Learning Through Serving: Learning Service-Learning Pedagogy to Enhance your Teaching

This workshop is geared toward faculty and staff at universities who would want to integrate service learning into their courses as well as community partners who would like to explore a service-learning opportunity with a campus partner. The definition of service learning and how it is different from other forms of experiential learning will be discussed. Concepts will be illustrated using a short video clip and other real life examples. The service learning criteria of Meaningful Service, Enhanced Academic Learning, and Purposeful Civic Learning will be identified. The application of these criteria will be illustrated through BGSU service-learning courses - the Listening Post and Small Group Communication are two courses that have integrated older adults into the curriculum. Specific examples and strategies will be described. The role and importance of continuous reflection will be described. Participants will receive handouts on the What, So What, Now What model and the DEAL Model of Critical Reflection. Emphasis on the mutual benefit for community partners will be shared along with best practices in Community Partnerships.Participants will have the opportunity to brainstorm potential courses and community partnerships for service-learning. Using an Action Plan handout, faculty and staff participants will identify new or existing courses at their institutions to apply service-learning pedagogy, identify one learning objective related to each criteria, list potential community partner to support learning objectives, and list potential challenges. Community partner participants and practitioners will have the opportunity to develop a partnership action plan. They will receive a similar Action Plan handout to brainstorm how their organization might be able to utilize a service-learning partnership; identifying potential projects, why they would fit as service-learning, and what action steps they could take to initiate a partnership with a local campus. Additional resources for service-learning will be identified including Ohio Campus Compact (funding, program models), Campus Compact syllabi database, and Offices of Service-Learning on various campuses

Searching for stochastic gravitational waves using data from the two colocated LIGO Hanford detectors

Searches for a stochastic gravitational-wave background (SGWB) using terrestrial detectors typically involve cross-correlating data from pairs of detectors. The sensitivity of such cross-correlation analyses depends, among other things, on the separation between the two detectors: the smaller the separation, the better the sensitivity. Hence, a colocated detector pair is more sensitive to a gravitational-wave background than a noncolocated detector pair. However, colocated detectors are also expected to suffer from correlated noise from instrumental and environmental effects that could contaminate the measurement of the background. Hence, methods to identify and mitigate the effects of correlated noise are necessary to achieve the potential increase in sensitivity of colocated detectors. Here we report on the first SGWB analysis using the two LIGO Hanford detectors and address the complications arising from correlated environmental noise. We apply correlated noise identification and mitigation techniques to data taken by the two LIGO Hanford detectors, H1 and H2, during LIGO’s fifth science run. At low frequencies, 40–460 Hz, we are unable to sufficiently mitigate the correlated noise to a level where we may confidently measure or bound the stochastic gravitational-wave signal. However, at high frequencies, 460–1000 Hz, these techniques are sufficient to set a 95% confidence level upper limit on the gravitational-wave energy density of Ω(f) < 7.7 × 10[superscript -4](f/900  Hz)[superscript 3], which improves on the previous upper limit by a factor of ~180. In doing so, we demonstrate techniques that will be useful for future searches using advanced detectors, where correlated noise (e.g., from global magnetic fields) may affect even widely separated detectors.National Science Foundation (U.S.)United States. National Aeronautics and Space AdministrationCarnegie TrustDavid & Lucile Packard FoundationAlfred P. Sloan Foundatio

Using Technology to Teach the Life Course Perspective

The purpose of this presentation is to describe the use of an online technology program, Dipity to teach the principles of timing and historical context of the life course perspective to students. In an advanced undergraduate and introductory graduate gerontology courses, students are taught the basics of the life course perspective as a theoretical lens. While the basic concepts of trajectory and transitions seem easily understood, the principles of historical context, timing, sequencing, and culture (Elder, 1998; Hagstead & Call, 2007) seem abstract and more challenging for students to comprehend. Using the life story interview methodology development by Dan McAdams (2008) and the online program, Dipity (http://www.dipity.com/), a Transitions and Trajectory assignment has been integrated into the courses. The life story interview methodology outlines 8 life transition events integrating a turning point, peak experience, nadir experience, and other transitions. After describing the 8 transitions, students utilize the online program, Dipity to illustrate the impact of historical and cultural contexts. Dipity is a free online website that allows students to create a timeline integrating video, images, links, social media, and other interactive technologies that become embedded on the trajectory. Dipity brings to life the historical context (e.g., timing of historical events) utilizing technology. Developing an event-based timeline with technology has been found to meet the developmental needs of traditional age college students and effective in the application of course concepts (Landry-Meyer & Roe, 2013). Assignment description, rubrics, and examples of timelines in Dipity will be shared with participants

An exploration of the grandparent caregiver role

Using role theory to guide a qualitative analysis of 26 grandparents raising grandchildren, the role transition from grandparent to grandparent caregiver was explored. Participants were predominantly female, low income, married, with an average age of 53. On average, participants were raising 1.7 grandchildren for 4 years and at the time of interview had legal custody of the grandchildren. Face-to-face, semi-structured interviews were used. With a 92% interrater reliability, themes focused on the grandparent caregiver role being off-time or unexpected, achieving a sense of role clarity, and the experience of role conflict

What does safety commitment mean to leaders? A multi-method investigation

Introduction: Perceived management safety commitment as an aspect of safety climate or culture is a key influence on safety outcomes in organizations. What is unclear is how perceptions of management commitment are created by leaders. Method: To address this gap in the literature, we position safety commitment as a leadership construct viewed from the perspectives of the leaders who experience and demonstrate it. In this paper, an established multidimensional commitment framework is applied to leaders' safety commitment (consisting of affective, normative, and calculative commitment). Via an exploratory sequential mixed methods design combining interviews (n = 40) and surveys (n = 89), we investigate the applicability of this theoretical conceptualization to safety commitment. Results: The results indicate the multiple dimensions captured leaders' safety commitment well, safety commitment can be demonstrated via a range of behaviors, and the dimensions' association with behavioral demonstrations aligned with those of other types of commitment reported in the literature. Only affective safety commitment was consistently associated with demonstrations of safety commitment. The link between high levels of affective and normative safety commitment and demonstrations was more pronounced when participants perceived their company's safety climate more positively. Conclusions: Adopting a focus on leaders' experience of safety commitment offers opportunities for new research into the way in which safety commitment perceptions are shaped by leaders. Practical application: The findings can support leaders' reflection about their personal mindset around safety and support them in fostering strong safety climates and cultures. It further encourages organizations in creating work environments that in particular foster affective and normative safety commitments in leaders