Education Commons^™

Perceptions Of Bibliotherapy: A Survey Of Undergraduate Students, Randie D. Camp M.S., Anne Foegen Ph.D., Linda Lind Ph.D., Amy Popillion Ph.D.

Randie D. Camp, M.S.

Bibliotherapy is one instructional tool teachers can use to help children and adolescents cope with their diverse needs and life’s challenges. In the context of K-12 settings, bibliotherapy is a systematic process utilizing books to transform traditional reading into an instructional strategy to assist educators in meeting the needs of all students. The study presents perceptions of bibliotherapy held by 161 preservice teachers (PSTs) and 87 non-preservice teachers (non-PSTs) and offers insight exploring 5 research questions. Data were collected using a survey which contained demographic items, rating scales, and open-ended items to gather both quantitative and narrative data. Independent samples …

(Conceptual) Conversion: Reworking Archival Curriculum To Incorporate The Multiverse, Kimberly D. Anderson

Kimberly D. Anderson

http://aeri2012.wordpress.com/conference-schedule/workshops/pedagogical-approaches-in-a-conceptually-based-curriculum/

Kimberly Anderson will share her experience of transforming a class on archival outreach at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. The fully online course, “Archival Outreach: Programs and Services” was re-worked into conceptual modules that formed the underpinning for the class. These concepts were reinforced throughout the semester and students were asked to use them as a framing throughout the discussion and applied activities. The resultant class was a dramatic departure from the both the previous iterations of the course and the way in which other courses in the archives program are taught, which have previously focused heavily on practices. Dr. …

Cost-Effectiveness Model For Youth Efnep Programs: What Do We Measure And How Do We Do It?, Elena Serrano, Mary Mcferren, Michael Lambur, Michael Ellerbock, Kathy Hosig, Nancy K. Franz, Marilyn Townsend, Susan Baker, Peter Muennig, George Davis

Nancy K. Franz

The Youth Expanded Food and Nutrition Education Program (EFNEP) is one of the United States Department of Agriculture's hallmark nutrition education programs for limited-resource youth. The objective of this study was to gather opinions from experts in EFNEP and related content areas to identify costs, effects (impacts), and related instruments to develop a cost-effectiveness model (instrument) for youth EFNEP, which does not exist. A cost-effectiveness model determines the economic or financial cost of producing an impact. The findings highlight several challenges in identifying inputs through consensus and provide a roadmap for the creation of a model that can be adopted …

The Honour House Project: Reservist Re-Entry Program, Sarah A. Rajala, Kevin J. Wainwright, Barbara E. Endicott-Popovsky

Sarah A. Rajala

Both the United States and Canada invest a great deal of resources in the training of their military personal. Many of the skills and experiences accumulated by soldiers are those that are highly valued by civilian employers. Further, these skills are often embodied in academic programs, suggesting soldiers would have a comparative advantage in such programs; however, despite the efforts of government agencies, many soldiers are unable to convert their skills and training into meaningful careers. While there are several reasons why individuals leaving military duty have trouble re-integrating into work and education, one of the major obstacles is the …

Appraisal Learning Networks: How University Archivists Learn To Appraise Through Social Interaction, Kimberly D. Anderson

Kimberly D. Anderson

The appraisal of archival materials for ongoing value is one of the core responsibilities of the archivist, yet empirical research on how archivists learn to appraise is absent from the field. The purpose of this study is to understand how and when archivists learn to appraise and to devise a methodology for further studies in archival learning and knowledge transmission. It was hypothesized that the appraisal learning (continuing and formal) structures of university archivists can be understood as a network of relationships that demonstrates lineages of ideas and influences. The study employed an iterative process in which exploratory research and …

Designing An Intelligent Discourse Evaluation Tool: Theoretical, Empirical, And Technological Considerations, Elena Cotos

Elena Cotos

Considering the promising potential of ICALL and intelligent feedback, this paper addresses this topic from the perspective of practical applications. It reviews existing intelligent language learning systems and their feedback capabilities, arguing that while ICALL is very promising and highly complex, its development should be more principled. In other words, the decisions behind the system design need to be justified theoretically, integrating technology with theory, research, and practice in instructed SLA. To support this argument, this paper provides an example of how this was achieved in the context of L2 graduate academic writing. It describes a new natural language processing-based …

Automated Diagnostic Writing Tests: Why? How?, Elena Cotos, Nick Pendar

Elena Cotos

Diagnostic language assessment can greatly benefit from a collaborative union of computer-assisted language testing (CALT) and natural language processing (NLP). Currently, most CALT applications mainly allow for inferences about L2 proficiency based on learners’ recognition and comprehension of linguistic input and hardly concern language production (Holland, Maisano, Alderks, & Martin, 1993). NLP is now at a stage where it can be used or adapted for diagnostic testing of learner production skills. This paper explores the viability of NLP techniques for the diagnosis of L2 writing by analyzing the state of the art in current diagnostic language testing, reviewing the existing …

Automatic Identification Of Discourse Moves In Scientific Article Introductions, Elena Cotos, Nick Pendar

Elena Cotos

This paper reports on the first stage of building an educational tool for international graduate students to improve their academic writing skills. Taking a text-categorization approach, we experimented with several models to automatically classify sentences in research article introductions into one of three rhetorical moves. The paper begins by situating the project within the larger framework of intelligent computer-assisted language learning. It then presents the details of the study with very encouraging results. The paper then concludes by commenting on how the system may be improved and how the project is intended to be pursued and evaluated.

College Students' Experiences And Perceptions Of Harassment On Campus: An Exploration Of Gender Differences, Robert D. Reason, Susan R. Rankin

Robert D Reason

Using a campus climate assessment instrument developed by Rankin (1998), we surveyed students (N = 7,347) from 10 campuses to explore the different experiences with harassment and campus climates reported by men and women. Both men and women reported experiencing harassment, although women experienced harassment at statistically significantly higher rates than men. Women reported higher rates of sexual harassment, while men reported higher rates of harassment based upon sexuality. These findings are understood, and implications are provided, using a lens of power and privilege.

Senior Design Projects To Aid The Disabled, Janis P. Terpenny, Robert Gao, John Ritter, Donald Fisher, Sundar Krishnamurty

Janis P. Terpenny

A new two-semester capstone senior design course sequence in the area of assistive technology has been developed and integrated within the established curriculum of the Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering (MIE) at the University of Massachusetts (UMass) Amherst. Entitled “Senior Design Projects to Aid the Disabled,” the capstone sequence includes close collaborations with the Lemelson Assistive Technology Development Center (LATDC) at Hampshire College and Adaptive Design Services (ADS) under the Massachusetts Department of Mental Retardation (DMR). The new design course allows students to work directly with collaborators and disabled clients to solve specific assistive technology design problems. Through these …

‘Contrary To Our Way Of Thinking’: The Struggle For An American Indian Center In Chicago, Grant Arndt

Grant Arndt

When Chicago’s American Indian Center opened in 1953, it had a small core of dedicated leaders, but little support in the city. The Center’s board of directors had applied for funding to Chicago’s Metropolitan Welfare Council, the main clearing- house of philanthropic funding in the city, only to be told that the Center’s existence was “contrary to our way of thinking.” 1 It was not the first time that Native Americans seeking to cre- ate urban organizations had encountered rejection. For years, local Native American activists had found that urban Indians and Native American urban organizations were contrary to the …