Assessment for learning in architectural design programmes

This paper compares the learning and teaching strategies practised in the programmes of the Architectural Subject Group at the University of Northumbria with best practices of assessment (‘Assessment for Learning’) as promoted by the Centre for Excellence in Learning in the same University. These best practices are grouped under the umbrella concepts of ‘Assessment for Learning’ and comprise six key criteria which can be paraphrased as; authenticity and complexity in methods of assessment; use of summative assessment as the main driver for learning; extensive opportunities to develop and demonstrate learning; rich in formal feedback; rich in informal feedback; developing students’ abilities to direct their own learning, evaluate their own progress, and support the learning of others

Finding the Right Fit: How Alternative Staffing Affects Worker Outcomes

Evaluates implementation and activities at four worker-centered, social-purpose alternative staffing organizations, including worker profiles, jobs secured, experience with the ASO, earnings, and subsequent job status, and business clients' experience

Union Voices: Tactics and Tensions in UK Organizing

[Excerpt] This book tells the story of what is, in our view, probably the most significant development in British trade unionism of recent years: the increasing focus on organizing activity. We do this by reflecting on the impact of the UK\u27s Trades Union Congress (TUC) Organising Academy (OA), the participants in the training program, and the organizing campaigns that union organizers have run. We explicitly want to give voice to these union activists who have worked so hard to recruit and organize new union members. Much has already been written in the United Kingdom (often by us) about these developments but what is often lost in short articles or surveys are the stories that organizers have to tell. In an effort to build a base of knowledge from which to start to analyze changes, we have so far tended to focus on publishing the studies that demonstrate general trends and developments. This book seeks to do something slightly different. We draw on those previously published papers where necessary, but here we want to engage with the politics and tensions behind those trends; both on a macro and a micro level. We want to tell the stories of what organizing is like on the front line, what organizers do, and how they do it. The workplace struggles of workers and their unions are at the heart of these stories. But we also want to draw attention to the wider reasons why union organizing is important. As we will argue, one of the things that happened as ideas about organizing migrated from other countries— notably the United States and Australia—to the United Kingdom is that the political conceptualization of why unions are organizing has been underexamined. We want to understand and examine organizing as a political process, and we want to look at the politics within the union but also the wider purpose of organizing, which often varies from context to context

Alternative Staffing Organizations and Skills: Linking Temporary Work with Training

This paper provides a brief research background on the field of alternative staffing and what we have learned about connecting job brokering activities with training and education opportunities. This includes drawing on recent research by the Center for Social Policy on the Alternative Staffing Demonstration II, 2008 to 2011, funded by the Charles Stewart (C. S.) Mott Foundation. The paper also offers several points for consideration in connecting temporary help workers to training opportunities. Specifically, it puts the role of alternative staffing in the context of the entry-level job market and discusses the value of staffing services from the perspective of job seekers, customer businesses, and the workforce development field. A number of examples are provided of training programs and partnerships that combine skills development with job brokering. Overall, we address two questions: 1) What do we know about connecting staffing services with training opportunities?, and 2) What are some promising examples of connecting ASO workers to skills training

Why Use the Services of Alternative Staffing Organizations: Perspectives from Customer Businesses

Organizations that aim to improve the experiences and employment chances of job seekers who face barriers to employment have, over the years, had to contend directly with potential employers and their requirements. This is particularly true for community-based job brokers that use a temporary staffing model, offering job access and immediate work to their service population.Alternative staffing organizations (ASOs) are worker-centered, social purpose businesses that place job seekers in temporary and "temp-to-perm" assignments with customer businesses, and charge their customers a markup on the wage of the position. These fee-for-service organizations can help job seekers who face labor market barriers gain work experience and access potential employers. Created by community-based organizations and national nonprofits, ASOs are often embedded within larger organizations that provide other employment, training, and human services to their community. The parent organizations may also be operating other social enterprise ventures. Businesses that contract ASOs for staffing services are customers that expect a service, but also represent an opportunity for employment and work experience for job seekers. Thus ASOs must operate with a dual agenda to serve both sides of the equation. In related publications, we have explored how ASOs operate as social enterprises and how the model fits within the goals of the parent organization. With detailed information from five well-established ASOs, and as part of two waves of a demonstration initiated by the Charles Stewart Mott Foundation, we have documented the employment experiences of workers placed in assignments and their employment status after leaving the ASO. In this paper, we address engagement with businesses and their perspectives on ASO services. This is a major issue for ASOs as well as for other workforce development organizations. ASOs engage with businesses while selling staffing services and monitoring worker performance. By the very nature of temporary staffing, they receive rapid feedback on worker performance and their services from customer businesses. As such, ASOs provide a window into how to connect to potential employers in order to access opportunities. Also, activities of ASOs shed light on how hiring takes place for entry-level jobs, and how customer businesses use ASOs to solve their entry-level hiring problems.This paper demonstrates what can be learned from customers of established ASOs about their reasons for using these services. Specifically, it explores how customer businesses use temporary staffing by ASOs, and for what purposes. What business needs do they meet with ASO services? What are their reasons for using an ASO over conventional staffing agencies? And finally, what causes customer businesses to use an ASO and retain the service over time?These concerns are salient for those organizations considering the creation of an ASO. They also are important for workforce development programs that need to become more active in engaging potential employers and that seek solutions for job seekers who need to connect to employment and need immediate income

Famous Last Anagrams

Deathbed utterances of famous people are sometimes recorded for posterity and generally contain the last spark of wisdom before they go to greet the great Anagrammatist in the Sky. Who could forget Madame de Pompadour\u27s bon mot to a priest at her bedside Stay a little longer and we will go together or Bredan Behan\u27s remark to the obliging nun Bless you, Sister. May you be the mother of a bishop ? In fact many of these gems are apocryphal or said while the notable enjoyed good health. His or her very last Rhodes\u27 dictum So much to do, so little time was not his final message but rather Turn me over, Jack which isn\u27t particularly quotable at after-dinner speeches

Famous Scrabble Quotes

Some famous people have dabbled in Scrabble: Richard Burton, King Farouk, Omar Sharif, President Nixon and Martina Navratilova; to name a few. But there are many other celebrities who, in the course of a game, have uttered immortal comments which have since become part and parcel of the Scrabble player\u27s vernacular

Transdeletion Nests in Chambers

Successive transdeletions by a single letter from word to word yield a pyramidic structure, as demonstrated by Ross Eckler in Two New Transdeletion Pyramids in the May Word Ways. What if we progressively delete all letters of a single word and transpose the remainder