Net Gains: A Handbook for Network Builders Seeking Social Change

This handbook provides the growing number of people who are developing networks for social change with practical advice based on the experiences of network builders, case studies of networks small and large, local and international, and emerging scientific knowledge about "connectivity." It is intended to join, complement, and spur other efforts to capture and make widely available what is being learned in the business, government, and civil sectors about why and how to use networks, rather than solitary organizations, to generate large-scale impact

Teaching Complex Content in Healthcare: A Comparison of the Effect of Three Types of Multimedia Pretraining on Schematic Knowledge and Near Transfer

Challenged to teach complex content to students, university educators in healthcare disciplines face a practical need for effective pedagogical approaches. The preponderance of multimedia and digital resources in and beyond college classrooms suggests that solutions to teaching complex content should leverage educational technology and multimedia resources. The multimedia principle of pretraining is one effective way to augment complex content learning. The pretraining principle specifies that learning is more effective when the names and characteristics of main terms and concepts are introduced before more nuanced and complex content is presented. The purpose of this study was to investigate three approaches to pretraining—traditional pretraining, pretraining with a static concept map, and pretraining with an animated concept map—to examine the effect that the method of pretraining had on schematic knowledge and near transfer achievement. Pretraining has been found especially effective with learners who have low prior knowledge, with difficult and conceptual content, and with fast-paced instruction. The study also explored whether student perceptions about the usefulness of concept maps as a learning resource was reflected in achievement. Using a quasi-experimental pretest-posttest design, 145 occupational therapy students were assigned to one of the three treatment conditions. Following a pretest to obtain a baseline of prior knowledge, the 12-minute pretraining treatment on the topic of sensory integration theory was administered via a video module, and then participants were exposed to a 60-minute multimedia lecture. An immediate posttest was completed, followed two weeks later by a delayed posttest. A questionnaire to measure participant perceptions about concept maps was also administered at the posttest. Data analysis was completed using repeated measures ANOVA to examine gain scores from pretest to posttest to delayed posttest. On the measures of schematic knowledge and near transfer, the static concept map group demonstrated statistically significant gains and stronger scores than the other two groups. The findings suggest that the most effective of these three strategies for learning complex content is pretraining with a static concept map. Traditional pretraining is another viable option but pretraining with an animated concept map is not an efficient approach

Preparing for a Northwest Passage: A Workshop on the Role of New England in Navigating the New Arctic

Preparing for a Northwest Passage: A Workshop on the Role of New England in Navigating the New Arctic (March 25 - 27, 2018 -- The University of New Hampshire) paired two of NSF\u27s 10 Big Ideas: Navigating the New Arctic and Growing Convergence Research at NSF. During this event, participants assessed economic, environmental, and social impacts of Arctic change on New England and established convergence research initiatives to prepare for, adapt to, and respond to these effects. Shipping routes through an ice-free Northwest Passage in combination with modifications to ocean circulation and regional climate patterns linked to Arctic ice melt will affect trade, fisheries, tourism, coastal ecology, air and water quality, animal migration, and demographics not only in the Arctic but also in lower latitude coastal regions such as New England. With profound changes on the horizon, this is a critical opportunity for New England to prepare for uncertain yet inevitable economic and environmental impacts of Arctic change

Beyond the Bubble: Technology and the Future of Student Assessment

Provides an overview of information technology's potential to enable better assessments of student achievement. Outlines promising models for testing complex skills, cognition, and learning and for utilizing such assessments to improve instruction

End of One Way

Describes the role of three South Minneapolis community-based organizations. Demonstrates how the organizations form partnerships and share leadership with their communities. Explores a set of themes derived from each example of community engagement

Communities of Change, Multi Stakeholder Processes, Lobby & Advocacy : More than 100 years of experience on HBC in Malawi & Zambia!

This training of four days focussed on two areas of capacity development of the home-based care (HBC) alliance in Malawi and Zambia: 1. Communities of Change (CoC) concept and practice linked to the Multi Stakeholder Process (MSP), and 2. Lobby & Advocacy (L&A). Since June 2010 Cordaid started together with the Centre of Development Innovation (CDI) a learning and development process on the Communities of Change concept and practice linked to the Multi Stakeholder Process with around 75 persons of her staff. In order to share and deepen the development of the COC & MSP concepts and practice further with the partners in the field, Cordaid organised this training. An effective working Alliance/CoC is a condition for effective lobby and advocacy. Therefore the CoC - MSP part of the training was directly linked to the part on lobby and advocacy. The lobby and advocacy trajectory had been started already three years ago with an initial training (also in Malawi) specifically on lobby and advocacy for home based care representatives of eight countries in Africa, amongst other Malawi and Zambia. The current training on lobby and advocacy is therefore also part of the follow up of that process

Equitable sustainable development in small American cities: The Northend Greenway and the path forward

As global climate change prompts a demand for “green” urban development, the representation of sustainability as a panacea to all environmental, economic, and social issues has been increasingly challenged by social justice advocates. In particular, critics of the social component of this supposedly balanced sustainability model have characterized holistic sustainability rhetoric as an appropriation of equity discourse to serve the interests of a narrow set of affluent consumers. The ongoing question of who benefits from sustainable development has revealed highly problematic patterns of displacement and gentrification that fall disproportionately on low-income neighborhoods and communities of color. This tension is examined within the context of Harrisonburg, Virginia’s Northend Greenway, a 2.5 mile shared use path and stream rehabilitation project that connects a cluster of underserved neighborhoods to key areas of business, education, and recreation in the city. The Northend Greenway provides an interesting case study for many reasons: while careful thought to social justice and ecological restoration were given to the design of the project, its practical application has eliminated key equity components to produce a project that looks remarkably similar to other gentrifying green development initiatives across the United States. Furthermore, Harrisonburg offers the unique context of a small city, compared with the bulk of literature examining the United States’ largest cities. Perspectives from policy makers, grassroots organizers, and residents are explored to analyze the risk of gentrification in a key neighborhood. Ultimately, it becomes clear that stronger commitments to affordable housing must be made from the beginning of projects like the Northend Greenway to ensure that well-intentioned sustainability initiatives do not displace vulnerable residents. Furthermore, a community participation structure that employs grassroots organizations as liaisons between city policy makers and residents of key neighborhoods should be developed to enhance the quality of community participation and information exchange in under-represented neighborhoods

Modalities of Social Change Lawyering

The last decade has seen the rise of new kinds of grassroots social movements. Movements including Occupy Wall Street, Black Lives Matter, Sunrise, and #MeToo pushed back against long-standing political, economic, and social crises, including income inequality, racial inequality, police violence, climate change, and the widespread culture of sexual abuse and harassment. As these social change efforts evolve, a growing body of scholarship has begun to theorize the role of lawyers within these new social movements and to identify lawyering characteristics that contribute to sustaining social movements over time. This Article surveys this body of literature and proposes a typology of terminology that names, identifies, and distinguishes the underlying characteristics and principles of prominent models of social change lawyering. Our typology is intended to create common conceptual ground in the field. The Article then applies this typology to the case study of one social change campaign to illustrate the ways scholars and advocates can use the framework to think strategically about tailoring goals and strategies to various sociological and theoretical factors. By mapping advocacy to theories of social change lawyering and tailoring such work to socio–legal factors, our goals are several. We hope our typology will launch a conversation that enables scholars and lawyers to evaluate diverse lawyering modalities in light of lawyers’ conception of their roles, their theory of social change, and the contexts in which they work. We also hope that our typology provokes engagement and correction, in the spirit of collectively imagining new ways of inhabiting the lawyering role that support critical social change efforts

Perspective study: governance for C2C

This perspective study will serve as frame of reference for follow-up activities and exchanges both within and outside the Cradle to Cradle Network (C2CN) and it aims to reflect the current challenges and opportunities associated with implementing a Cradle to Cradle approach. In total, four perspective studies have been written, in the areas on industry, area spatial development, governance and on the build theme