Fair Labor Association Receives $1.5 Million in Settlement of Kasky v. Nike First Amendment Case: Funds to be Used to Benefit Factory Workers and Consumers

This document is part of a digital collection provided by the Martin P. Catherwood Library, ILR School, Cornell University, pertaining to the effects of globalization on the workplace worldwide. Special emphasis is placed on labor rights, working conditions, labor market changes, and union organizing.FLA_Settlement_2003.pdf: 2442 downloads, before Oct. 1, 2020

Two Guatemalan Apparel Factories to Remain Open: FLA Mediation Helps Avoid Government Sanctions; 1,250 Workers to Retain Jobs

This document is part of a digital collection provided by the Martin P. Catherwood Library, ILR School, Cornell University, pertaining to the effects of globalization on the workplace worldwide. Special emphasis is placed on labor rights, working conditions, labor market changes, and union organizing.FLA_GuatemalanApparelFactories_2003.pdf: 56 downloads, before Oct. 1, 2020

Rhetorical relationships with students: A higher education case study of perceptions of online assessment in mathematics

Some students perceive that online assessment does not provide for a true reflection of their work effort. This article reports on a collaborative international project between two higher education institutions with the aim of researching issues relating to engineering student perceptions with respect to online assessment of mathematics. It provides a comparison between students of similar educational standing in Finland and Ireland. The students undertook to complete questionnaires and a sample of students was selected to participate in several group discussion interviews. Evidence from the data suggests that many of the students demonstrate low levels of confidence, do not display knowledge of continuous assessment processes and perceive many barriers when confronted with online assessment in their first semester. Alternative perspectives were sought from lecturers by means of individual interviews. The research indicates that perceptions of effort and reward as seen by students are at variance with those held by lecturers. The study offers a brief insight into the thinking of students in the first year of their engineering mathematics course. It may be suggested that alternative approaches to curriculum and pedagogical design are necessary to alleviate student concerns

Self-Efficacy and Expectancy of Engineering Students in Higher Education: A Case Study of the Perceptions and Beliefs of Lecturers

Online assessment is intended to enhance the learning experiences of students and improve the manner in which feedback is delivered. This paper reports on an international project, undertaken in three countries, to examine the beliefs held by engineering mathematics lecturers about the self-efficacy, and constructs of expectancy of their students. The research provides a comparison with beliefs on these topics held by students in the first year of undergraduate Bachelor of Engineering programmes. The interviews were semi-structured to stimulate conversations around a set of pre-determined themes. The thematic inputs to the lecturer interviews resulted from interpretative phenomenological analysis of the beliefs, experiences and perceptions of 127 students, gained from a series of questionnaires, and interviews. The aims of the engineering mathematics lecturer interviews were to examine current practices in terms of assessment of mathematics, and the provision of feedback, in both online and face-to-face formats. A particular focus was to determine if the self-efficacy of students is considered within the process. The research highlights differences in understanding of the assessment process held by lecturers, and students, particularly in the early stages of the first semester. There is also evidence that students’ meta-cognitive functions evolve over the first year of study, and that this may reduce the differences identified between students’ and lecturers’ perceptions. The implications of these findings are discussed

Sociohydrologic Systems Thinking: An Analysis of Undergraduate Students’ Operationalization and Modeling of Coupled Human-Water Systems

One of the keys to science and environmental literacy is systems thinking. Learning how to think about the interactions between systems, the far-reaching effects of a system, and the dynamic nature of systems are all critical outcomes of science learning. However, students need support to develop systems thinking skills in undergraduate geoscience classrooms. While systems thinking-focused instruction has the potential to benefit student learning, gaps exist in our understanding of students’ use of systems thinking to operationalize and model SHS, as well as their metacognitive evaluation of systems thinking. To address this need, we have designed, implemented, refined, and studied an introductory-level, interdisciplinary course focused on coupled human-water, or sociohydrologic, systems. Data for this study comes from three consecutive iterations of the course and involves student models and explanations for a socio-hydrologic issue (n = 163). To analyze this data, we counted themed features of the drawn models and applied an operationalization rubric to the written responses. Analyses of the written explanations reveal statistically-significant differences between underlying categories of systems thinking (F(5, 768) = 401.6, p \u3c 0.05). Students were best able to operationalize their systems thinking about problem identification (M = 2.22, SD = 0.73) as compared to unintended consequences (M = 1.43, SD = 1.11). Student-generated systems thinking models revealed statistically significant differences between system components, patterns, and mechanisms, F(2, 132) = 3.06, p \u3c 0.05. Students focused most strongly on system components (M = 13.54, SD = 7.15) as compared to related processes or mechanisms. Qualitative data demonstrated three types of model limitation including scope/scale, temporal, and specific components/mechanisms/patterns excluded. These findings have implications for supporting systems thinking in undergraduate geoscience classrooms, as well as insight into links between these two skills

A quartet in E : investigating collaborative learning and tutoring as knowledge creation processes

This paper is a short report of a continuing international study that is investigating networked collaborative learning among an advanced community of learners engaged in a master’s programme in e-learning. The study is undertaking empirical work using content analysis (CA), critical event recall (CER) and social network analysis (SNA). The first two methods are employed in the work reported in this paper. We are particularly interested in knowledge creation among the participants as they engage in action research for their master’s work. At the same time, another underlying aim of the main study is to develop methodology, enrich theory and explore the ways in which praxis (theory informed tutoring and learning on the programme) and theory interact as we try to understand the complex processes of tutoring and learning. The paper reports some of the current findings of this work and discusses future prospects