There are many textbooks on research methods, plenty of books on popular science, and specialist texts on a whole range of academic fields. However, few bring these together as a framework for a career involving research, and few attempt a practical appraisal of the challenges and opportunities involved in being 'a researcher'. Here, the principles underlying humanity's past and continuing acquisition of knowledge are illustrated across a variety of academic fields, from history to quantum physics - telling stories of clever and inventive people with good ideas, but also of personalities, politics, and power. This book draws together these strands to provide an informal and concise account of knowledge acquisition in all its guises. Having set out what research hopes to achieve, and why we are all researchers at heart, early chapters describe the basic principles underlying this - ways of thinking which may date back to the philosophers of the Athenian marketplace but are still powerful influences on the way research is carried out today. Drawing on a broad range of disciplines, Stewart takes the reader well beyond the pure 'scientific method', which might work well enough in physics or chemistry but falls apart in life sciences, let alone humanities. Later chapters consider the realities of carrying out research and the ways in which these continue to shape its progress - researchers and their personalities, their employers, funding, publication, political forces, and power structures. Written in an accessible and engaging style, this book is for anyone embarking on a research project or beginning to think about a career involving research, and for those in need of refocusing on why they started research in the first place.

This book will introduce the reader to international perspectives associated with post-secondary school education for students with intellectual disability attending university settings. Examples of students with intellectual disability gaining their right to full inclusion within university settings are outlined, as well as the barriers and facilitators of such innovation. The four parts of the text will act as a reader for all stakeholders of inclusion at the university level. The first part examines the philosophical, theoretical and rights-based framework of inclusion. The second part provides evidence and insight into eight programs from across the globe, where students with intellectual disability are included within university settings. The third part consists of six chapters associated with the lived experiences of stakeholders in the programs profiled in Part 2. These stories are represented through the voices of former students of inclusive tertiary education initiatives, parents of adult children with intellectual disability who have participated in tertiary education, and lecturers who have taught students with intellectual disability as members of their courses. In the fourth part, critical issues are examined, including the role of secondary school counsellors, sustaining post university outcomes, transition from university to employment, inclusive university teaching approaches, and decision-making approaches to successfully implement a tertiary education initiative. The text concludes with a synthesis of the book themes and proposes calls to action with specific tasks to move the rhetoric of human rights into reality for adults with intellectual disability through an inclusive tertiary education. Contributors are: Kristin Bjoernsdottir, Michelle L Bonati, Bruce Chapman, Amy L. Cook, Deborah Espiner, Friederike Gadow, Meg Grigal, Debra Hart, Laura Hayden, Anne Hughson, John Kubiak, Niamh Lally, Lorraine Lindsay, Jemima MacDonald, Kathleen J. Marshall, Kerri-ann Messenger, Lumene Montissol, Ray Murray, John O'Brien, Patricia O'Brien, Barrie O'Connor, Molly O'Keeffe, Clare Papay, Anthony J. Plotner , Parimala Raghavendra, Fiona Rillotta, Michael Shevlin , Roger Slee, Natasha A. Spassiani , Gudrun V. Stefansdottir, Josh Stenberg, Kimberley Teasley, Lorraine Towers, Margaret Turley, Bruce Uditsky, Chelsea VanHorn Stinnett, Stephanie Walker, Thea Werkoven, Felicia L. Wilczenski.

People hold a variety of prior conceptions that impact their learning. Prior conceptions that include erroneous or incomplete understandings represent a significant barrier to durable learning, as they are often difficult to change. While researchers have documented students' prior conceptions in many areas of geoscience, little is known about prior conceptions involving paleontology. In this Element, data on student prior conceptions from two introductory undergraduate paleontology courses are presented. In addition to more general misunderstandings about the nature of science, many students hold incorrect ideas about methods of historical geology, Earth history, ancient life, and evolution. Of special note are student perceptions of the limits of paleontology as scientific inquiry. By intentionally eliciting students' prior conceptions and implementing the pedagogical strategies described in other Elements in this series, lecturers can shape instruction to challenge this negative view of paleontology and improve student learning.

New online resources are opening doors for education and outreach in the Earth sciences. One of the most innovative online earth science portals is Macrostrat and its mobile client Rockd - an interface that combines geolocated geological maps with stratigraphic information, lithological data, and crowd-sourced images and descriptions of outcrops. These tools provide a unique educational opportunity for students to interact with primary geological data, create connections between local outcrops and global patterns, and make new field observations. Rockd incorporates an aspect of social media to its platform, which creates a sense of community for users. This Element outlines these resources, gives instructions on how to use them, and provides examples of how to integrate these resources into a variety of paleontology and earth science courses.

Research on learning and cognition in geoscience education research and other discipline-based education communities suggests that effective instruction should include three key components: a) activation of students' prior knowledge on the subject, b) an active learning pedagogy that allows students to address any existing misconceptions and then build a new understanding of the concept, and c) metacognitive reflections that require students to evaluate their own learning processes during the lesson. This Element provides an overview of the research on student-centered pedagogy in introductory geoscience and paleontology courses and gives examples of these instructional approaches. Student-centered learning shifts the power and attention in a classroom from the instructor to the students. In a student-centered classroom, students are in control of their learning experience and the instructor functions primarily as a guide. Student-centered classrooms trade traditional lecture for conceptually-oriented tasks, collaborative learning activities, new technology, inquiry-based learning, and metacognitive reflection.

Hands-on learning in paleontology, and geology in general, is fairly common practice. Students regularly use rocks, fossils, and data in the classroom throughout their undergraduate career, but they typically do it sitting in a chair in a lab. Kinesthetic learning is a teaching model that requires students to be physically active while learning. Students may be involved in a physical activity during class or might be using their own bodies to model some important concept. This Element briefly discusses the theory behind kinesthetic learning and how it fits into a student-centered, active-learning classroom. It then describes in detail methods for incorporating it into student exercises on biostratigraphy, assessment of sampling completeness, and modeling evolutionary processes. Assessment data demonstrates that these exercises have led to significantly improved student learning outcomes tied to these concepts.

Lecturing has been a staple of university pedagogy, but a shift is ongoing because of evidence that active engagement with content helps strengthen learning and build more advanced skills. The flipped classroom, which delivers content to students outside of the class meeting, is one approach to maximize time for active learning. The fundamental benefit of a flipped class is that students learn more, but ensuring student preparation and engagement can be challenging. Evaluation policies can provide incentives to guide student effort. Flipping a class requires an initial time commitment, but the workload associated with evaluating student work during the course can be mitigated. The personal interactions from active learning are extremely rewarding for students and instructors, especially when class sizes are small and suitable room layouts are available. Overall, flipping a course doesn't require special training, just a willingness to experiment, reflect, and adjust.

The educational benefits of replacing in-class lectures with hands-on activities are clear. Such active learning is a natural fit for paleontology, which can provide opportunities for examining fossils, analyzing data and writing. Additionally, there are a number of topics in the field that are exciting to geology majors and non-majors alike: very few can resist the lure of dinosaurs, huge meteor impacts, vicious Cretaceous sharks or a giant Pleistocene land mammal. However, it can seem difficult to introduce these techniques into a large general education class full of non-majors: paleontological specimens provide a natural starting point for hands-on classroom activities, but in a large class it is not always practical or possible to provide enough fossil material for all students. The Element introduces different types of active learning approaches, and then explains how they have been applied to a large introductory paleontology class for non-majors.

University dinosaur courses provide an influential venue for developing aptitude beyond knowledge of terrestrial Mesozoic reptiles. Passion for dinosaurs, when properly directed, can trigger interest in science and be used to develop critical thinking skills. Examination of dinosaur paleontology can develop competence in information analysis, perception of flawed arguments, recognition of persuasion techniques, and application of disciplined thought processes. Three methods for developing critical thought are outlined in this Element. The first uses dinosaur paleontology to illustrate logical fallacies and flawed arguments. The second is a method for evaluating primary dinosaur literature by students of any major. The final example entails critique of dinosaur documentaries based on the appearance of dinosaurs and the disconnect between scientific fact and storytelling techniques. Students are owed more than dinosaur facts; lecturers should foster a set of skills that equips students with the tools necessary to be perceptive citizens and science advocates.

Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) face critical challenges of funding, accreditation, enrollment, recruitment, retention, and graduation rates, and these have become a staple of smaller colleges in the global competitive marketplace and current higher education system. Offering a comprehensive "what not to do" guide, this book puts forward the past mistakes which leaders must learn from in order to ensure their institution's future. Johnny D. Jones has written this book to arm stakeholders in the academic communities of HBCUs to future-proof how students learn, how faculty teach, and how campuses embrace innovation. Including descriptive case studies, this book empowers readers to navigate their own path to quality leadership. By equipping leaders to identify how future studies can be institutionalized at HCBUs in a way that also compliments historic campus culture, environment, climate, and ecology, Jones sets out a strategy to refine HBCU leadership, which accounts for the specific needs that exist across HBCUs. Serving up practical guidance and best practice advice, Johnny's book is essential reading for researchers and academic leaders across the US who wish to ensure that these exceptional schools not only survive, but thrive.

The COVID-19 pandemic undoubtedly tested the resilience of academics in higher education. Many universities were severely affected by reduced student enrolment, with widespread job losses reported across universities. For many academics, the impact of the pandemic has been worrying, financially crippling and overwhelming. The virus has also exposed academic inequalities and impacted heavily on vulnerable people. The individual and collective heroic spirit of many academics has been nothing short of extraordinary. Overcoming the initial hurdles of COVID-19 takes one kind of energy; the resilience needed to remain engaged despite the continuing changes and uncertainties is quite another challenge. It is one that demands sustained resilience. This timely book provides perspectives across disciplines, career stages and global contexts on how to develop resilience in academia. These personal stories may empower others not only to survive, but to thrive in times of adversity.

Peder Sather was a scribe before he emigrated from Norway to New York in 1832. There, he worked as a servant and a clerk at a lottery office before opening an exchange brokerage. During the gold rush, he moved to San Francisco to help establish the banking house of Drexel, Sather & Church on Montgomery Street. Sather was a founder and a liberal benefactor of the University of California at Berkeley where he is memorialized by the Sather Gate and Sather Tower (the Campanile), three endowed professorships, and more recently the Peder Sather Center for Advanced Study. Karin Sveen, one of Norway's most accomplished writers, pieces together a story yet untold--a beautifully crafted biography based on her dedicated search for scraps of information. The result gives readers a look at the life of a successful entrepreneur and a leading California patron who engaged in public education on all levels; supported Abraham Lincoln; and worked to give emancipated slaves housing, schooling, and employment after the Civil War. His legacy and vivid persona and the frontier city of his time are brought to life with interesting anecdotes of many famous people-- General William T. Sherman, Walt Whitman, Mark Twain, Robert Louis Stevenson, the Norwegian violinist Ole Bull, and above all, his close friend Anthony J. Drexel, legendary Philadelphia financier and one of the founders of Wall Street.

Drawing on an extensive array of sources – written, oral and visual – this richly illustrated volume provides a rounded social, intellectual, educational, cultural and political history of one of Africa’s foremost universities during the first phase of apartheid.

It puts a spotlight on its leaders, lecturers and learners, but its wide focus takes in many other dimensions of this heterogeneous institution’s history too – teaching and research, social, cultural and sporting life and its chequered relationship with the apartheid state, ranging from formal opposition and protest and students’ growing defiance culminating in the sit-in of 1968, to ambivalence and willing collaboration. All of these it weaves together into a many-sided whole to produce an elegant, accessible and nuanced study of the operation of UCT as apartheid began to be imposed on South Africa.

Howard Phillips gives us a pioneering and definitive history of the period. And one which will occupy pride of place on the bookshelves of the academics and the thousands of alumni who helped shape this history and the many ordinary Capetonians touched by Varsity.

This book showcases models of Australian school-university partnerships which, in their development, respond to, and aim to move beyond the principles and practices of current partnership mandates in initial teacher education. Supported by government policy, these partnerships reveal innovative ways of working across multiple stakeholder groups within a range of unique school-university partnership contexts. Each of the examples of school-university partnerships within this edited collection provide insights into the power and potential of cross-sectoral vision, collaboration and growth, drawing upon research evidence and impact data that points to the mutual benefits experienced by all stakeholders. Across its ten chapters, this book explores various examples of partnerships, and forms an important reference for all initial teacher education providers, schools, and educational stakeholders; as school-university partnerships necessitate the way these sectors connect, learn from one another, and inform future practice.

Despite growing numbers of international academics globally, there is a dearth of works exploring success stories, and the barriers and opportunities of being an international academic. Academic Mobility and International Academics offers personal experiences and guidance from a truly international suite of scholars exploring their academic journeys and addressing intersectional topics on academic mobility including perspectives from early career researchers, university leaders, mentors, LGBTIQ scholars, and more. Throughout this timely collection, chapter authors offer insight into overall academic employment experiences, including their motivations and challenges in steering their academic career. They offer guidance on how international academics can harness their career aspirations, across both leadership and non-leadership positions and how internationality in academic careers is evolving in these current times. Essential reading for any scholar or postgraduate student looking to work outside of their home nation, this hopeful and insightful text will provide guidance, inspiration, and real-life examples of how to survive and thrive as an international scholar.

Teaching is crucial for supporting students' chances of success in higher education, yet often makes limited use of theory to foster contextualized, systemic understandings of access and success. Theorized yet practical ways of empowering university educators are needed to develop their practices and turn access into success for their students. This book harnesses Legitimation Code Theory 'LCT' to inspire university educators to understand, reimagine and create socially just teaching and learning practices. Chapters bring this powerful theory to bear on real-world examples of curriculum design, inclusive practices, cumulative learning, assessment practices, and reflection. Each chapter guides the reader through these cutting-edge ideas, illustrates how they can make real differences in practice, and sets out ways of thinking that educators integrate those ideas into practice. The outcomes will help students access the powerful knowledge and ways of knowing they need for success in higher education.

Ulrich Bremer examines the internationalization process of German public research universities, extracts multiple expected factors of impact from existing theory, tests them against data and thus delivers implications for research and practice. Strategy-based international partnerships, specialization and university size represent most relevant factors. The complex interplay of strategy and leadership are shown, a framework for their assessment is provided and conclusions in the fields of digitalization, uncontrolled migration and growing nationalism are drawn.

The Conflict over the Conflict chronicles one of the most divisive and toxic issues on today's college and university campuses: Israel/Palestine. Some pro-Palestinian students call supporters of Israel's right to exist racist, and disrupt their events. Some pro-Israel students label pro-Palestinian students terrorists, and the Jews among them traitors. Lawsuits are filed. Legislation is proposed. Faculty members are blacklisted and receive death threats. Academic freedom is compromised and the entire academic enterprise is threatened. How did we get here and what can be done? In this passionate book, Kenneth S. Stern examines attempts from each side to censor the other at a time when some say students, rather than being challenged to wrestle with difficult issues and ideas, are being quarantined from them. He uniquely frames the examination: our ability to think rationally is inhibited when our identity is fiercely connected to an issue of perceived social justice or injustice, and our proclivity to see in-groups and out-groups - us versus them - is obvious. According to Stern, the campus is the best place to mine this conflict and our intense views about it to help future generations do what they are supposed to do: think. The Conflict over the Conflict shows how this is possible.

There is no book exactly like Fifty Years of Interdisciplinary Teaching in Academe: One Professor's Pedagogical Tips and Reflections. Very few professors have taught for half a century. Even fewer have written books on pedagogy from a personal narrative perspective and in plain English, without a particular cause to promote or axe to grind. Countless numbers of books have ruminated on the past, present, and future of higher education, but few authors have written their books as memoirs meant for both an academic and general audience. Few actually offer concrete tips drawn from years of personal experience for classroom teaching, mentoring, constructing curricula, courses, and programs, working with colleagues, and creating an interdisciplinary philosophy of educational theory and practice. Few of these books can be generalized to a number of helping professions. Teaching and learning happen in all the human service professions, not just in the American university. This book is grounded largely in author Robert J. Nash's experiences, both positive and negative. Nash is less interested in propounding or expounding and more concerned with narrating his always-evolving stories of being an interdisciplinary professor who has experienced both success and struggle but who has always emerged as inspired and rejuvenated by his work, and the work of his students, in higher education. This book is a personal-narrative celebration of all that is and can be wonderful about the American university, including students, colleagues, and administrators. Nash concentrates on possibility rather than on liability but strives always to present an honest picture of higher education (both its strengths and weaknesses) and his place in it throughout the decades. The result of Fifty Years of Interdisciplinary Teaching in Academe is a vote of confidence for faculty, staff, and students.

The Two Cultures of English examines the academic discipline of English in the final decades of the twentieth century and the first years of the new millennium. During this period, longstanding organizational patterns within the discipline were disrupted. With the introduction of French theory into the American academy in the 1960s and 1970s, both literary studies and composition studies experienced a significant reorientation. The introduction of theory into English studies not only intensified existing tensions between those in literature and those in composition but also produced commonalities among colleagues that had not previously existed. As a result, the various fields within English began to share an increasing number of investments at the same time that institutional conflicts between them became more intense than ever before. Through careful reconsiderations of some of the key figures who shaped and were shaped by this new landscape-including Michel Foucault, Kenneth Burke, Paul de Man, Fredric Jameson, James Berlin, Susan Miller, John Guillory, and Bruno Latour-the book offers a more comprehensive map of the discipline than is usually understood from the perspective of either literature or composition alone. Possessing a clear view of the entire discipline is essential today as the contemporary corporate university pushes English studies to abandon its liberal arts tradition and embrace a more vocational curriculum. This book provides important conceptual tools for responding to and resisting in this environment.

This edited collection illuminates the benefits, drawbacks, challenges, opportunities of the push to widen access to success and social mobility through university and other post-secondary education experiences in the UK and internationally. It examines a range of particular case studies, and addresses issues including the role of part-time study, the experiences of BAME students, increasing access within rural communities, issues faced by those with mental health problems, and the role of employers. There has been some progress in some countries; increased access and enhanced success for some targeted populations, but not for others; and improvements in some regions of particular countries, but not for others. Efforts to improve access to success and social mobility, to strengthen the identification and nurturing of talent in every community and every corner of our societies, is, like the 'curate's egg', only good in parts. This collection demonstrates that educational inequalities, unfairness and injustices still remain.

Originally published in 1910, this book contains a series of lectures on the subject of electromagnetism, delivered by British physicist and statistician Gilbert T. Walker, before the University of Calcutta. Walker writes, 'The University of Calcutta did me the honour early in 1908 to appoint me Reader, and asked me to deliver a series of lectures upon some subject, preferably electrical, which would be of use to the lecturers in the outlying colleges as well as to the more advanced students in Calcutta'. Chapters are detailed and broad in scope; chapter titles include, 'Vector analysis', 'Applications of vectorial methods to magnetostatics' and 'The electron theory of Lorentz applied to stationary media'. These informative lectures capture the very vibrancy and dynamism of the subject and explain the mathematics necessary for a full understanding. This book will be of value to anyone with an interest in electromagnetism, physics and the history of education.

Higher education institutions have increasingly been identified as potentially radicalising locations. The 2015 Counter-Terrorism and Security Act consolidated this belief in the form of a legal duty of "due regard to prevent people from being drawn into terrorism". This duty made engagement with counter-radicalisation mandatory for universities and has required the development of systems that monitor potential avenues for the propagation of the extremist and radicalising ideas that are deemed to be the cause of contemporary political violence.This book explains why radicalisation has become such an important and controversial issue in contemporary higher education. The authors chart the ascent of radicalisation as a central explanation for the causes of modern terrorism and document the development of counter-radicalisation in the UK using higher education institutions as a unique case study. Drawing on a comprehensive assessment of university policy documents and original focus group research with university lecturers and undergraduate students, this book demonstrates the risks involved in taking the 'safeguarding route' to counter-radicalisation and provides recommendations for how universities can better navigate these policy challenges in the UK and elsewhere. McGlynn and McDaid provide a critical assessment of these counter-radicalisation policies upon higher education institutions in the UK making this an invaluable text for students, researchers and policy makers in the field of terrorism studies.

The School of Oriental and African Studies, a college of the University of London, was established in 1916 principally to train the colonial administrators who ran the British Empire in the languages of Asia and Africa. It was founded, that is, with an explicitly imperial purpose. Yet the School would come to transcend this function to become a world centre of scholarship and learning, in many important ways challenging that imperial origin. Drawing on the School's own extensive administrative records, on interviews with current and past staff, and on the records of government departments, Ian Brown explores the work of the School over its first century. He considers the expansion in the School's configuration of studies from the initial focus on languages, its changing relationships with government, and the major contributions that have been made by the School to scholarly and public understandings of Asia, Africa, and the Middle East.

Public interest in the religion of Islam and in Muslim communities in recent years has generated an impetus for Western Universities to establish an array of Institutes and programs dedicated to the study of Islam. Despite the growth in number of programs dedicated to this study, very little attention has been paid to the appropriate shape of such programs and the assumptions that ought to underlie such a study. The Teaching and Study of Islam in Western Universities attempts to address two central questions that arise through the teaching of Islam. Firstly, what relation is there between the study of the religion of Islam and the study of those cultures that have been shaped by that religion? Secondly, what is the appropriate public role of a scholar of Islam? After extensive discussion of these questions, the authors then continue to address the wider issues raised for the academic community having to negotiate between competing cultural and philosophical demands. This edited collection provides new perspectives on the study of Islam in Western Institutions and will be an invaluable resource for students of Education and Religion, in particular Islamic Studies.