The impact of a college community service laboratory on students\u27 personal, social, and cognitive outcomes

This exploratory study attempts to· answer the question: can a required service-learning experience of limited intensity and duration have an impact on the development of college students as participating citizens of their community? Students who provided community service as part of a one credit community service laboratory showed a significant increase in their belief that people can make a difference, that they should be involved in community service and particularly in leadership and political influence, and in their commitment to perform volunteer service the following semester. They also became less likely to blame social service clients for their misfortunes and more likely to stress a need for equal opportunity. They indicated that their experience had led them to more positive perceptions of the people they worked with

What Do We Know About the Impact of Field Based Programs on Students?

The literature on field based education programs for undergraduates is voluminous, but surprisingly unhelpful in answering the most important question of all, What difference does it make in the lives of students? In this presentation we have focused on this largely unanswered question, first (1) examining the goals commonly held for such field experiential approaches as cooperative education, academic internships, field components of classes, and service learning then (2) discussing evidence for impact on students and finally (3) identifying critical gaps in our knowledge of how these programs affect students

The Importance of Program Quality in Service-Learning

One of the tensions between practitioners and researchers in service-learning is that they seem to ask different questions. As we immerse ourselves in the practice and the research literature, we are reminded of the task of digging a tunnel under a mountain with crews starting at each end and finally breaking through at what they hope will be the same point in the middle. In this chapter we try to link the practice and the research literature so that the questions of why and how, which appear most frequently in the practice literature, can be linked with the what or the question of outcomes raised most often by researchers. Because there is no single literature on program characteristics that lead to quality experiences for students in service-learning, we review several related bodies of literature in this chapter. • the practice literature on principles of good practice in service-learning. The related experiential education literature that is derived from learning theory. • the related experiential education literature that is derived from learning theory. • the research literature on student growth and development outcomes

The Theoretical Roots of Service-Learning in John Dewey: Toward a Theory of Service-Learning

As interest in service-learning research multiplies. there is a concomitant need fora theoretical base for service-learning. In this article the authors review aspects of John De1wy \u27s educational and social philosophy that they identify as relevant to the development of a theory of service-learning, including learning from experience, reflective activity, citizenship, community, and democracy. The article concludes with a set of key questions for research and theory development

At A Glance: What We Know about The Effects of Service-Learning on Students, Faculty, Institutions and Communities, 1993-1999

At A Glance summarizes the findings of service learning research in higher education over the past few years and includes a bibliography. It is designed to provide a quick overview of where we are in the field today and a map to the literature. Particular issues of interest may be explored in greater depth through the annotated bibliography and complete review of research for this period from 1993-99. This survey of service-learning research within higher education reflects a dramatic increase over recent years that examine the effects of service-learning on students, faculty, institutions, and communities. The scope of this literature review includes national, regional and single studies that focus on personal, learning, social, institutional, community or career developmental outcomes, as well as how program characteristics affect these outcomes. The initial literature search focused on research indexes such as ERIC and Psych Lit. Four descriptors guided these literature searches: service learning, community service and experiential learning, and field- based education. Special attention was paid to The Michigan Journal of Community Service Learning because this peer review journal has become a significant outlet for service-learning research in higher education. Summary reports from service-learning organizations were included such as RAND, Learn and Serve America, the Bonner Scholars Program, the American Association of Community Colleges, and the National Association of State Universities and Land Grant Colleges

Internal Defect Detection in Hardwood Logs With Fast Magnetic Resonance Imaging.

Identification of defects such as knots in logs before the cutting operation would allow lumber mills to maximize the value of lumber from each log. This dissertation presented images obtained from scanning an oak log with magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). The unique characteristics of MRI images of hardwood logs were noted and were used to derive a quick algorithm to isolate defects. Defect regions had some pixels that varied considerably in intensity from their neighborhood, providing a seed for initiating the defect region. There was an overlap between the pixel gray level of the defects and clear wood. Therefore, traditional thresholding techniques did not cleanly separate these regions. In this study, region-growing methods were used to extract the defects. The algorithm grew the defect region seed until the border-pixel gray levels approached the average level of the neighborhood. The region-growing methods obtained more accurate defect regions than thresholding methods because of the simultaneous consideration of gray level and adjacency information. Two methods of MRI imaging were considered: spin-echo and echo-planar. Spin-echo imaging provided clear, detailed images but required about 20 seconds of acquisition time, which was too slow to be used in a production environment. Echo-planar images could be acquired in about 1/2 second, which was fast enough for production, but the images were fuzzy and noisy. The dissertation presented an algorithm that found the defect regions in spin-echo images. Region-growing methods use a number of parameters and the best parameters were unique for each image. However, common image statistics could be used to predict the proper parameters. The dissertation also presented an algorithm that found most of the defect regions in echo-planar images. Enhancing the echo-planar images using common general-purpose image-enhancement techniques failed because the lack of discrimination allowed the process to smooth image structures as well as noise. By taking advantage of the structure of a tree, smoothing between MRI frames accomplished the goal of smoothing along homogeneous areas and not across image structures. This z-axis smoothing enhanced the echo-planar image visually and reduced the number of false alarm defect regions

Does Size Matter? An Empirical Investigation into the Competitive Strategies of the Small Firm

This paper examines whether different strategies are associated with different sized firms in a focal industry dominated by small family-owned businesses. In an effort to shed light on how strategic choice is determined, a well-defined and geographically concentrated industry, i.e., the Northern California wine industry, is selected to minimize environmental noise. Factor analysis is applied to fourteen strategic elements to extract a parsimonious set of five primary competitive strategies: new product/market development, consolidation, niche focus, proprietary processes, and flexibility. The factors, new product/market development and consolidation as well as the control variable, age, are found to be significantly  associated with firm  size.

At A Glance: What We Know about The Effects of Service-Learning on College Students, Faculty, Institutions and Communities, 1993- 2000: Third Edition

At A Glance summarizes the findings of service-learning research in higher education over the past few years and includes an annotated bibliography. It is designed to provide a quick overview of where we are in the field today and a map to the literature

At A Glance: What We Know about The Effects of Service-Learning on College Students, Faculty, Institutions and Communities, 1993- 2000: Third Edition

At A Glance summarizes the findings of service-learning research in higher education over the past few years and includes an annotated bibliography. It is designed to provide a quick overview of where we are in the field today and a map to the literature