Search results

Our purpose in this chapter is to examine the implementation of a set of lesson frameworks to set conditions for teachers to deal with the complex challenges related to writing instruction in a high-stakes testing environment. These lessons provided a flexible framework for teachers to use in tutorials and in summer writing camps for students who struggle to pass the state-mandated tests, but they also build shared understandings about writing as a complex adaptive system.

We look to two sources for our theoretical framework: the study of complex adaptive systems and research-based writing instruction. In the chapter we summarize insights from these sources as a list of patterns that we want to see in powerful writing instruction. The analysis presented here is based on open-ended interviews of 17 teachers in one of the partner districts. The results of an inductive analysis of these transcripts is combined with a summary of 9th and 10th grade test results to inform the next iteration of this work.

Our findings suggest a shift toward patterns that imply shared understandings that writing and writing instruction require dialogue, inquiry, adaptability, and authenticity. These lesson frameworks, rather than limiting teacher’s flexibility and responsiveness, provide just enough structure to encourage flexibility in writing instruction. Using these frameworks, teachers can respond to their students’ needs to support powerful writing.

This set of lesson frameworks and the accompanying professional development hold the potential to build coherence in writing instruction across a campus or district, as it builds shared understandings and practices. We look forward to further implementation, adaptation, and documentation in diverse contexts.

During the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, employers struggled to develop virtual onboarding (VO) experiences among new employees. Prior research has examined VO processes. This study, by contrast, compares online commentaries in relation to current research findings to determine a functional description of effective VO.

Using a qualitative, inductive thematic analysis, the researchers explored new employees' online, anonymous, public commentary about the employers' VO experiences. Through analyzing 83 posted communications, the researchers sought to not only categorize themes, but to also identify meaning within the employees' commentary. From the thematic analysis, meaningful themes were established and compared to existing literature to identify comprehensive trends in effective VO.

The analysis developed nine themes of discussion question (DQ) prompts and nine themes of discussion responses. The professionals' online discussion about VO in the workplace as well as attributes of each theme was compared to contemporary VO research. In combination with a review of established literature of effective VO and an examination of organizational socialization theory, the study confirms that some virtually onboarded employees are excelling with, and some are challenged by the communication deficiencies of the remote experience. Employee experiences are highlighted to develop a description of contemporary effective VO experiences to support future workplace efficiencies.

Data were gathered via Blind and each response shared on Blind is subject to the viewpoint of the participants. For future research, face-to-face interviews might offer context regarding new hires' VO experiences. Also the generalizability is impacted because not all participants of VO participate via Blind. Participant bias is possible given the perceived dissatisfaction or negative experiences. Future research can perform a national random study of employees. Finally, the data and participants in this study were USA based. Future research should consider other international contexts such as Europe.

The thematic findings of this study yield valuable practical recommendations. New hires that experience VO are seeking improved virtual communication channels between themselves and the managers and colleagues of the hires. As such, corporate managers/trainers can implement a virtual mentoring program to have senior employees prepare and guide new hires into employees' new remote working environment to reduce employees' uncertainty. To improve VO processes in a post-pandemic society, corporate managers/trainers can incorporate social media communication given that employees participate in social media to develop their careers. With social media work groups, new virtual hires can be better socialized through effective peer-to-peer informal internal communications where the hires can freely ask questions and build better work relationships.

In each onboarding experience and evident in each of the five themes, learning is an underlying concept. New employees are describing that it is challenging to development organizational shared values, skills, attitudes, knowledge, abilities, behaviors and relationships in a VO process. As organizational leaders continue to develop VO experiences, a focus on learning as dependent on the virtual learning process and content can be significant in terms of creating a positive employee VO learning experience.

The findings are unique in exploring new hires' self-reported VO experiences. This study offers insight into effective VO practices such as developing virtual trainings that are well planned, engaging and supporting of relationships, collaborations and career goals.

The purpose of this study was to measure the relationship between followers’ perceptions of the servant leadership of their immediate supervisor and followers’ sense of empowerment in the context of small businesses. A quantitative survey was completed by 116 employees of small businesses, including measures of supervisors’ servant leadership behaviors and followers’ self- perceived empowerment. Followers’ perceptions of being empowered were found to correlate positively with their ratings of the servant leadership behaviors of immediate supervisors. The findings support the researchers’ assertions that followers’ perceptions of being empowered will increase as supervisors’ servant leadership behaviors increase.

The power of servant leadership lies in the leader’s ability to unleash the potential and thus the power in those around them. Greenleaf (1977) ascribed greatness to the leader’s attention to followers, “When it is genuine, the interest in and affection for one’s followers that a leader has is a mark of true greatness” (p. 34). In the foreword to the Anniversary edition of Greenleaf’s Servant Leadership, Covey (2002) related empowerment to servant leadership. He acclaimed the importance of empowerment to the sustainable success of organizations in the 21st century. Organizations structured to support and encourage the empowerment of their employees will thrive as market leaders (Covey, 2002). While other leadership styles have been found to empower followers, it is agreed across current literature, that the focus on developing and empowering the follower as their primary concern is specific to servant leaders (Greenleaf, 1977; Parolini, Patterson, & Winston, 2009; Parris & Peachey, 2012; Stone, Russell, & Patterson, 2004; van Dierendonck, 2011).

The context chosen for the study was small business because of the crucial role it plays regarding job growth in the United States (Howard, 2006) and in “enriching the lives of men and women of the whole world” (Kayemuddin, 2012, p. 27). Servant leadership enables small business leaders to fully discover, develop, and employ follower potential through empowering behaviors.

This study sought to contribute to the empirical research of servant leadership by measuring the relationship between supervisors’ servant leadership behaviors and followers’ perceptions of empowerment within the context of small business.

To describe how a defined video reflection prompt for preservice mathematics teachers shaped their reflective writing, which was examined using academic reflection as a genre model.

Academic reflection as a genre model was used to unpack the reflective processes evident in preservice teachers’ written reflections on a practicum teaching experience in the context of a methods course assignment, prior to any formal instruction about reflective genre. This chapter examines how the quality of participants’ reflective writing corresponded with two promising products of reflection – the accuracy of participants’ claims about the effectiveness of instructional tasks used during teaching and the quality of suggested revisions to the lesson.

The findings indicate that the extent to which participants engaged with the required parts of the assignment corresponded with the accuracy of their claims about the effectiveness of instructional tasks and the quality of revisions they suggested to the lesson. The authors discuss the writing produced by the participants, providing examples from their reflections to demonstrate preservice teachers’ initial competencies in using genre.

Informed by the nature of writing produced by the participants, the authors extend the model of reflection as a genre and suggest how it could be used to teach preservice teachers to effectively structure reflective writing. Furthermore, the authors offer recommendations for how to define the video reflection prompt to serve as a more effective scaffold of preservice teachers’ analysis of student learning.

The Dictionary of National Biography (or DNB as it is commonly called and as it will be referred to in this paper) is a classic. Depending on whether a library owns an original edition published by Smith, Elder and Company or a reprint edition published by Oxford University Press, sixty‐three brown volumes or twenty‐two blue volumes and supplements loom bulkily from the shelves. It would be an odd, ill‐trained reference librarian, historian, or scholar of English literature who has never heard of the DNB, let alone used and perused it. But mere bulk does not explain the lasting fame and staying power of this reference work, whose first volume appeared in January 1885 over a century ago.

We very much regret to announce the resignation from the Aslib staff of Miss Jean Leslie, our Publications Officer since September 1956. Miss Leslie takes with her the best wishes of the membership to her new appointment as Publications Manager of the Embroiderers' Guild.

In 1930s Britain, tennis champion Fred Perry was a household name. However, the name Fred Perry is more commonly associated with striped-collar polo shirts featuring a laurel wreath logo. In the late 1960s, Fred Perry polo shirts were standard mod and Skinhead dress. When worn by working-class youth the shirt became subversive commentary on English elitism because it had originally been designed for the tennis courts. Many punks also aligned with the brand in dual demonstration of association with working-class ethics as well as an alternative to t-shirts. In the 1980s and onward, this sartorial style was appropriated by right-wing white nationalists, which stripped it of its subcultural spirit. Patriot groups, such as neo-Nazis and the alt-right have continued to co-opt the subcultural style, simultaneously turning the Fred Perry polo into a symbol of racism and bigotry. The multi-use of the Fred Perry brand creates a challenge in how to interpret visual cues when one garment has competing perceptions that at times can be completely opposing. This study examines the history of the Fred Perry brand through the lens of symbolic interactionism, specifically how the shirt evolved from a rather innocuous, yet subversive, form of merchandize repurposed from the tennis world to youth subcultures where the polo communicated group identity. As the brand has moved through fashion cycles, the association of the Fred Perry polo with deviant groups has reduced the brand to representations of hate and separation, which has impacted sales and brand image with its intended consumers.

The Journal of Leadership Education (JOLE) has been a primary outlet of leadership education publishing and research dissemination since 2002. The purpose of this study was to assess the first five years of literature cited in JOLE. The study used a quantitative content analysis design. Analyzed in the study were 45 articles with research methodologies published in JOLE from 2002 through 2006. Seven hundred eighty-one cited literature works were identified in the journal. The average number of citations per article was approximately 17. The most frequently cited journal sources were from leadership, management, and psychology. Additional cited works are defined. Citation analysis indicates that JOLE relies heavily on books, journals, conference proceedings, and other literacy works outside leadership education. JOLE does not exhibit compactness, indicating that it reaches past its citation boundaries and into interrelated areas of other disciplines. However, it does exhibit extremely weak self-identity meaning it does little to build upon research previously cited in JOLE. Future research in JOLE should strive to cite articles from within its journal and determine what drives citations in leadership education.