This panel presents a re-conceptualized framework regarding making inquiry in English/language arts classrooms possible for English Learners (ELs): (1) authentic assessment that recognizes ELs’ cultural, linguistic capital; (2) tailored instruction that focuses on integration of drawing, discussion, and intentional use of various text types; and (3) pedagogical praxis, a critical element to bring about instructional change.

With increasing challenges from international competition and domestic demands for a technologically literate workforce, pressure is growing on the educational system to produce students that are literate in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM). Integrative STEM education utilizes design-based pedagogical approaches to teach science/math content and practices concurrently with technology/engineering content and practices (Wells & Ernst, 2012, para. 2). The discipline of technology education has traditionally implemented design-based pedagogical approaches. However, the discipline has not demonstrated through empirical research that its existence and pedagogies are beneficial to student learning and cognition (Lewis, 1999, 2006; Petrina, 1998; Wells, 2008, 2010; Zuga, 1994, 1997, 2001). The purpose of this study was to demonstrate that the technological design-based approach to teaching biotechnology literacy supports students' connections of science and technology concepts. Grounded in Ausubel's (1968) theory on meaningful learning and Novak's (1980) advanced organizer of concept mapping, this study examined evidence of high school students' cognitive structural change throughout the technological design-based approach to instruction. At three key intervals throughout the technological design process, students developed concept maps to document their understanding of the biology and technology concepts presented within the instructional materials. Data for this study included the students' constructed concept maps. To analyze the concept maps, the researcher used Hay et al.'s (2008) three-method analysis for measuring the quality of students' learning, and a qualitative analysis. Data analysis across all four methods indicated that all participants experienced a varying degree of growth in biology, technology, and integrative concepts and connections. Collectively this study supports the notion that the technological design-based approach to instruction does indeed (1) encourage meaningful learning, and (2) increase students' use of higher order thinking indicated by their abilities to demonstrate their use of schematic and strategic knowledge within their concept maps. The results of this study have direct implications within the areas of Technology Education, Science Education, classroom practice, and concept mapping. The discussion and implications suggest the need to expand the research conducted within this study, and to improve the methods for concept mapping analysis. / Ph. D.

<p>Job crafting refers to work-related behaviors employees take to make their job better fit with their preferences. While job crafting is based on the premise that employees can make such proactive changes on their own volition, recent work has suggested social context plays an important role in determining whether an employee has the opportunities and ability to engage in job crafting. Such contextual factors include the level of support one’s manager provides as well as one’s ability to obtain instrumental resources such as information and advice as well as emotional resources such as social support from the wider organizational community. Applying conservation of resources (COR) theory, Study 1 proposes that when a manager is perceived to provide a low level of support, employees can leverage their social network in order to engage in job crafting initiatives. For instance, when one’s manager offers relatively little encouragement and availability, it can hinder their subordinate’s ability to engage in job crafting. Additionally, when one’s manager has relatively low status in the organization, they may be less able to help their subordinates develop a network to obtain the types of instrumental resources that fuel job crafting behaviors. Findings based on a survey of 276 full-time workers suggest that employees seeking to job craft can compensate for their manager’s shortcomings by building bonding social capital in the former scenario (i.e., when the manager offers little encouragement and availability) and bridging social capital in the latter (i.e., when the manager has relatively low status). Study 2 focuses on the extent to which employees with differing dispositions towards their work engage in different kinds of job crafting behaviors. Findings from survey data (<em>n</em> = 307) suggest that compared to career orientation (i.e., the tendency to view work as a means for advancement and status enhancement), calling orientation (i.e., the tendency to view work as one’s “calling” in life) reduces the tendency for employees to engage in withdrawal behaviors. However, both calling and career orientation were associated with the tendency to proactively leverage technological and other knowledge-based resources in the execution of their work. Additionally, the study tests how virtual work contexts may influence how employees across different dispositional types engage in specified forms of job crafting. Findings suggest these dynamics persist regardless of telecommuting frequency. Implications for theory and practice are provided for both Studies 1 and 2. </p>

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The circular economy (CE) is increasingly recognized as a pivotal driver for achieving sustainability. Nonetheless, it has been criticized for neglecting the social dimension of sustainability. While job creation is often touted as a significant social benefit of the CE, there is a conspicuous gap in discussions about the quality of the jobs it generates. By drawing on organizational behavior theory, this study investigates the quality of jobs in the CE with a specific focus on meaningfulness. The research questions explore the key factors contributing to job meaningfulness in CE roles, the impact of heightened awareness of the CE on workers' perceived meaningfulness, and the mechanisms through which such awareness affects meaningfulness. To address these questions, a pre-test post-test quasi-experimental study was conducted, involving employees from two CE companies in the United States. The study assessed factors such as autonomy, skill variety, co-worker relations, knowledge of the CE, perceived social impact, perceived social worth, and experienced job meaningfulness. An intervention was then implemented on a treatment group, consisting of a five-minute training video explaining the CE concept, its benefits, and the role of workers in the CE. The findings reveal that the video intervention effectively increased employees' perception of task significance, perceived social impact, experienced meaningfulness, and awareness of the CE's impact on society and environment, as well as their perception of their contribution to the CE, the organization's contribution to the CE, and the societal value of the CE. This study highlights the importance for CE companies to provide employees with general training on the CE. Additionally, it provides initial evidence of the potential of a CE to increase human well-being, especially when considered from the eudemonic perspective of what gives life meaning rather than purely economic measures of well-being. / Master of Science / This study looks at the kind of jobs created by the circular economy (CE) and how they affect sustainability and well-being. The CE is about making the best use of resources and, as a consequence, to reducing waste, but it has been criticized for not paying enough attention to how it affects people's lives and jobs. This research focuses on understanding what makes a job in the CE meaningful and how CE knowledge may affect how workers feel about their jobs. To do this, employees at two CE companies in the U.S. were studied. The research looked at how much control employees have over their work tasks, the variety of skills that are demanded by their work, and how they get along with their co-workers, as well as their familiarity with the concept of the CE. The sampled workers were separated into two groups (treatment and control). The treatment group watched a video that explained what the CE is and how their work contributes to it and to a better world. The study found this video made these workers feel that their work had a bigger impact and that their jobs were more meaningful. It also made them see the CE as something that helps society and the environment. The main research contribution is that companies in the CE should give their employees training and lessons about what the CE is. By doing so, workers may increase their experienced meaningfulness on the job, which could enhance an individual's overall happiness and productivity at work. This research also shows the need for discussions on sustainability and the CE to include what gives meaning to our lives when we are thinking of human well-being.

In the U.S. students in public schools with disabilities are protected via special education services under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, 2004). As part of these regulations, schools are required to provide students aged 16 years and older with transition services to prepare them for life as adults. Research shows that there are links between participation, social engagement, work and well-being (Cacioppo, et al., 2014; Gilson, et al., 2022; Holt-Lunstad, 2018; Macdonald, et al., 2018) as well as a link between social isolation and increased mortality and morbidity (Snyder-Mackler, et al., 2020; Yang, et al., 2016), and yet parents of individuals with moderate to severe/profound, complex, or low-incidence disabilities do not always have transition experiences they feel set their child up for success in real-life situations (Lee & Kim, 2021; Snell-Rood, et al., 2020). This research study used a mixed methods structure to obtain research regarding parent perspectives on specific areas schools need to address to create strong and meaningful transition plans for their students who have more involved disabilities and may require more support. A literature review, a web-based parent survey, 6 one-to-one interviews, and a focus group of 4 interview participants were conducted to drive development of an online, self-paced instructional course comprised of five modules designed to be implemented with school administrators and IEP team members (including, but not limited to teachers, related service providers, psychologists, support staff, parents and students) highlighting immediately implementable strategies to strengthen the IEP transition process in which they participate. Results compiled from all sources support five main areas or themes for creating meaningful transition: collaboration/team/relationships, community based/real-life instruction, presumed competence/mindset, knowledge, and skills (of the parent and school team members), and individualizing the IEP. Additional research supports the use of specific team members (e.g. vocational rehab transition specialist (Plotner & Dyamond, 2017)) and a case is made for ensuring transition teams for students with moderate to severe/profound, complex or low-incidence disabilities include occupational therapists who are trained in the value of using meaningful participation to improve quality of life for their clients (AOTA, 2020). / Temple University. College of Public Health / Health and Rehabilitation Sciences

It is the contention of this paper that, contrary to his own belief, John Stuart Mill did not, after his "mental crisis" of 1826, succeed in his attempt to achieve a meaningful integration of the analytical and the affective, through his cultivation of the feelings by poetry. On the contrary, through his subsequent detemination to place these two attributes (the analytic and the affective) in a clearly proscribed xelation to each other (by virtue of his postulation of the exclusive presence of the former in science or logic and the latter in poetry), Mill only succeeded in creating, in this codification, what we can describe as an image of his {to use T. S. Eliot's somewhat unfashionable phrase) "dissociated sensibility." / Thesis / Master of Arts (MA)

This study focuses on the importance of activity as an intervention with persons with dementia. Continuity theory serves as a general guide, along with research on leisure in later life and the theory of personhood in dementia, to explain the importance of engaging persons with dementia in activities. Implementing purposeful activities with persons with dementia has been demonstrated to reduce boredom and agitated behavior and to maximize the functional abilities of the individual. The important role of task analysis and adaptation of the activity to personal needs (motor, psychological, social) and past interests of the individual is central to the study, which utilizes meaningful activities as suggested in the literature from the field of occupational therapy. The current study addresses specific principles of activity for persons with dementia and applies a well-established educational philosophy from the field of child development to this population. Previous research has demonstrated that Montessori activities, modified for use with persons with dementia, can facilitate positive engagement and affect. Montessori-based activities were incorporated in a model of well-being in dementia (Coppola, 1998; Hasselkus, 1998), conducted in small parallel group settings, (i.e., referred to a group of individuals situated together but individually completing the same task), included a verbal approach to facilitating meaning of the activities. The amount and type of engagement and affect were compared during Montessori-based activities and regularly scheduled activities of 10 older adults with dementia at a university-based adult day service. Significantly higher levels of constructive engagement (motor or verbal response to activity) and lower levels of non-engagement (sleeping, staring into space) were exhibited during Montessori-activities compared to regular activities. Principles of activities for persons with dementia along with principles of the Montessori-based program are presented. Methodological modifications are suggested, and implications for research and practice are discussed. / Master of Science

The purpose of this study is to explore active after-school teacher’s perceptions of the concept of meaningful leisure time. The purpose of the study is also to investigate if the interpretations of meaningful leisure time affect the perception of their work roles and after-school teacher’s actual work in a leisure activity. The study also provides an insight into how afterschool teachers perceive their roles in general. The study is based on qualitative interviews on five after-school teachers from four different schools in a municipality in Sweden. The results of the study show that the respondents interpret the concept of meaningful leisure-time in both similar and different ways. A common perception among the respondents is that meaningful leisure-time activities is important for social and emotional development and learning. The children can together with the after-school teachers create meaningfulness that may be considered as a meaningful leisure time. The study also shows that the respondents understanding of meaningful leisure time affect the perception of their work roles and vice versa.Keywords: Meaningful leisure time, recreation, after-school teacher, perceptions of the concept of meaningful leisure time.

Employees experience a loss of meaning in the workplace as a result of fragmentation and alienation (Casey, 2002). This seems to be the result of a change in the way in which people view their world and their experiences in the world, including their place of work. The purpose of the study was to investigate the loss of meaning at work. The investigation indicated a variety of factors as described by Terez (2000), Casey (2002), and Chalofsky (2010). The problem is not a singular problem which can be discussed in isolation, but tends towards a problem-complex, which relates to negative work-life-experiences and that result in the alienation of the individual from the self, work, the organization and others at work. The purpose of the study: “A meaningful workplace: From theory development to applicability” is to construe a meaningful workplace model through the identification and description of the constitutive dimensions which construe the underlying theoretical base. It was purposefully structured within the Organizational Behaviour domain, to indicate the applicability of the construct and its underlying theoretical base, in management practice in organizational settings. This purpose was pursued along the boundary lines of three objectives: To conceptualize the constitutive elements of the construct: meaningful workplace; to expand (develop) the theoretical base of the construct meaningful workplace and to present evidence for the existence of the construct based on empirical evidence from the world of work. The study follows a qualitative research methodology consisting of a constructivist approach, utilizing two data gathering methods, and interpreted from a phenomenological perspective with a consistent focus on the lived experience of people at work. Two data gathering methods were utilised. Firstly a literature review, of formal scholarly publications was undertaken to identify the constitutive dimensions of the construct. The research followed the lead of the Meaning of Work Project Team (1987), Terez (2000), and Chalofsky (2010), and others. Secondly three empirical data sets were investigated. The first data set consisted of the annual research results of the CRF Institute in relation to the “Best employer to work for”. The second data set consisted of information gleaned from verbatim responses in an exit interview report, being made available for the study. The third data set consists of Repertory Grid interview data. Results of the research indicate that the construct meaningful workplace is an emerging construct in literature and that the tenets exist as an ideal in the lived experience of employees. The study contributes to the expansion (development) of the underlying theory of a meaningful workplace while simultaneously also providing a parallel understanding of human behaviour at work. / Thesis (PhD)--University of Pretoria, 2012. / Human Resource Management / unrestricted