Health Care Professions: Career Information on the Internet for Students

The United States is currently experiencing a nursing shortage, and it is expected to worsen in the next ten years. Physician shortages are also projected. Some allied health professions are also experiencing personnel shortages. Health sciences libraries can be of service in addressing the shortages by making information available on health care careers. Internet sites and resources on health care career decisions are discussed in this article.     

Learning to Read in the Digital Age

ABSTRACT—The digital age offers transformative opportunities for individualization of learning. First, modern imaging technologies have changed our understanding of learning and the sources and ranges of its diversity. Second, digital technologies make it possible to design learning environments that are responsive to individual differences. We draw on CAST's research and development on universal design for learning to suggest the potential of digital reading environments that are designed to support learning and engagement by addressing the diversity in learners' representation, strategic and affective networks. Optimal customization depends on continued advances in the digital tools of the neurosciences and the design and enactment of digital learning environments.     

Creating New Identities in Design Education

An international education opportunity has been created for design students at West Virginia University. This experience is unique because it takes an interdisciplinary approach to design that exposes students to the idea of a larger design methodology common to design professions. Students take core courses with students from a variety of design fields, including interior design, fashion design, fashion merchandising, landscape architecture, art, and graphic design. Through this interaction, students gain an understanding of the interrelationships among design fields, learn to appreciate new perspectives, and begin to appreciate the place of their field as part of the design community as a whole.     

Improving Opportunities for Bridging Social Capital: The Story of a Full-Service Community School Initiative at an Alternative High School

Abstract

This article describes the collective efforts educators and multiple community partners are taking to transform one alternative urban high school into a full-service community school. The article presents preliminary findings on the opportunities for bridging social capital that the full-service initiative has created and the impacts such opportunities have for students in urban alternative settings with multiple risk factors stacked against them.     

Theory and application of preproduction testing

Summary and Conclusion A showing, to a small audience, before production has begun, may be useful to give a film maker advance information about the reactions of an audience to his film. Such tests are most useful when used early in the process of production, but not before the material available for showing to the test audience bears a systematic resemblance to the finished film. In most cases, the story board is the earliest stage at which a film may be tested, although exceptions are found to this rule. Testing cannot be utilized unless the producer's intent and the target audience are specified, and is most apt to be profitable when the content is very complex or when the production unit has had no experience with a topic or technique. Useful information may be obtained by any alert producer, but if the target audience is heterogeneous or has not been clearly specified, or if precise and careful predictions are needed, the services of poll and survey specialists or a phsychological test constructor should be sought. The production of a motion picture, as anyone who has attempted it knows, involves a series of decisions. Preproduction testing may be viewed as a sort of “decision insurance” which, although it does not guarantee the desired outcomes, increases the probability of their occurrence. In the preceding article, Hoban pointed out the need for prerelease evaluation of educational communications. This paper presents a theory and a technique for the application of such evaluation. Nicholas Rose is chief clinical psychologist, Wadsworth Hospital, Veterans' Administration Center, Los Angeles. He was formerly research director at the Department of Cinema, University of Southern California. Charles Van Horn is research associate, Department of Cinema, University of Southern California.     

Visual and auditory temporal processing, cross-modal transfer, and reading

The present study reexamined the relevance of auditory and visual cross-modal matching to reading ability, an issue first addressed in a seminal study by Birch and Belmont (1964). By presenting all patterns to be matched as temporal sequences of tones and lights, including intramodal as well as cross-modal conditions, and covarying memory, three problems with the Birch and Belmont design were corrected. Results showed that poor readers had difficulty in perceiving temporal patterns generally: They did worse than good readers not only on cross-modal conditions but also on intramodal ones. These results were replicated in two tasks. Nonetheless, hierarchical regressions provided some indication that cross-modal abilities themselves are relevant to reading. For one of the two tasks, cross-modal performance contributed to the prediction of reading ability over and above intramodal performance. Poor readers also showed slower response times--a factor that contributed marginally to the prediction of reading independent of temporal processing.     

Exploring the dimensionality of self-perceived performance assessment literacy (PAL)

Educational Assessment, Evaluation and Accountability - Performance assessments attempt to provide a practical and authentic demonstration of students’ learning. Despite growing investments...