A Problematic Business Model: The Effect of Private Prisons on Arrests

Past work related to the private prison system has focused on direct comparisons between private and public facilities, including their respective quality, cost-effectiveness, and influence on recidivism. Using 2005 United States data compiled from a prison facility census, county census, and information on number of arrests by county, I examine the effect that the presence of private prisons has on the number of adult male arrests per county. Across four regression models, I initially find a significant effect of private prisons on arrests, but find that effect becomes insignificant once county and prison controls are accounted for. This suggests that the presence of a private prison in a particular county does not necessarily lead to a significant increase or decrease of arrests in that area

Academic Development Perspectives of Blended Learning

Technological advances in every aspect of today’s higher education environment create a forum for academic developers to re-examine existing delivery methods for professional development. Within the context of this case study, the term ‘academic developer’ is taken to encompass the role of learning technologist. In order to be responsive and accommodate the changes, traditional instruction methods are being extended to encompass the range of Web 2.0 tools available. Debate is ongoing in the area of blended learning as to the ultimate effectiveness of technology integration. Through exploration of the experiences of two academic developers involved in the design and delivery of accredited professional development programmes for academic staff in Ireland, the case is made for an effective balance in pedagogical and technological intervention. Both were experienced in delivery face-to-face instruction, had different levels of experience in online teaching and work collaboratively with academic staff. Experience from the two case studies suggests that a prerequisite for embedding blended learning strategies in learning and teaching is that the instructors recognise the need for appropriate holistic academic development to provide them with not only an understanding of how best to use the technologies, but fundamentally for enhancing their understanding of how to develop effective blended learning environments

An Evaluation of Formative Audio Feedback Within Part Time Professional Development Programmes in DIT.

Evidence from the literature indicates that learners often view feedback in terms of assessment only, even though it can play an important role in improving engagement and consolidating and enriching learning. It is well accepted that the feedback strategy used should be appropriate to the purpose and context of the work, but in order for feedback to be truly helpful, it needs to be goal-referenced, tangible, transparent, actionable, user-friendly (specific and personalized), timely, ongoing and consistent. Technology can also play a useful supporting role in achieving this. This paper explores the impact of formative audio feedback across part time programmes in the Learning and Technology Centre (LTTC) in DIT. Anticipated benefits were that the audio mode would enable provision of more detailed and clearer feedback as well as the opportunity to use tone of voice to help convey meaning and add a more personal element to engage learners more effectively

Technology Infusion Within Part-Time Professional Development Programmes for Academic Staff and Industry Practitioners

This paper reports on the experiences of programme co-ordinators and includes findings from a two year (2013-15) evaluation pilot study on a key communication technology – audio feedback – conducted across three accredited part-time programmes for a blend of academic staff (faculty) in higher education and eLearning industry practitioners. Key to our decision making with regards to which tools to infuse in our programmes is our aim to help the educators who participate on our programmes to make better use of technology tools in their own instructional contexts. This paper focuses on the example of formative audio feedback. Anticipated benefits were that the audio mode would provide clearer feedback, and that tone of voice would help convey meaning, adding a personal element to engage learners more effectively. Participant responses to end-of-module survey questions on their experience of audio feedback and their thoughts on implementing audio feedback in their own practice are presented and discussed. The perspectives of the tutors involved are considered, and we share practical details of how audio feedback can be constructed and distributed to students. The initial study has demonstrated the potential of formative audio feedback to engage learners more effectively in developing and improving on their work

Eportfolio Based Assessment Case Study

The ePortfolio module is an essential component of the MSc Applied eLearning. This is a two-year part-time accredited professional development programme aimed at a wide range of academic and professional staff: lecturers, teachers, tutors, eLearning specialists, researchers, consultants, trainers in commercial enterprises, policy makers, librarians, learning and technological support staff and managers. The MSc is designed to support these participants in growing the confidence and skills to develop, facilitate and manage eLearning in different contexts and with diverse, authentic pedagogical approaches. It is anticipated that on successful completion of this programme, participants who are endeavouring to establish eLearning opportunities in their organisation are fully supported, as well as those who are considering blending this with a career in an educational setting, in teaching, training or educational management. The strengths of the programme lie in the sound pedagogy and research underpinning all modules, the substantial applied project, the diverse range of optional modules and the development of skills that are all captured in an ePortfolio to enable participants to be responsive to the changing emergent technologies in the future

Evaluating how engaging in Professional Development impacts on Assessment Practice: A Proposed Framework.

In the higher education context, the concept and implementation of measuring impact on practice of participation on academic professional development programmes has not been fully explored. More specifically, there is a lack of consideration for how assessment practices in particular have been impacted by engagement on such programmes. Generally, measuring impact is key for understanding how best to provide a coherent student experience, and academic developers are often drawn upon to support programme teams in this activity. This chapter provides guidance and direction to both academics teaching in higher education and academic developers charged with their support by discussing the key issues around how participation on professional development (PD) programmes and initiatives can impact (individual) assessment practice. This work builds on a previous in-house study (McAvinia, Donnelly, Hanratty & Harvey, 2015) and a large scale UK Higher Education Academy (HEA) review by Parsons Hill, Holland and Willis (2012). The former examined the extent to which we can assess whether accredited professional development programmes for academics have improved teaching and students’ learning in higher education. The latter explored the strengths and merits of the available evidence of impact assessment, opportunities for improvement of impact evidence of teaching development programmes, and practical challenges evident from impact assessment and evaluation. A more recent HEA study was conducted by the University of Plymouth (Kneale, 2015) with an aim to bring the discussion forward from this point by creating state of the art knowledge and understanding relating to how the impact of CPD schemes on the student learning experience can be measured. Within Australian higher education, there is further notable review work by Chalmers, Stoney, Goody, Goerke, and Gardiner (2013) and Chalmers and Gardiner (2015), which includes the development of an evaluation tool; both argue that the extent and longevity of the impact of teacher development programmes on the culture of the discipline and the institutions are less well researched and evidenced. Taken together these previous studies have identified issues with how impact is measured, with respect to content and methodology

Moving Modalities: An Exploration on how Switching Modes of Reader, Writer and Reviewer can Enhance Academic Writing Pedagogy.

For over a decade, the Academic Writing & Publishing (AWP) module has been delivered for academic staff and postgraduate students in the Dublin Institute of Technology (DIT), now part of the new Technological University Dublin. The module aims to support students to enhance their academic writing and to develop an academic paper to the standard of publication for a peer-reviewed journal of their choice. Module delivery comprises workshops and a range of supports and feedback mechanisms built in to give students opportunities to critically evaluate and develop their own work and to assist in the development of their peers’ writing. In its most recent delivery, a clearer delineation of three modes of working was introduced to the AWP module. These modes, Reader mode, Writer mode and Reviewer mode provide an organising framework for the delivery of module. They support students to engage with academic writing from distinctive standpoints building emphasis on critical reading and reviewing skills as key parts of writer development. This study sought to explore the value of this emphasis on the three modes of working to students on the module. It examined the practical use of the framework in terms of students’ understanding of the writing process and the development of their competency as an academic writer. It also sought to establish if there had been any impact on their sense of professional writer identity and confidence. Findings…(data analysis currently underway but will be completed shortly to add to abstract

What, So What, Now What? Covid-19 as a Critical Incident in Practice.

For many of us working in educational development in higher education, March 2021 marked one year since the emergency closure of our campuses due to the global Covid-19 pandemic. In this post, we suggest that the experience of this closure and the sudden changes to educational practice might be considered as a critical incident inspiring deep reflection. We suggest that tried and tested reflective frameworks for critical incident analysis are likely to be more useful than methodologies aligning with formally designed educational interventions

A multimodal framework for supporting academic writer’s perspectives, practice and performance

Supporting writing remains an important dimension to the work of academic developers particularly for early career academics and doctoral candidates. A small qualitative case study was undertaken on an academic writing module to explore participants’ needs and evaluate a new multimodal writing framework which sought to enhance publication opportunities while supporting the development of writing practice. The framework introduced the modes of reading, writing and reviewing as distinctive dimensions of the writing process and introduced practical activities to build participants’ confidence and skills working in each mode. It also prompted participants to acknowledge, adopt and shift between the perspectives of reader, writer and reviewer to develop their writing. The framework is proposed as an effective way of supporting the writing of early career academics and doctoral students. Findings suggest that participants considered the framework helpful to understand and adopt modes to enhance their writing performance and improve their practice and confidence