Learning Opportunities Research Articles

The Obstacles and Paths of Family Education Concepts and Cognition to Promote the Development of Digital Education

The transformative growth of digital education has highlighted its potential to revolutionize learning, yet it faces notable challenges, particularly concerning the role of family education. Families are critical in supporting students in digital learning, but generational gaps, cultural attitudes, and cognitive lags often hinder the effective adoption of digital tools. This article explores the intersection of family education concepts and digital learning, emphasizing the obstacles families face. Through a comprehensive analysis, the study identifies key barriers, including extreme attitudes toward digital education and the cultural and generational gaps that limit parental engagement. It also evaluates the pivotal role of family involvement in aligning with modern educational demands. Based on these findings, the article proposes actionable strategies: increasing family awareness through training, fostering home-school collaboration, encouraging balanced use of traditional and digital methods, and developing policies that address socioeconomic barriers. These approaches aim to bridge gaps in family education and promote equitable digital learning opportunities. By integrating family education practices with the changing requirements of digital education, this study emphasizes the need for family involvement in building a supportive and inclusive educational ecosystem.

Guiding medical trainees' workplace learning for interprofessional collaboration-Looking to physicians or seeing nurses?

Effective healthcare practice requires interprofessional collaboration (IPC) between all members of the healthcare team. Preparing healthcare trainees for IPC has proven to be difficult. Research suggests that workplace learning has a vital role in acquiring IPC competencies. However, guidance is required for trainees to make optimal use of IPC workplace learning opportunities. This study asks (1) To what extent is guidance provided to medical trainees when learning to collaborate interprofessionally?; and (2) Who provides this guidance and how? We conducted a constructivist, qualitative study using iterative cycles of semi-structured interviews and reflexive thematic analysis. A purposive sample of medical trainees (N = 11), nurses (N = 9), advance practice clinicians (APCs)(N = 3) and attending physicians (N = 9) associated with a department of general internal medicine in a non-academic teaching hospital participated in this study. Data-analysis was informed by Billett's concept of guidance. Guidance on IPC was provided to medical trainees both intraprofessionally and interprofessionaly, be it limited, informal and implicit. Nurses and APCs provided more guidance on IPC than attending physicians. Guidance by attending physicians included implicit modelling and only became explicit in response to concerns raised about trainees' IPC by nurses. Nurses and APCs provided continuous guidance on various aspects of IPC but felt hampered by hierarchical issues to provide feedback. Trainees were more focused on feedback provided by attending physicians than they were aware of nurses' feedback. The potential of workplace learning to learn IPC competencies is currently hampered by a lack of explicit guidance. Optimizing the role of workplace learning in IPC competence development requires more explicit role modelling and collaborative intentionality by attending physicians, more critical reflection by trainees and a strengthening of the feedback role of nurses and APCs.

Integration of Geriatrics and Palliative Medicine Into a Medical Student Clinical Reasoning Curriculum.

Integration of geriatrics and palliative medicine principles into preexisting medical student curricula is imperative to train future physicians to care for older adults and those facing serious illness. We developed a case of an older adult presenting with a change in mental status within a preexisting small-group case-based interactive clinical reasoning curriculum. The 1-hour and 50-minute session embedded the 4Ms framework (mentation, medications, mobility, and what matters most) in a clinical case to allow students an organic opportunity to apply the 4Ms in practice while using their communication, clinical reasoning, and hypothesis-driven physical examination skills. Students and faculty completed an end-of-session survey, and each small group's differential diagnoses were reviewed. Seventy-five second-year students and 26 faculty participated in the session. On retrospective pre-post surveys, student confidence in all the learning objectives significantly improved. Both students and faculty felt that the integration of geriatrics and palliative medicine was effective. Students valued the topic, appreciated the pedagogical approach and the relevance to clinical preparation, and identified opportunities for continued learning. Students' differential diagnoses demonstrated application of components of three of the four Ms in the 4Ms framework (mentation, medications, and mobility). Notably, many learners did not apply the fourth M (what matters most) to the case without prompting. This curriculum was well received and effective and can be easily adapted for use with various levels of learners. Faculty should look for additional opportunities to integrate content into preexisting curricular structures.

Master classes of the tenth international brain-computer interface meeting: showcasing the research of BCI trainees.

The Tenth International Brain-Computer Interface (BCI) Meeting was held June 6-9, 2023 in the Sonian Forest in Brussels, Belgium. At that meeting, 21 master classes, organized by the BCI Society' s Postdoc & Student Committee, supported the Society' s goal of fostering learning opportunities and meaningful interactions for trainees in BCI-related fields. Master classes provide an informal environment where senior researchers can give constructive feedback to the trainee on their chosen and specific pursuit. The topics of the master classes span the whole gamut of BCI research and techniques. These include data acquisition, neural decoding and analysis, invasive and noninvasive stimulation, and ethical and transitional considerations. Additionally, master classes spotlight innovations in BCI research. Herein, we discuss what was presented within the master classes by highlighting each trainee and expert researcher, providing relevant background information and results from each presentation, and summarizing discussion and references for further study.&#xD.

Empowering biomedical learners to navigate FDA regulatory processes and entrepreneurship with a novel interdisciplinary training approach

For rising professionals to meet the needs of contemporary healthcare and biomedical innovation, educators must develop new teaching and learning approaches. Specifically, biomedical innovations are significantly influenced by the FDA’s regulatory framework, requiring professionals to be equipped with regulatory science knowledge, entrepreneurial skills, and interdisciplinary training. However, biomedical education often fails to integrate these skills in an environment that mimics the interdisciplinary setting required for translational science, leaving learners unprepared for unique challenges in practice. This study details an FDA Regulation and Entrepreneurship curriculum at Case Western Reserve University and its affiliated community, leveraging a novel approach for biomedical education. Focused on preparing biomedical professionals to navigate FDA regulatory processes and innovative entrepreneurship endeavors, the curriculum is built upon five core principles: integrating multiple disciplines, ensuring real world applicability, developing a systems thinking approach, incorporating ethical considerations, and fostering a collaborative and experiential learning environment. These principles are supported by a flexible course format, targeted learning objectives, team-based learning sessions, experiential learning opportunities, a diverse participant population, and an interdisciplinary team of faculty and experts. High participant engagement and broad representation across fields over the curriculum’s three-year lifespan to date affirm its relevance and value with participants representing the fields of basic science, medicine, law, business, and engineering. The flexible course format, team-based learning, and experiential learning proved instrumental in enhancing engagement, reinforcing practical learning outcomes, and supporting personalized learning goals. The flexible course format further aligns with professional needs of participants, providing a model for other institutions navigating similar challenges in biomedical education. In conclusion, participant feedback demonstrated the value of the interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary training approach in promoting knowledge retention and skill development in complex medical, business management and legal contexts. Moving forward, targeted outreach and flexible engagement options will be necessary to expand the curricular reach and diverse participant population. The success of the curriculum suggests promising implications for similar approaches aimed at empowering biomedical professionals with essential regulatory, entrepreneurial and interdisciplinary competencies, ultimately advancing translational science and improving healthcare outcomes.

Meta-synthesis of school leadership competencies to support learner-centered, personalized education

This study analyzes the corpus of research on how K–12 school leaders foster deeper learning by creating learner-centered, personalized learning opportunities for students. We used the Leadership Competencies for Learner-Centered, Personalized Education developed by Jobs of the Future (2017) as our conceptual and analytical framework to analyze 42 peer-reviewed empirical articles. The findings detail how school leaders build structures to support learning-centered, personalized experiences for the students they serve.

“A Total Warp”? Negotiating teacher authority in a Chinese heritage language classroom

This study explores the experiences of a novice teacher in a Chinese heritage language classroom who reexamines and reconceptualizes her understanding of teacher authority as her pedagogical practices are met with resistance from students. It highlights how differing expectations between teachers and students shape classroom interactions, teaching practices, and learning opportunities. Through a collaborative action research model, this study makes visible the process of negotiating teacher authority in a heritage language class and the pedagogical adjustments that followed. The findings not only underscore the importance of teacher reflexivity in supporting professional development but also contribute to our understanding of how teacher-student relationships can be negotiated and developed in heritage language classroom contexts.

The challenges of consent in a decentralised metaverse: exploring ethically informed protections and standards to safeguard humans

Throughout the history of Web2.0 there is a large body of evidence of data being used for something other than what it was consented to be used for. What were 2D webpages are becoming 3D worlds, collectively forming a Metaverse of virtual and mixed reality domains which should help to create new interactive learning, social and economic opportunities. In this paper we reflect on how the physical world will itself become a networked interface, making reality even more machine-readable, click-able, and searchable. We begin with a review of the Metaverse and some of the consent challenges that arise and urgently need to be addressed whilst exploring its potential. There is a core need for creators of Metaverse environments to make them safe spaces for everyone to use. We explore and review the knowledge gap of consent needed to ensure a fair and just use of data within the Metaverse. We explore the challenges of consent including examples such as unauthorised surveillance and the need for ethical and moral standards in large platforms such as VRChat. This need is then further elaborated using experiences gathered during the XPRIZE Rapid Re-skilling Competition. The main contributions of this paper are the five stage Shared Consent Framework which was developed in response to understanding the limitations of existing consent frameworks and the extended definition of the Metaverse.

The Significant Aspects of Effective Guidance and Counselling that Promote Excellent Academic Achievement in rural Secondary schools of Vhembe district, South Africa

Objective: Guidance & counselling is an enterprise used globally and in SA as a strategy to promote excellent academic performance of learners. Nevertheless, its effectiveness is not given enough attention regardless that some schools continue to underperform below the national set standards of perfomance. The purpose of this project study was to investigate, ‘The significant aspects of effective guidance and counselling that promote excellent academic achievement in rural Secondary Schools of Vhembe District, South Africa. Theoretical Framework: This study was informed by the role of the teacher as a leader. According to Ma and Marion (2021) the teacher promotes academic achievement in South African rural schools. The guidance and counselling teacher in this role is seen as the catalyst for change, a visionary who is not content with the status quo and always looking for a better way of doing things. Guidance and counselling teachers serve the purpose of exposing different learning opportunities for learners in rural schools and fellow educators. Method: Convergence design was used; mixed methods approach purposive sampling procedure was followed to select participants who were interviewed telephonically, and questionnaires were distributed physically to the respondents. Results and Discussion: Results showed that Life Orientation teachers and curriculum advisors teachers (participants) agreed that guidance and counselling is an enterprise that promotes learners’ performance. The study concludes that if guidance and counselling is implemented effectively the performance of learners in rural areas will improve. Research Implications: The study recommends that the department should promote the implementation of guidance and counselling by reviewing areas of guidance and counselling that need to be strengthened in rural areas. Originality/Value: This study contributes to literature by highlighting the imperative aspects of guidance and counselling which promome excellent academic achievement.

What facilitates a sense of belonging amongst Australian teachers?

ABSTRACT Objective Enhancing a sense of belonging among teachers could be key to mitigating global teacher shortages. This study aimed to investigate teachers' sense of belonging in the Australian educational context. Method A sample of 3,206 teachers answered a survey with open-ended questions that were analysed using thematic analysis. Results The analysis identified six key themes influencing teachers' sense of belonging: Interpersonal relationships (peer relationships, student and parent relationships); Support and collaboration (providing and receiving support; team dynamics and collaborative efforts); Professional and personal growth (influence and contribution to society, professional learning opportunities, individual professional identity and characteristics); Institutional factors (leadership support, positive school environment, employment stability), Motivators (teaching passion, acknowledgment and appreciation); and External networks (engagement in professional networks). Conclusions The findings provide insights into strategies for enhancing teacher belonging, with potential implications for improving retention and addressing teacher shortages.

Knowledge and attitudes towards Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias among Nigerian medical and nursing students: a comparative study

IntroductionDementia is a growing public health challenge globally, with low- and middle-income countries, including Nigeria, disproportionately affected. Healthcare professionals play a critical role in dementia care. This study compared the knowledge and attitudes of medical and nursing students at a Nigerian university toward Alzheimer’s Disease and Related Dementias (ADRD).MethodsThis cross-sectional study was conducted at the College of Medicine University of Ibadan, Nigeria. A total of 143 penultimate and final-year medical and nursing students were selected by stratified random sampling. Data were collected using the Alzheimer’s Disease Knowledge Scale (ADKS) and Dementia Care Attitude Scale (DCAS). Multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) was used to compare mean scores between these students. Multivariate regression models were developed to identify factors significantly associated with ADKS and DCAS scores. Statistical significance was determined using a two-tailed p-value of < 0.05.ResultsThe mean age of participants was 22.61 years (SD ± 2.56). Medical students demonstrated significantly higher knowledge scores (19.82, SD ± 3.17) compared to nursing students (17.39, SD ± 2.65; p < 0.001) on a scale of 0 to 30. Attitudes measured using the Dementia Care Attitude Scale (DCAS) showed no significant difference between groups, with medical students scoring slightly higher. Multiple regression analysis identified department as a significant predictor of knowledge (p < 0.001) and attitudes (p = 0.010).ConclusionThe study highlights gaps in dementia education among medical and nursing students in Ibadan. Targeted educational interventions, including enhanced curriculum content and experiential learning opportunities, are urgently needed to improve dementia care preparedness in the healthcare workforce.

The impact of obtaining explicit informed consent for medical student participation in the pelvic examination underanesthesia: A qualitative interview study.

To examine patient, physician, and operating room (OR) staff perceptions at an academic institution following the introduction of an explicit, written consent form for medical student participation in the pelvic examination under anesthesia (EUA). The study was performed at one urban academic medical center between May 2021 and May 2023. Thirty-one individuals including patients, OR staff, and physicians were interviewed to better understand their perspectives regarding an initiative to explicitly consent patients for the student pelvic EUA. Northwestern University Institutional Review Board approval was obtained. Patients appreciated being asked to explicitly consent to or refuse the student pelvic EUA and having a dedicated consent form left them with a positive feeling about the hospital and their healthcare providers. OR staff and physicians agreed that the student pelvic EUA is necessary, and almost all supported an explicit consent form. Physicians did not find the additional consent form burdensome and noted only a modest decline in learning opportunities. Patients and healthcare providers agreed that requiring explicit written consent for the student pelvic EUA respected patient autonomy, improved healthcare quality, and caused minimal disruption to medical education. Our data support the use of an explicit written consent form as standard practice.

Prospects and Challenges of Executing the Work-Based Learning Approach in Nepal

This study was carried out to scrutinize the prospects and challenges of instigating the work-based learning (WBL) approach in TVET in Nepal. A qualitative methodology was adopted for the study. Face-to-face and virtual in-depth interviews were conducted with purposively identified TVET experts, teachers and employers from Nepal. Altogether, there were 15 participants. Primarily, the study addressed two research questions: (i) What are the prospects and challenges for instigating a work-based learning approach in TVET in Nepal, and (ii) How the challenges are tackled? The findings revealed that stakeholders' readiness and the industry's volume to meet learners' needs are key challenges in instigating work-based learning approaches in Nepal. The findings also revealed that the prevailing legal frameworks and practices do not have significant provisions. This urges for a conducive legal framework that makes employers mandatory for providing work-based learning opportunities to TVET students in their industries. The industry volume needs to be increased and strengthened by creating a conducive environment for private sector and foreign investment. Additionally, awareness needs to be made among the stakeholders, especially the guardians and the students, so that the guardians understand the importance of WBL and encourage their children to join and the students to be ready for learning in work-based settings.

Select Demographic Data, Disaster-Related Experience, and Disaster Attitudes as Predictors of Disaster Preparedness Among Student Nurses: A Descriptive Correlational Study.

The World Health Organization (WHO) emphasizes the critical need to enhance disaster preparedness among nurses and nursing students due to concerns over their current levels of competency in disaster management. This study aimed to investigate the influence of demographic characteristics, disaster-related experience, and attitudes toward disasters on the disaster preparedness of nursing students. A descriptive correlational design was employed to examine the relationships between selected variables and disaster preparedness. A total of 235 nursing students participated in the study, selected through cluster sampling. Data were collected using Google Forms, incorporating demographic questions and three validated scales: Adapted Disaster Preparedness Evaluation Tool (DPET), Adapted Measurement of the Severity of Disaster Experience, and Adapted Attitudes toward Disaster Management Scale. Statistical analyses included descriptive statistics and Pearson Correlation Coefficient using SPSS Version 23.0. The findings revealed statistically insignificant correlations between disaster preparedness and several demographic variables, namely: year level (r = -0.069, p = 0.292), monthly household income (r = 0.004, p = 0.957), and type of housing (r = 0.106, p = 0.104), and NSTP component taken (r = -0.015, p = 0.822). Additionally, disaster attitude (r = 0.091, p = 0.163) was not significantly associated with disaster preparedness among nursing students. However, disaster experience showed a significant relationship with disaster preparedness (r = 0.979, p = 0.001). This finding highlights the critical role of firsthand disaster exposure in shaping students' readiness to respond effectively to emergencies which suggests that experiential learning opportunities, such as disaster simulations or active participation in disaster response efforts, may be more effective in enhancing preparedness than demographic factors or classroom-based training alone. The authors concluded that demographic factors and attitudes towards disasters were not significantly associated with disaster preparedness among nursing students. However, the findings revealed a positive relationship between previous disaster experiences and disaster preparedness of the participants, suggesting that firsthand exposure to disasters enhances preparedness. Future research should explore additional factors through qualitative and longitudinal approaches. Targeted educational interventions are recommended to address specific gaps identified in this study.

Breaking barriers for academic‐industry sabbaticals

AbstractIndustrial sabbaticals provide a unique learning opportunity for both professors and the host company. However, a successful sabbatical requires early alignment regarding objectives followed by careful planning to maximize the value of the experience. We offer this description of our recent experience to give our academic and industrial colleagues practical advice for designing and executing a successful sabbatical in a corporate research setting. Sabbaticals can serve as an additional conduit between academia and industry, and we expect the immersive experience to impact teaching and undergraduate and graduate education broadly.

A neural network integrated mathematical model to analyse the impact of nutritional status on cognitive development of child

Cognitive development is a crucial developmental aspect of children. It is a concise field of study in psychology and neuroscience that focuses on various developmental aspects of the brain. Among all other factors, nutritional status is believed to play a very important role in cognitive development. The purpose of this work is to analyze the impacts of different nutritional status levels on the child's cognitive development. This work designs a model that uses a neural network and differential equations. The neural network is applied on a dataset called "Child Birth Weight Dataset" available at IEEE Dataport ( http://dx.doi.org/10.21227/dvd4-3232) for finding the nutritional status of a child. The different levels of nutritional status, such as low-nutritional status, normal-nutritional status, and over-nutritional status are integrated with the formulated differential equations. The model is computationally simulated considering four different sets of parameter values that represent four different perspectives such as 'only positive', 'only negative', 'mix and unequal weight', and 'mix and equal weight' of the influencing factors. The experimental results show that normal-nutritional status is the best nutritional status for cognitive development. However, the best cognitive development happens when all other influencing factors like environmental effects, socioeconomic status, heredity, learning opportunities, and use of experiences are given equal importance. The results also depict that the low- and over-nutritional status cannot restrict cognitive development for a long time. After a certain period, the development gets triggered and it happens. It may be slow and not up to the mark of the development under normal-nutritional status, but it happens. Simply it can be said that nutritional status alone does not have control over the cognitive development of a child. Along with nutritional status, other influencing factors are important too.

Dynamics Modeling for Key Performance Indicators in Higher Education Through Optimization Methods

Dynamic models of higher education Key Performance Indicators (KPI) help in understanding how internal and external factors affect future KPI achievement. This study aims to construct a dynamic model of university KPI variables and estimate model parameters value. Several used steps to achieve goals are problem definition, variables, model formulation, prerequisite estimation, and conformity analysis. This model involves eight KPIs and three types of funding. Three optimization methods used are Type I constrained optimization, Type II constrained optimization, and unconstrained optimization. The results showed that the percentage of graduates getting decent jobs (KPI 1) in the future year is strongly influenced by two KPIs, namely the work of lecturers (KPI 5) and study programs with international accreditation (KPI 8). The existence of active practitioners (KPI 4) opens opportunities for international cooperation (KPI 6) and collaborative learning (KPI 7). Significant investment in improving the quality of lecturers and the right allocation of funds has proven to impact achieving the goals of higher education positively.

Immature vocalizations elicit simplified adult speech across multiple languages.

Learning to speak takes place during a prolonged period of immaturity, which confers advantages for communicative development. Social partners, required for survival in early development, afford feedback for immature vocalizations like babbling and early speech. Feedback, in the form of changes to the linguistic structure of adult speech in response to infant vocalizations, may guide the earliest stages of language acquisition. In a cross-linguistic study of 1,586 transcripts, spanning 13 languages from 5 language families, we investigated whether caregiver talk was consistently influenced by children's (aged 5-30months) immature speech. Across languages, we found that most caregivers significantly simplified their linguistic structure in response to children's immature speech, resulting in reduced lexical diversity, shorter utterance lengths, and higher likelihoods of single-word utterances. Children's vocalizations elicited learnable language from caregivers, highlighting a potentially widespread feature of language use that is catalyzed by immature behavior. Thus, altriciality allows for immature speech to be a social tool, creating opportunities for learning during social interaction.

Implementation of Community-Centric Medical Education through Family Adoption Program: Descriptive Results from Coastal Karnataka

Abstract Background: National Medical Commission (NMC), in their recent notification, included Family Adoption Program (FAP) in the undergraduate curriculum to provide a learning opportunity for community-based health care to Indian Medical Graduates. Materials and Methods: As part of FAP, 1000 families living in rural areas of the district were approached. During house-to-house visits, students were accompanied by facilitators, and each student adopted four to five families from the villages. Students were trained regarding data collection tools, which included questions assessing sociodemographic characteristics, awareness, and utilization of various social security schemes. Paper-based data collection and data entry were performed using Google Forms. Geotagging of houses was conducted to facilitate follow-up visits. Results: A total of 768 households were surveyed, which included 3,238 residents with female predominance (51.9%). A significant proportion (59.9%) of the population were in the economically productive age group (20-60 years), with 38.1% educated up to secondary education (8th to 12th standard). Nearly half of respondents were aware of widow pension, Old age pension scheme, Pradhan Mantri Suraksha Bima Yojana, whereas the level of awareness was less than 50 percent for Bhagyalakshmi Scheme for girl child (44.7%) and Pradhan Mantri Jeevan Jyoti Bima Yojana (42.6%). Awareness regarding schemes for Maternal &amp; Child Health and Disability was less, and for the Manaswini scheme, it was low. However, all the schemes were severely underutilized (28%–0.4%). The overall prevalence of any one chronic morbidity was found to be 18.4%, with hypertension and diabetes mellitus being the most common morbidities. Conclusions: FAP gives a new perspective to medical education in India by transforming existing hospital-based medical learning to a community-centered approach.

The Surgical Education Checklist as an Adjunct to Training in the Operating Theatre: The Surgeons' Experience.

An important aspect of surgical training occurs within the operating theatre. However, access to learning opportunities in this environment has been compromised by issues including reduced working hours and the COVID pandemic. Every training opportunity that does exist, therefore, needs to be maximized. The Surgical Education Checklist (SEC) is a tool that has been designed with the ambition of improving the quality and consistency of education-focused discussions in the operating theatre. The aim of this research was to explore the lived experience of surgeons who have used the SEC in practice. Phenomenological methodology, using purposive sampling, was employed. Seven semi-structured interviews were conducted via Zoom with participants, all of whom were consultant surgeons who had used the SEC. Reflective thematic analysis was used to identify key themes. Four key themes were generated: the checklist formalizes the intuitive, the trainee-trainer relationship is central to the experience, preoperative discussion improves learning, and routine feedback is ideal but difficult. Introducing the SEC to the operating theatre may improve the quality and consistency of education-focused discussions, such as preoperative goal setting and postoperative feedback, by providing structure for these conversations as well as a prompt to have the discussion at all. The trainee-trainer relationship is at the core of these behaviors. Trainers acknowledge the uncertainty that can impede trainees and that a tool such as this may help enable trainees to be more assertive regarding their educational needs and become more confident in the eyes of the trainer. If the SEC were widely implemented, it may help standardize good practice so that all surgeons, not just the natural educators, can deliver this for their trainees and provide trainees with a tool to help them be assertive about their training needs.