Coming of Age in Boston: Out-of-School Time Opportunities for Teens

Synthesizes findings from interviews, surveys, a literature review, and new research on current out-of-school time programs, what teens need and seek, and elements of effective programs. Includes a case study of environmental youth development programs

Microworld Writing: Making Spaces for Collaboration, Construction, Creativity, and Community in the Composition Classroom

In order to create a 21st century pedagogy of learning experiences that inspire the engaged, constructive, dynamic, and empowering modes of work we see in online creative communities, we need to focus on the platforms, the environments, the microworlds that host, hold, and constitute the work. A good platform can build connections between users, allowing for the creation of a community, giving creative work an engaged and active audience. These platforms will work together to build networks of rhetorical/creative possibilities, wherein students can learn to cultivate their voices, skills, and knowledge bases as they engage across platforms and genres. I call on others to make, mod, or hack other new platforms. In applying this argument to my subject, teaching writing in a college composition class, I describe Microworld Writing as a genre that combines literary language practice with creativity, performativity, play, game mechanics, and coding. The MOO can be an example of one of these platforms and of microworld writing, in that it allows for creativity, user agency, and programmability, if it can be updated to have the needed features (virtual world, community, accessibility, narrativity, compatibility and exportability). I offer the concept of this MOO-IF as inspiration for a collaborative, community-oriented Interactive Fiction platform, and encourage people to extend, find, and build their own platforms. Until then and in addition, students can be brought into Microworld Writing in the composition classroom through interactive-fiction platforms, as part of an ecology of genre experimentation and platform exercise

Mothers\u27 Cognitions and Structural Life Circumstances as Predictors of Infants\u27 and Toddlers\u27 Television and Video

Recently, the American Academy of Pediatrics reaffirmed their official policy discouraging screen media use with children under two (AAP, 2011). Their statement counters the normative use of TV/ video products with infants and toddlers, as parent surveys indicate the majority of these children watch TV/videos regularly. This dissertation research was designed with the underlying premise that the majority of existing research links heavy infant/toddler television and video exposure to disadvantageous health and developmental outcomes and many clinicians and child advocates seek to reduce that exposure. As little is known about the factors associated with more or less screen media use with infants and toddlers, this study examines in-depth the maternal cognitive and structural life circumstance factors predictive of TV/video exposure rates among very young children. Guided by the Integrative Model of Behavioral Prediction (Fishbein & Ajzen, 2010), this survey study examines the relationships between children\u27s estimated rates of foreground and background TV/video exposure and their mothers\u27 demographics (e.g., race/ethnicity), structural life circumstances (e.g., number of children in the home; employment), and cognitions (e.g., attitudes; norms). Thus, this study essentially tests two competing explanations for infants\u27 and toddlers\u27 TV/video exposure: (1) that mothers base their children\u27s TV/video exposure on their own psycho-social cognitions about that exposure; and (2) that mothers are more or less apt to allow their child to be exposed to TV/video based on unalterable realities of their lives, regardless of TV/video-related cognitions. The results suggest that mothers\u27 structural circumstances and cognitions (i.e., attitudes, normative pressure, and perceived behavioral control) respectively contribute independent explanatory power to the prediction of children\u27s background and foreground TV/video exposure, though demographic factors explain very little variance in each case. Mothers\u27 attitudes as well as their own TV/video viewing behavior were particularly strong predictors of each type of child media exposure. With regards to foreground TV/video exposure, mothers\u27 regulatory focus orientation and beliefs about early childhood brain development moderated relationships between discrete beliefs regarding infant/toddler TV/video exposure and broader integrative model constructs in notable ways. Implications of these findings for behavioral prediction theory and for future campaigns to reduce infant/toddler TV/video exposure are discussed

Spartan Daily, November 29, 2001

Volume 117, Issue 61https://scholarworks.sjsu.edu/spartandaily/9766/thumbnail.jp

City Year: Year 1 Evaluation Report, 2013-2014

City Year is an education-focused nonprofit organization that partners with high needs public schools to enhance the quality of the learning environment in the areas of attendance, behavior, and course performance. This is achieved by deploying teams of City Year corps members to the schools. The expectation is that students who receive support from City Year corps members in the areas of English, math, attendance, and behavior will show growth in their academic and behavioral outcomes. With funding from the William Penn Foundation, City Year is being implemented in 11 high needs public schools within The School District of Philadelphia (SDP or District); targeted support is provided to at-risk students in grades 6 to 9. The Office of Research and Evaluation (ORE) is currently evaluating City Year's effectiveness in meeting the above goals for the 2013-2014 school year (SY) – Year 1— and extending into the 2014-2015 SY – Year 2

The Evaluation of Enhanced Academic Instruction in After-School Programs: Findings After the First Year of Implementation

This report presents one-year implementation and impact findings on two supplemental academic instruction approaches developed for after-school settings -- one for math and one for reading. Compared with regular after-school programming, the supplemental math program had impacts on student SAT 10 test scores and the supplemental reading program did not --although the reading program had some effect on reading fluency

The Cowl - v.54 - n.3 - Sep 27, 1989

The Cowl - student newspaper of Providence College. Volume 54, Number 3 - September 27, 1989. 20 pages

Spartan Daily, April 26, 1978

Volume 70, Issue 53https://scholarworks.sjsu.edu/spartandaily/6345/thumbnail.jp