Volume 5
Introduction To The Fifth Volume
The current volume of Rhode Island College's on-line journal, Issues in
Teaching and Learning includes two essays from faculty librarians and an
essay from a professor of Educational Studies, all from Rhode Island
College.
Associate Professor, Marlene
Lopes, Special Collections librarian at Rhode Island College reminds us
of Rhode Island College's impressive cultural heritage, particularly its
contribution in shaping the teaching careers of thousands of women,
including African American women from the 18th century onward. As Professor
Lopes reports, "Strong-minded women developed the institution that was to
become Rhode Island College." By recounting the history of public education
and the emergence of the normal school in the 19th century, Professor Lopes
helps the reader to appreciate the significant contributions of those who
assumed leadership positions in what would become Rhode Island College. With
the oft mentioned "short term memory" affliction of Americans, this
historical essay provides us with a rare moment to appreciate those earliest
educators at Rhode Island College whose efforts began to make the college,
the "College of Opportunity" that it is today
Professor Rachel Carpenter,
Reference librarian and Coordinator of Government Documents, provides
faculty and students with a case for appreciating and using the vast
collection of governmental documents and resources that are available in the
library. The rationale for her essay is clear. As citizens in a democracy,
the peoples' "right to know" the business of government, is essential. Today
much of what we know is filtered through the ideological lens of various
media outlets. Government documents provide the citizen with access to the
"horse's mouth" so to speak. It is in these primary sources where the reader
or researcher has an opportunity to analyze the meaning of a particular
document and to compare it to the interpretations that may have confused and
confounded it by the pundits and ideologues in the popular press.
The third essay in this volume, "Practice What You Preach:
Confessions of a Reflective Practitioner", by Associate Professor Lesley Bogad, is a refreshing
account of a teacher, reflecting on the teaching-learning process. Some
compare education to the process of pouring information and facts into the
empty receptacles of students' heads. "Covering the content" is often the
goal of less reflective teachers, but it certainly is not that of Professor
Bogad. By providing concrete examples from her encounters with students,
individually as well as collectively in the classroom, Bogad learns lessons
that a less reflective individual may miss. She shares her mistakes and how
she learns from them, but perhaps, most powerfully she describes a teaching
learning process that forces the teacher to reflect on what what we do, does to
the students we share time, theory and reflection with in the classroom.
Carol R. Shelton, R.N., Ph.D
Professor of Nursing
