Professionalising the college workforce through mentoring and professional learning : a neglected perspective on enhancing quality

This submission contains an Integrative Statement of 23 000 words (including\ud footnotes and references) and a total of six' published items. Together, these form\ud the basis of my application for the award of the degree of PhD by publication.\ud The Integrative Statement attempts to show the coherence of my published work\ud and demonstrates my deep and synoptic'2 understanding of my chosen field. I\ud argue that my work has made a significant contribution to a sector of education\ud that has both been neglected and prone to serial and sometimes disarticulated\ud reforms. I also contend that it is a sector that has generated a dominant discourse\ud of quality improvement through strategies encompassing such elements as\ud competition between institutions (ostensibly driving up standards), stronger\ud regulation and control, and an overarching emphasis on the `auditable'.\ud In such circumstances, there has been a notable neglect of any purposeful focus\ud on the manner in which professionalism may be enhanced, to the benefit both of\ud teachers and their learners. Such professionalism as may derive from collective\ud ways of working and from an engagement with the notion of the 'learning\ud professional' has largely been absent from the policy discourse, at both national\ud and institutional levels. The potential of mentoring to play a central role in a\ud professionalising strategy has been a particular concern for me.\ud The specific and distinctive contribution I claim to have made is in the form of my\ud examination of the ways in which mentoring as a supportive activity for teachers\ud may not only significantly aid in professional formation and the improvement of\ud teaching quality, but also thereby assist in the national policy goal of raising\ud standards of learner achievement. The focus in much of my published work has\ud been on mentors' individual motivation, attributes and skills, broadening out in one\ud particular article to an analysis of institutional factors that appear to have a strong\ud influence on the environment in which mentoring may take place. The content and\ud focus of the items being submitted is thus essentially concerned with professional\ud learning and development, in particular when supported by skilled mentoring\ud within environments that are appropriately resourced and where their 'architecture'\ud and ethos meshes productively with the nature of effective mentoring.\ud Even more broadly, two published items being submitted explore aspects of\ud professional learning. I use the medium of the Integrative Statement to draw out\ud some explicit links between these and the professional challenges being faced by\ud practitioners in the post-compulsory sector. I also in my statement relate important\ud elements of my own writing to a range of relevant literature, demonstrating my\ud engagement with and understanding of perspectives from this literature

Targeting Chronically Homeless Veterans with HUD-VASH

Hundreds of veterans are sleeping on the street or in the emergency shelter system in the District of Columbia. This brief examines data from the vulnerability index survey, completed by the DC Department of Health and Human Services and Common Ground, a nonprofit supportive housing provider. These data indicate that homeless veterans in DC have numerous health problems, leaving them highly vulnerable to premature mortality. The DC Veteran Affairs Medical Center should prioritize these highly vulnerable homeless veterans for HUD-VASH vouchers, which link housing subsidies with supportive service

Productivity Grows, But Workers Don’t Share

[Excerpt] Productivity growth increased substantially in the 1990s. For each hour that a worker spends on the job, more is being produced. The higher productivity has lowered costs and boosted company revenues, but workers have not shared in the gains. Higher productivity means that workers should be experiencing a faster rise in real wages than in past decades. When productivity grows, employers, in general, have the ability to grant wage increases above the rate of inflation, and realize higher profits at the same time. But productivity growth in recent decades has not led to higher wages as it should. Instead, the buying power of workers has declined as employers continue to make every effort to hold down wages. In contrast to the situation of workers, profits and executive salaries are increasing at a startling rate. The benefits of rising productivity have been captured by the richest Americans, who have allowed nothing to trickle down to the rest

Empathy, Religious Affiliation, and the Growth of Osteopathic Medicine

A key distinction of Doctors of Osteopathic Medicine (D.O.s) is their recognition of each patient as a whole person rather than just addressing his ailment. This focus previously highlighted physical manipulation over medications; however, the osteopathic profession has evolved significantly over the years. As this field is no longer identified by its original rejection of pharmaceuticals, other original principles of osteopathic medicine have impacted the growth of the field. The data collected from surveyed patients indicated that many osteopathic patients and physicians have religious backgrounds, and there is a widespread emphasis on psychological integration. The increased number of patients is largely due to the increased prevalence of osteopathic physicians, with growth of the field supplemented by good experiences and recommendations

Catch Shares in Action: Mexican Vigía Chico Cooperative Spiny Lobster Territorial Use Rights for Fishing Program

The Mexican Pescadores de Vigía Chico Cooperative is a group-allocated, area-based catch share that manages the Punta Allen spiny lobster fishery. The catch share, or Territorial Use Rights for Fishing (TURF) program, includes a number of special design features to achieve goals set by the Mexican government and the Cooperative, including sustainable harvests and Cooperative self-sufficiency and self-governance. Important design features include a secure tenure length of 20 years with a strong assumption of renewal, clearly defined co-management responsibilities between the federal government and the Cooperative and the use of individual fishing zones developed by the Cooperative to maintain member accountability (Solares-Leal and Alvarez-Gil, 2003)

Honduras

Honduras is located in Central America, bordering the Caribbean Sea between Guatemala and Nicaragua and bordering the Gulf of Fonseca (North Pacific Ocean) between El Salvador and Nicaragua. It is 43,278 square miles (112,090 sq. km), consisting of mountains in the interior and narrow coastal plains. It has a population of 8,893,259, and a high percentage of Hondurans live in the two major western cities of San Pedro Sula and Tegu-cigalpa, the capital city (CIA 2016). Ninety percent of the Honduran population is mestizo, or mixed Amerindian and European descent. The remaining inhabitants are 7 percent Amerindian, 2 percent black, and 1 percent white. Spanish is the nation’s official language. Several indig-enous Amerindian languages, including Garifuna and Miskita, are also spoken (Westmoreland 2016). There are many indigenous populations: the Lenca, Pech, Tawahka, Xicaque, Maya Chorti, Misquito, and Garifuna. “The Gar-ifuna are of mixed, Afro-Carib origin and were moved to the area during the colonial period. There is also an Afro-Honduran Creole English-speaking minority group of around twenty thousand who live mainly in the Hondu-ran Bay Islands” (Minority Rights 2017)

The Basis of Debasing Scepticism

This paper purports to provide a fresh cashing out of Debasing Scepticism: the type of Scepticism put on the map in a recent article by Jonathan Schaffer, with a view to demonstrating that the Debasing Sceptic’s argument is not so easily dismissed as many of Schaffer’s commentators have thought. After defending the very possibility of the Debasing Sceptic’s favoured sceptical scenario, I lay out a framework for thinking of the agent’s power to hold their beliefs in the light of reasons which I argue has initial plausibility. I then attempt to show that with this framework in tow, the Debasing Sceptic has an argument for their sceptical conclusion available to them which Schaffer’s commentators have failed to undermine, and which is independently interesting

Potable water dispenser

A dispenser particularly suited for use in dispensing potable water into food and beverage reconstitution bags is described. The dispenser is characterized by an expansible chamber, selectively adjustable stop means for varying the maximum dimensions, a rotary valve, and a linear valve coupled in a cooperating relation for delivering potable water to and from the chamber