California Middle School Agriculture Program Enhancement

California is known for its progressive movements and highly regarded education system. California education is faced every day with how to improve and innovate its system even more. Hence, the importance of proposed middle school agricultural programs. In this piece, the author provides research to show why California not only needs to adopt middle school agricultural programs, but also develop standardized curriculum to encourage the success of the program, students, and teachers. Using past and current studies, the author explores different emphases on curriculum topics and needs. The author discusses methods, results, and conclusions from the studies analyzed

Writing Success Stories for Program Enhancement and Accountability

Success stories showcase Extension program efforts. In a time of greater demand for accountability and performance measurement, success stories provide a qualitative measure of Extension program success. This article describes the rationale, the need, and tips for writing success stories. From the accountability standpoint, success stories serve as readily available piece of information for program impact. In addition, they also serve as a communication and marketing tool and also improving the communication and/or writing skills of Extension agents

Asset Management Program Enhancement Plan: Baseline Assessment Phases I and II

This project resulted in the development of a framework for making asset management decisions on low-volume bridges. The research focused on low-volume bridges located in the agricultural counties of Iowa because recent research has shown that these counties have the greatest percentage of structurally deficient bridges in the nation. Many of the same counties also have the highest crop yields in the state, creating a situation where detours caused by deficient bridges on farm-to-market roads increase the cost to transport the crops. Thus, the research proposed the use of social return on investment (SROI), a tool used by international institutions such as the World Bank, as an asset management metric to gauge to the socioeconomic impact of structurally deficient bridges on the state in an effort to provide quantified justification to fund improvements on low-volume assets such as these rural bridges. The study found that combining SROI with current asset management metrics like average daily traffic (ADT) made it possible to prioritize the bridges in such a way that the limited resources available are allocated in a manner that promotes a more equitable distribution and that directly benefits the user, in this case Iowa farmers. The result is a system that more closely aligns itself with the spirit of MAP-21, in that infrastructure investments are used to facilitate economic growth for Iowa’s agricultural economy

Youth Development Approaches in Adolescent Family Life Demonstration Projects

Youth development (YD) strategies in conjunction with appropriate age-graded sexuality and family life education programs/curricula may have an important role to play in formulating convincing answers to these questions. Youth development approaches help youth enhance their assets rather than concentrating on their difficulties. They focus on where youth are going, helping them develop a belief in a viable future and in their ability to take actions that will bring that future about. The commitment to a future that would be disrupted by a pregnancy during adolescence is about the only thing that Zabin and her colleagues (1986) found to differentiate among Baltimore adolescents using teen clinics who did and did not get pregnant. Teens without a strong reason to avoid pregnancy got pregnant at the same rate as those who wanted to get pregnant; the only teens who were successful at avoiding pregnancy were those who had a future goal that a pregnancy would disrupt. Thus, incorporating youth development principles along with some specific techniques into the work of the Office of Adolescent Pregnancy Programs' (OAPP) abstinence-oriented programs would seem to be an important program enhancement with potentially valuable impacts

Occupation Based Program Enhancement: Promoting Social and Leisure Participation Post-Stroke

This presentation describes the importance of social and leisure participation for individuals who have had a stroke and explores the role of occupational therapy in promoting this area of occupation for the population.https://soar.usa.edu/otdcapstonesspring2023/1036/thumbnail.jp

Asset Management Program Enhancement Plan: Baseline Assessment Phases I and II, 2015

This project resulted in the development of a framework for making asset management decisions on low-volume bridges. The research focused on low-volume bridges located in the agricultural counties of Iowa because recent research has shown that these counties have the greatest percentage of structurally deficient bridges in the nation. Many of the same counties also have the highest crop yields in the state, creating a situation where detours caused by deficient bridges on farm-to-market roads increase the cost to transport the crops. Thus, the research proposed the use of social return on investment (SROI), a tool used by international institutions such as the World Bank, as an asset management metric to gauge to the socioeconomic impact of structurally deficient bridges on the state in an effort to provide quantified justification to fund improvements on low-volume assets such as these rural bridges. The study found that combining SROI with current asset management metrics like average daily traffic (ADT) made it possible to prioritize the bridges in such a way that the limited resources available are allocated in a manner that promotes a more equitable distribution and that directly benefits the user, in this case Iowa farmers. The result is a system that more closely aligns itself with the spirit of MAP-21, in that infrastructure investments are used to facilitate economic growth for Iowa’s agricultural economy

Designing Programs with a Purpose: To Promote Civic Engagement for Life

Curricular and co-curricular civic engagement activities and programs are analyzed in terms of their capacity to contribute to a common set of outcomes associated with nurturing civic-minded graduates: academic knowledge, familiarity with volunteering and nonprofit sector, knowledge of social issues, communication skills, diversity skills, self-efficacy, and intentions to be involved in communities. Different programs that promote civic-mindedness, developmental models, and assessment strategies that can contribute to program enhancement are presented

EFFECTIVENESS OF INTERNATIONAL GRADUATE PROGRAM OF BULACAN STATE UNIVERSITY: BASIS FOR PROGRAM ENHANCEMENT

The study dealt with the Effectiveness of International Graduate Programs at BSU as a Basis for Program Enhancement. The research aims to evaluate its purpose, and its standard as indicated by academic standards, such as standards of competence, service standards, and organizational standards. One of the primordial considerations of the Graduate School is its goal to produce balanced, competent, research-oriented, and globally competitive graduates. Thus, the researcher conceptualized the study; to accomplish the needed interactions with the officials and students of BSU – Hong Kong Lifelong Education Organization Limited; to unearth issues and modern trends, policies, and programs for BSU adoption to benefit the local students and; to initiate or trail- blazed foreign researches for the upliftment the Research and Extension Services of Department, where B.S.U. had fallen short during previous evaluation. The study used the descriptive, quantitative design using survey-questionnaire and interviews as the primary data-gathering instruments. Documented data on the demographic profile of students, number of graduates, and ranking of BSU Hong Kong were also utilized. The enrolled graduate students of BSU Hong Kong, faculty, and administrators of BSU Hong Kong were the respondents of the study.  Article visualizations

Student Perceptions of Enhancing the Internship Experience for Online Principal Preparation Programs

Principal preparation programs understand the need for relevant internship activities that bridge the gap between theory and practice (Anast-May, Buckner, & Geer, 2011; Darling-Hammond, LaPointe, Meyerson, Orr, & Cohen (2007). Principal preparation programs utilizing distance technology are also charged with meeting this expectation and the electronic learning technologies have changed learning from restrictive to flexible, accessible, and innovative (Tseng & Gardner, 2016). The internship is a widely accepted program component of principal preparation that provides the student with actual administrative experience during the certification process; however, despite the mandates from national accreditation organizations and state certification agencies, the literature is replete with criticisms concerning the effectiveness of the internship experience (Cheney & Davis, 2011; Darling-Hammond et al., 2007; Fry, Bottoms, & O’Neill, 2005; Perez et al., 2011). Limited data in the form of student feedback, especially as it pertains to learner perceptions of the internship experience, have been collected (Gordon, Oliver, & Solis, 2016). According to Thiede (2012), it is important for faculty to seek out and study what students are thinking and saying about online education as most higher education institutions’ future enrollments may be predicated upon quality online courses