Rich Conversations Research Articles

A Brief but Spectacular Take: Reflecting on Professionalism by Student Physical Therapists.

Professionalism is an abstract concept that requires reflection for students to generate personal meaning and application. It should be taught explicitly within the academic part of a professional physical therapist education program. The purpose of this case report was to present one unique strategy to increase reflection about professionalism. Forty-four students enrolled in the first semester of a professional physical therapist education program participated in the case report. All were enrolled in a 1-credit hour course, Professional Issues, in which they developed a 2- to 3-minute video presenting their brief but spectacular take on various professional issues. Students responded in an online discussion tool to 2 of their colleagues' videos, developing a rich conversation. An optional 11-item survey about student satisfaction with the assignment was distributed electronically. A 4-point Likert scale was used for 10 items with the 11 being open ended. An analysis of the video presentations identified 4 themes: diversity, equity, and inclusion; self-care; core values; and patient management. Discussions were positive, professional, and encouraging. The optional survey had a 45% response rate. The medians for individual items ranged from 3 (6 items) to 4 (3 items). Reflection is essential to provide meaning in the learning process. Creating a video reflection that allowed students to describe their passion for the profession and then to discuss it in an online format was a unique teaching/learning activity. The concept of professionalism was successfully explored using the assignment that was well-received, and most students found it beneficial to their personal growth.

Walk the walk, slowly and carefully when centering women and survivors in the Perpetrator Work of Coercive Control: In conversation with Jo Todd

With decades of knowledge within the domestic abuse sector, Jo Todd is the leader of one of the UK’s most respected organisations in the Work With Perpetrators sector: Respect. Established as a membership organisation, Respect sums more than 23 years of promoting “safe, effective work with perpetrators, male victims and young people who use violence” with the aim of tackling domestic abuse and centering the victim-survivor experience.Recently, Jo Todd was awarded with the “Commander of the British Empire” (CBE) medal for her highly-distinguished, innovative contribution around services to victims of domestic abuse. The award though, has not removed any humility from Jo. In early September, I happily engaged in a rich conversation with a strong, grounded woman that I am sure more than one can find inspiration from. For this special issue, our discussion delved into the role and actuality of work with perpetrators and coercive control, highlighting the significance for the victims-survivors, the meanings of justice regarding coercive control and the implications of its criminalisation. Finally, we ended our conversation imagining the dreamt, but also the real, future of the issue.Mónica Sánchez Hernández:Thank you very much Jo for joining me today to talk about your experience and your thoughts about coercive control. You must be really proud of your recent award. Regardless of any colonial/imperial connotations that the CBE medal might have, it must be good to have your work acknowledged — especially in the current times.Well, I’d like to begin the interview by asking you what triggered your interest to move from supporting survivors to the “dark side” of working with perpetrators. Is there any particular moment, any experience that you remember?

Chinese grand(parenting) encourages a re‐imagining of Canada's immigration regime

AbstractCanada's migration regime prioritizes the admission of young skilled immigrants while restricting elderly immigrants constructed as non‐contributing dependents. We review and compare the current pathways to family reunification for elderly immigrants. Based on interviews with 16 Chinese skilled immigrant mothers and eight sponsored (grand)parents in Edmonton and Ottawa, we highlight the contributions made by elderly Chinese immigrants to social reproduction, intergenerational cultural preservation, and various forms of transnational support. We also reveal the financial and emotional costs incurred by young skilled immigrants who sought to sponsor their elderly parents for permanent residency. Based on these rich conversations, we propose two policy recommendations to reduce the pressure on sponsoring family members and create opportunities for elderly immigrants to access gainful employment.

Photovoice in the interdisciplinary climate classroom: a case study in climate adaptation pedagogy from a hybrid university course

We reflect on the use of photovoice methods in a hybrid classroom environment for an interdisciplinary course titled Climate and Society at the University of Miami. The activities, based on our team’s hyperlocal method of community-based climate adaptation engagement, create opportunities to engage with the complexities of climate science and policy solutions in unique and powerful ways. Our principal contribution is a series of exercises that can be done by educators anywhere in the world, providing a foundation for reflection and rich conversations. We conclude with recommendations and tools to aid educators in recreating the exercise in many settings.

Developing Training for Rural Library Workers to Build Inclusive Archives

Nearly four in ten public libraries in the US are located in rural communities and serve more than 30 million Americans, and one-third of public library buildings serve populations of 2,500 people or fewer (Swan, Grimes, & Owens, 2013 https://www.imls.gov/sites/default/files/publications/documents/ brief201305.pdf ). Yet, training for practitioners across LIS and best practices often do not scale to these smaller memory institutions. This project advocates for a reorientation of curricula that centers community memory and recognizes small and rural libraries. Co-PI’s Bateman and Mattock observed these challenges during partnerships with rural public libraries in Iowa: untouched boxes of photographs, cabinets brimming with yellowing newspapers, whole basements of genealogical documents and burial records in storage. Stewarding these untouched collections are overworked library directors, rightly more concerned with immediate patron needs such as computer access. Being the only memory institutions within large radii, rural libraries become presumed repositories for community memory records, donated by well-meaning citizens cleaning out the family attic or by the local organizations producing such documents. Describing this phenomenon to librarians doesn’t take many words; to them, it’s self-evident. “I know exactly the problem you’re talking about,” a rural librarian from Vermont responded to us. But getting to the root of the problem is harder, and finding solutions is harder still.
 The IMLS-sponsored project “Activating Archives in Remote Communities” evolved in response to the challenges that we have observed. Over the past year, the project has convened a diverse group of community-engaged practitioners with the aim of understanding how MLIS programs can respond to the needs of these rural archival spaces through curricular interventions and open educational resources that can help prepare rural public librarians to engage with archival materials and become aware of the cultural pluralities that constitute the vast service areas of small libraries. Representing practitioners from across the United States, “Activating Archives” includes the perspectives of the LIS professionals who are tasked with preserving community memory as collaborators in the development of a curriculum that serves their needs and increases their capacity. Together we aim to provide an adaptable model for community memory and engagement that is directly applicable to the most remote communities.
 The “Activating Archives” advisory panel includes community-based and rural practitioners from across the United States: Joshua Burford, Director of Outreach and Lead Archivist for the Invisible Histories Project; Jerald Crook, Founder and Executive Director of Alabama’s Higher Ground Society; Jessica Ieremia, director of Alaska’s Sitka Public Library; Doris Malkmus, archivist and oral historian; Allie Parrsmith, director of the Iowa’s West Liberty Public Library; Verónica Reyes-Escudero, University of Arizona ‘s Katherine B. Willcock Head of Special Collections; Monique Tyndall an independent expert with experience in tribal archives and cultural affairs; and, Jessamyn West, librarian and community technologist in rural Vermont. The panel addressed many of the known challenges in small and rural collections, the lack of resources (time, funding, staff), and the reliance on volunteers. The group also stressed the necessity of collaboration, the politics of building and navigating partnerships, the challenges to building trust across heterogeneous communities, and the ethics of reparative archival work. As we concluded our conversations, the panel offered their perspectives on pedagogical interventions within LIS curricula and provided insight into how open educational resources can support training within MLIS programs and support the work of practitioners already in place in rural institutions. 
 During this session, project PIs, MLIS student collaborators, and community-engaged archivist Aiden Bettine will present the initial findings from the advisory panel and invite the session attendees to add their perspectives to the already rich conversation, further informing the resulting training modules and educational resources produced by the grant. The presenters will ask the audience to work together to share their perspectives and invite feedback from our initial findings, further informing the project deliverables that include training modules and open education resources to support LIS training at all levels. 
 Overall, this project aims to strengthen rural-community resilience, belonging, and well-being by encouraging collaborations that will help communities maintain their own cultural heritage sustainably. Our research reflects memory practices that de-center white, Western archival methods and instead reflect the numerous and mixed methods by which diverse community constituencies self-represent. The project has recruited an advisory panel that represents region-specific and culturally situated memory practices. We also hope that our research and curriculum will be used widely to help include non-dominant populations in library engagement as well as to include their voices in community histories. Finally, we view small and rural libraries as underrepresented organizations in LIS training and literature that nevertheless serve millions of diverse US patrons. Our focus on small and rural libraries includes particular attention to the populations who are likewise discounted in LIS discourse, such as rural Black library users.

Kia Tīmata Pai (Best Start): a study protocol for a cluster randomised trial with early childhood teachers to support children’s oral language and self-regulation development

IntroductionOral language skills are associated with children’s later self-regulation and academic skills; in turn, self-regulation in early childhood predicts successful functioning later in life. The primary objective of this study...

Can Anyone Edit?

Using Ragnedda’s (2018) idea of digital capital, the essay discusses the ways in which Wikipedia-based research projects can help students build their own digital capital as well as bring the university’s capital to bear on the part of an underrepresented community. In this assignment, students work with community members to research and write updates to the Camden, New Jersey Wikipedia article and associated articles. Far from being “the encyclopedia anyone can edit,” the challenges of writing for Wikipedia lead to rich conversations about power and representation on the largest encyclopedia ever created.

Building Kindergartener's Independence with Text‐Based Conversations

AbstractIn primary‐grade classrooms, young children are expected to participate in rich conversations as they build their speaking and listening skills. One way to support students' success with these types of conversations is to explicitly teach them academic conversation skills. Academic conversations are intentional, focused on school‐related topics, and sustained over multiple turns (Zwiers & Hamerla, 2018). The skills needed to participate in these conversations include posing, clarifying, supporting, and evaluating ideas along with focused listening. In this article we offer five steps to help teachers build students' academic conversation skills in their classrooms starting with assessment, selecting books, determining the focus of the conversation, teaching and modeling conversation skills, and building student independence.

Beyond Rape Culture? Toward A Theory of the Work of Rape

Beyond Rape Culture? Toward A Theory of the Work of Rape

Page and screen: Storybook features that promote parent-child talk during shared reading

The purpose of this study was to systematically vary the medium used for shared reading (digital versus print), the presence of an audio narration feature, and the inclusion of a character offering conversational prompts to identify their impact on parent-child language. In a randomized experimental design, 67 children (2.75–5.10 years old) shared a book with a parent twice. Built-in conversational prompts were effective in increasing the quantity and quality of extratextual language and conversation. There was no evidence that the book being digital in format nor having automatically-playing narration decreased language or conversation quality compared to reading the print version. Based on this study, it appears that carefully designed digital books, including those with narration, provide similar opportunities for engaging in high-quality shared reading as print books. Parents may wish to select digital books with built-in prompts to provide even greater opportunities and support for rich conversation.

:The Right to Higher Education: A Political Theory

:<i>The Right to Higher Education: A Political Theory</i>

Mary Chilton Callaway. Jeremiah Through the Centuries

Mary Chilton Callaway. <i>Jeremiah Through the Centuries</i>

Assemblage drawings as talking points: Deleuze, posthumans and climate-activist teachers

AbstractIn this paper, we employ Deleuzian philosophy to explore the complex challenges confronting teachers and education systems posed by the climate emergency and the implications of the resulting posthumanist turn. Self-identified climate-activist teachers working in schools in Aotearoa New Zealand were asked to draw Deleuzian assemblages of their educational realities and of themselves while contemplating the climate emergency. Their thought-provoking drawings were used as semiotic artefacts during unstructured Zoom interviews, leading to rich conversations. Through this process, the drawings channel affect within the research assemblage, entangling the reader actively into the research process. Insights gained from the participants problematise the perspectives of teachers in response to the climate emergency and lead us to conceptualise the potential of teachers as Deleuze’s nomadic change makers toward posthuman futures.

Early strengths in science: Young children's conversations about nature in Latine families

Young children's science understanding begins in everyday observations and conversations with their parents. While research on STEM learning in Latine children often suggests deficits, we used diary report methods to identify conversations as indicators of 3–5-year-old children's early strengths in science. Twenty-one Latine families from coastal California, with parent schooling averaging 9 years (range 0–16), reported family conversations about nature for 2 weeks. Families reported on average 6.95 conversations (range 1–14). Frequent topics were animals (26%), plants (21%), weather (17%), and astronomy (16%). Partial correlations (controlling for age and parent schooling) revealed that children's question-initiated conversations correlated with families' science-related home activities, and conversations about animals and astronomy. Three case studies illustrate rich conversations where children and parents engaged in science practices during everyday talk. Our study provides evidence of Latine children's early interest in a broad array of science topics and their parents' support of their interests.

Beyond the New Deal Order: U.S. Politics from the Great Depression to the Great RecessionCapitalism Contested: The New Deal and Its Legacies

Beyond the New Deal Order: U.S. Politics from the Great Depression to the Great RecessionCapitalism Contested: The New Deal and Its Legacies

Writing-based professional learning in communities: praxis perspectives from Israel and Australia

ABSTRACT There has long been international consensus amongst policymakers and researchers that schoolteachers need to pursue professional learning throughout their careers. While researchers and educators continue the rich conversation about what forms of professional learning are valuable and why, policymakers are intent on prioritising only those forms of teacher learning whose value can be easily measured, thus rendering teachers more accountable. That is contributing to the widespread standardisation of professional learning, which ignores the backgrounds, needs and existing knowledge of teachers. This transnational case study investigates a non-prioritised form of professional learning praxis, called ‘writing-based professional learning in communities.’ The authors analyse a selection of praxis writing produced by teachers in Israel and Australia, in which they reflect on their work as educators in heavily standardised professional environments. The study provides a counterpoint to standardised forms of professional learning, arguing instead for a praxis approach that promotes teachers’ agency, collegiality and identity.

Discovering Dedicators with Topic-Based Semantic Social Networks

Influential people are known to play a key role in diffusing information in a social network. When measuring influence in a social network, most studies have focused on the use of the graph topology representing a network. As a result, popular or famous people tend to be identified as influencers. While they have a potential to influence people with the network connections by propagating information to their friends or followers, it is not clear whether they can indeed serve as an influencer as expected, especially for specific topic areas. In this paper, we introduce the notion of dedicators, which measures the extent to which a user has dedicated to transmit information in selected topic areas to the people in their egocentric networks. To detect topic-based dedicators, we propose a measure that combines both community-level and individual-level factors, which are related to the volume and the engagement level of their conversations and the degree of focus on specific topics. Having analyzed a Twitter conversation data set, we show that dedicators are not co-related with topology-based influencers; users with high in-degree influence tend to have a low dedication level while top dedicators tend to have richer conversations with others, taking advantage of smaller and manageable social networks.

Can interactive apps promote parent-child conversations?

Smartphones are found to be a distraction, interfering with parent-child interaction. Our goal was to develop interactive apps for smartphones that would encourage rich conversations between parents and young children. We provided 76 mid- to lower-income families in the Northeastern US with three apps that we developed in collaboration with FableVision Studios and recorded the parent-child dyads interacting with the apps for five-minutes each when they first received them, and again three weeks later, keeping track of app use in-between. Half of the families received the apps-only (N = 38) and the other half received the apps+info in the form of short videos about ways to promote their children's language development (N = 38). Results of this within-subjects study suggest the apps elicited rich conversations between parents and their 3–4-year-olds. Most of the parent and child language measures increased over time reflecting more sophisticated conversations on our follow-up visit than our initial visit. The significant positive increase from the first visit to the latter visit in children's language complexity (p < .001), measured as mean length of utterance, was associated with how frequently the family used the apps in between visits. There was no main effect of group, yet within the apps+info group, there was a positive association between the number of informative videos watched and parents' vocabulary use and conversations at visit 2, controlling for those speech measures at visit 1. The results suggest that interactive apps can help transform smartphones into opportunities for parent-child conversations and learning.

Frames, models and definitions

See RECORDING.&#x0D; This keynote is both a practical and strategic view of information literacy from my perspective as a Senior Lecturer in Educational Development at City University, London and Chair of the UK’s Information Literacy Group.&#x0D; I’ll reflect on the experiences I have had since leaving the library profession and moving into the field of educational development, which involves working with faculty to enhance teaching and learning and to develop their curricula. Since taking on this role I have had rich conversations with academic staff about all aspects of information literacy, often under other guises. I’ve recently undertaken a small-scale study to understand their approach to thinking about the related concepts of digital literacy and open practice and I’ll discuss some findings from this research. Faculty express concerns about how to create independent learners in the age where information is abundant, but knowledge is still scarce and privileged. Those who complete my module on the same topics have reflected on the plethora of terms and frameworks which are designed to support them which in fact sometimes leave them further confused. I’ll also draw on a recent chapter I wrote (Secker, 2018) on the trouble that terminology can cause, when we try to collaborate with both academic staff and with colleagues in other areas of learning support.&#x0D; The second part of my keynote will focus on the efforts of the UK’s Information Literacy Group (ILG) to broaden the definition of information literacy and to try to get the concept recognised outside the library. In many ways there are parallels between the work I do at an institutional level and the efforts of the group to raise awareness of information literacy more broadly. In April 2018 the ILG launched a new definition of information literacy and much of the efforts of the group have been to build links with organisations and people outside of the library sector. For us to achieve true universal information literacy, as Paul Zurkowski first envisaged, (Zurkowski, 1974) I will argue information literacy needs to become an ongoing concern or everyone who works in education, government, the media or who cares about social justice.&#x0D; I’ll end by considering the challenges and opportunities that collaboration presents whether it is librarians, academics and other professional staff in education or policy makers and other organisations working with those outside the library world. Collaboration is vital for information literacy to become truly embedded into all aspects of formal and informal learning and to achieve the goal of universal information literacy that Zurkowski first envisaged. However, we still have a big task ahead of us to achieve this. I will attempt to consider the lessons I’ve learnt from working in this field for over 15 years, and advocate for a vision of information literacy that extends far beyond the library community. I’ll draw on the work and the framework in developed in 2011 (Secker and Coonan, 2013) to explore how we can rethink information literacy and provide a framework for supporting learning in the digital age.&#x0D;

Use of a script concordance test to evaluate the impact of a targeted educational strategy on clinical reasoning in advanced pharmacy practice experiential students

Background and purposeIt is unclear how clinical reasoning is impacted by a single advanced pharmacy practice experience (APPE) and how preceptors can further develop these skills. Educational activity and settingStudents completing an APPE within four sites were invited to participate. To assess clinical reasoning skills, students completed a 30 item script concordance test (SCT) during week 1 and week 5 of a rotation. Students were divided into control and intervention groups. The intervention group participated in a clinical reasoning discussion, during which students presented a case and led a discussion on how to reason through treatment options. FindingsChange in mean SCT scores between week 1 and week 5 were 0.84 (2.8%) and 1.23 (4.1%) in the control (n = 15) and intervention groups (n = 28), respectively. There was no significant change in scores in the control group (P = .07, CI -0.34, 2.01). The change in scores was statistically significant in the intervention group (P = .02, CI 0.23, 2.23). An independent samples t-test comparing the SCT score change for the control and intervention group showed no significant difference (P = .62, CI -1.18, 1.96). SummaryThis study demonstrated the feasibility of implementing a SCT in experiential education. SCT scores did not significantly improve beyond the standard APPE in response to the focused educational intervention, but investigators found that the discussion facilitated rich conversations about patient cases and was valuable for assessing a student's thinking pattern.