Peer Partnerships Research Articles

Evaluation of a Multisectoral Health Security Alliance Program Through Perceptions of Member States: African Partnership Outbreak Response Alliance (APORA).

U.S. DoD global health engagements offer opportunities for strategic engagement and building capability in collaboration with foreign military and civilian counterparts. Global health engagement activities can take the form of health security alliances and allow the USA and its allies and partners to prepare for, mitigate, and respond to emerging biothreats and other harmful health events that may negatively impact national security. One such example is the African Partnership Outbreak Response Alliance (APORA), which was designed to expand African Partner Nation militaries' infectious disease outbreak response capabilities. This publication evaluates the development, implementation, and outcomes of APORA to better understand the program's effectiveness in developing Partner Nation medical capabilities and the efficacy of health security alliances more broadly. Key informant interviews, focus groups, and questionnaires were used to collect responses from a sample of participants who attended an in-person APORA event in May 2022. The research team conducted thematic analysis of all responses to identify common themes and sub-themes in participants' perspectives and to elucidate findings and recommendations for future endeavors. The analysis determined that participants attended the APORA event primarily to disseminate and apply knowledge, skills, and abilities gained at the event to their own health system structures. Overall, participants indicated that APORA contributed to their countries' military medical and civilian cooperation, as well as their countries' military medical capabilities. Longer-term partners (i.e., 4+ years of APORA membership) agreed more strongly with these sentiments; newer partners (i.e., 1-3 years of APORA membership) were more likely to be neutral or agree to some extent. Participants also valued the opportunity to solidify global, regional, local, and peer partnerships and considered the ability to create partnerships of great importance to their countries' national health security. Language barriers were often listed as a hindrance to event participation and the overall integration of a regional health system response. Participants also cited resource scarcity, network erosion (particularly because of the coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic), and a lack of disseminating and communicating value-add in how APORA could/is providing to their member countries' health systems as key barriers. As a whole, these findings support APORA's objectives to develop and leverage partnerships to support medical capacity building, promote collaboration between military and civilian sectors, and increase access to opportunities and financial resources. Further evaluation is required to capture additional civilian perspectives while continuing to expand upon military perspectives in order to produce more generalizable findings. That said, this study enables key stakeholders to understand how to strengthen and expand future alliances to improve both health and security outcomes.

Look to the Side: Peer Partnerships in Preservice Literacy Teacher Education

Most often teacher education has attended to the expertise of university instructors and cooperating teachers in preservice teachers’ (PTs) learning in and from practice; rarely has the field addressed leveraging horizontal expertise within this learning-to-teach process. In this multiple case study, we examined what happens when teacher educators incorporate peer partnerships (Assaf & Lopez, 2015; Hoffman et al., 2018), where PTs coach and mentor each other around literacy teaching practices, within literacy field-based courses. Through our cross-case analysis, we found that peer partnerships scaffolded PTs’ learning by expanding their views of teaching practices, provided space to utilize their literacy content knowledge and literacy pedagogical content knowledge, and facilitated PTs’ development of equity-focused teaching stances. By establishing collaborative approaches to literacy instruction through peer partnerships, PTs served as sources of expertise and knowledge, thus disrupting the expert–novice divide in teacher education courses.

Error reduction strategies in composition writing and teaching styles of language teachers in asist

This study determined the respondents' list of errors, as well as syntactic rules, lexical rules, mechanics, and the best writing strategies, such as modeled, guided, and independent writing, as well as their teachers' diverse teaching styles. For modeled writing, comma splice had 14 occurrences, while run-on had 0 instances, however for modeled writing, comma splice had 15 occurrences, while run-on sentences had 8 occurrences. Comma splice appeared 31 times in the independent writing, whereas run-on appeared 18 times. In modeled writing as for lexical rules, inconsistency of tense had the highest number of instances (47), whereas misused pronoun had the lowest number of occurrences (9). Still, in guided writing, inconsistency of tense has the largest frequency (50), followed by misused pronoun (eight). In independent writing, there were 32 instances of incorrect subject-verb agreement, but only two occurrences of misused prepositions. As to mechanics, for modeled writing, misspelling had 37 occurrences, while incorrect capitalization had 23 and incorrect punctuation had 21. Misspelling received 30 in guided writing, whereas incorrect capitalization received 7. Misspelling occurred 110 times in independent writing, whereas incorrect punctuation occurred 49 times. Although there was no significant difference in the errors made by respondents when creating compositions utilizing the various writing strategies—modeled, guided, and independent—there was a significant difference in syntactic rules and mechanics. For syntactic rules, modeled and independent writing have -.351 and guided and independent writing have -0.255, which are both greater than the index of 0.209. However, guided and independent writing had -0.452, which was higher than the mechanics index of 0.298. The facilitator had the highest frequency of three, while expert, formal authority, and delegator had the same two, and the personal model had only one. This suggests that the Laboratory High School language instructors place a premium on the teacher and student interactions personal aspect. A facilitator, according to Grasha (1995), directs and encourages students to ask questions, explore options, give alternatives, and encourage them to create criteria to make informed decisions. His ultimate purpose is to help them develop the ability to take initiative, behave independently, and be responsible. He consults with students on their projects and attempts to provide as much support and encouragement as possible. Furthermore, facilitator model teachers are more likely to focus on activities. This teaching method emphasizes student-centered learning, and students are given significantly greater responsibility for satisfying the needs of various learning tasks. Teachers frequently make activities for the group which requires active practicing, to solve problem and peer partnership. The personal model was the least popular of the teaching techniques employed by language instructors in their classes. Teachers who teach in a demonstrator or personal model style are more likely to provide teacher-centered lessons that emphasize demonstration and modeling. This sort of instructor serves students via a role model to display procedures and their skills as a guide or coach in assisting them to develop and apply the skills with a knowledge. The study concluded that independent writing can reduce errors in syntactic rules and mechanics but not in lexical rules. In addition, the facilitator as a language teacher's teaching style contributes to the decrease of syntactic rules and mechanics errors. Teachers should be encouraged to look into alternative error reduction writing strategies in order to acquire valuable feedback and use it for better and enhanced classroom instruction as a result of the findings and conclusions.

Experiences of Participants Who Then Become Coaches in a Peer Coach Diabetes Self-Management Program: Lessons for Future Programs.

Peer support programs are effective in improving outcomes among low-resource populations. Prior studies suggest that shared experiences improve peer partnerships. We hypothesized that participants in a peer coaching program who then became coaches might bring insight into their coaching role. We explored the motivations of coaches in a diabetes self-management coaching program who became coaches after completing the program as participants. Between June 2016 and April 2017 we conducted semi-structured interviews with eight participants-turned-coaches and four of their peer partners in a six-month peer coaching program for patients with poor glycemic control at the Detroit VA. The interviews were transcribed, reviewed and coded by two researchers in an iterative process until consensus was reached. Key themes were identified and analyzed. Participants-turned-coaches reported the importance of their own peer coach in their decision to become a coach. Participants-turned-coaches described commitment to their partners, providing realistic encouragement, and fostering a reciprocal partnership. Participants-turned-coaches shared their own difficulties to motivate their partners and create a sense of commonality. Encouraging participants who complete diabetes peer coach interventions to become coaches appears to be a useful strategy for developing peer coaches who bring sensitivity, commitment, and reciprocity to their role.

3-OR: Racial/Ethnic Disparities in Diabetes Technology Use in Young Adults (YA) with Type 1 Diabetes (T1D): Multidisciplinary Stakeholder Perspectives and Solutions

Background: Black and Hispanic YA with T1D are less likely to use insulin pumps and continuous glucose monitors than White peers, which may be contributing to disparities in glycemic and long-term outcomes. Methods: We conducted a series of interactive focus groups to elicit perspectives on racial/ethnic disparities in diabetes technology use, patient-centered barriers and facilitators, and solutions to enhance uptake. We invited multidisciplinary panels of stakeholders to participate, including YA T1D patients, physicians, nurses, psychologists, and community health workers. Sessions were recorded and analyzed for common themes. Results: We convened 7 virtual 2-hour workshops and recruited 32 stakeholders from 11 states (5 Black and 7 Hispanic YA, 20 other stakeholders). Notably, many patients stated that they had never been offered technology until recent engagement in a specialized YA T1D clinic. Once offered technology, multiple barriers were present across a chronological journey consisting of three phases: 1) learning about and deciding to get technology; 2) initiating use; and 3) managing ongoing problems. Some barriers included a lack of knowledge about devices, mismanaged expectations for device wearability and use, and insurance coverage benefits. Facilitators included family support, T1D peer partnership, and a supportive healthcare team. Co-created solutions to address barriers were categorized into four main themes: 1) more equitable system of offering technology; 2) visual and hands-on education; 3) peer support; and 4) insurance navigation assistance. Discussion: Engaging multiple stakeholders with lived experience of the problem is an important approach to diabetes disparities research. Inadvertent provider bias may be preventing equal access to technology for minority YA with T1D, while extra support for device use through the technology journey is needed to sustain use. Disclosure S. Agarwal: None. G. Crespo-ramos: None. S. Leung: None. M. Finnan: None. T. Park: None. J. S. Gonzalez: None. J. A. Long: None. Funding National Institutes of Health (K23DK115896)

Application cooperative teasching methods during practical exercises

This article discusses the effectiveness of teaching “cooperation” of the subject sports medicine in higher education. At the same time, in the process of training, students have the opportunity to jointly acquire knowledge in a team, small group and couple to ensure mutual development. Ultimately, collaborative learning fosters conscious discipline in the learner, sees its success as a group success, sets the stage for peer assignments, peer partnerships, peer support, and finally serious mental work.

Water operator partnerships: Peer learning and the politics of solidarity in water and sanitation service provision

The limitations of public–private partnerships as a way to finance and manage water and sanitation systems in developing countries have become increasingly evident since the 2000s. In response, scholars have begun to inquire about “alternatives to privatization,” with a focus on strengthening social equity and universality in access to essential services. Among the alternatives discussed are so‐called Water Operator Partnerships (WOPs), which have been promoted globally since 2006 with support from the United Nations. Today, more than 200 such peer‐learning partnerships have been formed between water and sanitation operators around the world. Yet, academic research on WOPs is still in its infancy. This article reviews the existing literature on WOPs, addressing their origins and their global evolution, along with key controversies surrounding private‐sector involvement. Relying on self‐reported WOPs data from a global online database, it further illustrates the North–South distribution and the different spatial scales of peer partnerships to date. What emerges from the analysis is that WOPs have become a proliferating, yet insufficiently understood, partnership modality in the water sector. In identifying entry points for future research, the article suggests that the comparative study of WOPs can shed new light on transnational partnerships, South–South cooperation, and the politics of solidarity in water and sanitation service provision.This article is categorized under: Engineering Water > Sustainable Engineering of Water Human Water > Water Governance Human Water > Rights to Water

The “friend of zone of proximal development” role: ePortfolios as boundary objects

AbstractThis research investigates how a role called "friend of zone of proximal development" (ZPD), assigned to one student in a peer partnership, supports the transition from university to professional life. Two near‐identical blended courses are compared. In Course 1 (6 F, 3 M), the friend of ZPD role was introduced into the ePortfolio structure. In Course 2 (6 F, 3 M), this role was not introduced. Students taking up the "friend of ZPD" role offered comments and advice. A total of 790 notes, posted by 9 students (average age: 24) for each course, were analysed. Through a quantitative analysis of the notes, we identify 3 emerging identity positions: I‐as‐university learner; I‐as‐informal learner; and I‐as‐future professional. Course 1 registered a higher number of identity positions, and the I‐as‐future‐professional position was the most frequent. Further, sudents who predominantly took up the I‐as‐university‐learner position had the lowest grades. Findings suggest that a poor projection towards the profession may compromise student learning outcomes.

Understanding women veterans' preferences for peer support interventions to promote heart healthy behaviors: A qualitative study.

Peer support may be an effective strategy to improve heart healthy behaviors among populations who have a strong communal identity, such as women veterans. Women veterans are a particularly important group to target as they are the fastest growing sub-population within the Veterans Affairs healthcare system. Our goal was to identify aspects of peer support and modalities for providing peer support that are preferred by women veterans at risk for cardiovascular disease (CVD). In 2016, we conducted 25 semi-structured individual interviews with women veterans from the Durham VA Healthcare System aged 35–64 who were at risk of CVD, defined as presence of at least one of the following: hypertension, hyperlipidemia, obesity (BMI ≥ 30), non-insulin dependent diabetes or prediabetes, or current smoking. Interview guide design and data analysis involved conventional content analysis. Important themes for effective peer partnerships included sharing a common behavior change goal, the need for trust between peers, compatibility around level of engagement, maintaining a positive attitude, and the need for accountability. Peer support interventions may prove beneficial to address the burden of common and preventable conditions such as CVD. Among women veterans, peer support interventions should account for individual preferences in peer matching and provide opportunities for peers to engage in relationship building in-person initially through trust-building activities.

Tablets for two: How dual tablets can facilitate other-awareness and communication in learning disabled children with autism

Learning-disabled children with autism (LDA) are impaired in other-awareness, joint attention and imitation, with a poor prognosis for developing language competence. However, better joint attention and imitation skills are predictors of increased language ability. Our study demonstrates that a collaborative activity delivered on a novel dual-tablet configuration (two wifi-linked tablets) facilitates active other-awareness, incorporating imitation and communicative behaviour, in 8 LDA boys with limited or no language, aged 5–12 years. LDA children did a picture-sequencing activity using single and linked dual tablets, partnered by an adult or by an LDA peer. Overall, the dual-tablet configuration generated significantly more active other-awareness than children sharing a single tablet. Active other-awareness was observed in LDA peer partnerships using dual tablets, behaviour absent when peer partnerships shared a single tablet. Dual tablets facilitated more communicative behaviour in adult–child partnerships than single tablets. Hence, supporting collaborative activities in LDA children can facilitate other-awareness and communicative behaviour and adult and peer partnerships make different, but essential contributions to social-cognitive development through the collaborative process.

Developing educational goals: insights from a Peer Assisted Teaching Scheme

The rapid changes facing higher education are placing increased focus on the quality of the student experience, achieving learning outcomes, and employability expectations. As a result, academics in teaching roles are increasingly measured on performance via student evaluations amplifying attention on professional development initiatives for academics. One such initiative is the Peer Assisted Teaching Scheme currently in practice across many Australian universities. The critical component of the scheme is the establishment of teaching goals that provide focus and direction for the peer partnership. This study addresses two questions: (1) Around which aspects do academics set their goals for teaching improvement? and (2) How do academics’ goals align with the SMART goal-setting framework that is prescribed in the scheme? Findings from five Australian universities showed that goals align with a variety of educational areas yet many were underdeveloped, or misaligned with the proposed strategy. The implications of this are discussed and a framework for setting education goals for teaching improvement is developed.

Young Adults on the Autism Spectrum: Perceived Effects of Participation in a University-Based Challenge Course Program in the Community

Researchers investigated perceived life effectiveness of young adults with autism who were partnered with student peers in an outdoor Challenge Course program on a university campus. Twenty-three adults ages 17–34 completed the Life Effectiveness Questionnaire before and after participating in the program. Paired samples t-tests of pre-scores and post-scores indicated significant increases in self-perceptions of effectiveness in task leadership and social competence factors. Perceptions of improved communication and high levels of satisfaction were reported by participants and parents. Occupational therapy intervention with community-dwelling young adults with autism using university-based peer partnerships is effective in promoting participation and life effectiveness.

Abstract T P387: Stroke Health and Risk Education Project: main results

Objective: The Stroke Health and Risk Education (SHARE) Project is a cluster-randomized, faith-based, culturally-sensitive, theory-based behavioral intervention trial to reduce key stroke risk factor behaviors. Methods: Ten Catholic churches in Corpus Christi, Texas were randomized to intervention or control group. Subjects were enrolled as friend or family partners who provided reciprocal support to each other. The intervention group received a 1-year multicomponent intervention that included self-help materials (physical activity guide with pedometer, healthy eating guide, blood pressure management photonovella, and motivational short film), 2 tailored newsletters, 5 motivational interviewing counseling calls, and a peer partnership support workshop. Multilevel modeling, accounting for clustering within pairs and parishes, was used to test treatment differences in the average of two measures of change since baseline (ascertained at 6 and 12 months), using standardized questionnaires, in dietary sodium, dietary fruit and vegetable intake, and physical activity of moderate or greater intensity. The primary endpoint was met if any one of the three outcomes was significant based on a pre-specified p-value threshold of 0.05/3. Results: Of 801 subjects who consented, 760 completed baseline data assessments. The median age was 52; 84% were Hispanic, the remainder were non-Hispanic whites; 64% were women. The intervention group had a greater increase in fruit and vegetable intake than the control group (0.25 (95% CI: 0.08, 0.42) cups per day, p = 0.002), a greater decrease in sodium intake (-123.17 (-194.76, -51.59) mg/day, p=0.04), but no difference in change in moderate or greater intensity physical activity (-27.47 (-526.32, 471.38) MET-minutes per week, p=0.56). Conclusion: This cluster-randomized trial was effective in increasing fruit and vegetable intake among Hispanic and non-Hispanic white Catholic parishioners, reaching its primary endpoint. The intervention also seemed to lower sodium intake. Church-based health promotions can be successful in primary stroke prevention efforts.

Partnered Placements: Creating and Supporting Successful Collaboration Among Preservice Teachers

Recent calls for change in teacher preparation programs stress the importance of field experience and the need for preservice teachers to have ample opportunities for peer collaboration and feedback. The paired placement model, with two preservice teachers working with one cooperating teacher, has shown to provide many benefits. However, the strategies for developing successful partnerships in the context of a required course are not fully understood. This article presents a study of early childhood and elementary preservice teachers’ perspectives on the peer and faculty related factors that contribute to the success (and lack of success) of their partnerships. The article concludes with effective strategies for teacher educators to consider in creating and supporting field-based peer partnerships.

Academic Writing Within An Online Learning Environment: Assessing The Impact Of Peer Evaluation On Lesson Planning, Execution & Assessment

Peer evaluation, as a learning strategy, is commonly used among educators in an attempt to promote higher performance goals and improved teaching and learning outcomes through the sharing of complementary proficiencies for a familiar intent. It is commonly viewed as a technique for raising the bar' through exposing educators to alternative perspectives. Within the online learning environment, there is a high degree of isolation among educators involved in the delivery of the same course. Although individuals interact in established teacher forums about administrative issues, a forum is not provided where interaction about teaching content, delivery and conceptualization of critical concepts can be explored and discussed. As such, the provision of a forum for collaboration among peers involved in different aspects of course delivery within the online learning environment is believed to address the issue of isolated instruction while also providing support and evaluation as to the effectiveness of teaching strategies employed. The aim of the research is to investigate the impact of an established peer partnership between 14 colleagues working in pairs geared towards assessing feedback and discussions on lesson planning, execution and assessment processes. It seeks to ascertain its usefulness as a strategy to be incorporated into the teaching of English for Academic Purposes within an online learning environment. The study seeks to provide actionable direction for peer evaluation and collaboration, as a teaching and learning tool, through the mapping, assessing and evaluation of the processes involved.

Peer partnership to enhance scholarship of teaching: a case study

This paper reports on the outcomes of a peer partnership program trialled at the Queensland University of Technology (QUT), Australia. The program was designed based on a community of practice methodology to bring together academic staff for the purpose of advancing teaching practice. The program encouraged professional and supportive environments for the purpose of critical reflection and personal development. The belief was that quality teaching is core business and vital to university organisational goals. Peer partnership programs support improvement in teaching and learning. Participants in the program reported the program enhanced their commitment and insight into teaching and that there is willingness to be involved if supported by colleagues and an organisation. Feedback from participants in the program was positive and outcomes arising from the QUT Peer Partnership Project were the development of an online peer partner tool-kit, staff development training, an instructional DVD and integration of the project goals within QUT staff development programs.

Coolstreaming: Design, Theory, and Practice

Peer-to-peer (P2P) technology has found much success in applications like file distributions and VoIP yet, its adoption in live video streaming remains as an elusive goal. Our recent success in Coolstreaming system brings promises in this direction; however, it also reveals that there exist many practical engineering problems in real live streaming systems over the Internet. Our focus in this paper is on a nonoptimal real working system, in which we illustrate a set of existing practical problems and how they could be handled. We believe this is essential in providing the basic understanding of P2P streaming systems. This paper uses a set of real traces and attempts to develop some theoretical basis to demonstrate that a random peer partnership selection with a hybrid pull-push scheme has the potentially to scale. Specifically, first, we describe the fundamental system design tradeoffs and key changes in the design of a Coolstreaming system including substreaming, buffer management, scheduling and the adopt of a hybrid pull-push mechanism over the original pull-based content delivery approach; second, we examine the overlay topology and its convergence; third, using a combination of real traces and analysis, we quantitatively provide the insights on how the buffering technique resolves the problems associated with dynamics and heterogeneity; fourth, we show how substream and path diversity can help to alleviate the impact from congestion and churns; fifth, we discuss the system scalability and limitations.

Peer-Based Learning: A New-Old Alternative to Professional Development

Rabbi Joshua ben Perachya said: Get yourself a teacher; acquire a friend to study with you. This ancient piece of wisdom comes from Pirket Avot 1:6, the Hebrew Book of Our Fathers, written thousands of years ago as a compilation of the best advice on life and living. Much of their advice is compellingly fresh today For instance, Yeshiva students still practice chavrusa, the Hebrew word for partner-based study, whose root is friend. Yeshivas are secondary Jewish parochial schools that emphasize the study of religious texts. Chavrusa is the process of grappling over these complex texts with a peer. The interchange between peer-learners has proven to foster deeper reflection because it introduces contrasting perspectives, sometimes even generating arguments, about interpretation, meaning and application of the ancient teachings. Furthermore, a sense of reciprocity and dual accountability is created when both people are engaged in at once. Take a moment now to think back to a time in your life when you learned something significant. When and where did it happen? Who was involved? Now, consider your professional growth during the past few years. How has it come about? What or who facilitated your development? Chances are the setting for at least one of your recollections was outside the classroom. And chances are the learning trigger was a personal interaction or experience that caused you to try things or think in ways. In other words, it is likely that some incidental occurred that you did not even consciously recognize as part of your development at the time. It is also likely that your was solidified by a process of praxis, that is, trying something new, reflecting on how well your practices or refrained thought patterns served you and then further refining your actions or thinking. Did a teacher or mentor facilitate this process of action and reflection for you? Or was it a spouse or partner, a co-worker or classmate, a friend or relative ... in other words, a peer? How Can I Use This New-Old Concept? So, what is the link between this old approach to working with high school-aged Yeshiva students and the new idea of using peer-based with professionals in corporate or university settings? To begin with, it is essential to acknowledge the power of bi-directional peer relationships in facilitating professional and personal growth. On that foundation, staff developers build peer-based activities into intentional professional development efforts that are both cost-effective and versatile because they capitalize on three key factors: the learners' own expertise, an intrinsic drive to improve and the context. First, utilizing the learners' expertise is crucial because professionals have relevant knowledge and experience to bring to the project; tapping into this is both affirming and motivating. Second, since most healthy humans share the intrinsic drive to improve themselves and be helpful to others, working in partnership with a respected peer is both engaging and supportive of joint accountability for outcomes. Third, context-specific issues are important because most learners, particularly busy professionals, are motivated to solve real-life problems. Addressing actual problems also facilitates customization, thereby increasing the potential for transfer of to occur. Brookfield (1986) puts it this way, Self-directed learners rely heavily on peer ... for support, information exchange, stimulus through ideas and locating relevant resources (p. 83). Engagement in is optimized when activities are explicitly grounded in [learners'] own concerns and circumstances (p. 84). When each participant plays the dual roles of helper and learner, the potential of a collaborative peer partnership is virtually unlimited (Saltiel, Sgroi & Brockett, 1998). Peer Learning Partnerships Defined Let's take a closer look at the peer partnership by distinguishing it from mentoring, examining the process as it has been translated into professional development programs or identifying the defining qualities of the peer dynamic. …