347 research outputs found
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Planting Seeds of Community Inclusion: A participatory action community gardening study and horticultural therapy group intervention for seniors at Mount Royal University
Get PDFContributors: Joanna Szabo-Hart; Sonya Flessati; Judy Gleeson;
Genevieve Currie; Elaine Schow; Bev Mathison; Alana-Dawn Eirikson;
Janet Melrose, Calgary’s Cottage Gardener.Community gardens have been found to contribute to a number
of health, social and ecological benefits. Revitalizing the MRU
community garden, which has been underutilized in the summer
session at the university, to include neighboring seniors and
community volunteers was seen by a group of interdisciplinary
researchers as one way to revitalize individual and community health.
Guided by eco-health and permaculture principles, a participatory
action research project was undertaken to explore an inclusive group
horticultural therapy program for neighboring seniors groups and
community volunteers. Specifically, experiences of inclusion in the
garden as well as barriers and benefits to participation were studied
during the 2015 projec
Pornification: A Study Into Young Men’s Attitudes and Beliefs Toward Dating, Sex and Sexual Assault
Get PDFCan young men distinguish between quotes from conventional magazines and quotes from convicted rapists? To what extent do young men agree/disagree with statements about dating, sex, women and sexual assault? The purpose of this study is to contribute to the existing literature about young men’s attitudes towards women and sex. This study is a partial replication of the work conducted in the United Kingdom (UK) by Horvath & Hegarty (2011) combined with a partial replication of the work conducted in the United States (USA) by Lonsway & Fitzgerald (1995) Myths, beliefs and the attitudes of today’s young men toward dating, sex, and sexual assault are also explored in this study. Similar research in the UK revealed over 60 percent of male respondents could not differentiate between dating advice in a men’s magazine and quotes from a convicted rapist. Tavcer focuses on gauging the attitudes of young male students at Mount Royal University. The study mainly explores the following questions: 1. Can young men distinguish between quotes from conventional magazines & quotes from convicted rapists? 2. Under what conditions do young men believe sexual assault and/or rape is acceptable? 3. Does the pornification of dating advice negatively influence myths about sexual violence? 4. Have these beliefs changed since Burt’s 1980 assessment of rape myths
Global citizenship in a Canadian context
Get PDFGlobal citizenship is frequently identified by industry, government, and universities in Canada as an important outcome of education. However, there is significant debate about the meaning of this term. The goals of this report are: to explain the roots of this debate, identify some of the key terms frequently used by universities as proxies for global citizenship, uncover discrepancies among universities in their understanding and approach to global citizenship, propose a unifying
framework for global citizenship, and offer some methods through which institutions can evaluate their efforts. A shared understanding of how our education system discusses global citizenship is necessary to help better shape the experiences students have, to ensure the evaluation of university programs is possible and effective, and to create alliances among industry, government, and universities to enhance their development of individuals as global citizens
Selection Criteria for Using Commercial Off the Shelf Games (COTS) for Learning
Get PDFDigital games are being used more and more often as teaching resources in the classroom (Habgood & Ainsworth, 2011). Some are games designed specifically for educational purposes, and others—commonly known as COTS (commercial off-the-shelf) games—are commercial games that were designed for entertainment, but have educational value as well. Some of these, like The Sims, Civilization, and Portal, have come to be seen as educational games despite having commercial success outside of education. COTS games may be free to download or play, or games that must be purchased. They can be for any platform, including mobile.
While there appears to be a gradually growing acceptance of the use of games for learning, this acceptance is largely focused on games designed specifically for learning, in other words, serious games where the educational purpose of the game is explicit and was likely part of the design goals right from the start. When it comes to using COTS games in the classroom, acceptance is still often replaced with skepticism (Van Eck, 2006). Some have proposed their own theories about which attributes of COTS games make them suitable candidates for use in a formal learning context, and while the body of research on the use of games for learning continues to grow, there is still no definitive evidence that any specific theory carries more weight than any other. What is clear is that the use of games for learning holds sufficient promise to warrant continued inquiry (Perrotta, Featherstone, Aston, & Houghton, 2013).
To avoid the negative backlash against games that occurred in the “Edutainment Era” we need to adopt a more moderate approach supported by evidence that our efforts are at least as good as traditional approaches, and preferably better (Wilson, 2009). The so-called Edutainment Era, which started in the mid- to late 1980s and lasted to the mid-1990s, was the first time that computer games for education became popular, and they were promoted by some as a panacea. All one needed to do was wrap a game around a lesson, and it would magically become fun. This, of course, is not true, and the fall from grace for many educational games developers left them reeling.
By once again preaching that games are effective and useful for learning we give the impression that all games are good for everyone to learn everything (Van Eck, 2006). Clearly, this is an overstatement of fact and it is understandable how this message might turn people off to the idea of using some games to teach certain things. It is important to emphasize that whether a game is intended for use in formal education (e.g., preschool, K-12, higher education), corporate training, or other professional development, the context and activities surrounding the game are key to reaping whatever potential benefits a particular game may offer. The size of the game, that is, the amount of time it takes to learn how to play the game as well as the expected length of play are also important factors when considering games for learning.
Ultimately, the fitness of any particular game, like any other instructional technology, will depend not only on the game itself, but also on the requirements, features, and limitations of the environment in which it will be used and the people who will be using it. This chapter provides a snapshot of where we are now in our understanding of the issues and ways to address them
“Seniors in the Suburbs”: Understanding belonging & community connection - together!
Get PDFInvestigators: Sonja Jakubec, Marg Olfert, Lisa Choi, Nicole Dawe. Contributors: Anna Mollo, Dwayne Sheehan, Cynthia Watson.The roles of place & belonging on wellbeing are increasingly understood. Seniors are increasingly living in suburbs – though little is known about the strengths, strategies and struggles! The views of seniors were the place for Vivo to begin to understand how to work together.
This study asked:
What does belonging mean to seniors in Calgary’s NE/Central suburbs?
What are the facilitators & barriers?
What could belonging look like for seniors in the suburbs
Crown of the Continent Ecosystem (CCE) State of Research: 2000-2015
No full textThis was a Community Service Learning project conducted by Mount Royal students for the Crown Managers Partnership.The Crown of the Continent Ecosystem (CCE) encompasses a 72,000 sq. km area of the Rocky Mountains in southwestern Alberta, southeastern British Columbia, and northwestern Montana. Known for its biodiversity, including a full compliment of mammalian carnivores, managing this ecosystem across many jurisdictional boundaries is challenging. With many stakeholders involved in the Crown of Continent Ecosystem, tracking the research being conducted in this area is essential. This publication includes an annotated bibliography of more than 250 research documents published between between 2000-2015 and makes recommendations as to which areas and topics require further study within the Crown of the Continent Ecosystem
Decoding Across the Disciplines study
No full textinterview transcriptThis transcribed Decoding interview was part of a study conducted by the Decoding Faculty Learning Community at Mount Royal University. It is analyzed from multiple theoretical perspectives in an upcoming special issue of NDTL due for publication in 2017:
Miller-Young, Janice, and Jennifer Boman, eds. (accepted.) Using the Decoding the Disciplines Framework for Learning Across Disciplines, New Directions for Teaching and Learning. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass
A Case of Seduction: Sexual Violence and the Law in Southern Alberta, 1922
No full textThe Phillips seduction case, tried in a Lethbridge, Alberta court in 1922, reveals that the extent to which the law of seduction empowered women to pursue justice in cases of sexual assault was limited by the ways in which patriarchal society regulated women’s sexuality. May Phillips was a white, American-immigrant teenager living with her family in the Wrentham sectional house in 1922. She was repeatedly assaulted by John Johnson, the forty-year-old section foreman. In court, both crown and defense characterized Phillips and Johnson in ways that reflect patterns present in other seduction cases. The degree to which May Phillips and John Johnson fit social expectations of, respectively, the victim and assailant of seduction was a key aspect of the case. The law against seduction, in which precedents were steeped in highly gendered and patriarchal notions of morality and social purity, only protected women who would be understood by the court as deserving of protection. Establishing moral superiority over the perpetrator was crucial. Although pregnancy and abortion were often common to seduction cases the victim was required to prove that she was previously chaste
Joining (scholarly) Conversations
No full textPresented at First Nations Knowledge Services Without Borders Institute, Maskwacis
"A Real Double-Edged Sword:" Undergraduate Perceptions of Social Media in their Learning
Get PDFThis study investigates undergraduate perceptions of the social media technologies (SMTs) they use in their learning. This mixed methods inquiry employed 30 semi-structured interviews and an online survey (N = 679) to explore why and how undergraduates from across disciplines view SMTs to be a meaningful part of their university learning. Findings shed new insights into student perspectives on and uses of social media, and the variety of ways in which undergraduates intentionally choose (or, choose not) to incorporate social media into their university learning in meaningful ways. Student perceptions formed an overarching theme of social media as a double-edged sword that both informs and distracts, having the potential to both help and hinder learning. Together, the interviews and the open-ended survey results demonstrate that several contextual relationships exist, underscoring the importance of considering affordances of social media for learning. Rather than taking an approach founded upon technological determinism, learning context and social media affordances become key. Undergraduate perceptions of educational interactions via social media illustrate the prominence of student-student and student-content, rather than faculty-student, interactions via social media in their learning, allowing for an updated understanding of previous educational interactions models