Four Puzzles in Adult Literacy: Reflections on the National Adult Literacy Survey

Examines four puzzling results of the National Adult Literacy Survey: (1) the ability to use printed information effectively is unevenly distributed in the United States; (2) adults exhibited a large gap between performance and perception of literacy skills; (3) increased literacy did not always correspond with significant earnings increases; and (4) women need effective literacy instruction

Student Partnerships in Service Learning: Assessing the Impact

Partnership with student leaders is an evolving practice that engages peer leaders to work with service learning faculty, administrators, and community partners to administer the service learning experience. This study identifies ways in which service learning associates differ from their undergraduate peers by comparing their responses to questions about goals, values, and careers on the HERI College Senior Survey to those of their undergraduate peers. The study uses a second survey, of former service learning associates one to five years after graduation, to assess the long-term impact that former student leaders attribute to their experience. This study finds that student leaders differ significantly from their peers at graduation in values and career goals, and those values do not change one to five years after graduation. Alumni report that the peer leadership program shaped their career pathways, and that the experience was fundamental to their college career

Possibility Thinking in the Community-Engaged Classroom: Uniting Hope and Imagination towards Anti-Racist Action

Drawing on the work of Patrick Saint-Jean, S.J., this article examines the contribution that “possibility thinking” makes to community-engaged learning at three Jesuit universities. The article considers ways in which possibility thinking intersects both Jesuit and secular perspectives on hope and imagination, and their relationship to anti-racist praxis. We then describe three institutional contexts at different stages of enacting community-engaged learning in introductory and upper-level English classes. The article concludes by offering three praxis-oriented directions for community-engaged learning educators to take up in their own institutional contexts: developing faculty capacity and awareness; fostering solidarity not charity; and encouraging reflection not reaction

Possibility Thinking in the Community-Engaged Classroom: Uniting Hope and Imagination towards Anti-Racist Action

Drawing on the work of Patrick Saint-Jean, S.J., this article examines the contribution that “possibility thinking” makes to community-engaged learning at three Jesuit universities. The article considers ways in which possibility thinking intersects both Jesuit and secular perspectives on hope and imagination, and their relationship to anti-racist praxis. We then describe three institutional contexts at different stages of enacting community-engaged learning in introductory and upper-level English classes. The article concludes by offering three praxis-oriented directions for community-engaged learning educators to take up in their own institutional contexts: developing faculty capacity and awareness; fostering solidarity not charity; and encouraging reflection not reaction

Convalescent plasma in patients admitted to hospital with COVID-19 (RECOVERY): a randomised controlled, open-label, platform trial

SummaryBackground Azithromycin has been proposed as a treatment for COVID-19 on the basis of its immunomodulatoryactions. We aimed to evaluate the safety and efficacy of azithromycin in patients admitted to hospital with COVID-19.Methods In this randomised, controlled, open-label, adaptive platform trial (Randomised Evaluation of COVID-19Therapy [RECOVERY]), several possible treatments were compared with usual care in patients admitted to hospitalwith COVID-19 in the UK. The trial is underway at 176 hospitals in the UK. Eligible and consenting patients wererandomly allocated to either usual standard of care alone or usual standard of care plus azithromycin 500 mg once perday by mouth or intravenously for 10 days or until discharge (or allocation to one of the other RECOVERY treatmentgroups). Patients were assigned via web-based simple (unstratified) randomisation with allocation concealment andwere twice as likely to be randomly assigned to usual care than to any of the active treatment groups. Participants andlocal study staff were not masked to the allocated treatment, but all others involved in the trial were masked to theoutcome data during the trial. The primary outcome was 28-day all-cause mortality, assessed in the intention-to-treatpopulation. The trial is registered with ISRCTN, 50189673, and ClinicalTrials.gov, NCT04381936.Findings Between April 7 and Nov 27, 2020, of 16 442 patients enrolled in the RECOVERY trial, 9433 (57%) wereeligible and 7763 were included in the assessment of azithromycin. The mean age of these study participants was65·3 years (SD 15·7) and approximately a third were women (2944 [38%] of 7763). 2582 patients were randomlyallocated to receive azithromycin and 5181 patients were randomly allocated to usual care alone. Overall,561 (22%) patients allocated to azithromycin and 1162 (22%) patients allocated to usual care died within 28 days(rate ratio 0·97, 95% CI 0·87–1·07; p=0·50). No significant difference was seen in duration of hospital stay (median10 days [IQR 5 to >28] vs 11 days [5 to >28]) or the proportion of patients discharged from hospital alive within 28 days(rate ratio 1·04, 95% CI 0·98–1·10; p=0·19). Among those not on invasive mechanical ventilation at baseline, nosignificant difference was seen in the proportion meeting the composite endpoint of invasive mechanical ventilationor death (risk ratio 0·95, 95% CI 0·87–1·03; p=0·24).Interpretation In patients admitted to hospital with COVID-19, azithromycin did not improve survival or otherprespecified clinical outcomes. Azithromycin use in patients admitted to hospital with COVID-19 should be restrictedto patients in whom there is a clear antimicrobial indication

Record and Reflect: iPod Use in Writing Center Staff Development

Writing centers, as anyone who has spent time in one knows, are active places. [1] Tutors and writers, together or alone, can be found at any moment researching, writing, talking, listening to their iPods. . .wait a minute. . .listening to their iPods?![2] Here is a sample of what tutors in our writing center are listening to: For the past four years, the staff of the Fairfield University Writing Center has adapted and expanded an initiative begun at Duke University’s Writing Studio to incorporate the use of iPod technology in writing center sessions and staff education. Doing so has sharpened our staff development program and increased tutors’ abilities to reflect on their work with student writersUniversity Writing Cente

Collaboration through writing and reading: Exploring possibilities

Betsy Bowen (with A. Rosebery, L. Flower, B. Warren, B. Bruce, M. Kantz & Ann Penrose ) is a contributing author, The problem-solving processes of readers and writers: Similarities and differences , pp. 136-163

Praxis, Volume 06, No. 01: Technology in Today's Writing Center

Content: (Un)Complicating Planning and Revising: Metacognition and Problem-Based Tutoring / by R. Evon Hawkins -- A Snapshot of an Evolving Writing Center into a Bilingual Service / by Cindy E. Officer -- Allied Forces: Students, Writing Tutors, and a Collaboration Station / by Claudine Griggs -- Consultations without Bodies: Technology, Virtual Space, and the Writing Center / by Rusty Carpenter -- Pagecasting in the UWC: Writing, Digital Media, and Community Outreach / by James Jesson, Paige Normand, and Andrea Saathoff -- Professional Development for Writing Center Staff: Students' Investment in the Success of the Writing Center / by Elise T. Bishop -- Record and Reflect: iPod Use in Writing Center Staff Development / by Elizabeth Boquet, Betsy A. Bowen, Catherine Forsa, Devin Hagan, and Mary A. McCall -- They Say / They Say: Today's Writing Center as Technology / by Mitch Nakaue and Michelle SizemoreUniversity Writing Cente