A collaboration between social work and nursing faculty created a curriculum to improve cultural awareness and knowledge of LGBT older population's health and quality of life. Social work and nursing students completed a pre/post survey following the educational intervention; results from this mixed methods study indicated positive change in…

Intergenerational service-learning for undergraduate students seeks to generate interest about the older adult population, while increasing knowledge and improving attitudes about aging and reducing ageism. It is difficult to make an impact on students' views in a short time period, such as an academic quarter. This comparative effectiveness…

Expression of sexuality by older people, particularly those with dementia, can be challenging and confronting for aged-care staff. Education on this topic is often a low priority area for aged-care organizations, and there appears to be limited training programs available. Results from our study highlighted the value of an eLearning education…

A rationale describes the need for societies with a lengthy lifespan to make education available that can support learning and favorable influence for a rapidly growing grandparent population. International studies drawn from varied disciplines are reviewed that make known the effects of formal education and the effects of social engagement on…

With the rapid aging of the population, strategies that can be incorporated into the curriculum are needed, including social work and medicine. Over the past 20 years, pedagogical strategies to improve attitudes toward older adults and gerontological practice along with knowledge about aging have been tested. Instructors are seeking methods that…

Educating and training the dementia workforce is a global challenge, given the expected increasing number of people living with dementia across the world as the population ages. Two projects from the UK (one regionally and one locality based) investigated courses available to the workforce and mapped the content of identified courses against a…

Creative activities are a challenge for long-term care facilities. The Passport intervention uses web-based video technology to provide long-term care residents with a virtual travel experience. Passport broadcasts were conducted and staff and residents were interviewed about the experience. A thematic analysis of interviews was used to discern…

In this study, the effectiveness of an oral history assignment was assessed in a traditional gerontology class versus a distance education (DE) gerontology class. Attitudes toward older adults and the aging process were measured before and after students in the traditional (n = 29) and DE (n = 16) setting completed an oral history assignment.…

Intergenerational interactions have demonstrated some success at improving attitudes of college students toward older adults. This quasiexperimental study involved undergraduate college students paired with older adults for a six-week e-mail exchange. Student attitudes toward older adults were measured pre- and posttest with Polizzi's revised…

Human service professionals regularly do not recognize the symptoms of substance abuse in older populations and are unlikely to provide intervention. In this study, human service students (N = 242) were given one of three vignettes in which the main character was an 80-year-old man, an 80-year-old woman, or they were asked to imagine themselves at…

This article focuses on the design and implementation of an interdisciplinary geriatric educational project at a small New England University. A novel, affective teaching approach of Readers Theater is highlighted as a beginning classroom instructional strategy for interdisciplinary students. The physical and psychosocial considerations for health…

This article reports an evaluation of a GeroRich effort to increase age-specific content throughout bachelor and master-level social work curricula. A total of 426 students (128 BSWs and 298 MSWs) completed pre and posttests in 2004-2005, self-rating their aging competency using the Social Work with Aging Skill Competency Scale II (New York…

BSW and MSW students randomly completed one of two vignettes that were identical with the exception of the age of the vignette's subject. Following the vignette, respondents responded to 16 bio-psycho-social assessment and intervention items relating to health, illness, aging, and death. The multivariate analysis of variance was significant…