Occupational Social Work Education for Employee Assistance Practice

ABSTRACT

This article explores the current state of Occupational Social Work/Employee Assistance (OSW/EA) education. It examines the relationship between social work curricula, field placement experiences, and entry-level employment opportunities in the OSW/EA field. It is based on an educational initiative called the Partnership for Employee Assistance Education. Drawing on the OSW/EA literature, surveys, and focus group materials, the article concludes that the nature of OSW/EA is being reshaped by information technology, shifting demographics, globalization, and evolving terms and conditions of employment. The authors discuss how the graduate-level OSW/EA curriculum and field placements are being transformed to reflect these trends. Concepts such as Organizational Social Work and organizational intelligence are discussed. Innovative educational strategies are recommended. Finally, the authors argue that the contemporary workplace offers potential opportunity for innovative social work practice and education.     

Meta-ethnography of autoethnographies: a worked example of the method using educational studies

ABSTRACT

Despite questions about autoethnography in the ethnography and education research family, autoethnography is published in selective peer-reviewed journals in education and in the social and health sciences. Even critics of autoethnographic studies note their ‘rising acceptance in the past 15 years’ [Delamont, S. 2009. “The Only Honest Thing: Autoethnography, Reflexivity and Small Crises in Fieldwork.” Ethnography and Education 4 (1): 51–63]. However, there has been less effort towards qualitative meta-synthesis to learn what other insights might be gained from collections of studies. With the advent of meta-autoethnography [Ellis, C. 2009. Revision: Autoethnographic Reflections of Life and Work. Walnut Creek, CA: Left Coast Press], each author can find a way to synthesise her/his own autoethnographic works, however, synthesising autoethnographies of different authors has received no attention. This article examines a critical, systematic approach to the meta-ethnography of autoethnographies and offers a worked example of the method using educational studies.     

Organizing, Teaching, and Assessing for Student Success in Introductory College Physics

As part of a doctoral dissertation, Ben （2010） completed a study that extends to 462 pages. After a careful examination of this study and others that are in print, there seems to be a direct relationship between the decline in physics enrollment at the postsecondary level and the increase in the number of studies that have been carried out to determine why have we been off the mark in identifying the real problems that are contributing to the declining enrollment and the decreased student success in physics courses？ One problem is introductory physics books are generally written using a deductive approach, and because the teachers follow the organization of these books, they teach in a deductive, boring, and confusing way, and then, blame the students for being unprepared when they do not succeed. This approach distances the teachers--and physics--from the experience, knowledge, and initial interest of many beginning students. Another problem has been the absence of any alternative curriculum to the deductive one. In this paper, we describe a fully-developed alternative curriculum, really a detailed course design for Introductory College Physics I and II, each with its own text presented in the format of a three-ring binder, one for students and one for teachers which closely parallel one another. The course content is constructed to be both teacher and student friendly, so that a teacher can teach physics in an inductive, exciting, and clear manner. In addition, we describe and provide examples of the pedagogical and classroom management techniques that have proven extremely successful.     

Using LOGO with Infant School Children

Abstract The recent introduction of micro‐computers into schools is opening up many new avenues for developmental psychologists interested in studying how children learn. Of particular interest at present are approaches in which children program computers themselves, using languages such as LOGO and PROLOG. This paper describes a study in which a simplified version of LOGO was introduced to a group of six‐year‐olds in a severely deprived area of Edinburgh. The children used a special touch‐sensitive keyboard (Concept Keyboard) to control the movements of a floor‐crawling robot called a Turtle. The sessions with the Turtle were marked by high levels of concentration, collaborative problem‐solving and the use of mathematical language. Pre‐ and post‐tests on the British Ability Scales revealed statistically significant gains on the sub‐scales concerned with number and shape: these gains, however, were found only in the boys.     

The Four Year Reliability of a Test of Learning Problems

Learning disabled, emotionally disturbed, and unclassified male students (N = 123) originally tested with the Elizur Test of Psycho-Organicity (ETPO) when they were 6 to 11 years of age by Brooks (1) and Jackson (7), were followed-up and reassessed four years later. The test-retest reliability of the total ETPO score was .70, and subtest reliabilities ranged from .47 to .62. The pattern of subtest intercorrelations also remained stable over the four year interval. It was concluded that the ETPO is sufficiently stable for use with school-aged boys, though individual subtest scores should be used with caution.     

Individual differences in children's ability to profit from picture adjunct aids

A paired-associate memory task with pictures and words as items was used to categorize fourth graders into four learner types: HH, high picture-high word; HL, high picture-low word; LH, low picture-high word; LL, low picture-low word. Some children in each classification read prose passages with picture adjunct aids; other children read the passages without adjunct aids. Although free recall for the prose passage yielded inconclusive data, a constructed response test for facts in the prose passages revealed significant Aptitude × Treatment interactions, such that poor paired-associate learners (i.e., LLs) profited more than did good paired-associate learners (i.e., HHs) from picture aids on the prose task. The children's standardized reading scores were positively related to memory performance, but good and poor readers did not differ in their ability to profit from picture aids. It was suggested that less-strategic learners, such as those who perform poorly on paired-associate tasks, are more likely to be helped by externally provided mediational aids, while more-strategic learners are more likely to be helped by instructions to generate their own mediational aids.     

Academic medical libraries' policies and procedures for notifying library users of retracted scientific publications

Academic medical libraries have a responsibility to inform library users regarding retracted publications. Many have created policies and procedures that identify flawed journal articles. A questionnaire was sent to the 129 academic medical libraries in the United States and Canada to find out how many had policies and procedures for identifying retracted publications. Of the returned questionnaires, 59% had no policy and no practice for calling the attention of the library user to retracted publications. Forty-one percent of the libraries called attention to retractions with or without a formal policy for doing so. Several responding libraries included their policy statement with the survey. The increasing number of academic medical libraries that realize the importance of having policies and practices in place highlights the necessity for this procedure.     

University teacher approaches to design and teaching and concepts of learning technologies

This study investigates the experience of teaching of 19 teachers who are teaching on university courses involving face-to-face and on-line learning. The teachers are asked about how they think about learning technologies and how they approach the design and teaching of their courses across these two contexts. Results show that there are qualitatively different ways of thinking about learning technologies that relate logically and positively to qualitatively different ways of designing and teaching using learning technologies. The results have implications for teachers and those interested in maximising the likelihood of learning for university students when teachers teach with learning technologies.     

Providing Dental Current Awareness to Faculty and Residents

Providing a current awareness service to patrons has long been a concern of many health sciences librarians. Dental librarians have a unique challenge in providing current awareness to patrons as the literature has not always been available in a timely manner through traditional systems. This article will discuss the evolution of current awareness systems, the issues facing dental librarians with regard to providing dental current awareness, and how the Wilson Dental Library addressed those issues.