Opportunity For Group Discussion Research Articles

Competency Based Education and Continuous Assessment in Laboratory to acquire higher order learning levels: Challenges, Process and Outcomes

Competency based education and its continuous assessment creates a strong interest amongst all stakeholders involved in laboratories. Hands on experience and projectbased learning provide an opportunity for a personalized path to acquire higher order learning levels. A continuous assessment procedure has been implemented to impart knowledge-based on skill centric environment for lifelong learning. Five assessment components have been designed for the continuous improvement of skills all of which are required for higher order competencies. Laboratory assessments components have been designed by considering the teaching learning process, methodologies, complex engineering analysis, sustainable development, professional engineering practices and Continuous Improvement. These assessment components have brought about a radical transformation in Academic Performance Index (API), Success Index (SI), Placement, Higher Studies, Entrepreneurship (PHE) , attainment of Program Outcomes (PO's) and Program Specific Outcomes (PSO's). These outcomes indicate that students/graduates have acquired a higher order competency along with professional learning and hands on experience.The proposed methodology for laboratory performance assessment components addresses the problems existing in conventional laboratory assessment methodology. In conventional methodologies, performance assessment is done based on laboratory report submitted by each group. The biggest drawback is that there are no specific guidelines for grading reports, large variance in assessment of senior and junior staff and no continuous evaluation system. Aptitude brilliance can be improved through knowledge component assessment. In addition, written work component is vital in improving lifelong learning and soft skills or professional skills.The analysis of Questions Answered indicates the continuous.The analysis of Questions Answered indicates the continuous reading practice which prepares them to grasp technical topics leading to benefits in employment as well as an improvement in individual Academic Performance. Interactive component gives them experience and opportunity for group discussion. Also, it helps in striking impactful conversations to address the needs, build network, perspective and intrinsic drivers which influence continuous improvement. Punctuality component is most critical and also key component to transform individual component to become a competent professional. It also helps to balance their professional and personal life. Here outcomes are observed considering three engineering streams and over 8000 data points for three consecutive Academic Years. This paper result provides implications for academicians, Employers and Human Resource professionals of Industry. Also, this paper helps identify the Industry Academia gap existing between the skills needed in the industry and the university education the students receive. Keywords: OBE, POs, PSO’s, SI, API, Industry Institute Interaction, Assessment Components (AC’s)

P101 ‘Best Foot Forward Workshops’: a novel supported self-management approach for foot health

Abstract Background Rheumatic foot health challenges can be multiple and wide-ranging, leading to reduced mobility or quality of life. However, the provision of foot health services is disparate. There is a need to innovate new approaches to personalised foot health care outside of traditional clinical models of service delivery. A new healthcare model was co-designed by patients, academics and clinicians from secondary and primary care Trusts, to support self-management. Part of this model included the development of ‘best foot forward’ workshops. There is a need to: minimise the impact of the demonstrated gap between what service users need or want and what services are providing; reduce waiting times; empower self-management; improve MDT availability for those in need; reduce the number of appointments needed to get resolution; reduce service costs; maintain patient satisfaction. Methods The team co-designed a series of foot health workshops, at 8-week intervals. The novel workshop design extended beyond a traditional patient education session and consisted of: 1. an education session about anatomy and physiology for the lower limb, 2. social networking time, 3. a themed education session, 4. opportunity for group discussion, 5. opportunity for individual question and answer with a health professional, 6. Access to direct request for follow-up appointment. Electronic invitations were sent to all patients registered within a single rheumatology department enrolled on the electronic notification system. Posters advertising the workshops were displayed in waiting areas. After three workshops data regarding patient attendance, satisfaction, and health service use up to four weeks after the workshop was collected. Results Nineteen, 22 and 30 patients attended the workshops respectively. Seven people attended multiple workshops. All patients reported having an unmet foot health need and would have otherwise sought a clinical appointment. Allowing for session preparation time (approx. 3 hours per session) 20 hours of clinical time was saved; the clinical waiting list was reduced by 12 sessions (6 weeks). Three patients (4%) requested one follow-up clinical appointment immediately after the workshop. No patients requested additional appointments in the four weeks after each workshop; enabling patient led review saved 71 further appointments. Patients reported content, venue and satisfactions scores of 9.6, 8.7 and 9.6/10 respectively. Conclusion Further research is needed to confirm that patients’ needs are being fully met, in addition to enabling supported self-management and improving clinical outcomes. There is potential for these workshops to be co-ordinated and facilitated by expert patient partners. The role of group interaction as a therapeutic mechanism to aid supported self-management is worthy of further study. Best foot forward workshops could represent a viable supported self-management alternative to traditional clinical models for people with rheumatic conditions. Disclosures S. Connett None. C. Beevor None. S. Ward None. E. Wong None. L. Cherry None.

Tidier descriptions of speech and language therapy interventions for people with aphasia; consensus from the RELEASE Collaboration

Background: Speech and language therapy (SLT) interventions for people with aphasia are complex – for example, interventions vary by delivery model (face-to-face, tele-rehabilitation), dynamic (group, 1-to-1) and provider. Therapists tailor the functional relevance and intervention difficulty to the individual’s needs. Therapy regimes are planned at a specific intensity (hours per week), frequency (number of weekly sessions), duration (time from start to end of therapy intervention) and dose (total number of therapy hours). Detailed and transparent description of interventions for people with aphasia facilitates replication in clinic, between-study comparisons and data-syntheses. Incomplete intervention reporting and inconsisten-cies in the use of terminology have been observed (RELEASE: REhabilitation and recovery of peopLE with Aphasia after StrokE Collaborators, 2015-2018; Brady, Kelly, Godwin, Enderby, & Campbell, 2016; Pierce, O’Halloran, Togher, & Rose, in press). Even when similar terms are used there may be little agreement on their use (Pierce et al., in press). Our RELEASE Collaboration includes 72 multidisciplinary, multilingual aphasia researchers from 28 countries. In preparation for planned meta-analyses (HSD (Hoffmann et al., 2014). The TIDieR checklist supports transparent reporting, data extraction and synthesis in aphasia research. It has facilitated an exploration of the contribution specific parameters (for example intensity) may make to the effectiveness of (or tolerance to) an intervention (Brady et al., 2016). However, while the variables described above are readily summarised, other aspects of therapeutic interventions such as the theoretical approach, the materials used and the procedures employed (the “Why” and “What” within TIDieR) are more challenging to summarise in manner supporting data synthesis and meta-analyses. The World Health Organisation’s (“International Classification of Health Interventions (ICHI),”) also seeks a framework which supports the synthesis and statistical analysis of healthcare interventions based on (a) the treatment target, (b) the intended action to the target and (c) the processes and methods required to carry out the action (ICHI, 2018). However a framework which complements these initiatives and which supports greater consistency in the description of SLT interventions for aphasia is required. Aims: We sought to develop international consensus on a framework to support the description of SLT interventions for people with aphasia. Methods and procedures: Two researchers independently extracted information about the SLT interventions in our RELEASE database (Hoffmann et al., 2014). Information on therapy approaches, materials and procedures were extracted, where possible, as direct quotes from published reports. Using the narrative descriptions, similar approaches were grouped and assigned to one or more category labels by an experienced speech and language therapist. These preliminary groupings were shared with RELEASE Collaborators for review. Each reviewed interventions included within up to four category labels and responses via email were requested. There followed an opportunity for group discussion on the proposed categorisation via videoconference. Outcomes and results: Therapy interventions were categorised based on three per-spectives (a) the role of the intervention within the study design e.g., usual care as a comparison control (b) the intervention target e.g., rehabilitation of spoken language production and (c) the theoretical approach e.g., semantic therapy. We identified 15 SLT approaches. Categories were not mutually exclusive; rather they represented different ways of categorising a complex intervention. Inadequate reporting of therapy interven-tions, procedures and materials hampered some classifications. The Collaboration facilitated knowledge sharing relating to emerging treatment category definitions such as multimodal treatment (Pierce et al., in press) which reflected interventions aimed to utilise a range of learning mechanisms and neural networks to facilitate language recovery. Conclusions: Our collaboration agreed on a framework which supports transparent description, data synthesis and meta-analyses of SLT interventions for people with aphasia after stroke.

An exploration of the relationship between educational background and the coaching behaviours and practice activities of professional youth soccer coaches

ABSTRACTBackground and purpose: Despite the proliferation in recent years of higher education establishments offering tertiary-level study in the field of sports coaching, there is a lack of research into the impact of such courses on coaching practice. The behaviours employed and activities used by coaches during practice sessions is an area where one might expect to see such impact, indeed certain studies have tentatively noted the educational qualifications of coaches and suggested that this may play a role in the application of behaviours more aligned with player learning. The purpose of this study was therefore to compare youth soccer coaches with and without tertiary-level qualifications, examining their coaching behaviours and practice activities.Method: The participants were 10 male professional youth soccer coaches aged 24–55 with an average of 13 years coaching experience. Five of the coaches had completed undergraduate degree courses related to sport coaching. All of the coaches worked with players aged under 9 to under 18 in the youth academy of an English professional soccer club. Systematic observation of coach behaviour and practice activities was carried out using the Coach Analysis and Intervention System (Cushion et al. 2012), while follow-up interviews were used to elicit the coaches’ perceptions of, and rationale for, their behaviour.Findings: The observation data showed that graduate coaches used significantly more divergent questioning than non-graduate coaches, while the interview data revealed a general trend for graduate coaches to show greater self-awareness of behaviours and changes in behaviour between practice types. Graduate coaches also provided more comprehensive rationales, for example, seeing silence as a means of facilitating player decision-making as well as for observation. In contrast to previous research, sessions featured a higher proportion of playing form than training form activities and at over 20% of session duration, the ‘other’ practice state was a prominent feature of contact time with players. While some coaches saw ‘other’ as wasted time, graduate coaches identified this as an opportunity for group discussion and social interaction. The study adds to existing data about coach behaviours and practice activities, providing evidence that education background may indeed influence coaching practice.

Advance care planning in community: Evaluation of a two-session workshop.

14 Background: Engaging patients in advance care planning (ACP) is challenging. Group visits and multiple patient-clinician interactions appear to promote advance directive (AD) completion. We evaluated the effectiveness of a two-session ACP workshop. Methods: We conducted a nurse-led ACP workshop for patients and their family caregivers in a comprehensive cancer center. Patients were invited by their outpatient palliative care physician and an assistant helped coordinate attendance. Monthly sessions were 2 hours long and 2 weeks apart. The first session detailed the ACP process, featured the “Go Wish” card game, and introduced the “Five Wishes” AD. In the time between sessions, patients were encouraged to play Go Wish with family and to begin filling out their AD. The second session included questions and discussion, and helped patients complete, notarize, and scan their AD into the EMR. Workshop evaluation included the validated 4-question Sudore ACP Readiness Survey as well as semi-structured participant interviews. Results: Ten of 11 participants from 4 workshop offerings completed surveys. Median age was 48 years (range 41-72). Most patients (10/11, 90.9%) had breast cancer. Mean pre-workshop ACP readiness was 4.0 out of 5; post-workshop readiness increased nearly significantly to 4.325 (p = .057). Eight of the workshop participants (72.7%) had a new notarized AD scanned into the EMR. Participants most appreciated the chance to talk with other patients (“The most important thing was having a group there. I don’t think I ever would have read that packet if it had just been handed to me.”) and the chance to include their family caregivers (“My family and I had a rich and bonding talk, which was helpful for their own thinking about the AD for themselves as well.”). Two family caregivers completed their own AD. Patients who declined a workshop invitation most commonly reported they “did not have time” because of medical appointments. Conclusions: The ACP workshop was well received by participants and increased ACP readiness, discussion, and completion. The opportunities for group discussion and inclusion of family caregivers were important to participants. Barriers to attending workshops must be explored.

Synthesis Centers as Critical Research Infrastructure

Synthesis centers offer a unique amalgam of culture, infrastructure, leadership, and support that facilitates creative discovery on issues crucial to science and society. The combination of logistical support, postdoctoral or senior fellowships, complex data management, informatics and computing capability or expertise, and most of all, opportunity for group discussion and reflection lowers the “activation energy” necessary to promote creativity and the cross-fertilization of ideas. Synthesis centers are explicitly created and operated as community-oriented infrastructure, with scholarly directions driven by the ever-changing interests and needs of an open and inclusive scientific community. The last decade has seen a rise in the number of synthesis centers globally but also the end of core federal funding for several, challenging the sustainability of the infrastructure for this key research strategy. Here, we present the history and rationale for supporting synthesis centers, integrate insights arising from two decades of experience, and explore the challenges and opportunities for long-term sustainability.

Beyond Our Expectations: A Review of an Independent Learning Module in Descriptive Cataloguing at the Queensland University of Technology

SUMMARY This paper discusses an innovative approach to teaching cataloguing. At Queensland University of Technology (QUT), students enrolled in the Graduate Diploma of Library and Information Studies were involved in an independent learning activity which aimed to develop LIS students' foundation knowledge of descriptive cataloguing, while simultaneously encouraging students to think critically about broader issues that would inevitably impact on their role as information professionals. In the self-study program, learning activities included an interactive multimedia CD-ROM and a printed workbook with exercises, augmented by the opportunity for group discussion in weekly tutorials to enable students to share key aspects of their independent learning. Students were asked to critically evaluate the CD-ROM and the workbook and also to develop their own professional views about the arguments for and against the inclusion of cataloguing in the LIS curriculum. The paper presents the outcomes of this pilot project.

Physiotherapy Internship: An Alternative Collaborative Learning Model

Purpose: The purposes of this article are to (1) present a descriptive qualitative field report of a collaborative learning internship of four students assigned to two clinical instructors (CIs) (4:2 ratio) in the area of cardiorespiratory physiotherapy practice and (2) provide recommendations to CIs and universities based on this field study. Summary of Key Points: From the perspective of the students, the main advantages of this collaborative internship included increased peer support, knowledge sharing, problem solving, and a comfortable learning environment. The CIs found advantages to include more instructor peer support, increased student collaboration with assessment and treatment planning, and more opportunity for group discussion. The main disadvantages from the perspectives of both the students and the CIs were accommodating various learning styles and personalities and having less 1:1 time with the CIs. Conclusion: This collaborative learning model did not impede the quality of student education or patient care and was shown to be an educational experience appropriate for implementation in student internships. Given the positive outcomes and the recommendations provided, this 4:2 collaborative learning internship could be implemented to help meet the growing demands of increased enrolment and “hard-to-find” internships and to foster stronger supervisory skills for clinicians.

Decentering Heterosexuality

This paper reports on research involving eight focus group discussions with seventy feminist counselors who respond in their work to abuse in lesbian relationships. Focus group discussions allowed for information to be gathered on their observations about same-sex partner abuse and at the same time provided occasion for critical reflexivity. The focus groups illustrate how thoroughly we rely on heteronormative discourses and feminist categories and constructs to think about violence, and how these can impede our efforts to understand and respond effectively to same-sex partner abuse. Overall, the paper encourages more opportunities for group discussion among counselors so that we can share important in sights into same-sex partner abuse and encourage a critical analysis of thera peutic practices and the normative assumptions behind them.

Mental disorders and burden of disease: how was disability estimated and is it valid?

The Global Burden of Disease study found mental disorders to be the world's leading cause of disability. Few studies have examined the validity of the novel approach used to estimate disability, the person trade-off preference method. This paper describes, and examines the validity of, the burden of disease person trade-off protocol. The person trade-off provides preferences for health states (how good or bad you think it is in relation to perfect health). General practitioners (n = 20) with training in mental health provided preferences for 19 mental disorders using the person trade-off method. Descriptions for the mental disorders were derived from the average symptom severity and disability observed in the Australian National Survey of Mental Health and Wellbeing. Validity was investigated by comparison with two other methods (rating scale and rank order). The general practitioners found the person trade-off complex and affronting. Only a moderate concordance was observed with two validity comparisons; however, validity was significantly increased following the opportunity for group discussion among the clinicians. The disability weights were higher than those used in the global study, a possible consequence of differences in disorder descriptions. The present study is limited by small subject numbers and by using only one type of key informant (clinicians). While this study provided some evidence for the validity of the person trade-off, it also echoes concerns from recent commentaries about the feasibility of this method. These concerns are particularly relevant for mental disorder burden, which relies heavily on the magnitude of the disability weights. Further work is required to ensure that disability burden is validly estimated, and thus can appropriately be used to inform mental health policy.

Meeting the teaching needs of Clinical Educators

To meet the teaching needs of clinical educators and clinical supervisors, a structured course was designed to run over 14 weeks of three hour sessions. The format and instructional layout of the course was designed to provide consistency of material to be presented for beginning clinical educators. Teaching sessions were set up to provide a practical knowledge base upon which participants were able to build skills through active involvement, limiting the amount of lecture time to provide opportunities for group discussion and other interactive means to actively involve participants.

RELIGION AND CULTURE

vivacious Pastor Anthony Joseph of the West African Church of Hope and Glory. The Pastor's style of public address was unusu ally impressive, and built up to an appeal for greater support from the main Christian Churches for the type of small Church he rep resents. The only opportunity for group discussion in the whole meeting followed these presentations. After morning worship the next day there were five more pre sentations. The first was on the part of the Romanian Orthodox Parish, completing the Russian presentation of the evening before (and also the Greek Orthodox presentation at the Greenhills Ecumenical Meeting of the previous January). Next, Rev. Alan Martin presented the fruits of his research into the integration of immigrants into Irish Church congregations: meeting the cultural expectations of incomers to Ireland is a major challenge, so that fully integrated worship is difficult. What works best at present in Irish towns is the use of churches and other buildings at different times by different ethnic groups. A contrary instance was pre sented by Rev Noel Fallows of the Clontarf Methodist Church, whose church and congregation has, as he described it, been revi talised by being virtually taken over by a group of Christians from Rwanda. Church involvement in social justice returned to the agenda with a powerful and indeed rather harrowing account of the work being done by the Spiritans (Holy Ghost Missionaries) for the vic tims of persecution and, in many cases, torture, who are quite numerous in Ireland. The final presentation of the day was by Fr Michael Daly of Stamullen, who described his ministry to those housed at the former Mosney Holiday Camp in his parish, and their integration into the local parish for worship. The concluding event of the meeting was a presentation to Dr David Stevens, since 1992 Executive Secretary of the IICM, the organiser of 'Ballymascanlon', who is taking up a new appoint ment with the Corrymeela Community. The Emmaus meeting showed clearly the intensity and realism of inter-church activity in Ireland during his period in office.