Learning-Centered Assessment: Important New Book

Learner-Centered Assessment on College Campuses by Huba and Freed integrates current thinking and research regarding the learning of undergraduate students with principles of best practice in assessment and teaching. The book helps us see the connection among three powerful trends in higher education today: the focus on learning and learners, the emphasis on the assessment of learning, and the need to continually improve what those in higher education do. Grounded in principles of constructivist learning theory and continuous improvement, the book provides opportunities to make connections with what we already know about assessment, integrate new information with current knowledge, and try new approaches to enhance the learning of students.

The authors emphasize the shift from a teacher-centered paradigm of instruction to a learner-centered paradigm. The book also offers practical approaches to help formulate intended learning outcomes, gather feedback from students to guide instruction, and develop scoring criteria for guiding and evaluating student work. Reading the book will help us learn how to assess students' ability to think critically, address enduring and emerging issues and problems in their disciplines, and use portfolios to promote and evaluate student learning. Numerous questions to guide implementation, as well as examples from a variety of disciplines and institutions are provided. This is a must for administrators and/or those in faculty development. It is available now in the Goodwin Library.

Get Moving and Think Better

Exercise is strongly associated with improving cognition. As the majority of mortality benefit of exercise is at the highest level of cognition, and declines as cognition declines, the net effect of exercise should be to improve cognition at the population level, even with more people living longer. This information comes from "Changes in Cognition and Mortality in Relation to Exercise in Late Life: A Population Based Study."
Source: PLoS ONE September 3rd, 2008

CareLINK Web Based Training Directions

Nursing 100 students, save yourself some frustration. Directions on accessing the CareLINK Web Based Training from the library computers are available at the reference desk and on the bulletin board in my office.

Dropout and Completion Rates in the U.S. Report

This report builds upon a series of National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) reports on high school dropout and completion rates that began in 1988. It presents estimates of rates for 2006 and provides data about trends in dropout and completion rates over the last three decades (1972-2006), including characteristics of dropouts and completers in these years. Report highlights include: The averaged freshman graduation rate (AFGR), which provides an estimate of the percentage of public high school students who graduate with a regular diploma 4 years after starting 9th grade, was 74.7 percent for the class of 2005. Students living in low-income families were approximately four times more likely to drop out of high school between 2005 and 2006 than were students living in high-income families. In October 2006, approximately 3.5 million civilian noninstitutionalized 16- through 24-year-olds were not enrolled in high school and had not earned a high school diploma or alternative credential.
Source: National Center for Education Statistics

How Should We Teach the 'Digital Natives'?

Last month, Thomas H. Benton in the Chronicle of Higher Education reviewed a collection of recent books "arguing that Americans, particularly those now entering college, have been rendered "stupid" by a convergence of factors including traditional anti-intellectualism, consumer culture, the entertainment industry, political correctness, religious fundamentalism, and post-modern relativism, just to name some of the usual suspects." This week Benton's Part 2 on Stupidity is available in the Chronicle. He is an English professor who grades at least 1,000 essays a year. His focus is on those skills, not on math or science.
Source: Chronicle of Higher Education Section C September 5, 2008

What the Survey Didn't Say...

I am an avid listener to BBC World News and a reader of BBC News magazine. The magazine ran a series recently on understanding surveys, polls, studies and statistics. Since they are everywhere (especially during an election year), wouldn't it be good to have the mental agility to separate the wheat from the chaff? In the first of a weekly series, author Michael Blastland gives some hints at getting to grips with surveys. Here is installment one.
Source: BBC World News

McCain & Obama on Healthcare Reform

The New England Journal of Medicine published an article in August comparing the McCain and Obama plans for U.S. healthcare reform. This is valuable information from a trusted source for health science and nursing students--and all of the rest of us.

Here is the first paragraph of that article. "In the face of escalating costs, uneven quality of care, and the growth of the uninsured population, there is broad agreement that the U.S. health care system requires reform. However, Democrats and Republicans remain sharply divided over how to reform it, as evidenced by the health care plans offered by the parties' presidential candidates. The ambitious reform agendas of Senators John McCain (R-AZ) and Barack Obama (D-IL) would take the U.S. health care system in very different directions."

Read the entire article by Jonathan Oberlander, Ph.D.
"The Partisan Divide: The McCain and Obama Plans for U.S. Healthcare Reform."

WildFilmHistory

WildFilmHistory is a unique multi-media guide to the history and heritage of wildlife filmmaking. As well as bringing together the most important wildlife films, the project is collecting ‘behind the scenes’ photographs, and recording oral histories with industry pioneers. This historically valuable material has been donated by the most famous names in Natural History broadcasting, as well as from a whole host of specialist and private collections. The resulting collection is freely available at www.wildfilmhistory.org. as an interactive multi-media resource, and is being stored at high resolution in the WildFilmHistory media vault for the benefit of future generations.

Consumer Health Websites

The Medical Library Association has a "top ten" list of the most useful consumer health websites. Each week we are featuring one of these. This week it is cancer.gov.

Cancer.gov is the official website for The National Cancer Institute (NCI), a component of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), one of eight agencies that compose the Public Health Service (PHS) in the Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS). The NCI, established under the National Cancer Act of 1937, is the Federal Government's principal agency for cancer research and training. NCI coordinates the National Cancer Program, which conducts and supports research, training, health information dissemination, and other programs with respect to the cause, diagnosis, prevention, and treatment of cancer, rehabilitation from cancer, and the continuing care of cancer patients and the families of cancer patients.

Source: Cancer.gov (http://www.cancer.gov/)

Science Videos Online

http://sciencehack.com/

ScienceHack is a unique video search engine for science videos. Every video is screened and approved based on accuracy and quality by scientists. The fields of science are featured on the main page. Search for science experiments, science projects, science movies and science news. The project aims to index every science video on the Internet. Popular categories to search include physics, checmistry, space, psychology, robotics, biology, mathematics, computer science, nature, green energy, and civil engineering. The latest videos include:
quantum mechanics
wind turbines make bat lungs explode,
solve the cube in less than 100 moves
slime mold and mushrooms
from cell to embryo

Welcome New Students

All new students are invited (enthusiastically encouraged even) to come to the Library. Drop by anytime to meet the library staff and learn about how you can take advantage of the library's great resources. You will be studying in our new library overlooking the Connecticut river in only a few months. We are delighted that you have chosen goodwin College.

Patient Care for Diverse Populations

A new grant from The Commonwealth Fund will be used by The Joint Commission to revise and develop accreditation standards for culturally competent patient-centered care in hospitals across America. Access a free copy online of the latest research report, "One Size Does Not Fit All: Meeting the Needs of Diverse Populations." (60 pages)

This standards development initiative builds upon The Joint Commission’s ongoing Hospitals, Language, and Culture: A Snapshot of the Nation study that examines how hospitals in the United States respond to the diverse cultural and language needs of their patients. The Institute of Medicine’s “Crossing the Quality Chasm” report identified patient-centered and equitable care as important elements of quality. However, The Joint Commission study found that practices used to promote effective communication and cultural competence – critical elements of patient-centered and equitable care - vary widely from hospital to hospital.

Source: Nursing & Allied Health Resources Section of the Medical Library Association

New Periodical: Trusteeship

Issues of Trusteeship, the publication of the Association of Governing Boards of Universities and Colleges (AGB), are now available in the library. Trusteeship reports trends, issues, and practices in higher education to help board members and chief executives better understand their distinctive and complementary roles and to strengthen board performance. Digital Trusteeship is an interactive, electronic version of Trusteeship magazine.

New Online Reference Book

Propaganda and Mass Persuasion: A Historical Encyclopedia, 1500 to the Present has been added to the CredoReference list of online reference books. This is a truly international, authoritative A-Z guide to five centuries of propaganda, in both wartime and peacetime, which covers key moments, techniques, concepts, and some of the most influential propagandists in history.

What were the secrets of both Hitler's and Stalin's success? Why did so many Americans approve of Senator Joseph McCarthy? How did FDR maintain his image with the electorate? The answers to these questions can be found in the realm of propaganda: the art of mass political persuasion. This fascinating survey provides a comprehensive introduction to propaganda, its changing nature, its practitioners, and its impact on the past five centuries of world history.

CredoReference is prominently displayed on the library page.

Educational Leadership

The library has joined the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development (ASCD) and now receives their publication, Educational Leadership. It is published monthly throughout the school year (except for the combined issue in December/January). Our first issue will arrive in September, but we have received a complimentary May issue as a sample of the tips, techniques, and case studies in this publication. The May issue focuses on reshaping high schools. It is available in the library.

Sol LeWitt Retrospectives

An originator of “conceptual art,” Sol LeWitt was born in Hartford and lived mostly in Chester until his death in April last year. LeWitt consistently pushed the limits of art history and contemporary trends, making him one of the most influential artists of the mid-Twentieth Century. LeWitt’s monumental wall drawings—produced for public and private spaces since the 1960s—may be the works for which he is best known. The New York Times described his wall paintings as “ecstatically colored and jazzy.”

Nearly an acre of these wall drawings are now in preparation for a fall showing at MASS MoCa in North Adams, MA. The Williams College Museum of Art also features LeWitt’s art in November. If you happen to take drive to the Berkshires this fall, don’t miss these exhibits. Few art venues have space to display massive wall drawings. A retrospective also takes place at Yale University Art Gallery with two wall drawings on display. This is a major collaboration between these three institutions conceived by the Yale gallery before LeWitt’s death.

This is special opportunity to view the work of an important American artist. See it this fall: don't waituntil 2033. For further information on the exhibitions, read the article from the Yale gallery.

Sol LeWitt A Wall Drawing Retrospective: Two wall drawings currently on view
Yale Art Gallery

Sol LeWitt: A Wall of Drawing Retrospective
MASS MoCa
Opens Nov. 16 and will be on view for 25 years

The ABCDs of Sol LeWitt
Williams College Museum of Art
Nov. 14 through March 8, 2009

Nursing & Health Science: PubMed Update

PubMed Now Indexes Videos of Experiments and Protocols in Life Sciences!
PubMed Central, the National Library of Medicine’s online database, is now indexing videos from The Journal of Visualized Experiments. According to the publication’s official blog, JoVE is “the first video-journal to ever be accepted for publication in PubMed.” The Goodwin Library Staff strongly commends this PubMed decision to support new ways of communicating information,

The online, open-access journal publishes videos of experiments and protocols in the biological and life sciences and offers its video-articles to science bloggers to illustrate their posts. You will see some of them featured on this blog weekly.

Watch the article "Human Embryonic Stem Cells: Starting Culture From Frozen Cells"
Source: Chronicle of Higher Education August 21

Resources for English Teachers

Quality, Value, Flexibility—
NCTE resources delivered to your desktop!

With National Council of Teachers of English Web seminar series, you’ll get high-quality, professional development delivered by some of NCTE’s most experienced presenters in an easy-to-use format that is perfect for individuals or learning communities. I know spending a day away from your classroom isn’t always an option. Whether you’re participating on your own or planning professional development for an early release day, you’ll find these sessions informative, interactive and a great value!

What is a Web seminar?
NCTE Web seminars are interactive, multimedia professional development experiences delivered over the Internet. During a Web seminar, attendees are able to participate in the session by responding to polls, providing feedback on the whiteboard, and asking/answering questions in the chat area. Elluminate Live!TM, the application used for the NCTE Web seminars, ensures that all participants are in sync, regardless of Internet connection speeds.

See Frequently Asked Questions

Book to Read Again and Again: Native Son

Richard Wright's story of his childhood, Black Boy, made him one of America's most popular writers in the 1940s. In addition to Black Boy, which he dedicated to his 3-year-old daughter, he also wrote Native Son, a fictional account of a black youth in the segregated North.

Native Son tells the story of Bigger Thomas, an uneducated black man from Chicago who unintentionally kills a young white woman. Bigger is a study in contrasts: Strong, ignorant and angry, he's also confused, vulnerable and at a loss about how to deal with a racist society. Wright's novel makes Bigger into America's native son — the offspring of a nation's bigotry.

(from the library's "Books to Read Again and Again" shelf)

Workforce Clinging to the Status Quo?

Here is today's management tip from Harvard Business Publishing.

Your major change initiative won't succeed if the people who must lead the charge lack a sense of urgency--the conviction that the status quo is dangerous. How to spot a lack of urgency so you can address it? Red flags include the following:
1) Managers over-rely on consultants to analyze the business and recommend changes.
2)Key people aren't participating in the task force charged with executing the initiative.
3)Task-force members procrastinate in setting up their meetings.
4)Task-force discussions only generate complaints about the company's situation, not active decisions.
5)Task-force members focus more on office politics and finger-pointing than on what's causing the company's problems.

(This Management Tip was adapted from Chapter 2 of A Sense of Urgency, bestselling author John P. Kotter's latest book from Harvard Business Press.)