Comparing Professional and Academic Qualifications as a Route to Institutional Curriculum Change

There are many current initiatives concerned with achieving institutional changes to curricula. These include, inter alia, various versions of online learning, distance learning and work-based learning. This paper considers blending academic curricula and qualifications with professional body curricula and qualifications as a possible way of achieving cost-effective curricula change. The author’s home institution currently delivers Academic Qualifications in Facilities Management (FM); a BSc (Hons) and an MSc. The institution also delivers the Professional Qualifications for the relevant professional body, the British Institute of Facilities Management (BIFM), at levels 4, 5 and 6.All qualifications and awards are delivered by web-based distance learning. This paper analyses the content and assessment of the Professional Qualification and compares the Professional Qualification with the equivalent Academic Qualification. Using both quantitative and qualitative analysis the paper finds that the Professional Qualification is more challenging and more rigorous than the Academic Qualification. The expectations of the learners from the professional body are higher than the expectations of the students from the university. The implications of this finding are then considered. Given that the Professional Qualification is more challenging and rigorous, could the institutional curricula be changed so that the Professional Qualification could be integrated into an Academic Qualification, thus opening a vocational route for a degree? The paper concludes with a brief consideration of the financial costs and other implications of such an institutional curricula change

2D Design & Color Theory: The Navajo People

This project is being submitted as part of the requirements for ARTH 3270, Native North American Art. Native American 2-Dimensional design is simple in nature visually. However, the symbolism behind them is complex. Every detail, down to the color choice is thought out and planned in order to get a very distinct message across. Whether that be spiritual or social, there is meaning behind it all. These symbols and their meanings, while they may seem to be outdated, have followed us from generation to generation and still have significance now

Being for nature: Exploring the design of pedagogical greenspaces to support children’s connection to nature in the urban context

Children today are born into a complex and contradictory world of entwined social and ecological problems with increasing levels of uncertainty. As the number of plant and animal species plummets in what scientists describe as the sixth mass extinction, the flow of people to urban areas continues to rise. Simultaneously, the decline of children’s routine experience of nature is widely reported with direct impacts on health, wellbeing and the development of positive environmental attitudes. In the nexus of these interrelated problems lies an opportunity for urban design which promotes both ecosystem and human flourishing. The purpose of this thesis is to critically examine how the design of pedagogical green spaces, namely school yards and urban parks can enhance children’s connection to nature. For the main research component, I conducted a five-week observational study of outdoor schools in Stockholm. The purpose of the study was to record the relation between the qualities of various significant nature situations and the physical properties of the spaces that they occurred within. The results suggest that it is possible to determine which physical elements are frequently part of significant nature situations. By including these elements within the design of pedagogical greenspaces, it is likely that a high potential for nature connection could be provided. Furthermore, the results show the qualities of significant nature situations can be divided into 5 key categories: restorative experiences, creative experiences, sensory experiences, physical free play and nature school which were recorded alongside the physical properties present in each situation. The results show that the first four categories are linked to specific physical attributes while nature school activities utilised a combination of different properties. Consequently, there is a potential to design greenspaces which support specific types of nature situations. The results can be utilised by urban planners and designers as a guide for designing and evaluating pedagogical greenspaces based on the development of different types of significant nature situations. An important implication of the study is the finding that many of the physical properties that enhance the likelihood of human nature connection, occur within healthy ecosystems and as such is a powerful motivator for development of urban greenspaces that simultaneously enhance ecosystem resilience with human health and wellbeing

A contribution to the study of the elm decline in the southern Lake District

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New Media Photojournalism

Faculty reflection on VCU Great Bike Race Book course. Course Description: Students will explore documentary photography, creative storytelling and editing experimentation solely through mobile devices

Constructivism Deconstructed in Science Teacher Education

Constructivism posits that the teacher’s role is to help their students to actively construct new understanding for themselves. Diagnosis of students’ prior understanding followed by carefully planned teaching sequences enables learners to grasp hitherto unknown concepts. Assessing whether they can then apply their new knowledge in new contexts verifies whether or not they have learnt what the teacher has taught. Using these three steps (diagnose, engage, evaluate) to structure a self-study highlighted the gap between rhetoric and reality in a science education methods course. This self-study research - which draws on journal entries; students’ and colleagues’ perspectives generated through questionnaires and interviews; and critical friends critique and questioning - had a significant impact on my teacher education pedagog