Refocusing sustainability education: using students’ reflections on their carbon footprint to reinforce the importance of considering CO2 production in the construction industry

The construction industry is the most significant contributor to the UK’s CO2 emissions. It is responsible for an annual output of approximately 45% of the total. This figure highlights the role the industry must play in helping to achieve the UK Government’s CO2 reduction target. It is ergo incumbent on construction-related educators to emphasise this issue and explore ways in which it can be achieved. Unintentional desensitisation has resulted in the term ‘sustainability’, particularly CO2 production, being seen by students as just another concept to be studied from a theoretical perspective. Many students fail to grasp its broader implications and how it should affect strategic environmental decisions about construction processes, technologies, and products. In an attempt to address this problem, an innovative learning, teaching, and assessment strategy was used with final year undergraduate construction students to improve their level of sustainability literacy. The theory of threshold concepts in the context of transformative learning was used as the baseline philosophy to the study. The approach involved asking students to calculate their carbon footprint and to reflect upon and extrapolate their findings to the construction industry and its practice. Content analysis was performed on the reflective commentaries acquired from student portfolios collected over four academic years. The results showed how the students’ reflections on their carbon footprints proved to be an enlightening experience. Terms such as ‘shocked by my footprint’, ‘surprised at the findings’, and ‘change in attitude’ were among the contemplative comments. When students linked their findings to the construction industry, phrases such as ‘waste generation’, ‘technologies’, and ‘materials’ were some of the concepts considered. By using their personal experiences as a benchmark, students were able to gain a deeper level of understanding of the causes and consequences of CO2 production. They also found it more straightforward to relate these issues to the construction industry and its practice. Several novel recommendations are made to raise the level of sustainability literacy in the construction industry thereby facilitating a potential reduction in worldwide CO2 production

Releasing the power: research led learning in a professional practice undergraduate curriculum

There is a challenge for vocational programmes in Higher Education in addressing the needs of a practice based discipline while developing enquiry based abilities in students. Ongoing research is being carried out into the use and suitability of student research-led learning within Built Environment curriculum at Northumbria University. This is aimed at undergraduate professional practice education and its perceived value by staff and students as compared to the use of the more traditional perceived transmission-based pedagogy. A focus group based survey of final years students was carried out to obtain an improved understanding of the value of research-led learning and to seek to highlight and extend staff opportunities and motivation to employ such methods across a wider range of curriculum activity, thus helping to justify the “release” of curriculum ownership to the student. It appears that students struggle to see the value of work which is not directly related to employment and it is suggested that more work is needed in measuring and understanding the enquiry based skills which are being used in the workplace already and using pedagogical approaches in language and practice which are more easily digested by students because research led learning is seen to be practical and have real results in what they perceive as the “real world”. Research-led learning needs to be carefully and sensitively embedded within the student learning experience at undergraduate level

Can Students Be Disciplined for Off-campus Cyberspeech: The Reach of the First Amendment in the Age of Technology

The widespread use of technology in today\u27s schools has ushered in a host of legal issues that educators and parents could not have contemplated just a few years ago. Within the past decade, students have had the unprecedented ability to send text messages and instant messages, create websites, post blogs, construct Internet profiles, and post messages on burgeoning social networking sites, most notably Facebook. Even when students engage in such speech-related activity off campus using their personal computers, their actions and posts on such social networking sites as MySpace and Facebook can have carryover effects into school and classroom environments. The question of whether educational administrators can discipline students for Internet postings made off campus has been controversial, as evidenced by four recent decisions: a pair from the Third Circuit and single cases from the Fourth and Eighth Circuits. The issue in these cases, which reached different outcomes, revolved around the reach of such postings into the school setting and how they affected the safe and efficient operation of the schools. Given the nature of the Internet, this is no easy question and presents school administrators with First Amendment Issues never before contemplated. As these recent appellate court decisions illustrate, educational administrators are rightfully concerned when students post negative comments about school personnel or peers on the Internet for all to see. Litigation has arisen when school officials have disciplined students for derogatory, defamatory, lewd, and threatening items students have posted about teachers, administrators, and classmates on social networking sites such as MySpace and Facebook. In challenging the disciplinary sanctions imposed on them, students have alleged that punishments, such as suspensions or loss of privileges, amount to unconstitutional censorship and have questioned the rights of administrators to impose discipline for off-campus activities. This Article begins by exploring the First Amendment free speech protections afforded to students, along with earlier cases dealing with issues concerning their being disciplined for online postings and cyber threats. The Article next reviews the facts, judicial history, and latest opinions in the four most recent Circuit court cases involving online postings targeted at both school administrators and students. Finally, the Article examines the abilities of school administrators to discipline students for making derogatory and false statements about school personnel or other students via the Internet or other technology, concluding with a discussion about the wisdom of these decisions and recommendations for school administrators. It is important to recognize that the judicial opinions, and thus the focus of this article, are concerned only with the right of school administrators to discipline students for off-campus postings. This Article does not venture into the area of what other recourse educators have to protect themselves against the possible defamatory and damaging effects of false postings

Disciplining Students with Disabilities: An American Perspective

A significant interconnectedness exists between and among schools, parents, students with disabilities, and local communities. A topic of great interest in Australia, New Zealand, the United States, and beyond, educators, working in conjunction with their attorneys, struggle with meeting their legal duty to meet the needs of students with disabilities, not only when they are in school but also when they leave formal educational settings since they must then sustain themselves for the rest of their lives. As educators seek to meet the educational needs of students with disabilities, an area that often presents a major controversy is discipline, particularly when students’ actions threaten the safety of learning environments. At the same time, though, disciplining or excluding students with disabilities, however necessary, may limit their ability to complete their schooling as they prepare to support themselves when they move into the ‘real world’. In fact, serious issues arise when educators must evaluate whether student misbehavior is a manifestation of their disabilities, which has implications for both discipline and educational services. Further, since students whose misbehavior is a manifestation of their disabilities cannot be excluded from school, as can their peers who are not disabled, such situations create a tension in which parents and others might argue that differential disciple violates the due process rights of those who are not disabled. Based on the evolution of legal questions associated with disciplining students with disabilities, the remainder of this article is divided into two substantive sections. The first part of the paper examines legal developments in the United States by tracing the evolution o f the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA),1 an extensive statute on the rights of children with special needs in the hope that this will be informative to educators from other nations, most notably Australia and New Zealand where the law is not as prescriptive in this regard as in the United States. This section of the paper also examines legislation and litigation in the United States. The second part of the paper offers practical recommendations to educators and their lawyers on steps that they may take to protect the due process rights of students with disabilities who are subjected to discipline. This portion of the paper includes a discussion of policy development as well as the parameters and acceptable forms of discipline such as the use of time out rooms, physical restraints, and exclusions from school. The paper rounds out with a brief conclusion

Can the Law Keep Pace with Technology? Regulating Student Use of the Internet and Cyberspace

Who could have anticipated the effect of the Internet on education, or of social networking sites such as Facebook or MySpace? Yet given the relatively new state of the law, as the legal system struggles to keep pace with technological advances, the courts are reaching markedly different outcomes on the extent to which education officials can punish students who violate school rules, especially if their behavior originated out of school or involved First Amendment free speech claims. In light of the legal and technological challenges facing school business officials (SBOs), school boards, and other education leaders, the first part of this column provides a comprehensive review of reported litigation involving student use and misuse of technology in schools. The second part offers recommendations for SBOs, boards, and other education leaders who face the daunting task of complying with the law by keeping their technology policies up-to-date

Student Records and Privacy

The Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA), which became federal law in 1974, addresses the rights of students and their parents with regard to educational records. The two goals of FERPA are (1) to grant parents and eligible students, typically those over age 18, access to their educational records and (2) to limit the access of outsiders to those records. FERPA, along with the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) and its regulations, also has a significant effect on the delivery of special education for students with disabilities (20 U.S.C. § 1232[g]; 34 C.F.R. § 99.4)

IDEA and Alternative Dispute Resolution: A Primer

Alternative dispute resolution (ADR) procedures are the cornerstone of the provisions in the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) that mandate the timely resolution of disagreements between parents and school officials. ADR procedures are in the form of mediation and resolution sessions that are held before culminating in due process hearings. The sessions are designed to be speedier, less costly, and less adversarial than litigation. Subject to infrequent exceptions, disagreements can be subject to judicial review only after parents and education officials have exhausted the administrative remedies under the IDEA. The provisions establish time frames that parties must meet before they can initiate litigation. In light of the potential complexity of the IDEA’s ADR process, those procedures can be costly and confusing for school districts. Accordingly, this column reviews the IDEA’s ADR options, starting with mediation, resolution sessions, and due process hearings. It then offers recommendations for education leaders to ensure compliance with the IDEA’s ADR procedures