Acquisition of Knowledge and Skills in an Online Graduate Degree in Youth Development Leadership

As the youth development field has grown, there has been an increased focus on building academic preparation programs in youth development that prepare leaders and staff in youth-serving organizations. Very few degree programs exist in preparing youth leaders. Even fewer, if any, evaluations have been conducted on the potential outcomes and benefits of graduate degree programs on alumni who serve in leadership positions in youth organizations. This study presents findings from a survey of graduates of a master’s level youth development leadership (YDL) degree program. The findings focus on graduates’ perceptions of the outcomes linked to attaining a degree from such a program and associated competencies and opportunities in the field of youth development. Questionnaires were distributed to YDL alumni (2007-2018) requesting their perspectives on professional benefits and opportunities associated with degree completion. Respondents reported a statistically significant increase (reaching medium to large effect sizes) in relevant competencies targeted in each course. Additionally, respondents noted opportunities in salary increases, promotions, and more challenging responsibilities because of completion of the YDL program; rated their level of application of learning to new professional skills applied to their professional positions highly; and identified products created in their professional positions directly related to their academic preparation. A discussion of the value of youth development degree programs is provided.

EXPLORING THE BENEFITS OF ACADEMIC BANK OF CREDIT (ABC) FOR ST THE 21 CENTURY LEARNER

The National Educational Policy 2020 is a dynamic, progressive and modern framework of education which aims at achieving full human potential among the learners. It aims at providing equal and equitable opportunities, inclusive education to all learners, making them global in outlook yet armed with traditional values. The Academic Bank of Credits proposed under the New Policy of Education, an online repository of credits accumulated by the leaner, to be looked after by the University Grants Commission, promises to provide academic exibility to the students. It will pupils studying at higher educational levels to accumulate credit points by moving across various academic levels such as certicate, diploma, post graduate diploma, graduate and post graduate degree programs, enjoying multiple exit and entry points and having the facility to continue life-long learning. However, there are certain challenges such as risk of dilution, loss of academic rigor, possible adverse impact on the educators, presence of digital divide, lack of digital knowledge and skills among students. However, despite foresight of possible challenges and probable issues, ABC holds great promise for the academic fraternity by laying the path for a exible, student-centric academic journey where the learner is not forced to study the prescribed traditional courses instead he gets to choose a course in accordance with his interests, needs and passion, learning them from institutions of his choice and at self- pace. Thus, the ABC will help to prepare world class learners with global skills and traditional values, which are hallmarks of the present generation of leaners.

Peripheral or Marginal Participation?

For academically bound international students, university-based Intensive English Programs (IEPs) frequently function as an avenue to American undergraduate or graduate degree programs. This qualitative study examined how one university-based IEP was preparing its academically bound international students and facilitating their transitions to matriculated study. Lave and Wenger’s (1991) theory of Situated Learning was utilized to explore international students’ participation in the IEP as a community of practice and the IEP’s own marginality within the university structure. We found that university-based IEPs can play a critical role in helping international students gain the competence and knowledge necessary to begin legitimate peripheral participation in degree programs. However, the extent to which IEP students were able to participate in the larger university community was limited by the IEP’s own marginality in the university community and the fact that the IEP is ultimately not a discipline-specific community of practice.

Productivity and Professional Development

There are numerous ways in which technology can improve the productivity of music educators, helping to make administrative and organizational tasks more efficient and effective. This chapter describes a variety of technological tools that can be used to facilitate overall organization, communication, public relations and advocacy, the creation and acquisition of instructional support materials, data management, travel, and maintenance of financial records, all of which are typical responsibilities of music teachers. Technology can also be useful for continuing professional development. From informal Personal Learning Networks to formalized graduate degree programs, technology can empower music educators with personalized, sustained, flexible, and social professional learning opportunities. Taken together, these approaches to professional development can help music educators continually develop and refine their TPACK, facilitating an ongoing upward spiral of the knowledge and skills necessary for music learning today.

Thinking and Reading like a Scientist: Librarians as Facilitators of Primary Literature Literacy

Students entering graduate degree programs in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) fields or professional degree programs in the health sciences are expected to have adequate academic preparation in science process skills like the ability to read primary literature effectively. This column scrutinizes this assumption by examining how science is taught to undergraduates, finding that undergraduate STEM curricula rarely prepare students with the mastery of science process skills needed to succeed in graduate school. The column discusses some possible causes of this skill gap and suggests that academic and medical librarians are well-equipped to help students develop primary literature literacy skills. The column closes with a list of practical active reading strategies that librarians can share and model for students. The Version of Record of this manuscript has been published and is available in Medical Reference Services Quarterly, August 10, 2020, DOI: 10.1080/02763869.2020.1778336.

Collaborative Instructional Design Strategies in an Online Health Systems Pharmacy Degree Program

This case study describes both the process and outcome for instructional design strategies used in the design and development of a fully online Health-System Pharmacy Administration (HSPA) M.S. degree program. The development of this online degree program was a partnership between two Midwest higher education institutions: a public research university (PRU) and an interprofessional health sciences university (HSU). The PRU had instructional designers experienced with creating fully-online graduate degree programs, while the HSU had knowledgeable faculty, staff, and administrators associated with the HSPA program. Instructional designers from the public research university designed the courses collaboratively with HSPA instructors, most of whom were health care professionals with minimal background in online teaching strategies. The instructional designers created an enhanced design process that infused the collaboration with faculty development in online teaching, as well as some amount of technology training for the Learning Management System used in the HSPA program.

HOW ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCE GRADUATE STUDENTS ACQUIRE STATISTICAL COMPUTING SKILLS

Modern environmental science research increasingly requires computational ability to apply statistics to environmental science problems, but graduate students in these scientific fields typically lack these integral skills. Many scientific graduate degree programs expect students toacquire these computational skills in an applied statistics course. Agap remains, however, between the computational skills required for the implementation of statistics in scientific research and those taught in statistics courses. This qualitative study examines how five environmental science graduate students at one institution experience the phenomenon of acquiring the computational skills necessary to implement statistics in their research and the factors that foster or inhibit learning. In-depth interviews revealed three themes in these students’ paths towards computational knowledge acquisition: use of peer support, seeking out a singular “consultant,” and learning through independent research experiences. These themes provide rich descriptions of graduate student experiences and strategies used while developing computational skillsto apply statistics in their own research, thus informing how to improve instruction, both in and out of the formal classroom. First published November 2019 at Statistics Education Research Journal Archives