2012 Bright Ideas Conference Program

Event program for the 2012 Bright Ideas Conference at SFASU

2010 Bright Ideas Conference Program

Event program for the 2010 Bright Ideas Conference at SFASU

Write Free or Die: Vol. 03, No. 01

Student Writing, Quality vs. Quantity, Page 1 Upcoming Events, Page 1 Writing Committee Members, Page 2 Dangling Modifier, Page 4 Ask Matt, Page 5 Faculty Profile, Page 7 Grammar Box, Page 9 Past Perfect, Page 10 (WAC)ky Resources, Page 1

Alternative Certification: A Research Brief

Alternative teacher certification (ATC) encompasses a broad range of programs that prepare teachers in non-traditional, accelerated ways (Suell and Piotrowski 2007). The number of teachers prepared through alternative routes has increased considerably in the past decade. As of 2011, 16% of public school teachers nationwide had entered the profession through some kind of alternative program, and in the last five years, 40% of new hires have come through ATC programs (Feistritzer 2011). In this brief I offer a short overview of research on the outcomes of alternative certification programs compared with traditional certification, summarize findings about what makes for effective alternative certification programs, and describe ATC programs in Alaska. Generally, ATC programs are aimed at people who are interested in becoming teachers and have at least a bachelor’s degree, as well as extensive life experience. But how these programs are defined and what they include varies considerably (Humphrey and Wechsler 2007). In this brief, alternative certification is defined as a program in which teacher candidates work as the instructor of record while completing their teacher certification. These programs are considered to be both a means of alleviating teacher shortages and a way of improving the quality of the teaching workforce. In addition to shortening the preparation time and being more flexible for working participants, ATC programs also typically incorporate mentoring (Mikulecky, Shkodriani et al. 2004; Scribner and Heinen 2009). The programs range from initiatives run by school districts and state departments of education to university-operated efforts run alongside traditional teacher preparation programs (Yao and Williams 2010)

ILR Labor Advance, Spring 2009

ILRexNewsletter_spring2009final.pdf: 401 downloads, before Oct. 1, 2020

Successful Community Nutrition Programming:lessons from Kenya,Tanzania,and Uganda

Learning from success is the most effective and efficient way of learning.This report brings together the main findings of a series of assessments of successful community nutrition programming carried out in Kenya, Tanzania, and Uganda between 1999 and 2000. The overall aim of the assessments was to identify key lessons, or the main driving forces behind the successful processes and outcomes in these programs. Such elements of success fundamentally have to do with both what was done and how it was done. Experience with community-based nutrition programming, as documented in various syntheses and reviews during the 1990s, does show that malnutrition can be effectively addressed on a large scale, at reasonable cost, through appropriate programs and strategies, and backed up by sustained political support. In most cases, successful attempts to overcome malnutrition originate with participatory, community-based nutrition programs undertaken in parallel with supportive sectoral actions directed toward nutritionally at-risk groups. Such actions are often enabled and supported by policies aimed at improving access by the poor to adequate social services, improving women’s status and education, and\ud fostering equitable economic growth. Successful community-based programs are not islands of excellence existing in an imperfect world. Rather, part of their success has to do with contextual factors that provide an enabling or supportive environment. Some of these contextual factors are particularly influenced by policy, some less so. Contextual factors may include, for example, high literacy rates, women’s empowerment, community organizational capacity and structures, appropriate legislation. Nutrition program managers cannot normally influence contextual factors, at least in the short term.\ud In addition to favorable contextual factors, certain program factors contribute to successful programs, such as the design, implementation, and/or management of the program or project, which can, of course, be influenced by program managers. Both contextual and program factors, and the way they interact, need to be identified in order to understand the dynamics behind success. In 1998, under the Greater Horn of Africa Initiative (GHAI) supported by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), nutrition coalitions were formed in Kenya, Tanzania, and Uganda. These nutrition coalitions, comprising individuals representing government, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), donors, academic institutions, and the private sector, seek to advance the nutrition agenda both in policy and programming through coordination and advocacy efforts. One of the first tasks of the nutrition coalitions, under the leadership of the Program for Applied Technologies in Health (PATH) in Kenya, the Tanzania Food and Nutrition Centre (TFNC) in Tanzania, and the African Medical Research Foundation (AMREF) in Uganda, was to prepare an inventory of community nutrition programs in their respective countries and identify of better practices in community nutrition programming. Country teams, supported by USAID/REDSO/ESA and LINKAGES/AED, then selected three successful programs in their respective countries based on preestablished "process" and "outcome" criteria. UNICEF has a long history of promoting and supporting community-based programs in Eastern and Southern Africa and has supported many reviews and evaluations. As part of its continued effort to strengthen community-based programs by learning from new success stories, UNICEF also identified for review a relatively large scale successful program in Tanzania\u

Towards Research Excellence for Development: The Research Quality plus (RQ+) Assessment Instrument

This document presents a framework and practical guidelines for assessing the quality of research for development. Referred to as the "RQ+"1 assessment instrument, it serves as a tool to guide the work of external evaluators hired by IDRC as part of the External Review process for prospectusbased programs."RQ+" is based on the premise that a credible, balanced and comprehensive assessment of the quality of research for development requires the consideration of elements beyond the research outputs only, or the use of conventional metrics. These additional elements include important aspects of the research process related to design, execution and the sharing of findings. For this reason, RQ+ indicates an approach that straddles output and research project assessment