The Development of an Evidence-Based Ebola Virus Disease Preparedness Plan for a College Health Center

Ebola Virus Disease (EVD) represents a new and previously unexplored threat to college campuses across the United States. In the fall of 2014, thousands of international students arrived on college campuses across the nation, but there were few resources for officials in higher education to reference as they sought to manage the threat of an unfamiliar hemorrhagic disease. Preparing for viral outbreaks is an essential task for campus emergency response committees. Colleges and universities are at risk for disease outbreaks because of extensive travel programs and close living quarters. At the same time, colleges must also promote hospitality and avoid stigmatizing individuals and groups. The purpose of this project is to improve the health and safety of a college campus through the generation of an evidence-based EVD preparedness plan for a private Midwestern college. The project utilized three theoretical frameworks and a thorough literature review to develop site-specific emergency guidelines, addressing factors that are unique to the college setting. Donabedian’s Structure-Process Outcome Theory outlines how structures and processes influence outcomes, while the Plan, Do, Study, Act (PDSA) Model and the Transdisciplinary Model of Evidence-Based Practice guide project implementation. The literature review demonstrates the value of deliberate, ongoing, and site-specific preparedness planning. The project utilized a quality improvement team to execute the PDSA model. During the initial phase, the team developed a problem statement, clinical questions, and goals and objectives. The “do” portion of the cycle included the implementation of EVD policy while the “study” stage assessed performance measures and project deliverables. The “act” stage involved the acceptance of the EVD policy and the determination of next steps for quality improvement within the college health center. 8 The scholarly project reveals how the essentials of the Doctor of Nursing Practice degree were applied to policy development and project management. It demonstrates how a transdisciplinary team created, revised, and implemented a campus-specific EVD preparedness plan, stimulating conversations among about disease management. Ultimately, the successful completion of the project objectives resulted in a document that serves as a template for responding to threats to campus health

Childhood Obesity: The Role of Health Policy

This first policy report from the CPRC and the NICHQ Childhood Obesity Action Network was released on March 18, 2008 in Miami Florida as part of the Second Childhood Obesity Congress

Review of \u3ci\u3eTo the End of June: The Intimate Life of American Foster Care.\u3c/i\u3e Cris Beam. \u3ci\u3eFrom Pariahs to Partners: How Parents and Their Allies Changed New York City’s Child Welfare System.\u3c/i\u3e David Tobis. Reviewed by Julie Cooper Altman.

Review of: Cris Beam, To the End of June: The Intimate Life of American Foster Care. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt (2013). $27.00 (hardcover). David Tobis, From Pariahs to Partners: How Parents and Their Allies Changed New York City’s Child Welfare System. Oxford University Press (2013).$29.95 (hardcover)

Changing the Traditional High School Photography Curriculum: Integrating Traditional and Digital Technologies

This thesis presents a photography curriculum for a beginning high school level photography class. It is designed as a teaching guide to structure a photography class that incorporates both film photography and digital photographic technology. One of the biggest challenges for teachers of photography is how to structure a curriculum with a limited number of enlargers and space in the darkroom, while incorporating digital technology with limited computer access for students. The curriculum presented here includes three major parts: a traditional photographic film component, a digital photography component, and a concepts component where students will experiment with different photographic techniques of manipulation as well as tackle photographic history, criticism, and visual literacy

Space physics missions handbook

The purpose of this handbook is to provide background data on current, approved, and planned missions, including a summary of the recommended candidate future missions. Topics include the space physics mission plan, operational spacecraft, and details of such approved missions as the Tethered Satellite System, the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory, and the Atmospheric Laboratory for Applications and Science

Preparing Tomorrow\u27s Teachers to Teach with Technology: Getting Past \u3ci\u3eGo\u3c/i\u3e in Science and Mathematics

We are teacher educators (in elementary science and mathematics) who are enthusiastic about technology as a teaching tool—though it is as new to us as it is to our university colleagues. We recently led a United States Department of Education Preparing Tomorrow’s Teachers to Use Technology (PT3) grant project entitled TechLinks. In an effort to encourage peer faculty members to connect methods instruction with current technology initiatives (namely the International Society for Technology Education [ISTE], 2000, and the National Council on Accreditation of Teacher Education [NCATE], 1997), TechLinks provided faculty fellowships–$1,000 for equipment and materials and a technology assistant who provided just-in-time learning for up to six interested faculty members each year. This development money helped to generate a community of teacher educators who not only began to appreciate the power of teaching with technology but recognized new-found confidence in technology knowledge and skills. As members of this group ourselves, we developed a number of ideas for integrating technology into science and mathematics methods courses. We created a number of course assignments that incorporated technology teaching applications–helping future teachers learn about good science and mathematics teaching methods and new technology tools simultaneously. This article is intended to share examples of successful technology applications with others and to propose the usefulness of the Flick and Bell (2000) guidelines

The Road to Reform: A Grounded Theory Study of Parents’ and Teachers’ Influence on Elementary School Science and Mathematics

Though elementary teacher educators introduce new, reform-based strategies in science and mathematics methods courses, researchers wondered how novices negotiate reform strategies once they enter the elementary school culture. Given that the extent of parents’ and veteran teachers’ influence on novice teachers is largely unknown, this grounded theory study explored parents’ and teachers’ expectations of children’s optimal science and mathematics learning in the current era of reform. Data consisted of semistructured, open-ended interviews with novice teachers (n = 20), veteran teachers (n = 9), and parents (n = 28). Researchers followed three stages of coding procedures to develop a logic model connecting participants’ discrete designations of the landscape, regulating phenomena, contextual orientation, and desired outcomes. This logic model helped researchers develop propositions for future research on the interactive nature of parents’ and teachers’ influential role in elementary science and mathematics education. Implications encourage science and mathematics teacher educators—as well as school administrators—to explicitly develop and support novice teachers’ ability to initiate and sustain parent/family engagement in order to create a school climate in which teachers and parents are synergistically motivated to change

Preparing Tomorrow\u27s Teachers to Teach with Technology: Getting Past \u3ci\u3eGo\u3c/i\u3e in Science and Mathematics

We are teacher educators (in elementary science and mathematics) who are enthusiastic about technology as a teaching tool—though it is as new to us as it is to our university colleagues. We recently led a United States Department of Education Preparing Tomorrow’s Teachers to Use Technology (PT3) grant project entitled TechLinks. In an effort to encourage peer faculty members to connect methods instruction with current technology initiatives (namely the International Society for Technology Education [ISTE], 2000, and the National Council on Accreditation of Teacher Education [NCATE], 1997), TechLinks provided faculty fellowships–$1,000 for equipment and materials and a technology assistant who provided just-in-time learning for up to six interested faculty members each year. This development money helped to generate a community of teacher educators who not only began to appreciate the power of teaching with technology but recognized new-found confidence in technology knowledge and skills. As members of this group ourselves, we developed a number of ideas for integrating technology into science and mathematics methods courses. We created a number of course assignments that incorporated technology teaching applications–helping future teachers learn about good science and mathematics teaching methods and new technology tools simultaneously. This article is intended to share examples of successful technology applications with others and to propose the usefulness of the Flick and Bell (2000) guidelines

The Road to Reform: A Grounded Theory Study of Parents’ and Teachers’ Influence on Elementary School Science and Mathematics

Though elementary teacher educators introduce new, reform-based strategies in science and mathematics methods courses, researchers wondered how novices negotiate reform strategies once they enter the elementary school culture. Given that the extent of parents’ and veteran teachers’ influence on novice teachers is largely unknown, this grounded theory study explored parents’ and teachers’ expectations of children’s optimal science and mathematics learning in the current era of reform. Data consisted of semistructured, open-ended interviews with novice teachers (n = 20), veteran teachers (n = 9), and parents (n = 28). Researchers followed three stages of coding procedures to develop a logic model connecting participants’ discrete designations of the landscape, regulating phenomena, contextual orientation, and desired outcomes. This logic model helped researchers develop propositions for future research on the interactive nature of parents’ and teachers’ influential role in elementary science and mathematics education. Implications encourage science and mathematics teacher educators—as well as school administrators—to explicitly develop and support novice teachers’ ability to initiate and sustain parent/family engagement in order to create a school climate in which teachers and parents are synergistically motivated to change