‘Works well with others’ : examining the different types of small group learning approaches and their implications for law student learning outcomes

In the current regulatory climate, there is increasing expectation that law schools will be able to demonstrate students’ acquisition of learning outcomes regarding collaboration skills. We argue that this is best achieved through a stepped and structured whole-of-curriculum approach to small group learning. ‘Group work’ provides deep learning and opportunities to develop professional skills, but these benefits are not always realised for law students. An issue is that what is meant by ‘group work’ is not always clear, resulting in a learning regime that may not support the attainment of desired outcomes. This paper describes different types of ‘group work', each associated with distinct learning outcomes. It suggests that ‘group work’ as an umbrella term to describe these types is confusing, as it provides little indication to students and teachers of the type of learning that is valued and is expected to take place. ‘Small group learning’ is a preferable general descriptor. Identifying different types of small group learning allows law schools to develop and demonstrate a scaffolded, sequential and incremental approach to fostering law students’ collaboration skills. To support learning and the acquisition of higherorder skills, different types of small group learning are more appropriate at certain stages of the program. This structured approach is consistent with social cognitive theory, which suggests that with the guidance of a supportive teacher, students can develop skills and confidence in one type of activity which then enhances motivation to participate in another.

Examination of the properties of IMRT and VMAT beams and evaluation against pre-treatment quality assurance results

This study aimed to provide a detailed evaluation and comparison of a range of modulated beam evaluation metrics, in terms of their correlation with QA testing results and their variation between treatment sites, for a large number of treatments. Ten metrics including the modulation index (MI), fluence map complexity (FMC), modulation complexity score (MCS), mean aperture displacement (MAD) and small aperture score (SAS) were evaluated for 546 beams from 122 IMRT and VMAT treatment plans targeting the anus, rectum, endometrium, brain, head and neck and prostate. The calculated sets of metrics were evaluated in terms of their relationships to each other and their correlation with the results of electronic portal imaging based quality assurance (QA) evaluations of the treatment beams. Evaluation of the MI, MAD and SAS suggested that beams used in treatments of the anus, rectum, head and neck were more complex than the prostate and brain treatment beams. Seven of the ten beam complexity metrics were found to be strongly correlated with the results from QA testing of the IMRT beams (p < 0.00008). For example, Values of SAS (with MLC apertures narrower than 10 mm defined as “small”) less than 0.2 also identified QA passing IMRT beams with 100% specificity. However, few of the metrics are correlated with the results from QA testing of the VMAT beams, whether they were evaluated as whole 360◦ arcs or as 60◦ sub-arcs. Select evaluation of beam complexity metrics (at least MI, MCS and SAS) is therefore recommended, as an intermediate step in the IMRT QA chain. Such evaluation may also be useful as a means of periodically reviewing VMAT planning or optimiser performance.

Australian DOCAs versus UK pre-packs and CVAs : sifting through the ashes of comparative dividend returns

This article is something of a brief extension of recent research into deeds of company arrangement (DOCAs) under Pt 5.3A of the Corporations Act 2001 (Cth), conducted with the support of the Australian Restructuring Insolvency & Turnaround Association’s (ARITA’s) Terry Taylor Scholarship (TTS). This article presents some of the findings of that research (namely, the dividend outcomes delivered by sampled Australian DOCAs) in a manner consistent with reports which have recently emerged from similar research conducted in the UK. In so doing, a basic comparison can be made of the performance of Australian DOCAs against analogous UK procedures.

An introduction to education research methods: Exploring the learning journey of pre-service teachers in a transnational programme

Internationally there is interest in developing the research skills of pre-service teachers as a means of ongoing professional renewal with a distinct need for systematic and longitudinal investigation of student learning. The current study takes a unique perspective by exploring the research learning journey of pre-service teachers participating in a transnational degree programme. Using a case-study design that includes both a self-reported and direct measure of research knowledge, the results indicate a progression in learning, as well as evidence that this research knowledge is continued or maintained when the pre-service teachers return to their home university. The findings of this study have implications for both pre-service teacher research training and transnational programmes.

Injury narrative text classification using factorization model

Narrative text is a useful way of identifying injury circumstances from the routine emergency department data collections. Automatically classifying narratives based on machine learning techniques is a promising technique, which can consequently reduce the tedious manual classification process. Existing works focus on using Naive Bayes which does not always offer the best performance. This paper proposes the Matrix Factorization approaches along with a learning enhancement process for this task. The results are compared with the performance of various other classification approaches. The impact on the classification results from the parameters setting during the classification of a medical text dataset is discussed. With the selection of right dimension k, Non Negative Matrix Factorization-model method achieves 10 CV accuracy of 0.93.

Current pre-hospital traumatic brain injury management in China

BACKGROUND Traumatic brain injury (TBI) is associated with mo st trauma-related deaths. Secondary brain injury is the leading cause of in-hospital deaths after traumatic brain injury. By early prevention and slowing of the initial pathophysiological mechanism of secondary brain injury, pre- hospital service can signifi cantly reduce case-fata lity rates of TBI. In China, the incidence of TBI is increasing and the proportion of severe TBI is much higher than that in other countries. The objective of this paper is to review the pre-hospital management of TBI in China. DATA SOURCES A literature search was conducted in January 2014 using the China National Knowledge Infrastructure (CNKI). Articles on the assessment and treatment of TBI in pre-hospital settings practiced by Chinese doctors were identified. The information on the assessment and treatment of hypoxemia, hypotension, and brain hern iation was extracted from the identifi ed articles. RESULTS Of the 471 articles identified, 65 met the selecti on criteria. The existing literature indicated that current practices of pre-hospital TBI management in China were sub-optimal and varied considerably across different regions. CONCLUSION Since pre-hospital care is the weakest part of Chinese emergency care, appropriate training programs on pre-hospital TBI management are urgently needed in China.

Developing knowledge and leadership in pre-service teacher education systems

Pre-service teacher education institutions are large and complex organizations, which are notoriously difficult to change. One factor is that many change efforts focus largely on individual pre-service teacher educators altering their practice. We report here on our experience using a model for effecting change, which views pre-service teacher education institutions and educators as a part of a much broader system. We identified numerous possibilities for, and constraints on, embedding change, but focus only on two in this paper: participants’ knowledge of change strategies and their leadership capacities. As a result of our study findings and researcher reflections, we argue that being a leader in an academic area within pre-service teacher education does not equate to leadership knowledge or skills to initiate and enact systems-wide change. Furthermore, such leadership capacities must be explicitly developed if education for sustainability is to become embedded in pre-service teacher education.

Professional spaces for pre-service teachers: sites of reality, imagination and resistance

Questions about the practicum within teacher education tend to focus on the amount of time allocated to it in programs. In this research, we were interested in the quality of the experience rather than assuming ‘more is better’. To understand what is going on and where, this study focussed on the school and specially the departmental office of room as a site for workplace learning. Using qualitative methods we constructed narratives from the data provided by a cohort of four-year bachelor degree pre-service teachers during and following their final major (10 week)practicum experience. Using theories of spatiality to make sense of the data, we found that the narratives revealed stories of spaces where compliance, disappointment were the key features of the practicum, and where resistance through absence (from the departmental office) was an important strategy to manage the experience. This research challenges the ‘more is better’ argument.

Environmental conditions are important for establishing and evaluating pre-clinical models of GVHD

GVHD remains the major complication of allo-HSCT. Murine models are the primary system used to understand GVHD, and to develop potential therapies. Several factors are critical for GVHD in these models; including histo- compatibility, conditioning regimen, and T-cell number. We serendipitously found that environmental factors such as the caging system and bedding also significantly impact the kinetics of GVHD in these models. This is important because such factors may influence the experimental conditions required to cause GVHD and how mice respond to various treatments. Consequently, this is likely to alter interpretation of results between research groups, and the perceived effectiveness of experimental therapies.

Professional indemnity insurance, performance and pre-emptive negligence: The impact of ‘non-claims’

As part of Australian licensing requirements professional valuers are required to maintain a level of professional indemnity insurance. A core feature of any insurance cover is that the insured has an obligation to notify their insurer of both actual and potential claims. An actual claim clearly will impact upon future policies and premiums paid. Notification of a potential claim, whether or not the notification crystallises into an actual claim, also can have an impact upon the insured’s claims history and premiums. The Global Financial Crisis continues to impact upon business practices and land transactions both directly and indirectly. The Australian valuation profession is not exempt from this impact. One example of this ongoing impact is reflected in a worrying practice engaged in by some financial institutions in respect of their loan portfolios. That is, even though the mortgagor is not in default, some institutions are pre-emptively issuing notices of demand regarding potential losses. Further, in some instances such demands are based only on mass appraisal valuations without specific consideration being given to the individual lot in question. The author examines the impact of this practice for the valuation profession and seeks to provide guidance for the appropriate handling of such demands.

Achieving intention-centric BPM through automated planning

As a result of the more distributed nature of organisations and the inherently increasing complexity of their business processes, a significant effort is required for the specification and verification of those processes. The composition of the activities into a business process that accomplishes a specific organisational goal has primarily been a manual task. Automated planning is a branch of artificial intelligence (AI) in which activities are selected and organised by anticipating their expected outcomes with the aim of achieving some goal. As such, automated planning would seem to be a natural fit to the BPM domain to automate the specification of control flow. A number of attempts have been made to apply automated planning to the business process and service composition domain in different stages of the BPM lifecycle. However, a unified adoption of these techniques throughout the BPM lifecycle is missing. As such, we propose a new intention-centric BPM paradigm, which aims on minimising the specification effort by exploiting automated planning techniques to achieve a pre-stated goal. This paper provides a vision on the future possibilities of enhancing BPM using automated planning. A research agenda is presented, which provides an overview of the opportunities and challenges for the exploitation of automated planning in BPM.

Emergency pre-hospital disaster response training. What's the state of play?

Study/Objective This study examines the current state of disaster response education for Australian paramedics from a national and international perspective and identifies both potential gaps in content and challenges to the sustainability of knowledge acquired through occasional training. Background As demands for domestic and international disaster response increase, experience in the field has begun to challenge traditional assumptions that response to mass casualty events requires little specialist training. The need for a “streamlined process of safe medical team deployment into disaster regions”1 is generally accepted and, in Australia, the emergence of national humanitarian aid training has begun to respond to this gap. However, calls for a national framework for disaster health education2 haven’t received much traction. Methods A critical analysis of the peer reviewed and grey literature on the core components/competencies and training methods required to prepare Australian paramedics to contribute to effective health disaster response has been conducted. Research from the past 10 years has been examined along with federal and state policy with regard to paramedic disaster education. Results The literature shows that education and training for disaster response is variable and that an evidence based study specifically designed to outline sets of core competencies for Australian health care professionals has never been undertaken. While such competencies in disaster response have been developed for the American paradigm it is suggested that disaster response within the Australian context is somewhat different to that of the US, and therefore a gap in the current knowledge base exists. Conclusion Further research is needed to develop core competencies specific to Australian paramedics in order to standardise teaching in the area of health disaster management. Until this occurs the task of evaluating or creating disaster curricula that adequately prepares and maintains paramedics for an effective all hazards disaster response is seen as largely unattainable.

Pre-packaging preschool literacy: What drives early childhood teachers to use commercially produced phonics programs in prior to school settings

Language-rich environments are key to overall quality in early childhood settings, including frequent child–staff interactions around picture books and dramatic play. In a language-rich environment, explicit teaching of literacy concepts, such as phonics, is embedded in authentic and meaningful situations where alphabet letters and sounds are taught in a context meaningful to the child. Recent research, however, suggests that the use of commercial pre-packaged phonics programs (such as Letterland and Jolly Phonics) is widespread in prior to school settings in Sydney, Australia. Little is known about why early childhood teachers choose to use such programs with children aged five and under. In the present study, thematic analysis of data from interviews with five early childhood teachers using commercial phonics programs found that their reasons were pragmatic rather than pedagogical. Motivations included the idea that the programs reduced their workload, provided tangible evidence to parents of their child’s ‘school readiness’, and served as a marketing tool to attract parents. Further analysis found that the teachers were unable to articulate what phonics and phonological awareness are and how they are learnt in early childhood.

Technology transfer offices as boundary spanners in the pre-spin-off process: The case of a hybrid model

Over the past decades, universities have increasingly become ambidextrous organizations reconciling scientific and commercial missions. In order to manage this ambidexterity, technology transfer offices (TTOs) were established in most universities. This paper studies a specific, often implemented, but rather understudied type of TTO, namely a hybrid TTO model uniting centralized and decentralized levels. Employing a qualitative research design, we examine how and why the two TTO levels engage in diverse boundary spanning activities to help nascent spin-off companies move through the pre-spin-off process. Our research identifies differences in the types of boundary spanning activities that centralized and decentralized TTOs perform and in the parties they engage with. We find geographical, technological and organizational proximity to be important antecedents of the TTOs’ engagement in external and internal boundary spanning activities. These results have important implications for both academics and practitioners interested in university technology transfer through spin-off creation.

Destabilising Privilege: Disrupting Deficit Thinking in White Pre-service Teachers on Field Experience in Culturally Diverse, High Poverty Schools

This chapter examines the personal reflections and experiences of several pre-service and newly graduated teachers, including Kristie, who were involved in the NETDS program. Their documented professional journeys, which include descriptions of struggling when their privileged, taken-for-granted ways of being were destabilized, and grappling with tensions related to their own predispositions and values, are investigated in the context of Whiteness and privilege theory.