Transforming our Library Reading Room for a Leisure Reading Collection

For our poster presentation, we wanted to highlight the success of our renovated reading room and the addition of a leisure reading collection in an academic library. One of the goals of our library strategic plan is to improve service to our community and to change the philosophical perception of our library so the students would have an inviting place to satisfy both heir educational and entertainment needs. Our drab 1960’s style reading room was the ideal location to refurbish and to locate our new leisure reading collection of books and magazines. To provide a pleasant environment for the students to relax and browse, we updated the room with new carpeting, shelving, tables, chairs and ottomans. We then began adding a collection of popular books and magazine which is kept up-to-date with new purchases and ongoing weeding of the collection. The collection is more than a couple of books shelved in a back corner and is visible to students upon entering the library. Our primary goals are to increase the reading among students and improve their college experience. So far it is successful and continues to flourish as demonstrated by our continuously improving statistics. As pictured in our poster, this project is a collaborative effort and we ask the community for both book and magazine suggestions. To publicize the reading room, we have used both traditional marketing methods and are also implementing social networking with facebook page, posting new books to our blog, and adding the collection to Library Thing which is listed on our library homepage. Overall, our project has been well-received on campus with good circulation and student usage of the reading room for browsing, reading and studying

College-Prep-For-All Curriculum: is It An Option for the North Bay?

The report concludes with suggestions for future research. Much of the current research details the successes of high school graduates in attending and completing post-secondary education, but there exists a need for longitudinal studies tracking students from an early age, through their elementary, middle and high school experience, and on to their college attendance and careers. In comparing schools that have implemented strides toward College-Prep-For-All policies versus those that remain status quo, what possible differences develop for students and the local economy? Furthermore, how can the North Bay glean aspects of successful college- and career-ready programs for their schools? The goal is to not only increase the economic health and well-being of the community, but also that of individual students‘ lives

The Development of a Therapeutic Listening Instrument For Allied Health: A Pilot Study

Occupational therapy education programs need a method for capturing student success in learning the necessary skills of therapeutic listening prior to fieldwork. There are no formalized instruments to measure therapeutic listening knowledge and skills in occupational therapy curriculums. Listening measurement tools that currently exist have been primarily created for other professionals in the medical field. Developing a listening instrument that measures the basic knowledge and skills of students’ listening would benefit occupational therapy education programs by determining the need for additional listening training of its students. This thesis study describes a pilot study used to develop a therapeutic listening instrument. The Therapeutic Listening Instrument consisted of listening terminology and clinical scenarios composed of three domains of therapeutic listening to determine participants’ application of listening knowledge. The instrument was piloted to experts, clinicians, and students. The results indicated that the instrument is not a reliable and valid tool to measure therapeutic listening. Data collected from the pilot study provided information for further development and refinement of the Therapeutic Listening Instrument

Embedding Information Literacy Skills in Undergraduate Research Studies

In any academic context, when one mentions the term research, students immediately panic and assume this research is something they cannot do under any circumstances. This response seems fairly common among students new to undergraduate and graduate level research. The tendency on the part of the students is to make this a daunting project, impossible to complete. The faculty leaders know how to conduct research. The goal is to describe the research steps, have students practice each step, and then have them build their research work in stages. Collaboration between and among faculty in exploring and teaching research tools helped us develop a road map for students. To implement this approach to teaching research, we developed a collaborative partnership, exploring research skills that worked, refining our teaching approaches, and establishing a guided student practice component. After several years of an informal relationship, linking academic librarianship to education programs, our collaboration moved to a more formalized relationship with the permanent assignment of faculty librarian, as liaison to the School of Education graduate students. Community interest in having university students research locally based projects helped strengthen this connection. Now in our sixth year, the collaborative relationship has produced a level of improved scholarship in student research, with increased student understanding of academic research explorations linked to their own research focus. Additionally, students have improved in scholarly writing and citation skills application in their written work. Student improvement in research and writing skills is reflected in the increased number of students whose work is accepted by Education Resources Information Center (ERIC) and by professional conferences for inclusion in presentations. Systematic data collection on the effect of this collaboration needs further documentation. Persuading students of the importance of producing scholarly work has not been easily achieved. Yet, in a time where documentation is essential, we had to move students in this direction to increase their understanding and appreciation of professional research and writing. The effort continues each semester. The purpose of this article is to describe in brief the steps taken over the last six years while moving toward developing student understanding and application of the research process on their individual master’s theses. The particular focus is on assisting students in locating scholarly material in building their review of the literature as part of the graduate thesis

Embedding Information Literacy in Educational Research Graduate Classes

Teaching students how to conduct research that helps them develop a scholarly work is often a daunting task. A fortuitous collaboration between faculty members in the School of Education and the academic library led to the development of strategies for teaching graduate students how to conduct quality research. Over the course of four years, faculty worked to include library search tools and strategies into graduate research classes

Evaluation for community-based programs: The integration of logic models and factor analysis

Purpose To discuss the utility of and value of the use of logic models for program evaluation of community-based programs and more specifically, the integration of logic models and factor analysis to develop and revise a survey as part of an effective evaluation plan.Principal results Diverse stakeholders with varying outlooks used a logic model as a framework to reach agreement on a plan for a state-wide evaluation. This evaluation plan utilized a survey of sixth grade students, administered before and after exposure to a year-long abstinence education program. Components of the logic model were linked to specific survey questions. Exploratory factor analysis was then used to assess whether and how the questions in the survey fit with the constructs of the model; confirmatory factor analysis was used to test the hypothesis that the factors identified in the exploratory analysis were consistently represented in the survey.Major conclusions A logic model is a tool that engages stakeholders to link evaluation instruments more closely to specific program objectives. Thus, stakeholders can more closely assess the extent to which project outcomes have been achieved. In addition, use of factor analysis in the evaluation process can help the stakeholders better understand whether evaluation instruments such as a survey adequately assess program effectiveness. Lastly, a logic model process can help to achieve consensus among diverse stakeholders, by allowing them to focus on objectives that are concrete, measurable, and mutually acceptable.Logic models Evaluation Evaluation instruments Factor analysis

Antigen-dependent inducible T cell reporter system for PET imaging of breast cancer and glioblastoma.

For the past several decades, chimeric antigen receptor T cell (CAR T) therapies have shown promise in the treatment of cancers. These treatments would greatly benefit from companion imaging biomarkers to follow the trafficking of T cells in vivo. Using synthetic biology, we engineered T cells with a chimeric receptor SyNthetic Intramembrane Proteolysis Receptor (SNIPR) that induces overexpression of an exogenous reporter gene cassette upon recognition of specific tumor markers. We then applied a SNIPR-based positron emission tomography (PET) reporter system to two cancer-relevant antigens, human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 (HER2) and epidermal growth factor receptor variant III (EGFRvIII), commonly expressed in breast and glial tumors respectively. Antigen-specific reporter induction of the SNIPR-PET T cells was confirmed in vitro using GFP fluorescence, luciferase luminescence, and the HSV-TK PET reporter with [18F]FHBG. T cells associated with their target antigens were successfully imaged using PET in dual xenograft HER2+/HER2- and EGFRvIII+/EGFRvIII- animal models, with > 10-fold higher [18F]FHBG signals seen in antigen-expressing tumors versus the corresponding controls. The main innovation described is therefore PET detection of T cells via specific antigen-induced signals, in contrast to reporter systems relying on constitutive gene expression

Antigen-dependent inducible T cell reporter system for PET imaging of breast cancer and glioblastoma

AbstractFor the past several decades, chimeric antigen receptor T cell (CAR T) therapies have shown promise in the treatment of cancers. These treatments would greatly benefit from companion imaging biomarkers to follow the trafficking of T cells in vivo. Using synthetic biology, we engineered T cells with a chimeric receptor SyNthetic Intramembrane Proteolysis Receptor (SNIPR) that induces overexpression of an exogenous reporter gene cassette upon recognition of specific tumor markers. We then applied a SNIPR-based positron emission tomography (PET) reporter system to two cancer-relevant antigens, human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 (HER2) and epidermal growth factor receptor variant III (EGFRvIII), commonly expressed in breast and glial tumors respectively. Antigen-specific reporter induction of the SNIPR-PET T cells was confirmed in vitro using GFP fluorescence, luciferase luminescence, and the HSV-TK PET reporter with [18F]FHBG. T cells associated with their target antigens were successfully imaged using PET in dual xenograft HER2+/HER2- and EGFRvIII+/EGFRvIII-animal models, with > 10-fold higher [18F]FHBG signals seen in antigen-expressing tumors versus the corresponding controls. The main innovation described is therefore PET detection of T cells via specific antigen-induced signals, in contrast to reporter systems relying on constitutive gene expression

Teaching Big History

Big History is a new field on a grand scale: it tells the story of the universe over time through a diverse range of disciplines that spans cosmology, physics, chemistry, astronomy, geology, evolutionary biology, anthropology, and archaeology, thereby reconciling traditional human history with environmental geography and natural history.Weaving the myriad threads of evidence-based human knowledge into a master narrative that stretches from the beginning of the universe to the present, the Big History framework helps students make sense of their studies in all disciplines by illuminating the structures that underlie the universe and the connections among them.Teaching Big History is a powerful analytic and pedagogical resource, and serves as a comprehensive guide for teaching Big History, as well for sharing ideas about the subject and planning a curriculum around it. Readers are also given helpful advice about the administrative and organizational challenges of instituting a general education program constructed around Big History. The book includes teaching materials, examples, and detailed sample exercises.This book is also an engaging first-hand account of how a group of professors built an entire Big History general education curriculum for first-year students, demonstrating how this thoughtful integration of disciplines exemplifies liberal education at its best and illustrating how teaching and learning this incredible story can be transformative for professors and students alike.https://scholar.dominican.edu/books/1073/thumbnail.jp