Karen Miller, Jan Walmsley and Sadie Williams
There is robust evidence that good teamwork is essential to the delivery of high‐quality healthcare. This paper reports on a leadership intervention to improve team‐working in…
Abstract
There is robust evidence that good teamwork is essential to the delivery of high‐quality healthcare. This paper reports on a leadership intervention to improve team‐working in multidisciplinary clinical teams and the health outcomes of those populations served by them. The Shared Leadership for Change initiative was funded and managed by The Health Foundation as part of its portfolio of leadership awards. The initiative sought to support the development of ‘shared’ leadership in the teams through the intervention of specially trained and supported leadership development consultants who worked with clinical teams delivering diabetes care working across primary and secondary sectors. The paper explains the rationale underpinning the approach, describes how the intervention was operationalied, and presents findings on its impact to date. The authors conclude by advocating that given the right context this intervention is an effective approach that leads to improved clinical team effectiveness and better multidisciplinary working in modern healthcare. The difficulties of ascribing any improvements in clinical outcomes or the patient experience to the interventions are also explored.
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Suzie Moon, David Birchall, Sadie Williams and Charalambos Vrasidas
This paper reports on the development of a workplace‐based e‐learning programme for small and medium enterprise (SME) managers in five European countries. The course is designed…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper reports on the development of a workplace‐based e‐learning programme for small and medium enterprise (SME) managers in five European countries. The course is designed to address the specific needs of SME managers who, it has been noted, represent a significant proportion of the EU workforce but often experience difficulty in finding time or resources to undertake relevant training. The aim of this paper is to present the design principles developed to underpin the programme. These principles were developed specifically to address the need for greater pedagogic structure in the design of e‐learning courses.
Design/methodology/approach
The course design was informed by a literature review of e‐learning and management learning and by a set of focus groups conducted to identify the specific concerns of SMEs with regard to accelerating their learning in the workplace. The course structure was further refined through trial workshops in all five partner countries.
Findings
The paper presents a pedagogic framework and a structured set of design features, both of which were built into the course as a result of the research undertaken. It also provides reflections on the efficacy of the design process that resulted in the formation of the design principles, and also the prospects for e‐learning programmes in supporting accelerated learning in the workplace.
Practical implications
The design process and reflections may usefully be extracted to inform other cross‐national or SME‐focused e‐learning programmes.
Originality/value
The paper draws on theory and research data to demonstrate the importance of thorough research in e‐learning course development.
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Although there is great potential for diversity, library and information science (LIS) is a relatively homogenous profession. Increasing the presence of librarians of color may…
Abstract
Although there is great potential for diversity, library and information science (LIS) is a relatively homogenous profession. Increasing the presence of librarians of color may help to improve diversity within LIS. However, recruiting ethnic minorities into LIS has proven to be difficult despite various initiative including scholarships, fellowships, and locally focused programs. The central questions explored in this research can be divided into two parts: (1) Why do ethnic minorities choose librarianship as a profession? (2) What would motivate members of minority groups to join a profession in which they cannot see themselves?
The research was conducted through semi-structured, qualitative interviews of 32 ethnic minority students from one of four ethnic minority groups (African American, Asian American, Hispanic/Latino, and Native American) currently enrolled in an LIS graduate program. Eleven themes emerged from the data: libraries, librarians, library work experience, LIS graduate program, career plans and goals, education and family, support, mentors, ethnicity and community, acculturation, and views of diversity.
The findings seem to support many assumptions regarding expectations and career goals. The findings related to libraries, librarians, mentors, and support illustrate that many recruitment initiatives are starting in the right place. However, the most noteworthy findings were those that centered on identity, acculturation, and diversity because they dealt with issues that are not often considered or discussed by many in the profession outside of ethnic minority organizations.
Kristien Zenkov, Marion Taousakis, Jennifer Goransson, Emily Staudt, Marriam Ewaida, Madelyn Stephens, Megan Hostutler, Jasmin Castorena and Matt Kitchen
Policy makers, professional associations and scholars continue to advocate for the integration of enhanced clinical experiences for future teachers’ preparation. These…
Abstract
Purpose
Policy makers, professional associations and scholars continue to advocate for the integration of enhanced clinical experiences for future teachers’ preparation. These recommendations reflect the growing recognition that few events in preservice teachers’ education are more significant than their experiences in the classrooms of veteran peers. Aware of the fact that the field of teacher education needs examples of effective clinical experiences, the authors examined the “critical, project-based” (CPB) model, employing Photovoice activities in a dropout prevention course in a secondary education partner school at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic. This paper aims to discuss the aforementioned objective.
Design/methodology/approach
Aware that the field of teacher education needs examples of effective clinical experiences, the authors examined the CPB model, employing Photovoice activities in a dropout prevention course in a secondary education partner school at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic. In this article they detail a practitioner research examination that explores the experiences of 12 preservice middle/high school teachers, reporting on these individuals’ considerations of general pedagogies, writing instruction strategies and teaching personas.
Findings
Results suggest that preservice teachers might best identify pedagogical practices that are consistent with their nascent teaching identities via experiences that occur in school-university partnerships in which future teachers are positioned as pedagogues.
Originality/value
This manuscript explores the use of the “CPB” clinical experience model, identifying the impacts of this approach for preparing future teachers.
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OWING to the comparatively early date in the year of the Library Association Conference, this number of THE LIBRARY WORLD is published so that it may be in the hands of our…
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OWING to the comparatively early date in the year of the Library Association Conference, this number of THE LIBRARY WORLD is published so that it may be in the hands of our readers before it begins. The official programme is not in the hands of members at the time we write, but the circumstances are such this year that delay has been inevitable. We have dwelt already on the good fortune we enjoy in going to the beautiful West‐Country Spa. At this time of year it is at its best, and, if the weather is more genial than this weather‐chequered year gives us reason to expect, the Conference should be memorable on that account alone. The Conference has always been the focus of library friendships, and this idea, now that the Association is so large, should be developed. To be a member is to be one of a freemasonry of librarians, pledged to help and forward the work of one another. It is not in the conference rooms alone, where we listen, not always completely awake, to papers not always eloquent or cleverly read, that we gain most, although no one would discount these; it is in the hotels and boarding houses and restaurants, over dinner tables and in the easy chairs of the lounges, that we draw out really useful business information. In short, shop is the subject‐matter of conference conversation, and only misanthropic curmudgeons think otherwise.
This exploratory study, a Ph.D. dissertation completed at the University of Western Ontario in 2013, examines the materially embedded relations of power between library users and…
Abstract
This exploratory study, a Ph.D. dissertation completed at the University of Western Ontario in 2013, examines the materially embedded relations of power between library users and staff in public libraries and how building design regulates spatial behavior according to organizational objectives. It considers three public library buildings as organization spaces (Dale & Burrell, 2008) and determines the extent to which their spatial organizations reproduce the relations of power between the library and its public that originated with the modern public library building type ca. 1900. Adopting a multicase study design, I conducted site visits to three, purposefully selected public library buildings of similar size but various ages. Site visits included: blueprint analysis; organizational document analysis; in-depth, semi-structured interviews with library users and library staff; cognitive mapping exercises; observations; and photography.
Despite newer approaches to designing public library buildings, the use of newer information technologies, and the emergence of newer paradigms of library service delivery (e.g., the user-centered model), findings strongly suggest that the library as an organization still relies on many of the same socio-spatial models of control as it did one century ago when public library design first became standardized. The three public libraries examined show spatial organizations that were designed primarily with the librarian, library materials, and library operations in mind far more than the library user or the user’s many needs. This not only calls into question the public library’s progressiveness over the last century but also hints at its ability to survive in the new century.
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January 2016 saw the final release of Numinous Games’ crowdfunded linear adventure game That Dragon, Cancer. An impactful independent title which subverts many of gaming’s…
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January 2016 saw the final release of Numinous Games’ crowdfunded linear adventure game That Dragon, Cancer. An impactful independent title which subverts many of gaming’s traditional and valued norms. In less than two hours of abstracted adventure, players are transported through a series of vignettes documenting one family’s struggle with cancer, and the battle faced by their terminally ill child, Joel. Digital memorialisation has been documented by scholars since the late 1990s. This has come in the form of sites specifically created for memorialisation, social networking sites repurposed by their users for memorialisation (MySpace and more recently Facebook), and online virtual worlds (Second Life and World of Warcraft). However, within That Dragon, Cancer the productive nature of grief has created and envisioned a gaming experience purpose-built for memorialisation. This chapter begins by documenting memorialisation within virtual environments. From here, the author turns to consider the way in which That Dragon, Cancer provides a purpose-built space for grief, memorialisation and understanding, focussing on key stylistic and mechanic-based decisions undertaken in the games design. Finally, the author considers the way in which That Dragon, Cancer, through the use of crowdfunding in late 2014, transformed from a project memorialising one child to the memorialisation of many across the globe.
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Hazel Kyrk, one of the first women economists at the Economic Department of the University of Chicago and author of A Theory of Consumption (1923), conducted groundbreaking…
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Hazel Kyrk, one of the first women economists at the Economic Department of the University of Chicago and author of A Theory of Consumption (1923), conducted groundbreaking research for the Bureau of Home Economics of the US Department of Agriculture and the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Kyrk made a considerable contribution to the development of standards for a “decent living,” the Consumer Price Index, and the conceptualization of what would later turn into the definition of the poverty line. This chapter evaluates Kyrk’s use of eugenic notions of gender and race that were widely used in Kyrk’s day. This chapter shows that eugenic reasoning impacts Kyrk’s theoretical work only superficially but does structure her research on consumption standards through her focus on the white middle-class family as the unit of analysis for consumer behavior. This chapter also makes clear that the American Institutionalist approach to consumer behavior, rather than marginalized and side-tracked due to a lack of theoretical progress, was relegated to the margins of economics science together with the research of women economists into Home Economics departments and policy research at government institutions.