supplementary video podcasts for use in introductory financial accounting courses. Specifically, I discuss how to create, produce, and distribute exercise-based video podcasts that walk students through problems based on material covered during traditional lectures. I distributed a series of 10 exercise-based video podcasts to introductory financial accounting students at my institution during Fall 2011, and documented high levels of student satisfaction in terms of impact on exam performance. Overall, I contribute to the accounting education literature by illustrating how to use a technology in a way that considers the unique characteristics of introductory accounting courses.

This is a narrative inquiry into the phenomenon of teacher retention. Specifically, we study an 18-year teaching veteran’s stories that span her career. We address the question of what sustains her in her profession. We chose to “see big” (Greene, 1995) our teacher participant, Anne, exploring, with her, the particulars of her teaching world, the contextual factors, emotional processes, and her relationship with her administration, subject matter, students. The research opens a view into Anne’s decisions along the way that contributed to her constructing a “story to stay by” (Craig, 2014; Ross & Prior, 2014). Narrative inquiry helped us see big through Anne’s stories. Anne’s best-loved self was closely connected with her professional knowledge landscape. In Anne’s case, her interactions with students, her collaboration with other teachers, and her reactions to the evaluation system stimulated the evolution of her perceptions of herself as a teacher. Therefore, the best-loved self is featured as a dynamic image resulting from continuous interactions between the teacher and other components of the professional knowledge landscape. The teacher’s meaning-making of those interactions, likewise, plays a significant role in shaping his or her image of the best-loved self. Our inquiry into the best-loved reminds teachers that they can cultivate their best-loved selves through personal storytelling that begins with reflection. Anne’s stories of fear, doubt, hope, inferiority, and joy may be important for other teachers. Such reflection may yield further insight into the behaviors and beliefs that encourage and sustain teachers.

Craig and Auzenne-Curl reflect on how their individual experiences and personal practical knowledge developed in context over time contribute to a collective review of the backdrop of the stories of experience shared in this volume. The chapter provides context for the study that inspired the collection and a preview of the chapters yet to come.

Media considerations are pedagogical rather than technological in nature. In online courses, we use technology to enable learner interaction. In this chapter, we focus on a process through which we identify media that will help bring our course to life. Technology tools come and go, quickly. While some specific tools are suggested, it is the process by which to identify and select media that is enduring. We begin with a discussion of media-enabled course activities that are used to guide the selection process. The 10 activities are organized by type of interaction they represent and the media characteristics they require. Media have affordances or functions that can be matched with identified course activities to meet learner interaction needs. These needs help to narrow the scope of our selection decisions. After exploring a variety of functions and tools, we exemplify the media selection process. We extend the work started in previous chapters by identifying media needs in light of design and interaction decisions under the playground and symphony metaphors. In so doing, we demonstrate how the phases of the redesign process inform our technology choices.

This chapter outlines the contents of Preparing Secondary STEM Teachers to Teach in America's Urban Schools. The volume begins with an overview of the teachHOUSTON STEM teacher education program in Chapter 2 and is followed by an account of the collaboration that took place between a Physics professor and a teachHOUSTON Physics teacher educator and its impact on STEM teacher preparation in Chapters 3-4. Chapters 5 and 6 include discussions about formal and informal learning opportunities and include a narrative of a student's experience on how the Noyce Internship Institute contributed to their STEM teacher learning. In Chapters 7–9, readers learn about the influence of parents, teachers, and professors on students' entry into and decision to work in the STEM and/or STEM education field, with an emphasis on those in STEM teacher education. Chapter 10 highlights the value of scholarship grants; Chapter 11 addresses the growth and development of teachHOUSTON, the impact of the scholarships awarded to many of its students and traces where its graduates currently are teaching in order to demonstrate that teachHOUSTON has fulfilled its mission. The final chapter of the book reflects on teachHOUSTON as a secondary urban teacher education program and summarizes significant points that have led to its success.