Converting a large lecture class to an active blended learning class: why,how, and what we learned

Faced with diminished faculty resources and increased student enrolment from 2010 to 2017, we sought to use blended learning to achieve active learning in a large c.400-student introductory geography class. Working iteratively over seven years and eight classes and using smart classrooms, better timetabling, experimentation with peer review and learning management system (LMS) technologies, as well as the expertise of Queen’s University Continuing and Distance Studies instructional design team to improve integration between course elements, we closely approached the quality of learning achieved in a much smaller enrolment class. It is possible to teach large classes of 400 students in an active and engaged manner. The greatest obstacle to the development and maintenance of this model is institutional culture.     

Micro-level assessment of regional and local disaster impacts in tourist destinations

ABSTRACT

The tourism sector faces severe challenges due to the economic impacts from changing natural environments as seen with the increased frequency of natural disasters. Therefore, analyses of disaster impacts models are necessary for managing successful tourism recovery. Typically, disaster assessments are conducted on a countrywide level, which can lead to imbalanced recovery processes, and a distorted distribution of recovery financing or subsidies. We address the challenges of recovery using the tourism disaster management framework by Faulkner. To calculate precise damage assessments, we develop a micro-level assessment model to analyze and understand disaster impacts at the micro-level supporting tourism recovery in an affected destination. We examine economic consequences of a disaster at a small regional scale arguing recovery from a natural disaster is more difficult in individual areas because of differences in geographic location or infrastructure development. The island of Dominica is chosen as an example for the model using statistical data from the tourism sector to outline and detail the consequences of a disaster specifically for communities. The results highlight the importance of damage assessments on a small-scale level, such as communities in order to distinguish between individual regions facing severe changes for resident livelihoods and the local tourism sector. We argue that only after identifying regional impacts it is possible to apply adequate governmental subsidies and development strategies for a country's tourism sector and residents in a continuously changing environment in the hopes of mitigating future financial losses and future climate change impacts.     

Monkfish Mysteries. A Narrative Analysis of Place-making and Knowledge Production among North Norwegian Fishermen

Abstract

In this article, major focus is on creative production of knowledge needed to outsmart the monkfish at deep seafloor locations. This production is examined through narrative analysis. Narratives link individual human actions, events and experiences into interrelated aspects of an understandable composite. This is a cumulative process that shows some of the complexity and contextuality of everyday meaning-making. One recurrent question is, how do fish think? How fishermen construct narratives about the behavior of marine animals and their preferred underwater habitats is presented and analyzed. Some narratives are contested but all the same influence human–animal interaction. Narrative work further establishes and confirms common ideas, informed by marine biological science, fishermen's experiences, creative imagination and hopes. These narratives address topics also related to overfishing and resilience.     

Quasi-Static Cyclic Tests of Two U-Shaped Reinforced Concrete Walls

U-shaped or channel-shaped walls are frequently used as lateral strength providing members in reinforced concrete (RC) buildings since their form does not only provide strength and stiffness in any horizontal direction but is also well suited to accommodate elevator shafts or staircases. Despite this popularity, experimental results on the seismic behavior of U-shaped walls are scarce. For this reason a research program with the objective to provide additional experimental evidence for such walls under seismic loading was developed. It included quasi-static cyclic testing of two U-shaped walls at the structural engineering laboratories of the ETH Zurich. The walls were built at half-scale and designed for high ductility. The main difference between the two walls was their wall thickness. The project was chiefly focusing on the bending behavior in different directions and therefore the walls were subjected to a bi-directional loading regime. This article discusses the design of the test units, the test setup and the test predictions. Finally the main results are summarized in terms of failure mechanisms and force-displacement hystereses.     

Weiterbildungsbeteiligung 2010

Aus- und Weiterbildung

Weiterbildungsbeteiligung 2010     

Sails in the North—New Perspectives on an Old Problem

The origin of sail has been debated for a long time, but the linguistic evidence has rarely been taken into account. The word sail has a cognate in two Celtic languages, and a good linguistic chronology is available for these. The reconstructed historical development of Celtic and Germanic words indicates that the word existed in West Germanic well before the Anglo-Saxon migrations and the confinement of Celtic to the British Isles. An origin of both word and technology in the Celtic world is proposed, both being passed into the Germanic world in the Rhine region.