Since 1985, the Higber Education Consortium for Special education (HECSE) has followed the supply and demand needs of special education professionals at universities. A survey was developed and sent to all special education doctoral training programs. The survey yielded results that add to the existing data base on the continuing need for leadership personnel at the university level. Of particular note were the seemingly lower enrollments at IHEs as well as the growing number of doctoral graduates taking positions outside of higher education.
This article explores the problematic of negotiating academic genre in the context of higher education (HE) and the implications for students' writing. The growth of multi-disciplinary, modular programmes and a more heterogeneous student population requires that we consider the challenges faced by undergraduates, both within and between disciplines, and suggest ways in which navigational difficulties can be reduced.Our research is informed by our own multi-disciplinarity which draws on the substantive areas of education, applied linguistics and sociology. Using case studies of students' writing we have analysed the ways in which undergraduates negotiate two disciplines concurrently. Our findings suggest that students' knowledge of one discipline influences another, rather in the same way that a first language affects second language acquisition. The resulting work may fail to hit the target discourse or may recontextualize material in creative but discipline-challenging ways. Our explorations begin to address the tensions between multidisciplinary curricular change and the lack of interdisciplinary response from the academy.Universities are responding to perceived shortcomings in students' writing by focusing on generic, transferable skills. Our research suggests that whilst power and control of the HE curriculum are located within academic disciplines, for students to be successful within the academy they must acquire ways of knowing that are discipline specific. Student empowerment would be enhanced by a clear articulation of discourse and genre skills and conventions, reducing the 'discoursal dissonance' between tutors' and students' expectations. Multi-disciplinarity also challenges the conventional compartmentalization of knowledge providing opportunities for a creative and interdisciplinary dialectic.
E-learning policy and project implementation can be said to act as a driver of change in educational institutions, but institutions can change in markedly different ways. This paper reports on recent qualitative research focused on the implementation of Web2.0 approaches within a UK university. It argues that the embedded use of Web2.0 relies on the changing of working practices and people's mindsets. We suggest that implementation may be problematic, resulting in change being more readily accepted by some groups and/or cultures than others. The way in which the Web2.0 concept is socially constructed in everyday discourses, events and learning communities is explored. The informal and participatory nature of these approaches, which may initiate the seeping of informal practices into otherwise more formal educational environments, can frame emerging technologies as 'disruptive'. . Previously, she worked as an Instructional Designer, writing and designing courses for distance learning students. She has been and is currently involved in a range of both external and university-funded research projects and has presented and published work on the use of learning technologies. She is also undertaking a PhD, which is focused on online communication, at the Institute of Creative Technologies (IOCT) at DMU. 270H. Conboy et al. through collaborative activities and publications. He gained his Doctorate, studying part-time, with Loughborough University. He has presented a number of papers on his research at international conferences, including IFLA, many of which have been published in the professional press and has also written Continuing Professional Development: a guide for information professionals and also the forthcoming Handbook for Library Training and Development.Jane Clarke is the Head of the Academic Professional Development Unit at De Montfort University. Her 'unconventional career trajectory' includes: secretarial work; teaching English to speakers of other languages in Italy, UK and Kuwait; lecturing in Sociology in FE and HE; researching on the educational needs of people from black and ethnic minority communities, generic staff development; and for the past ten years focusing on academic professional development. Her publications include work on negotiating academic genres and grounding CPD in teaching practice.
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