Reading as a lifeline among aging readers: Findings from a qualitative interview study with older adults

Older adults who identify as readers and choose to read for pleasure in their everyday lives are understudied despite the persistence and pervasiveness of this kind of reading. The phenomenology of reading and critical age studies inform this pilot project that uses in-depth interviews conducted with five readers who are between the ages of 75–90?years and who live in Canada. Data analysis followed principles of close reading and thematic analysis. Findings privilege the voices of the older readers and show how their experiences of reading can be analyzed using the metaphor of reading as a lifeline that, in turn, bridges with notions of resilience and embodied information practices. Reading for pleasure supports resilience and a reflective stance on life among older adults. The findings call for other researchers to engage more readily with older adults and will be of use to librarians and others who provide services, programs, and resources to older adult readers.     

Rediscovering an American Legacy of Service through a Free Curriculum

Abstract

This case study highlights a free curriculum created to commemorate the World War I centennial and to celebrate the future of volunteerism and global citizenship education by encouraging students to engage in local, regional, and international service. The lesson plans are aligned with Common Core and UNESCO Global Learning standards, and use primary sources to highlight the little-known efforts of Americans who volunteered in nonmilitary roles before and after the period of American neutrality. The curriculum was a result, in part, of newly accessible collections from the Archives of the American Field Service and AFS Intercultural Programs and related outreach efforts.     

Possibilities for MOOCs in Corporate Training and Development

The term MOOC, an acronym for massive open online course, has been nearly ubiquitous in recent discussions about online education and distance learning. Some articles have questioned the MOOC's tentative role as “the future of education,” while others have framed it as a disrupter of traditional higher education. Research in earlier years trended toward the ways in which MOOCs may be changing the landscape of higher education. However, in the past two years, greater consideration has been focused on how MOOCs may play a role in the corporate world. The year 2012 may have been deemed “The Year of the MOOC,” but many saw 2014 as “The Year of the Corporate MOOC.” Despite MOOCs reaching their prominence as disrupters of traditional higher education, MOOC providers are now aggressively pursuing opportunities in the corporate sector. This presents a great opportunity for corporations to drive this relatively new learning platform and to tailor it to meet their organizational needs. The potential uses for MOOCs in the corporate world are vast. MOOCs can expand corporate training options, offer new recruiting techniques, and provide innovative marketing and branding channels. This article identifies the features of MOOCs, briefly reviews the history of the MOOC movement from academic MOOCs to corporate MOOCs, and discusses the possibilities for extending the MOOC format to a corporate training and employee development environment.     

The relations among young children's peer-reported trustworthiness, inhibitory control, and preschool adjustment

Sixty-five (38 male and 27 female) preschool children (mean age = 5 years 1 month) completed measures of peers’ trustworthiness (promise keeping and secret keeping). Teachers rated the preschool children's inhibitory control, trustworthiness, and preschool adjustment. Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) yielded support for the hypothesized model. The expected positive paths were found from (1) gender to preschool adjustment and inhibitory control, (2) age to peer-reported trustworthiness, (3) peer-reported trustworthiness to preschool adjustment, (4) inhibitory control to peer-reported trustworthiness, and (5) inhibitory control to preschool adjustment. The findings confirmed the hypothesized development of trustworthiness with age and girls’ advantage over boys in inhibitory control and preschool adjustment. The findings supported the hypotheses that trustworthiness is associated with preschool adjustment and mediates, in part, the relation between inhibitory control and preschool adjustment.     

Shortcut ability in hamsters (Mesocricetus auratus): The role of environmental and kinesthetic information

Shortcut ability in hamsters was tested in a complex wheel-shaped maze, in which kinesthetic information could be associated with environmental (proximal and/or distal) cues. The hamsters, previously trained to reach a hidden goal by a circumferential route, were led to the center of the maze to test their ability to take a directional shortcut to that same goal. In Experiment 1, their ability to accurately take a straight-line shortcut to the goal (from among eight possible paths) when distal cues were available was demonstrated. In Experiment 2, environmental information was neutralized in some conditions in order to enhance the relevance of kinesthetic information. When circumferential training runs were not too complex, the hamsters could use kinesthetic information—“path integration” processes—integrated during their previous training to infer the direction of the hidden goal.     

Group Time Experiences: Belonging,Being and Becoming Through Active Participation Within Early Childhood Communities

The National Quality Standards (NQS) as part of the Australian National Quality Framework were developed in 2011 and included several references to the organisation of small and large groups within early childhood settings (ACECQA 2013). The NQS act in tandem with the Early Years Learning Framework (EYLF) (DEEWR 2009) and are the basis by which early childhood centres are assessed for accreditation in Australia. This paper draws upon current research with early childhood educators as they struggle to understand the new concept of ‘intentional teachers’ within this new regime. There also appears to have been a dramatic shift in the understanding about how large and small groups operate within centres. As the accreditation process unfolds, some early childhood centres have been advised to abandon large or whole group work. At the core of the EYLF are the notions of ‘being, belonging, becoming’, locating young children as part of a community of learners within a democratic society. It therefore appears that tensions and contradictions are emerging between the fundamental principles of the EYLF as they are juxtaposed against the requirement of the NQS. Critical Pedagogy of Place provides a theoretical framework in which to interrogate the ways some early childhood educators interpret intentional teaching both in terms of the organisation of spaces in early childhood centres and the organisation of the children as they inhabit those spaces (Gruenewald 2008). This paper argues that the possible abandonment of large group experiences runs the risk of disconnecting children from their communities and the relationships they form as social participants. Furthermore, it is argued that whole group experiences are crucial elements that facilitate a child’s identity and active citizenry.     

The Development of a Curriculum Toolkit with American Indian and Alaska Native Communities

This article explains the creation of the Growing and Learning with Young Native Children curriculum toolkit. The curriculum toolkit was designed to give American Indian and Alaska Native early childhood educators who work in a variety of settings the framework for developing a research-based, developmentally appropriate, tribally specific curriculum to use with Native children aged 0–3. The curriculum toolkit should assist Native people in preserving and maintaining their unique culture and language. Challenges specific to the implementation of an early childhood program in Indian Country have been explained. A brief historical overview of Indian education has been included. The contents of this article were developed under Grant #P116Z05-0056 from the US Department of Education. However, the contents do not necessarily represent the policy of the US Department of Education and the reader should not assume endorsement by the Federal Government.     

On-line professionals

Psychotherapy and counselling services are now available on-line, and expanding rapidly. Yet there appears almost no ethical analysis of this on-line mode of delivery of such professional services. In this paper I present such an analysis by considering the limitations on-line contact imposes on the nature of the professional–client relationship. The analysis proceeds via the contrast between the face-to-face case and the on-line case. At the core of the problem must be the recognition that on-line interaction imposes a physical barrier largely permitting only those disclosures of self we choose to make available, and greatly restricting the range of involuntary features and behaviours. I show why this is problematic, first, for the development of a close professional–client relationship, with particular emphasis on such failures as diagnosis and monitoring of the patient. Second I describe the importance of the development of professional character, and of how the on-line environment fails to provide a context for such character traits to emerge and develop.     

Tipping the Balance from Expert to Facilitator: Examining Myths about Being a Teacher Educator

This self-study addresses two questions: (1) how did self-study aid the teacher educator in interrogating her beliefs about and mediate her projection of teacher-as-facilitator versus teacher-as-expert? and (2) in what ways did prospective elementary teachers in an undergraduate, interdisciplinary science course exert control over their learning as a result of the teacher educator's self-interrogation of practices? In her teaching role with prospective teachers, Nicole explored a major myth about teaching concerning the image of the professor as the primary expert in the classroom. Critical events analysis revealed instances where she exerted power as an expert or assumed the role of facilitator. Instead of clearly marked instances where she took actions to exert her various roles in the classroom, she found that classroom events could not be categorized neatly. There were cases where she acted as an expert and students felt free to make their own decisions about their learning. When she was uncertain or attempted to relinquish control, students often responded by not taking control of their learning.