2018 - Innovative Leisure Practices: Cases as Conduits Between Theory and Practice (Vol. 3)
Permanent URI for this collection
Browse
Recent Submissions
Item Edmonton's WinterCity Strategy - enhancing winter living through innovative leisure practice in a northern Canadian city(VIU Press, 2018-02) Halpenny, Elizabeth A.; Vaugeois, NicoleWinter climates provide opportunities for residents and visitors to engage in a variety of leisure activities such as skating, toboganning, skiing, snowboarding and more recent introductions such as fat biking. These activities serve to animate winter cities and enhance the quality of life of residents. At the same time, winter conditions often act as a detriment to participation in leisure pursuits as people are reluctant to endure cold temperatures outdoors. Winter cities around the world are attempting to reposition winter as a season for residents and visitors to embrace and enjoy. This case documents the process used by multiple stakeholders in the City of Edmonton to celebrate its winter season and transform itself into “a World-Leading Winter City.” Initiated with a series of public consultations beginning in 2011, ten themes were identified to formulate a WinterCity Strategy for the City of Edmonton. The themes are categories divided into “Winter Life,” “Winter Design,” Winter Economy,” and “Our Winter Story.” Since the launch of the Strategy in October 2012, City practitioners, entrepreneurs, NGO partners and members of the public have been engaged in efforts to reclaim the public spaces of Edmonton to celebrate winter living. A WinterCity Coordinator and support team at the City of Edmonton is championing these efforts. Efforts include developing a four-season patio culture; creating new winter based narratives with the City’s poet Laurette, public school writing competitions, and media outreach; expanding winter festival offerings and related special events; and, enhancing building and infrastructure design to mitigate the negative effects of cold temperatures and wind, and enhance solar access. The impact of the Winter Cities Initiative and lessons learned from the first 5 years of these efforts are described in the case. This case study aids in winter city repositioning by identifying innovative ideas for reclaiming and animating the winter cityscapes making them more attractive places to live and visit. The case also provides a “kick start” to expand the dialogue around the impact of climate on quality of life, leisure participation and community identity.Item Journey to Churchill interpretative exhibit case study: Innovation in evaulation(VIU Press, 2018-02) Bueddefeld, Jill N.; Van Winkle, Christine M.; Benbow, MaryThis chapter demonstrates the importance of innovative evaluation methods in visitor contexts, through a case study at a zoo. The Assiniboine Park Zoo in Winnipeg, Manitoba developed a new exhibit, Journey to Churchill. This exhibit was intended to help visitors connect with and learn about arctic animals, ecosystems, conservation and climate change. To assess whether outcomes were achieved, three different methods were used. Readers will learn about personal meaning mapping, overheard conversations, and social media analysis as effective methods for evaluating a range of visitor outcomes. Particularly, this research demonstrates that innovative and flexible methods are needed to assess a broad range of visitor outcomes such as interpretive learning, emotional connection, behaviour changes, and understanding public discourse that may not be possible with traditional survey or interview methods. The real-life impacts of this case study are discussed to demonstrate the importance of visitor evaluation for effective program planning, review, and ongoing guidance in the management of visitor experiences. By the end of this case study readers will be able to: 1) demonstrate an understanding of the importance of evaluation in visitor contexts; 2) identify three innovative methods that can be used in visitor evaluations; 3) and demonstrate an understanding of leisure experiences as potential opportunities for free-choice learning, emotional connections, and sustainable behaviour change. In general, this case study found that by using this combination of research methods that the interpretive, emotional, and behavioural goals were mostly achieved by the exhibit, but that there was a lack of public awareness about research and conservation efforts facilitated by the APZ. Additionally, this case study demonstrated that the JTC exhibit can facilitate meaningful learning about Arctic animals and climate change through emotional connections to the animals in the exhibit, especially the polar bears.Item Work integrated learning as a tool for therapeutic recreation students in the first year of their undergraduate degree(VIU Press, 2018-02) Bennett, Charlise; Alford, StewartTherapeutic recreation is one field within leisure practice. Exposure to Therapeutic Recreation (TR) or Leisure studies as a future career, for most commencing undergraduate students is limited in Australia. At Western Sydney University, nested within a Health Science degree is a specialisation or ‘key program’ in Therapeutic Recreation. Some students default into the course as it has ‘health science’ in the title — with the intention of transferring during the course or completing postgraduate studies in ‘their first field’ such as physiotherapy, nursing, podiatry and other health sciences at a later date. This case study will identify and discuss the benefits of Work Integrated Learning [WIL] in the first year of the Therapeutic Recreation (TR) degree for student retention, satisfaction, career development and how the work placement in the first year of their degree assists to develop a student's career trajectory. Whilst meeting the learning outcomes for the Professional Pathways in Health Science unit, an unexpected result has been multiple students changing their career allegiances to the leisure sciences, as well as many entering paid employment and/or seeking further volunteer opportunities as a result of the placement. Academic audiences would benefit from this case study by considering the timing of work placements and the scaffolding of knowledge and skills throughout degree courses, particularly in specialist professional fields. Across most allied health and other professional degrees, work placements are typically scaffolded into the curriculum toward the end of their degrees and therefore fail to gain authentic exposure to the various fields of practice and contexts in which the health and leisure professional may work in the initial stages of their degree.Item Organizational revitalization: A study of a leisure professional association creating an action plan for change - part 2(VIU Press, 2018-02) Weddell, Melissa; James, Jana JoyIn 2016 North Carolina Recreation and Parks Association (NCRPA), a leisure and recreation professional association, implemented an organizational change with the hopes of becoming more relevant and vital to recreation professionals. In the Innovative Leisure Practices: Cases as Conduits between Theory and Practice – Volume 2 (2016), James and Weddell documented the initial process leading to organizational change. The NCRPA Board president tasked an Ad Hoc committee to read the book, “Race for Relevance” (2011) and make recommendations to revitalize the organization. For more details on the beginning process, see James and Weddell’s (2016) Case study “Implementing organizational change: A case study of a leisure professional association’s structural change, to remain relevant to its members as well as in its support of the profession.” Organizational change includes more than making recommendations to a board and having a unanimous board vote to implement the recommendations. Once the vote passed, the real work began. This case study continues the investigation by describing the implementation process of the recommendations leading to NCRPA organizational revitalization for 2017. The main players of innovation included the NCRPA Executive Director, its Board President, and the Executive Board as well as several committees appointed by the President. NCRPA continued to use the book “Race for Relevance” (2011) as a primer to change, requiring each committee member to read the book to understand the impact of the changes and future decisions. The impacts of this change will be examined in Part Two of this case study, revealing the building blocks from recognizing the need for change and taking recommendations to implementation to create a relevant and nimble organization that meets the needs of its members.Item Creating a logical model of positive youth development through a multiple instrumental case study(VIU Press, 2018-02) Webb, Evan; Karlis, GeorgeThough positive youth development (PYD) interventions heavily utilize recreational contexts, there has been little focus within research on examining these contexts themselves and developing knowledge on what features and processes allow for them to be conducive of positive developmental outcomes in youth. Consequently, a model of program delivery for recreational organizations to be conducive of PYD based on empirical data does not currently exist. Thus, many programs experience varying levels of success while some others are cancelled after short amounts of time. The intent of this study was to disseminate a model, through a multiple case study methodology, that acts as a framework or guide for (1) designing recreational programs to facilitate PYD and (2) evaluating and identifying these PYD outcomes. A multiple case study methodology was utilized. Data were collected from three non-profit recreational organizations, each acting as a single instrumental case, that all have a mandate in place for PYD and a reputation for success in their respective communities. Key findings were used to create the model. Qualitative data were collected on what study participants (program staff and youth) perceived as being the positive developmental outcomes experienced by youth participants and the mechanisms utilized to realize these outcomes. Several unique findings and innovative practices are presented here that can inform PYD aimed recreation organizations on methods to deal with several challenges and issues faced by them on a regular basis.