Defining and Debating 'Double Dipping' in Scholarship

I thought this would be a great article to get a conversation started about faculty scholarship since UNLV's increased focus has raised everyone's attention level. This recent article from Inside Higher Education summarized some national level conversations about what constitutes 'double dipping' and how we should count scholarship efforts.
I'm going to go ahead and stick my neck out just to give us a starting/reaction point and I hope you'll send your comments. I think impact is a key measure for faculty scholarship and so I agree with the opinion of one person quoted who says, basically, that it's ok to provide essentially the same content to two different audiences. If in fact, the point of scholarship is to share knowledge and have an impact on the field, doesn't it make sense to disseminate as widely as possible. As long as one is clear in documenting your work that the same presentation was made to different audiences? For example, I work across disciplines in my collaborations so I might publish or present similar information in a venue targeted to librarians and another targeted to educators or counselors. What do you think about the questions raised in this article?

Teacher Retention Strategies: An overview from the northeast region REL

This report from the northeast region REL provides a description of the Compendium of Strategies to Reduce Teacher Turnover in the Northeast and Islands Region, a searchable database of selected profiles of retention strategies implemented in Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, and Vermont. The Compendium is not a complete inventory of teacher retention policies and programs in these states but a sample that offers an overview of the range of interventions that have been implemented. The Compendium includes contact information to policy and program experts, allowing questions to be asked relevant to the decisionmakers’ work and context. A guide to searching the database is appended.

Parental involvement in school improvement plans --NREL report

This study of schools requiring improvement (per NCLB) in the Northwest region shows that only 46% of the school improvement plans included the required parental involvement components (as specified in NCLB). Limitations of the study include the fact that only 84% of improvement plans were available to the study authors, and the report does not address actual implementation of parental involvement activities, just specification in the plan. The report authors surveyed the literature to find reports of parental involvement activities that were correlated with improved academic performance.

State math assessments align with 2009 NAEP

Five new reports from REL Southwest examine the alignment of mathematics assessement standards in Texas, Arkansas, Louisiana, Okalahoma, and New Mexico with the 2009 National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) mathematics framework. These reports look at the extent to which current state assessments standards cover the content on which the 2009 NAEP assessments will be based.

* Aligning mathematics assessment standards: Texas and the 2009 National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP)
http://ies.ed.gov/ncee/edlabs/projects/project.asp?projectID=168&productID=120

* Aligning mathematics assessment standards: Arkansas and the 2009 National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP)
http://ies.ed.gov/ncee/edlabs/projects/project.asp?projectID=168&productID=119

* Aligning mathematics assessment standards: Louisiana and the 2009 National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP)
http://ies.ed.gov/ncee/edlabs/projects/project.asp?projectID=168&productID=118

* Aligning mathematics assessment standards: Oklahoma and the 2009 National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP)
http://ies.ed.gov/ncee/edlabs/projects/project.asp?projectID=168&productID=117

* Aligning mathematics assessment standards: New Mexico and the 2009 National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP)
http://ies.ed.gov/ncee/edlabs/projects/project.asp?projectID=168&productID=116

2007 College Student Health Survey

All those things your mother told you were true--watching too much TV, spending too much time on the computer, drinking, etc. will hurt your grades--and here's the evidence. Nearly 10,000 undergraduate and graduate students from 14 Minnesota colleges were surveyed. Surprises had to do with the negative relationship of smoking to GPA. Stress is the most commonly reported problem, but doesn't necessarily effect grades. Pertinent perhaps to our local students is the linear negative relationship between gambling and GPA. You can find the full report here.

Social Justice is political --support William Ayers

An article in today's (Tuesday, Oct. 14) Inside Higher Ed again brought to my attention the efforts by one presidential campaign to defame a person who has for decades sought to foster social justice. This is admittedly a political action to encourage you to visit the web site soliciting endorsements for Dr. Ayers--but then I do believe that advocating for social justice is always political.

Scrapbooks for teaching and learning

Thanks to my former OSU colleagues who created Infodoodads, I'm posting on a somwhat lighter topic than usual. Apparently those clever K-12 teachers have discovered the power of scrapbooking (digitally or literally) to personalize curriculum and make it meaningful. Read the this little article from Edutopia that was linked from Infodoodads. Seems like this could have some real potential for counseling work as well.