Whose Faith? What Feeling? Whose Identity?

Faith, feeling and identity look to be essential ingredients in personal growth, but what do they mean 'on the ground'? Drawing on the results of a survey of teachers and school chaplains, and on her own experiences as a student, teacher and chaplain in Catholic education, Maureen Glackin explores some of the questions which face schools seeking to promote spiritual development and personal identity. Contrasting a model which emphasizes received doctrine and traditional authority with one which sees the spiritual journey as an open-ended, shared encounter, she argues that teachers must be spiritually aware and open to possibilities for their own spiritual growth if they are to be able to help their students develop in these ways.     

Cotton Island: Students’ Learning Motivation Using a Virtual World

As technology advances, it is important for teachers to seamlessly integrate technology into their innovative teaching techniques. Using virtual worlds is one alternative to traditional teaching methods that can provide rich learning experiences. The purpose of this article is twofold: (a) to present Cotton Island, an avatar‐based 3‐D virtual learning environment in Second Life and (b) to evaluate students’ learning motivation in using Cotton Island as a learning tool. Cotton Island was designed with unique navigational features to provide access to rich resources and educational activities that improve students’ knowledge of cotton. Based on the ARCS (attention, relevance, confidence, and satisfaction) model, this study assesses students’ learning motivation when using Cotton Island as a learning tool, and whether students had a positive learning outcome consistent with the instructors’ goal of knowledge improvement. The results show that students had a positive experience in terms of learning motivation and knowledge improvement.     

Care taker blogs in caregiver fabricated illness in a child: A window on the caretaker's thinking?

Three recently diagnosed cases of caregiver-fabricated illness in a child at Seattle Children's Hospital shed light on a new manifestation of their caretakers’ attention seeking. The patients’ mothers were actively blogging about their children's reputed illnesses. Although it is not uncommon for parents of chronically ill children to blog about their child's medical course, specific themes in these blogs of parents suspected of medically abusing their children were noted. In particular, gross distortions of the information parents had received from medical providers were presented online, describing an escalation of the severity of their children's illnesses. The mothers reported contacting palliative care teams and Wish organizations, independently from their medical providers’ recommendations. They sought on-line donations for their children's health needs. We believe these blogs provide additional direct evidence of the suspected caregivers’ fabrications. Although we have not performed formal content analysis, blogs might also provide insight into the caretakers’ motivations. Protective Services and/or police investigators could consider querying the internet for blogs related to children at risk for caregiver-fabricated illness in a child. These blogs, if viewed in parallel with the children's medical records, could assist medical diagnosis and legal documentation of medical fabrication and assist in protective planning for the affected children.     

THE GIFT OF YEARS GROWING OLDER GRACEFULLY By Joan Chittister

The study was designed to investigate marriage, work, and motherhood role perceptions of 93 adult women who were mostly graduate students at a large urban university. A secondary purpose was to examine the interaction of age‐role status variables and role perceptions. Three pictorial protective cues, each with a single role stimulus demand, were used to assess role perceptions. Stories told to cues were scored for presence of conflict, conflict theme, and outcome. Additionally, a single non‐role‐related cue was included. A high level of interrater agreement was obtained for the projective scoring system. Examination of scores for total sample by cue indicated that conflict was perceived most frequently in the marriage role cue, closely followed by the motherhood role cue. The work role was least likely to be perceived as conflictual Outcome scores, however, revealed that conflicts perceived in the motherhood role most frequently led to negative resolutions. Chi‐square analysis indicated that role perceptions were independent of age‐role status variables.     

Creating a Campus Based Community Emergency Response Team (CERT)

This article provides the reader with information regarding forming a community emergency response team (CERT) at a community college. College public safety departments are efficient entities in ordinary times. However, recent events at community colleges across the country have shown that there have been situations where their capabilities have been stretched. Additionally, in the early stages of a widespread disaster it is extremely probable that not only a college, but also the larger community in which it resides, will be on its own and will need to call upon the assistance of its citizens. Communities need to be trained in order to provide an effective supplementary response team to reduce the number of casualties. Community Emergency Response Teams (CERT) and Student Emergency Response Teams (SERT) have been forming across the country to prepare college communities to assist themselves in the event of a widespread emergency that depletes the resources of local first responders.     

Teaching Soft Skills Employers Need

This study identifies the soft skills community colleges teach in an office technology course and determines whether the skills taught are congruent with the soft skills employers require in today's entry-level office work. A qualitative content analysis of a community college office technology soft skills course was performed using 23 soft skills employers require for entry-level office work. Nine of the 16 colleges in the South Carolina Technical College System were teaching an office technology soft skills course in 2007–2008, and they provided course content for analysis. Data determined that the skills taught in the office technology soft skills course are by vast majority congruent with the soft skills employers require in today's entry-level office work.