An analysis of instructional design and technology departments

In this paper we explore the academic productivity of universities in the field of Instructional Design and Technology according to three types of publically available data: (1) publication in 20 leading journals, (2) representation in the Handbook of Educational Communications Technology, and (3) reception of professional organization awards. We then identified five of these programs and analyzed the attributes of these departments to better understand the trends in how they are preparing the instructional technologists of tomorrow. While previous studies have compared leading instructional design and technology (IDT) programs by looking at publication in a single journal, we believe our approach provides a well-rounded perspective. In addition, we hope this study helps IDT departments learn from each other by discussing trends in department curricula.     

Hands-on engagement online: using a randomised control trial to estimate the impact of an at-home lab kit on student attitudes and achievement in a MOOC

ABSTRACT

A shortcoming of Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) is the lack of substantive integration of hands-on activities into online classrooms. We conducted a randomised control trial (RCT) in a MOOC where we sent the treatment group at-home lab kits with which they could perform experiments in their own homes. In our intervention research, we found that, at the end of the course, students in the treatment group had significantly higher exam scores and levels of self-efficacy to perform in the topic area than their control group counterparts. Students’ growth in self-concept was not significantly different. Findings have implications for distance courses in engineering and other science, technology, engineering, and math areas that traditionally have laboratory components. Furthermore, our findings illustrate the potential amplifying effect of this learning environment configuration for engineering instructors. Finally, this study illustrates how the dispersed nature of MOOCs facilitates RCTs and a recursive process linking theory and practice.     

The Spatialization of Racial Inequity and Educational Opportunity:Rethinking the Rural/Urban Divide

This analysis recounts and examines the history of American public education, focusing on the experiences of poor urban and rural students of color. Using the lens of critical race theory, it suggests that educational inequity is not just raced and classed but also spatialized—that is, embedded in and maintained through geography. The mechanisms of this spatialization similarly disadvantage rural and urban schools serving poor children of color, and educational reforms have failed to dismantle the relationship between inequity and geography. Offering a clearer understanding of today's inequities, this analysis shows that these schools should be seen less as opposites than as allies with a shared interest in expanding educational opportunity across geographies.     

Implementing a Physical Activity Curriculum into the School Day: Helping Early Childhood Teachers Meet the Challenge

In Fall 2006, North Carolina kindergarten teachers were charged with the task of meeting the NASPE guidelines for providing daily physical activity to their kindergarten students. In turn, the teachers researched resources and consulted experts to design and develop a developmentally appropriate physical activity and physical play environment for their students. The purpose of this article is to disseminate useful information one group of kindergarten teachers believed would help other teachers in similar situations. The article discusses the planning process, suggestions for activities and necessary equipment for program implementation, and vignettes regarding the experiences the teachers and students have had during the physical activity and physical play program’s inaugural year.

GENI的设计原则(一)分布式需求定义GENI的重心

2006年8月,GEN(I网络创新的全球化环境)公布其项目的设计原则。来自普林斯顿大学、麻省理工大学、华盛顿大学等学校的十二位专家编写了这份报告。该报告阐述了GENI的研究范围、用户的需求、需求的内在压力以及工程设计的原则。报告指出了GENI的价值主张,广泛的部署、多样化可扩展的网络技术集合、对真实用户流量的支持仍是GENI关注的原则和方向。本刊将分两期连载这一报告,从“分布式需求定义GENI的重心”、“解决分布式需求的内在冲突”等两部分,将这一报告与大家共享。     

Pedagogy in Counselor Education: 2011–2015 Update

This research update includes a quantitative content analysis of 133 peer‐reviewed articles regarding teaching and learning published in 21 journals of the American Counseling Association and its divisions between January 2011 and December 2015. The authors discuss the focus areas, pedagogical foundations, and methodologies of the articles in comparison with the findings of the original 2001–2010 study.     

Teachers' knowledge, attitudes, and beliefs about child abuse and its prevention.

In considering the great responsibility placed upon teachers to involve themselves in child abuse prevention, education, and detection, the National Committee for Prevention of Child Abuse (NCPCA) conducted a nationwide survey of teachers from 40 school districts in 29 randomly selected counties. The survey explores teachers knowledge, attitudes, and beliefs about child abuse and its prevention. Five hundred and sixty-eight teachers responded, revealing that while the majority of teachers confront child abuse among their students, they are provided insufficient education on how to address it. Other findings are reported with respect to teachers' reporting behavior, potential barriers to reporting, child assault prevention programs, and corporal punishment in schools.     

Chastity for democracy: Surplus repression and the rhetoric of sex education

Moving from opposition to participation, the Adolescent Family Life Act (1981) and the development of abstinence education marks the conservative movement's pivot to a rhetorical strategy of tolerance that enabled it to coopt the public culture of sex discourse. Working from Herbert Marcuse's theory of “surplus repression,” I argue that the New Right seized the liberationist argument for open public discourse about sexuality to sublimate libidinal desires into a national project of familial (re)productivity. The AFLA is significant in the rhetorical history of sex education because it demarcates the transition to a productive form of biopolitics that sought to manage sexuality by instrumentalizing rather than censuring bodily desire. Conservative sex talk illustrates how Eros—transgressive, creative, and erotic desires—is channeled into the discursive production of hyper-functional subjects invested in their own subjugation.     

It Follows: precarity,thanatopolitics, and the ambient horror film

In the 2014 horror film It Follows, a teenage woman is terrorized by a fatal curse that passes from victim-to-victim via sexual intercourse. The subject of the curse is relentlessly pursued by vacant-minded assassins that take the form of friends, loved ones, and strangers. The film is set near the infamous dividing-line of Detroit’s 8 Mile Road, between what remains of the suburban working-class and the sacrifice zone of post-industrial urban triage. I argue that It Follows confronts audiences with the spectral manifestation of precarity: the deliberate and unequal redistribution of human fragility to populations who are the most socially and economically vulnerable. First, the generic shift from a specific monster to an anonymous and relentless force redeploys horror convention to draw attention to the conditions that induce horror within the prevailing socioeconomic order. Second, the film renders such precarity visible by contrasting the mise-en-scene of the suburban enclave with zones of postindustrial ruin; the relative comfort of the former predicated on the vulnerability of the latter. The film maps a landscape of postindustrial ruin, enacting a visual and narrative critique of thanatopolitics, the biopolitical organization of death under late capitalism.     

Sharing Our Library Facility: Prescott Valley Arizona Public Library

The present Prescott Valley Public Library facility was created in 2009 as a space that was meant to be shared. The building was designed to be aesthetically unique and people friendly. Key elements include an auditorium for Town Council, a multifunctional meeting room with a kitchen and multimedia projection capabilities, a roof top terrace, outside patios, PC lab, Digital Media Lab, and a variety of smaller gathering spaces. Additionally, we share our facility with a satellite campus of Northern Arizona University, which affords frequent opportunities to collaborate in novel ways to connect with our community. Sharing is a value we learn early in life and it is the hallmark of professional librarianship. It is challenging, sometimes frustrating work. But the rewards far outweigh the risks. Those rewards extend to every citizen in our shared, county network—Yavapai Library Network. Throughout this article, we present a variety of practical aspects related to our experience, which may guide and inspire others to share their library space within their community.