Developing an Online Collaborative Approach to Global Education in Vocational Contexts

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Creative Strategies for Effective and Engaging Student Employee Training: Helping Student Employees Engage, Grow, and Be Known

Is your library known as “the” place for students to work on your campus? Do your student employees get excited about “famous” annual training events in your department? Do your former student employees return years later to say hello because the library felt like their second home during college? Student employees are full of potential to become actively engaged participants in library operations and delivery of quality service. However, many librarians and library staff members struggle to motivate their student employees and help them see their employment as a highly valuable, formative work experience. The authors share some creative (and tested) ideas to improve and assess the student employee training experience. Ideas shared include annual training events held at the George Fox University Library like the Amazing Race, Turkey Bowl Team Competition, and more

Analysis of Framing Failures in Wood-Frame Residential Roofs Under Wind Load

Wood-frame residential roof failures are among the most common and expensive types of tornado damage. Hip roofs are commonly understood to be more resilient during extreme wind in relation to gable roofs. However, inspection of damage survey data from recent tornadoes has revealed a previously unstudied failure mode in which hip roofs suffer partial failure of the framing structure. This research focuses on proving the concept of framing failures in hip roofs. Evidence of partial framing failures and statistics of their occurrence are explored and discussed, and common roof design and construction practice is reviewed. Two-dimensional finite element models are developed to estimate the element-level load effects on hip roof trusses and stick-frame components. Following model development to estimate the maximum demand on the framing elements, the elements’ capacities are estimated. The likelihood of failure in each member is defined based on relative demandto-capacity ratios. Trussed and stick-frame structures are compared to assess the relative performance of the two types of construction. The present analyses verify the common understanding that toe-nailed roof-to-wall connections are likely to be the most vulnerable elements in a wood-frame roof. However, the results also indicate that certain framing members and connections display significant vulnerability under the same wind uplift, and the possibility of framing failure is not to be discounted. Furthermore, in the case where the roof-to-wall connection uses hurricane straps, certain framing members and joints become the likely points of failure initiation. The analysis results and damage survey observations are used to expand the understanding of wood-frame residential roof failures, as they relate to the Enhanced Fujita Scale, and provide assessment of potential gaps in residential design codes

Effects of achievement goals on perceptions of success and achievement emotions in minority children

Obesity is a global epidemic even more so for some minority groups. Physical activity is one arm in the fight against obesity. Research has demonstrated that engagement in physical activity is predicted by positive emotions and perceptions; thus, the activity chosen to help burn calories must be enjoyable for sustained engagement. The present experiment examined the effects of manipulated achievement goal climates (mastery, performance approach and performance avoidance) on perception of success and discrete achievement emotions in Hispanic and African-American 4th and 5th grade students. After performing a dribbling task, perception of success, pride, shame, and frustration were assessed. After accounting for the children’s performance expectancies, the mastery participants reported greater perceptions of success (p<.05) as well as less frustration (p<.05) compared to the performance groups. Taken together, the present experiment suggested that the manipulation of the trichotomous goals significantly affects perceptions of success and the discrete achievement of frustration. Some support was found for pride. Future experimental research in a variety of population samples is warranted to clarify and extend achievement goal and discrete achievement emotion relationships with physical activity participation

International online collaboration as a boundary crossing activity for vocational educators

The authors acknowledge the support of many colleagues in their respective universities and within partner colleges during this research. Course tutors in Scotland, Dr Margaret Harris and Dr Aileen Ackland, are thanked for their support in implementing COLIGE with their students. Students who completed surveys or provided feedback in other ways are also thanked for their helpful comments. Professor Paul Kirschner kindly engaged in discussions associated with this work and colleagues and anonymous reviewers have provided helpful feedback on draft versions of this paper.Peer reviewedPostprin

Powerful Arts Education Practice

This document describes 10 dimensions of powerful arts education practice — building blocks for organizations that engage young people in this practice. It also shares examples of the kinds of things you might see and feel at an organization — indicators — that could let you know these dimensions are at play.A working group of arts education leaders illuminated these dimensions and indicators through a collaborative process co-facilitated by Sarah Crowell, an expert practioner, and Lauren Stevenson, a researcher. Stevenson synthesized the group's insights and elaborated emerging dimensions and indicators through interviews with additional arts education leaders and iterative feedback from the working group. Working group members and interviewees included youth participants, youth mentors, young alumni, teaching artists, program managers, and artistic and executive directors at organizations known for powerful arts education practice. The following dimensions and indicators reflect their collective wisdom.

The effect of topic selection on writing fluency among Japanese high school students

Written fluency and fluency building activities have been shown to promote linguistic choice and student voice development, increased ability to express ideas using complex grammatical structures and greater intrinsic motivation in English language learners. Since the 1970’s, process-oriented writing has been emphasized, yielding an amplified focus on meaning of student content over linguistic form precision. Current research of writing fluency must delve deeper into questions of student ownership of topic and the outcomes for low-risk activities that support fluency practice and encourage confidence building in students. The purpose of this replication study is to further explore previous findings on the effects of topic selection on writing fluency for high school English as foreign language learners. Building off of the work of Bonzo (2008), this study focused on a timed, non-graded writing activity administered to groups of Japanese engineering students in three departments: mechanical, electrical, and global engineering. The six subsequent samples for each participating student were analyzed using online text-analysis for total and unique word counts, providing data used to perform a t-test. Responses to bi-lingual student questionnaires, with prompts on self-perceived written English ability, self-efficacy and strategies for success while writing, provided additional insight into the facets of fluency. The results of these writing sessions offer both confirmation of and contrast to Bonzo’s original work, demonstrate increased student meaning making, and support the use of free writing activities in English language classrooms as a means by which student written fluency may be improved