Designing and Assessing Courses and Curricula

Enrich your students and the institution with a high-impact practice Designing and Teaching Undergraduate Capstone Courses is a practical, research-backed guide to creating a course that is valuable for both the student and the school. The book covers the design, administration, and teaching of capstone courses throughout the undergraduate curriculum, guiding departments seeking to add a capstone course, and allowing those who have one to compare it to others in the discipline. The ideas presented in the book are supported by regional and national surveys that help the reader understand what's common, what's exceptional, what works, and what doesn't within capstone courses. The authors also provide additional information specific to different departments across the curriculum, including STEM, social sciences, humanities, fine arts, education, and professional programs. Identified as a high-impact practice by the National Survey of Student Engagement (NSSE) and the Association of American Colleges and Universities' LEAP initiative, capstone courses culminate a student's final college years in a project that integrates and applies what they've learned. The project takes the form of a research paper, a performance, a portfolio, or an exhibit, and is intended to showcase the student's very best work as a graduating senior. This book is a guide to creating for your school or department a capstone course that ties together undergraduate learning in a way that enriches the student and adds value to the college experience. Understand what makes capstone courses valuable for graduating students Discover the factors that make a capstone course effective, and compare existing programs, both within academic disciplines and across institutions Learn administrative and pedagogical techniques that increase the course's success Examine discipline-specific considerations for design, administration, and instruction Capstones are generally offered in departmental programs, but are becoming increasingly common in general education as well. Faculty and administrators looking to add a capstone course or revive an existing one need to understand what constitutes an effective program. Designing and Teaching Undergraduate Capstone Courses provides an easily digested summary of existing research, and offers expert guidance on making your capstone course successful.

In order to make appropriate changes to improve your teaching and your students’ learning, first you need to know how you’re teaching now. Figure it out for yourself and invigorate your teaching on your own terms! This practical evidence-based guide promotes excellence in teaching and improved student learning through self-reflection and self-assessment of one’s teaching. Phyllis Blumberg starts by reviewing the current approaches to instructor evaluation and describes their inadequacies. She then presents a new model of assessing teaching that builds upon a broader base of evidence and sources of support. This new model leads to self-assessment rubrics, which are available for download, and the book will guide you in how to use them. The book includes case studies of completed critical reflection rubrics from a variety of disciplines, including the performing and visual arts and the hard sciences, to show how they can be used in different ways and how to explore the richness of the data you’ll uncover.

The industry standard guide, updated with new ideas and SPSS analysis techniques Designing and Conducting Survey Research: A Comprehensive Guide Fourth Edition is the industry standard resource that covers all major components of the survey process, updated to include new data analysis techniques and SPSS procedures with sample data sets online. The book offers practical, actionable guidance on constructing the instrument, administrating the process, and analyzing and reporting the results, providing extensive examples and worksheets that demonstrate the appropriate use of survey and data techniques. By clarifying complex statistical concepts and modern analysis methods, this guide enables readers to conduct a survey research project from initial focus concept to the final report. Public and nonprofit managers with survey research responsibilities need to stay up-to-date on the latest methods, techniques, and best practices for optimal data collection, analysis, and reporting. Designing and Conducting Survey Research is a complete resource, answering the «what», «why», and «how» every step of the way, and providing the latest information about technological advancements in data analysis. The updated fourth edition contains step-by-step SPSS data entry and analysis procedures, as well as SPSS examples throughout the text, using real data sets from real-world studies. Other new information includes topics like: Nonresponse error/bias Ethical concerns and special populations Cell phone samples in telephone surveys Subsample screening and complex skip patterns The fourth edition also contains new information on the growing importance of focus groups, and places a special emphasis on data quality including size and variability. Those who employ survey research methods will find that Designing and Conducting Survey Research contains all the information needed to better design, conduct, and analyze a more effective survey.

Praise for Understanding, Assessing, and Rehabilitating Juvenile Sexual Offenders, Second Edition «The Second Edition of Understanding, Assessing, and Rehabilitating Juvenile Sexual Offenders showcases Phil Rich's experience and mastery of the research and clinical literature. In my view, this is an excellent therapy book and, like its predecessor, will help practitioners to work effectively and ethically with juvenile offenders. It is destined to become a classic.» —Tony Ward, PhD, DipClinPsy; Victoria University of Wellington, Wellington, New Zealand «Phil Rich is considered one of the world's leading authorities on how best to understand, assess, and treat juvenile sexual offenders, and this Second Edition of his excellent text shows why he is held in such high regard. All theoreticians, researchers, and practitioners whose work brings them in contact with juvenile sexual offenders should definitely read this remarkable book.» —W. L. Marshall, OC, FRSC, PhD; Director, Rockwood Psychological Services, Ontario, Canada «Phil Rich's book, Understanding, Assessing, and Rehabilitating Juvenile Sexual Offenders, Second Edition offers new and thought-provoking ideas, updates, and information, especially on developmental pathways. This book is one of the few publications on juvenile sexual offending that offers something new and revealing to the field.» —Robert E. Longo, LPC, NCC, ACS, BCIA-EEG, BCN; Serendipity Healing Arts, Lexington, North Carolina «Phil Rich masterfully fills the gap in the juvenile sexual offender treatment literature with a book that is neither introductory nor narrowly specialized. Seasoned veterans will appreciate his thoughtful and studied approach. Newcomers will find this book a vital go-to resource.» —David Prescott, LICSW, Clinical Director, Becket Family of Services, Falmouth, Maine «Mind-blowingly brilliant—Rich by name and rich in depth, detail, description, and debate. An instant classic, Understanding, Assessing, and Rehabilitating Juvenile Sexual Offenders, Second Edition is both comprehensive and challenging with its material and messages, yet reassuringly accessible and practical.» —Martin C. Calder, Calder Social Work Training and Consultancy, Leigh, Lancashire, UK THE LANDMARK TEXT FOR WORKING WITH JUVENILE SEXUAL OFFENDERS AND UNDERSTANDING SEXUALLY ABUSIVE BEHAVIOR IN CHILDREN AND ADOLESCENTS—NOW FULLY REVISED Thoroughly revised, the Second Edition of Understanding, Assessing, and Rehabilitating Juvenile Sexual Offenders guides mental health professionals through the breadth of assessment and intervention methods available for working with this special population, providing a succinct yet complete survey of the field, the etiological development of sexually abusive behavior in juveniles, and a reliable resource for assessment, treatment, and rehabilitation.

Designing and Conducting Research in Health and Human Performance shows students how to become effective producers and consumers of health and human performance research. The book provides comprehensive coverage of both quantitative and qualitative research methods and includes step-by-step guidance for writing effective research proposals and theses. In addition, the authors show how to read, assess, interpret, and apply published research and how to conduct basic studies in health, physical education, exercise science, athletic training, and recreation. Designing and Conducting Research in Health and Human Performance is filled with illustrative examples that emphasize the real-world applications of research methods. Throughout, the authors draw on a variety of examples that were selected because they provide a context to further the understanding of health and human performance research. Research to Practice examples and Tips are included by the authors to help students better appreciate the book's content. These study aids provide suggestions and additional resources to assist students in understanding the research process. Key Terms, defined and highlighted, enrich each chapter. Chapter Review Questions, designed to help students comprehend and follow best practices in research methods, close each chapter. Online resources and guides developed by the authors to support and enhance students' learning of important research concepts are available.

Written in easy-to-understand language, this important text provides a systematic and commonsense approach to developing instruments for data collection and analysis. This book can be used by both those who are developing instruments for the first time and those who want to hone their skills, including students, agency personnel, program managers, and researchers. This book provides a thorough presentation of instrument construction, from conception to development and pre-testing of items, formatting the instrument, administration, and, finally, data management and presentation of the findings. Throughout the book, the authors emphasize how to create an instrument that will produce trustworthy and accurate data. To that end they have included guidelines for reviewing and revising the questionnaire to enhance validity and reliability. They also show how to work effectively with stakeholders such as instruments designers, decision-makers, agency personnel, clients, and raters or respondents.

Visualization—in your own imagination, on the wall, and with media—supports any consultant who is learning to design and facilitate transformational change, leadership development, stakeholder involvement processes, and making sense of complex challenges. This book, from leaders in the field, shows you how. Building on Peter Block’s Flawless Consulting, it explains how to visually contract and scope work, gather data, provide feedback, plan interventions, implement, and support on-going sustainability in organizational and community settings. Unlike Block’s work, Visual Consulting addresses the challenging problems of guiding organizational and social change processes that involve multiple levels and types of stakeholders, with interests in both local and global environments. It demonstrates how visualization and design thinking can be used to get more creative and productive results that are “owned” by everyone. The practices described apply to organizational as well as diverse, cross-boundary consulting projects. In this book, you will. . . Learn powerful visual tools for all key stages of the consulting process, including marketing your services Understand the predictable challenges of change and how to successfully guide organizations and communities through them Learn how to collaborate with clients to get sustainable results Find tools for using visualization comprehensively, for both inner and outer work Successfully guide change in both organizations and communities The fourth installment in the Visual Facilitation series, this book teaches you how to activate the full range of visual tools, methods, and models to support stepping into successful, contemporary consulting relationships.

Presents strategies to designing platform agnostic mobile apps connected to cloud based services that can handle heavy loads of modern computing Provides development patterns for platform agnostic app development and technologies Includes recommended standards and structures for easy adoption Covers portable and modular back-end architectures to support service agility and rapid development

Practical, effective, evidence-based reading interventions that change students' lives Essentials of Understanding and Assessing Reading Difficulties is a practical, accessible, in-depth guide to reading assessment and intervention. It provides a detailed discussion of the nature and causes of reading difficulties, which will help develop the knowledge and confidence needed to accurately assess why a student is struggling. Readers will learn a framework for organizing testing results from current assessment batteries such as the WJ-IV, KTEA-3, and CTOPP-2. Case studies illustrate each of the concepts covered. A thorough discussion is provided on the assessment of phonics skills, phonological awareness, word recognition, reading fluency, and reading comprehension. Formatted for easy reading as well as quick reference, the text includes bullet points, icons, callout boxes, and other design elements to call attention to important information. Although a substantial amount of research has shown that most reading difficulties can be prevented or corrected, standard reading remediation efforts have proven largely ineffective. School psychologists are routinely called upon to evaluate students with reading difficulties and to make recommendations to address such difficulties. This book provides an overview of the best assessment and intervention techniques, backed by the most current research findings. Bridge the gap between research and practice Accurately assess the reason(s) why a student struggles in reading Improve reading skills using the most highly effective evidence-based techniques Reading may well be the most important thing students are taught during their school careers. It is a skill they will use every day of their lives; one that will dictate, in part, later life success. Struggling students need help now, and Essentials of Understanding and Assessing Reading Difficulties shows how to get these students on track.

Designing and Conducting Your First Interview Project Using a clear, easily followed approach, Designing and Conducting Your First Interview Project helps anyone new to the process develop the skills to conduct the most essential part of social research data collection: the interview. The book also shows how to organize, analyze, and interpret the data. This workbook provides a step-by-step template for a collaborative class experience in social science. Organized according to the steps of the deductive scientific method, it includes essential activities to take place during class after the appropriate chapter has been read. The book begins with the process of choosing a topic and proceeds through hypothesis development, interview data collection, data entry using SPSS, and elementary data analysis. The final chapter includes the formal assignment and instructions to students on how to write about their experiences in a way that will produce an excellent final paper. By selecting the hypothesis, gathering the data, and analyzing the results, students will gain an appreciation for the strengths and potential weaknesses of «knowing» things through doing quantitative social science.