THE DISSEMINATION OF A UNIVERSITY FIELD PLACEMENT PROGRAM: IMPACT ON RECRUITMENT,SATISFACTION AND EFFECTIVENESS

Community college field placements often reflect a “vocational education” approach to outside‐the‐classroom learning, attempting to train students in specific skills and prerequisites for predetermined job slots. In the human services area, however, this may not be the most advantageous approach to producing innovative workers who will generate creative solutions to persistent and serious social problems. This study examined the impact of utilizing one popular university approach to field learning‐experiential learning coupled with social change agentry—with community college students. A criterion‐group field experiment was conducted, looking at paper‐and‐pencil measures, interviews, and archival data. It was found that the community college students were as willing to participate, were equally satisfied with the experience, and were as effective with their assigned cases as were the university students in this rigorous and demanding field placement. Community college administrators who are seeking to broaden their human service field settings should also consider successful university models of experiential learning as alternatives.     

SERVING AND LEARNING ATA UNIVERSITY LABORATORY SCHOOL: STUDENTS FROM BIRTH THOUGH ADULTHOOD BENEFIT WHEN SERVICE LEARNING IS INTEGRATED INTO THE PRESERVICE CURRICULUM

Service‐Learning (S‐L) pedagogy is attracting increased attention in teacher education. This article describes the implementation of S‐L in the preservice early childhood curriculum, which placed students in a birth‐5 years setting. It identifies a continuum of learning to care, which begins in infancy, as caring capacities emerge, through to adulthood, when preservice teachers learn from experienced mentors how caring characterizes their interactions with learners of all ages. Students’ journals indicate they believe S‐L experiences contribute to their personal, academic and professional development. Carefully implemented S‐L experiences validate students’ caring interactions, give them first‐hand experiences with young children during which they can apply theoretical constructs, provide experiences which help them clarify their own career goals, and make them feel better prepared to manage instructional and classroom management dimensions of working with young children.     

Greetings from the Editor

The eight early childhood educators who participated in this study were admitted into a 60-credit statewide distance-delivered Associate of Applied Science (AAS) degree program at the University of Alaska. All eight educators were women of Alaska Native ancestry who lived and worked in remote and rural Native communities. Seven of these teachers were employed by Head Start programs and one taught preschool for a rural school district. A major goal of the statewide distance-delivered AAS program is that participants will become skilled observers of children and learn to use observation to make decisions that foster developmentally appropriate and culturally responsive services. All the course work in our AAS degree program involves actively doing and using observations of children. This study is based on a principle that intrinsic changes can occur in program management, curriculum development, and teacher practice when teachers learn how to use observation of children rather than external evaluation to make decisions about their programs.     

The problematic relationship between child development theory and teacher preparation

Abstract

This article addresses questions raised in the past decade regarding the role of child development knowledge for teaching and teacher preparation. Missing from the dialogue on this issue have been the voices of the students enrolled in teacher preparation programs. Accordingly, 77 preservice teachers were surveyed at the conclusion of a child development theory course. The results were examined for themes regarding how preservice teachers come to understand the changing nature of child development, the strengths and limitations of generalized theories of development, and the applicability of child development theory to their future practice.     

PREPARING PERSONNEL FOR INTEGRATION: NEEDS AND STRENGTHS OF EARLY INTERVENTION AND EARLY CHILDHOOD EDUCATION PROFESSIONALS

Abstract

One early childhood teacher preparation program includes “Aesthetics As Learning,” a course which emphasizes that aesthetics is another way of knowing—another domain of development. The course has a reading, writing, discussion and experiential component—and all are integrated, but the experiential component (weekly arts activities) is showcased in this article.

One significant and innovative component of the experiential approach is that the students do not react to the use of the arts from a child's perspective but respond as an adult. This provides for an authentic experience with the arts. The college classroom uses a constructivist approach in which students construct their own meaning from their experiences and a feminist pedagogical approach that develops a classroom community of learners. © 2001 Elsevier Science Inc. All rights reserved.     

Learning,Testing, and the Evaluation of Learning Environments in Medicine: Global Performance Assessment in Medical Education

Changes in the profession of medicine are creating the demand for a substantive reexamination of current practices in medical education. Many of the major issues in addressing this challenge are structural and political rather than scientific; here we address one critical scientific issue that will be important to (though not by itself adequate for) guiding such changes. The factor we address is the development of a global performance assessment: a standardized mechanism to assess individual skills and abilities that can be used to evaluate alternative educational interventions. We discuss the issues involved in developing such a system, and describe a set of principles for defining desired outcomes and developing assessment tools, including (a) wide clinical scope, (b) direct relationship to actual clinical performance, (c) reliability and repeatability, and (d) non-longitudinal measurement. We discuss the role of simulation, reflective practice, and portfolios of work in developing such a system, and argue that whatever form such metrics take, a system of global performance assessment will develop from close collaboration between clinicians and educators with innovative ways of thinking about performance and expertise.     

eHealth literacy and the motivators for HPV prevention among young adults in Kenya

ABSTRACT

The human papillomavirus (HPV) is one of the most common but preventable sexually transmitted infections that affect males and females but knowledge about it and vaccine uptake remain low. As organizations adopt eHealth communication strategies to communicate about HPV, this study examines the association between eHealth literacy (and related elements) and the motivators for HPV prevention that are based on the protection motivation theory. A survey was conducted among 472 young adults in Kenya and results show moderate eHealth literacy (M = 3.21, SD = 1.03) and online information seeking (M = 3.57, SD = 1.08) but low HPV knowledge and risk perception. eHealth literacy was correlated with HPV knowledge, perceived risk, self-efficacy, and response efficacy whereas online health information seeking were correlated with perceived seriousness of HPV infection. This study suggests examining the discrepancy between online information seeking and knowledge and the disparities in eHealth literacy among young adults in HPV communication.     

Public health practitioners' information access and use patterns in the Maryland (USA) public health departments of Anne Arundel and Wicomico Counties

PURPOSE: To increase understanding of the information needs and use of public health practitioners. SETTING: From June 2005 to May 2006, the library offered a course in public health information resources to eighteen practitioners in two counties, access to the library's licensed electronic resources through a tailored web portal, and consulting services. EVALUATION METHOD: We combined usage statistics from the web portal, self-report and observational data collected during training and shadowing of participants. CONCLUSIONS: The data from this project indicate that usage of licensed information resources and services is infrequent but broad ranging. A few users register at the high end of the usage range, but one use of one high quality article can have a significant impact on policy decisions. Time and competing responsibilities often constrain the retrieval and use of resources for evidence-based decision making and an informationist or power-user model may be more appropriate than training all practitioners to integrate searching into their workflow. This study indicates (i) that evidence-based public health practice requires seamless and broadly based information access; and (ii) that the currently existing patchwork does not support the level of use or take into account the time constraints of information needs for public health practice.