bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
Implementing Service Learning: From Nutrition Education into Community Action
Authors: Zinger Lana , Sinclair Alicia 
Published: March 2016

Service learning integrates academic learning and relevant community service with classroom instruction, focusing on critical, reflective thinking and personal civic responsibility. Through a grant, community college students were provided with grocery store vouchers to purchase unfamiliar, healthy foods. Students were taken on an educational “tour” of a local supermarket and were shown how to grocery shop according to dietary guidelines. Students then engaged in service learning by going out into their communities where they acted as nutrition educators and taught community members skills they initially learned. As a result of this project, students reported success in applying the knowledge and skills learned from one setting to another. By engaging in service learning, students also reported improved nutrition knowledge and overall confidence with the subject matter.
Cultural Differences In Learning And Implications For Distance Delivery Of Educational Programmes To Developing Nations: A Case Study In Fiji
Authors: Shanahan Morris W. 
Published: March 2016

Shanahan (2006) found that to be effective the delivery of distance learning programmes to developing nations had to overcome certain constraints, such as cultural constrictions (i.e., issues of language), tradition-based limitations (i.e., paternalistic and hierarchical structures), an inherited past (colonialism), and poor infrastructure (particularly in relation to telecommunications). It was argued that all of these obstacles needed to be managed and sufficiently overcome if distance delivery was to be of any utility. This study builds upon this research to include possible differences in learning styles across cultures that may influence the functionality of web-based distance learning programmes. Fiji was chosen as a useful case study as this country has a population that is almost evenly split between two cultures: indigenous Fijians and people of Indian ancestry who were born in Fiji. These people were submitted to the same integrated educational systems, governmental processes, economic constraints, and social norms and laws. Participants in this study completed the Lincoln VARK Learning Styles Questionnaire[1] and comparisons were made between learning styles and by ethnicity, age, computer access, and job position. Results indicated no significant difference in learning styles between cultures, but significant differences between learning styles across the total sample were evident. The results suggest learning differences need to be taken into account if maximum outcomes are to be achieved from web-based distance learning programmes. Such a finding has ramifications for educational institutions offering distance learning curriculums as the poor completion rates may partly be a function of not moderating such programmes to cater to the differences in learning styles. It is simply not a totalitarian process. [1] Copyright Version 7.0 (2006) held by Neil D. Fleming, Christchurch, New Zealand and Charles C. Bonwell, Green Mountain Falls, Colorado 80819 U.S.A
Post Graduation Assessment Of Learning Outcomes
Authors: Maples Glenn , Greco Anna M. , Tanner John R. 
Published: March 2016

The objective of this work is to suggest a process for improving the assessment of educational outcomes in universities. Improved accountability and assessment has become an important direction in academic institutional research, but the underlying question –how best to accomplish this goal is an open question. A framework is first described which promotes the categorization of academic assessment. Based on this framework, a preliminary instrument was developed and piloted. The results of this study are reported and plans for future efforts are described.
Cellular Telephone Use: A Survey Of College Business Students
Authors: Braguglia Kay H. 
Published: March 2016

Whether it is hand held, in a pocket, on a backpack, clipped to a belt, or hidden in a brief case or purse, college students and cellular telephones go together. Communication with fellow students, professors, parents, and everyone else is just a click away. While walking across campus and down the halls of academic buildings, cellular telephones are being used. This research questions in what ways do students use cellular telephones and does this use interfere with or assist in learning and college life? This paper reports the results of a survey of undergraduate business students addressing this question. The objectives were to determine: (1) how much time is spent using a cell phone and which phone features are used most frequently, (2) what students believe concerning the impact of cell phones on learning in the classroom and during study, (3) how often students are in contact with parents on a cell phone, and (4) how much do students pay for cell phone services. The results indicate that 100% of the students own a cell phone. Sixty-six percent of the students use voice calls most frequently and 30% use text messages most often. A total of 55.8% of students report that they spend 3 hours or less on their cell phone daily and 44.8% spend four or more hours daily on their cell phones. Over half of the students report that they have some interaction with their cell phones during class time for every class. Seventy-seven percent state that this cell phone use seldom or never interferes with classroom learning. All of the students (100%) believe that they should be able to receive emergency information over a cell phone during class time. Seventy-six percent believe that cell phones seldom or never assist in classroom learning. However, students report that cell phone use impacts on study time outside of class. Cell phone distractions during study time outside class was reported by 34.6% of the students as happening often or always and an additional 43.5% are sometimes distracted by cell phones during study time. Bad or upsetting news received over a cell phone before class impacts academic performance of 14.2% of the students often or always. Thirty-five percent of the students talk to parents more than once a day and another 23.7% have contact on a daily basis. Therefore, 59.5% report that they have contact with their parents at least once a day. Fifteen percent of the students pay over $100 per month for cell phone service, 28% pay from $75 to $100, 34% spend $51 to $75, and 14% spend $26 to $50 per month. More than 90% of the students report that they have text messaging, calculator, clock, calendar, and appointment reminder on their cell phone. Over 70% have the internet and games. Over 60% have a camera and email. Only 13% have an MP3 music player and 7% have an FM radio.
Closing The Achievement Gap: Challenges And Opportunities
Authors: Robards Shirley N. 
Published: March 2016

Closing the achievement gap between low-and high-achieving public school students is an important goal of public education (p. 42, Lowell Rose and Alec Gallup, Phi Delta Kappan, 2007). The paper will explore background information and research as well as discuss examples of best practices to close the achievement gap. Several plans have been proposed as ways to enhance the achievement of under-represented students, according to the Phi Delta Kappa/Gallup Poll (Phi Delta Kappan, September 2007, p. 42), including additional instructional time, student assistance and increased assistance outside of the school day.
Educating Part-Time MBAs For The Global Business Environment
Authors: Randolph W. Alan 
Published: March 2016

To be successful managers in the business world of the 21st century, MBA students must acquire global skills of business acumen, reflection, cultural sensitivity, and multi-cultural teamwork. Developing these skills requires international experience, but educating part-time MBAs creates a special challenge demanding both rigor and efficiency. This paper describes an innovative way to address this challenge. Based on the study tour concept, the course incorporates a three-part multinational opportunity analysis project for a full semester, and provides students a chance to interact with professors and students from a university in another country. The students develop critical global skills with only an abbreviated travel experience abroad.
Rubrics: The Key To Fairness In Performance Based Assessments
Authors: Shepherd Carol M. , Mullane Ann Mary 
Published: March 2016

Life involves a myriad of skills. Most of the basic skills are undeniably ‘classics’ such as communication and problem solving. The interpretation and delivery of these skills has morphed into a complicated science, with the changing social environment and the growing prevalence of technology in our everyday existences. Commonplace technology, as evidenced through word processing, spreadsheets and presentation programs support Gardner’s 1980’s proposition of multiple intelligences. Furthermore, the inclusion in many K-12 curricula of courses such as web design and the acceptance of PowerPoint as a presentation enhancement, forces the classroom teacher not only to accept Gardner’s concepts but also creates a worrisome quandary of authentic assessment development, implementation and evaluation. Institutions of higher education must prepare their teacher candidates to effectively deal with this new form of assessment. Teachers are confronted with the theme of man versus machine anew. Refined methods of evaluation are needed to assess not only the learning of the student in the traditional sense but also the manipulation of technology as a presentation vehicle. Much of the existing technology has developed so quickly that certain ‘project enhancers’ while pleasant and fun, are not evidence of a deeper understanding of the subject matter but simply a distraction. Performance based assessments, while enabling students to express their mastery of content according to their learning styles and skill strengths, are difficult to score objectively and fairly. A rubric is a common scoring guide frequently used in the attempt to fairly assess creative work. It is necessary to have a taxonomy of the levels of talent, or creativity, in the grading process. Unfortunately, teachers are more willing than they are able to accurately and dispassionately assess the projects that they want their students to explore, such as posters, skits or plays, PowerPoint presentations, websites and videos. This study will address the necessity to balance students’ creative efforts with the reality of deadlines, the conventions of their chosen medium and the ability to self-assess their own efforts without the benefit of traditional proofreading. The proposed methodology will be a search of the literature in addition to action research. The expected outcomes will be a sharing of rubrics and guidelines to assist educators in fairly and objectively coping with authentic assessment development, implementation and evaluation. This information will be valuable in training teacher candidates to effectively and fairly deal with performance based assessments.
Using Sequential Two-Part Focus Groups As A Supplemental Instrument For Student Course Evaluations
Authors: Pritchard Robert E. , Potter Gregory C. , Saccucci Michael S. 
Published: March 2016

This paper describes the use of a sequential two-part focus group program designed to be a supplemental instrument for eliciting student suggestions to improve the teaching/learning process. The sequential two-part focus group program provides students with two opportunities to provide feedback and have that feedback both noted and mirrored back to them. Many of the student comments and suggestions elicited during the focus group sessions were positive and constructive. Moreover, use of the sequential two-part focus group program resulted in statistically significant improvement in student evaluations in all but one of the seven major sections of the Educational Testing Service’s SIR II, the primary instrument utilized to obtain the student course evaluations. The “Overall Evaluation” of the course, wherein students are asked to, “Rate the quality of instruction in this course as it contributed to your learning,” improved most significantly.
Preparing Students For An Online Accounting Course
Authors: Scofield Barbara W. , Walsh Robert J. 
Published: March 2016

Accounting education has been under intense examination for at least the past 20 years (American Accounting Association, 1986; Big Eight Accounting Firms, 1989; AECC, 1990). Similarly, the value of an MBA education has been scrutinized (Leonhardt, 2000 and Mintzberg and Lampel, 2001). Over the past 10 years, online education has grown exponentially with the Internet (Bryant, Kahle and Schafer, 2005). This paper examines the responses of students who have just completed an online MBA financial accounting course to the question “What advice would you give someone who is about to take the course?” Over 60 students were polled, and their answers categorized into 36 repeated recommendations and seven themes: Input Factors, Communication, External Activities, Technical Skills, Study Tips, Personal Factors, and Course Characteristics. By far the predominate factor mentioned was time, but the breadth of additional advice provides a snapshot for educators of the student point of view. The results of this study are useful to any professor who has taught or will be teaching an online financial accounting course.
Transforming Learning Through Two Pair of Eyes
Authors: Kimmel Jessica C. , Seifert Vanessa M. 
Published: March 2016

This essay is a report on the experience of adult transformative learning under the conditions of travel to and within a foreign culture. It is written in the voices and from the perspectives of both teacher and .student. The role of both is analyzed in the context of Mezirow’s criteria for transformative learning. this involves structuring the learning experience to bring out the total collective resources of the adult. The task of the teacher is to set up a learning environment so that the best chances for deep learning are in place to challenge and support adult students to take transformative learning risks--steps, plunges, and leaps that lead into a new and unknown world of differences. In the present case, the study of another culture coupled with actual travel and cultural immersion with the people was life changing.
Utilizing Human Patient Simulators (HPS) To Meet Learning Objectives Across Concurrent Core Nursing Courses: A Pilot Study
Authors: Miller Charman L. , Leadingham Camille , Vance Ronald 
Published: March 2016

Associate Degree Nursing (ADN) faculty are challenged by the monumental responsibility of preparing students to function as safe, professional nurses in a two year course of study. Advances in computer technology and emphasis on integrating technology and active learning strategies into existing course structures have prompted many nurse educators to explore the use of Human Patient Simulation (HPS) utilizing high-fidelity human patient simulators. This pilot study was designed to assist ADN faculty to determine students’ perceptions regarding the use of HPS scenarios as a teaching strategy to meet course objectives across multiple core ADN nursing courses in a single quarter.
Managing Multimedia Mania: Taming The Technology Beast
Authors: Shepherd Carol , Mullane Ann Mary 
Published: March 2016

Harnessing student energy for the positive use of technology in the classroom requires significant change for many educators. Students today exhibit a one-click mentality when using computers in the classroom, and are frustrated when they are not provided with instant gratification. Gone are the reading and higher level thinking skills of the pen and paper years. With today’s multimedia mania, students see the computer and its programs as toys, and it is extremely difficult to get them to move from toys to technology tools. Educators are misgauging student learning when technology is involved, mainly because it is extremely difficult to assess. It is important for teachers to tame this multimedia beast and model millennial skills, and thus guide students to focus on the computer as a tool, not merely a toy, in the process of learning.
The Effectiveness Of Incidental Teaching Of Grammar To Iranian Students
Authors: Sabzevar Z. Ghabanchi 
Published: March 2016

This article reports the results of a study and a pilot study. The ‘study’ considers the effectiveness of incidental teaching of grammar in a learning class of English As A Second Language by Persian speaking students. The ‘pilot study’ examines the students’ attitudes toward the incidental learning of grammar from the perspective of field dependent/independent. The subjects of this study are two groups of EFL learners, a total of 30 students studying at Sabzevar Payam Noor University, Iran. English proficiency was measured by the TOEFL and an oral test of communicative competence. Grammar is presented in two series of lessons. The first, a series of ten grammar lessons, provides an intensive review of grammatical points for beginning ESL students. These lessons assume a low vocabulary level, include a simple grammatical generalization, and provide extensive practice of specific grammar points using a wide variety of exercises. A built-in review is provided for items that are missed in each exercise. The second series, six advanced grammar lessons, provides extensive reinforcement and practice of a wide range of advanced grammar points. Each lesson consists of at least four mechanical exercises, including substitution, transformation, question/answer, and fill-in-the-blank drills. The focus in this study is on learning grammar, in general, and passive voice, in particular. A pre-test is administered to be certain. This test consists of 60 multiple-choice questions. The subjects fortunately are almost at the same level; the averages are very close. The subjects were divided into two groups: control and experimental. Then the easy texts, which include the grammatical points, are taught incidentally to the experimental group, whereas explicitly to the control group. A test is carried out for the groups. Then in the following term, the same groups are taught the advance materials followed by a test. The results indicate that the use of an incidental method of teaching does not show a significant priority over the explicit one. In reality, the control group does better, especially with the advanced materials. Concerning the pilot study, a questionnaire is distributed among the subjects to identify the field dependent/independent ones. The aim of this pilot study is to identify what kinds of students are more interested in incidental learning of grammar. Five students are selected from each group. The analysis of the data concerning their reception of the method of teaching and the outcome of the groups is carried out. The study does not show a significant difference between field dependent/independent students concerning incidental learning.
Communication And Research Skills In The Information Systems Curriculum: A Method Of Assessment
Authors: Lazarony Paul J. , Driscoll Donna A. 
Published: March 2016

Assessment of learning goals has become the norm in business programs in higher education across the country. This paper offers a methodology for the assessment of both communication skills and research skills within a curriculum of the Bachelor of Science in Information Systems Program. Program level learning goals assessed in this paper are: (1) To be able to effectively communicate complex information system and business concepts both orally and in writing, (2) To be able to do research of the IS literature that will allow life-long learning in the field, and (3) To understand both individual and group dynamics of project teams. The discussion of each of the three learning goals includes: (1) the assessment methodology, (2) the assessment results and (3) recommendations on how to close-the-loop.
Understanding The Process Model Of Leadership: Follower Attribute Design And Assessment
Authors: Antelo Absael , Henderson Richard L. , St. Clair Norman 
Published: March 2016

Early leadership studies produced significant research findings that have helped differentiate between leader and follower personal attributes and their consequent behaviors (SEDL, 1992), but little attention was given to the follower’s contribution to the leadership process. This study represents a continuation of research by Henderson, Antelo, & St. Clair on the process model of leadership begun in 2006. Initial research efforts concentrated on leader-held attributes that contribute to the process. Research in work group motivation indicates that individual worker motivation influences performance and productivity; thus, leaders seek to understand what motivates followers to reach extraordinary performance. Employees, however, respond in a variety of ways to their jobs and their organizations’ practices. A paramount task for the leader is to determine what factors impact work motivation. The idea is based on the premise that individual attributes are brought to the workplace by each member of the group. The concept of individual differences involves personal needs, values, attitudes, interests, and abilities people bring to their jobs. Job characteristics refer to the nature of the position determining its limitations and challenges. Organizational practices are the rules, policies, managerial practices, and reward systems of the organization. This complexity is increased with the construct of motivation, which is understood as the process that moves a person toward a goal. In consequence, “motivated behaviors are voluntary choices controlled by the individual employee.” The leader, therefore, attempts to influence the factors that motivate employees. (Authors)
Creating Collaborative Literacy Teams To Increase Reading Achievement In Urban Settings
Authors: Zakierski Marlene , Siegel Alice 
Published: March 2016

The purpose of this article is to provide a detailed example of effective professional development for teachers that resulted in positive changes to the effectiveness of the school’s reading program. This study describes the results of an intervention school-wide program that was conducted in a large urban school with a majority of minority students whose families were below the poverty line. With the implementation of continuous professional development of exemplary literacy instruction, dramatic improvement in reading achievement occurred. The article depicts how poorly students performed on state exams and details the multiple strategies developed and used by the authors - analyzing test results, realigning the curriculum, coaching, after school tutoring, and the implementation of a nightly home reading program, all of which were closely monitored by these researchers. This model can be replicated anywhere because it is achievable without any additional cost to the participating schools.