Who Ya Gonna Call? Networks of Rural School Administrators

When they need help or advice, who are rural school administrators going to call? Relationships among rural school administrators develop into networks that can affect the success of administrators and their schools. Understanding the structure and content of these networks provides insights into how resources, innovations, and communication flow both within and between rural district administrators. Based on network theory and analysis, this study examines the structure, content, and strategic implications of the administrative networks within and across six contiguous rural school districts in the Western United States. Network graphs are included, illustrating both individual district and the combined six-district rural administrator networks. While acquaintance ties and active work ties are evident both within and across districts, relationally embedded ties and greater cohesion of ties are more evident within districts than across districts. Analyses include consideration of administrative assignment, gender, and geographical location of the network structures. Strategic implications of the network structures and content are discussed

AGRICULTURAL SEDIMENTATION IMPACTS ON LAKESIDE PROPERTY VALUES

A hedonic pricing model is developed to estimate the effects of policies to control agricultural sedimentation on lakeside property values at 15 Ohio state park lakes, Using an LA/AIDS demand system, we estimate changes in social welfare that result from upstream soil conservation practices and/or lake dredging activity, while holding other property characteristics constant. Policy simulation results suggest that lakeside residents generally have a higher willingness to pay on an annualized basis for sediment reduction from upstream soil conservation than for lake dredging. This has important implications for soil conservation policy, particularly in targeting improvements in the economic efficiency of the Conservation Reserve Program.Land Economics/Use,

Activity Theory as Theoretical Framework for Analyzing and Designing Global K-12 Collaborations in Engineering: A Case Study of a Thai-U.S. Elementary Engineering Project

The American engineering pipeline requires future workers to possess a unique skill set, comprised of content knowledge and 21st century skills, to recruit highly skilled, globally competitive engineers. Generally, 21st century skills are defined as the ability to think critically, communicate, collaborate in teams, and creatively solve problems. These skills are pertinent in training future engineers provided engineering utilizes the application of scientific knowledge within an inherently collaborative modality (the engineering design process). One component of developing 21st century skills and engineering competencies is the need for students to broaden their global awareness. Hence, American K-12 teachers are actively seeking opportunities for their students to collaborate with their international peers in an engineering context. One emergent pedagogical strategy is engaging in global K-12 collaborations in engineering in which K-12 students collaborate with international counterparts (another K-12 classroom/s or engineering expert/s), using the engineering design process, to create collaborative engineering solutions (projects). Because of the social complexity of global K-12 collaborations in engineering, the efficacy of these endeavors varies. This paper proposes Activity theory (AT) as a theoretical framework to analyze global K-12 collaborations in engineering. The authors use AT, in the context of an elementary-level U.S./Thai global collaboration, to document the experience and describe the activity. Using student, teacher, and expert created documents from the collaboration, the efficacy of the activity (student learning outcomes) were evaluated and then applied to AT. The rules, division of labor and community were found as areas that presented challenges to achieving successful outcomes within the activity system. This paper provides classroom teachers a roadmap for designing more successful global collaborations for K-12 engineering and 21st century skill development