GiveMe Shelter: a people-centred design process for promoting independent inquiry-led learning in engineering

It has become increasingly common for tasks traditionally carried out by engineers to be undertaken by technicians and technologist with access to sophisticated computers and software that can often perform complex calculations that were previously the responsibility of engineers. Not surprisingly, this development raises serious questions about the future role of engineers and the education needed to address these changes in technology as well as emerging priorities from societal to environmental challenges. In response to these challenges, a new design module was created for undergraduate engineering students to design and build temporary shelters for a wide variety of end users from refugees, to the homeless and children. Even though the module provided guidance on principles of design thinking and methods for observing users needs through field studies, the students found it difficult to respond to needs of specific end users but instead focused more on purely technical issues.

Making geography mobile: using location aware technology to improve student performance in physical geography

With the increased availability of new technologies, geography educators are revisiting their pedagogical approaches to teaching and calling for opportunities to share local and international practices which will enhance the learning experience and improve students’ performance. This paper reports on the use of handheld mobile devices, fitted with GPS, by secondary (high) school pupils in geography. Two location-aware activities were completed over one academic year (one per semester) and pre-test and post-test scores for both topics revealed a statistically significant increase in pupils’ performance as measured by the standard national assessments. A learner centred educational approach was adopted with the first mobile learning activity being created by the teacher as an exemplar of effective mobile learning design. Pupils built on their experiences of using mobile learning when they were required to created their own location aware learning task for peer use. An analysis of the qualitative data from the pupils’ journals, group diaries and focus group interviews revealed the five pillars of learner centred education are addressed when using location aware technologies and the use of handheld mobile devices offered greater flexibility and autonomy to the pupils thus altering the level of power and control away from the teacher. Due to the relatively small number of participants in the study, the results are more informative than generalisable however in light of the growing interest in geo-spatial technologies in geography education, this paper offers encouragement and insight into the use of location aware technology in a compulsory school context

Making Social Work Education App’ier : The Process of Developing Information-based Apps for Social Work Education and Practice

Mobile App technology in social work education remains in the embryonic stages of development with a few notable exceptions. The use of Apps in College and University settings has been reported in other sectors of higher education, although there is a paucity of research in relation to its relevance to social work education and practice. The following article describes the creation of four social work education and practice Apps by a team of social work educators. The primary focus is on the design process and the partnership approach to the creation of the tools. It also outlines the rationale for the App development, the working process and the theoretical framework underpinning mobile learning. Furthermore, it provides information on the level of usage of the Apps according to geographical location, download information and time spent on each section of the App. The article also incorporates a pragmatic summary of developmental guidelines which may aid social work educators in the development and implementation of specialist information-based Apps for education and practice.

The Use of Audio Podcasts to Enhance the Delivery of a Computer Networks Course

Experience obtained in the support of mobile learning using podcast audio is reported. The paper outlines design, storage and distribution via a web site. An initial evaluation of the uptake of the approach in a final year computing module was undertaken. Audio objects were tailored to meet different pedagogical needs resulting in a repository of persistent glossary terms and disposable audio lectures distributed by podcasting. An aim of our approach is to document the interest from the students, and evaluate the potential of mobile learning for supplementing revision

Exploring the mobile structural assessment tool: Concept maps for learning website: Concept Maps for Learning Website

In this paper, we describe how the pathfinder algorithm converts relatedness ratings of concept pairs to concept maps; we also present how this algorithm has been used to develop the Concept Maps for Learning website (www.conceptmapsforlearning.com) based on the principles of effective formative assessment. The pathfinder networks, one of the network representation tools, claim to help more students memorize and recall the relations between concepts than spatial representation tools (such as Multi- Dimensional Scaling). Therefore, the pathfinder networks have been used in various studies on knowledge structures, including identifying students’ misconceptions. To accomplish this, each student’s knowledge map and the expert knowledge map are compared via the pathfinder software, and the differences between these maps are highlighted. After misconceptions are identified, the pathfinder software fails to provide any feedback on these misconceptions. To overcome this weakness, we have been developing a mobile-based concept mapping tool providing visual, textual and remedial feedback (ex. videos, website links and applets) on the concept relations. This information is then placed on the expert concept map, but not on the student’s concept map. Additionally, students are asked to note what they understand from given feedback, and given the opportunity to revise their knowledge maps after receiving various types of feedback.

A transposase-independent mechanism gives rise to precise excision of IS256 from insertion sites in Staphylococcus epidermidis.

The mobile element IS256 causes phase variation of biofilm formation in Staphylococcus epidermidis by insertion and precise excision from the icaADBC operon. Precise excision, i.e., removal of the target site duplications (TSDs) and restoration of the original DNA sequence, occurs rarely but independently of functional transposase. Instead, the integrity of the TSDs is crucial for precise excision. Excision increased significantly when the TSDs were brought into closer spatial proximity, suggesting that excision is a host-driven process that might involve most likely illegitimate recombination.

An efficient feature selection method for mobile devices with application to activity recognition

This paper presents a feature selection method for data classification, which combines a model-based variable selection technique and a fast two-stage subset selection algorithm. The relationship between a specified (and complete) set of candidate features and the class label is modelled using a non-linear full regression model which is linear-in-the-parameters. The performance of a sub-model measured by the sum of the squared-errors (SSE) is used to score the informativeness of the subset of features involved in the sub-model. The two-stage subset selection algorithm approaches a solution sub-model with the SSE being locally minimized. The features involved in the solution sub-model are selected as inputs to support vector machines (SVMs) for classification. The memory requirement of this algorithm is independent of the number of training patterns. This property makes this method suitable for applications executed in mobile devices where physical RAM memory is very limited. An application was developed for activity recognition, which implements the proposed feature selection algorithm and an SVM training procedure. Experiments are carried out with the application running on a PDA for human activity recognition using accelerometer data. A comparison with an information gain based feature selection method demonstrates the effectiveness and efficiency of the proposed algorithm.

Using location-aware technology for learning Geography in a real digital space outside the classroom

The use of new mobile technologies is still in its infancy in many secondary schools and there is limited evidence of the educational and pedagogical benefits on pupils’ learning in the formal school context. This qualitative study focuses on the use of handheld devices to teach a topic in geography to an examination class. Action research combined with pupil observations and focus group interviews are used to capture the pupils’ experiences of using mediascapes. Activity Theory is used as a lens to structure the analysis of the data and to report on the cognitive and affective impact of m-learning on pupils’ academic performance in the topic. Increased attainment and the development of wider skills for lifelong learning were identified in the study. The adaptability of the majority of pupils to the technology resulted in increased levels of willingness to learn in this novel context.

Contingency Learning and Reactivity in Preterm and Full-Term Infants at 3 Months

Learning difficulties in preterm infants are thought to reflect impairment in arousal regulation. We examined relationships among gestational age, learning speed, and behavioral and physiological reactivity in 55 preterm and 49 full-term infants during baseline, contingency, and nonreinforcement phases of a conjugate mobile paradigm at 3 months corrected age. For all infants, negative affect, looking duration, and heart rate levels increased during contingency and nonreinforcement phases, whereas respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA, an index of parasympathetic activity) decreased and cortisol did not change. Learners showed greater RSA suppression and less negative affect than nonlearners. This pattern was particularly evident in the preterm group. Overall, preterm infants showed less learning, spent less time looking at the mobile, and had lower cortisol levels than full-term infants. Preterm infants also showed greater heart rate responses to contingency and dampened heart rate responses to nonreinforcement compared to full-term infants. Findings underscore differences in basal and reactivity measures in preterm compared to full-term infants and suggest that the capacity to regulate parasympathetic activity during a challenge enhances learning in preterm infants.

Cortisol, contingency learning, and memory in preterm and full-term infants

Cortisol plays an important role in learning and memory. An inverted-U shaped function has been proposed to account for the positive and negative effects of cortisol on cognitive performance and memory in adults, such that too little or too much impair but moderate amounts facilitate performance. Whether such relationships between cortisol and mental function apply to early infancy, when cortisol secretion, learning, and memory undergo rapid developmental changes, is unknown. We compared relationships between learning/memory and cortisol in preterm and full-term infants and examined whether a greater risk for adrenal insufficiency associated with prematurity produces differential cortisol-memory relationships. Learning in three-month old (corrected for gestational age) preterm and full-term infants was evaluated using a conjugate reinforcement mobile task. Memory was tested by repeating the same task 24h later. Salivary cortisol samples were collected before and 20 min after the presentation of the mobile. We found that preterm infants had lower cortisol levels and smaller cortisol responses than full-term infants. This is consistent with relative adrenal insufficiency reported in the neonatal period. Infants who showed increased cortisol levels from 0 to 20 min on Day 1 had significantly better memory, regardless of prematurity, than infants who showed decreased cortisol levels.

ALCOHOL-RELATED KNOWLEDGE AND ATTITUDES IN PEOPLE WITH A MILD LEARNING-DISABILITY - THE EFFECTS OF A SENSIBLE DRINKING GROUP

Alcohol-related knowledge and attitudes in people with a mild learning disability, who were either living, or being prepared to live, in relatively independent conditions in the community, were assessed through a structured interview format. Compared with non-learning-disabled teenagers, adults and a hospitalized patient sample, alcohol-related knowledge in the people with a learning disability was found to be significantly poorer, alcohol was reported as having particularly negative effects and susceptibility to social pressure to drink alcohol was greater. A 'sensible drinking' group, taking a social skills and influences approach to alcohol education, was conducted with a subgroup of the individuals with a learning disability. The group format and methods, including in vivo sessions in a public house, are described. Follow-up evaluations suggested some significant positive changes in knowledge, attitudes and sensible drinking skills. It is concluded that this population, which is increasingly living, or being moved into, independent conditions in the community, is at least as vulnerable to social influences on alcohol use and abuse as are young people. As with young people, the usefulness of making available such alcohol-education programmes as described in this study, is discussed.

Improving Patient Safety Through Formal and Informal Learning Networks

This paper explores a novel perspective on patient safety improvements, which draws on
contemporary social network and learning theories. A case study was conducted at a Portuguese
acute university hospital. Data collection followed a staged approach, whereby 46 interviews
were conducted involving 49 respondents from a broad array of departments and professional
backgrounds. This case study highlights the importance of two major interlinked factors in
contributing to patient safety improvements. The first of these is the crucial role of formal and
informal, internal and external social networks. The second is the importance and the possible
advantage of combining formal and informal learning. The analysis suggests that initiatives
rooted in formal learning approaches alone do not necessarily lead to the creation of long-term
grounded internal safety networks, and that patient safety improvements can crucially depend on
bottom-up initiatives of communities of practice and informal learning. Traditional research on
patient safety places a strong emphasis on top-down and managerialist approaches and is often
based on the assumption that „safety? learning is primarily formal and context-independent. This
paper suggests that bottom-up initiatives and a combination of formal and informal learning can
make a major contribute to patient safety improvements.

Android Malware Detection Using Parallel Machine Learning Classifiers

Mobile malware has continued to grow at an alarming rate despite on-going mitigation efforts. This has been much more prevalent on Android due to being an open platform that is rapidly overtaking other competing platforms in the mobile smart devices market. Recently, a new generation of Android malware families has emerged with advanced evasion capabilities which make them much more difficult to detect using conventional methods. This paper proposes and investigates a parallel machine learning based classification approach for early detection of Android malware. Using real malware samples and benign applications, a composite classification model is developed from parallel combination of heterogeneous classifiers. The empirical evaluation of the model under different combination schemes demonstrates its efficacy and potential to improve detection accuracy. More importantly, by utilizing several classifiers with diverse characteristics, their strengths can be harnessed not only for enhanced Android malware detection but also quicker white box analysis by means of the more interpretable constituent classifiers.

Evaluation of sampling methods for learning from imbalanced data

The problem of learning from imbalanced data is of critical importance in a large number of application domains and can be a bottleneck in the performance of various conventional learning methods that assume the data distribution to be balanced. The class imbalance problem corresponds to dealing with the situation where one class massively outnumbers the other. The imbalance between majority and minority would lead machine learning to be biased and produce unreliable outcomes if the imbalanced data is used directly. There has been increasing interest in this research area and a number of algorithms have been developed. However, independent evaluation of the algorithms is limited. This paper aims at evaluating the performance of five representative data sampling methods namely SMOTE, ADASYN, BorderlineSMOTE, SMOTETomek and RUSBoost that deal with class imbalance problems. A comparative study is conducted and the performance of each method is critically analysed in terms of assessment metrics. © 2013 Springer-Verlag.

Integrating elements of undergraduate curriculum learning

Integrating elements of undergraduate curriculum learning Rapidly advancing practice and recognition of nursing, midwifery and medicine as a vital interrelated workforce, implies a need for a variety of curricula opportunities. This project addresses the challenge for healthcare educators to widen student engagement and participation through inter-professional education by creating learning environments whereby student interactions foster the desire to develop situational awareness, independent learning and contribution to patient advocacy. Overall aim of this ‘Feeding and Nutrition in Infants and Children’ project is to provide opportunities for integrated learning to enable students to advance their knowledge and understanding of current best practice. This Inter-professional (IPE) student-lead workshop was initially implemented in 2006-07 in collaboration with the Centre for Excellence in IPE, within the curricula of medical and nursing programmes¹. Supported by the development of a student resource pack, this project is now being offered to Learning Disability nursing and Midwifery students since September 2014. Methods: Fourth year medical students, undertaking a ‘Child Healthcare module’, alongside nursing and /or midwifery students are divided into groups with three or four students from each profession. Each group focuses on a specific feeding problem that is scenario-based on a common real-life issue prior to the workshop and then present their findings / possible solutions to feeding problem. They are observed by both facilitators and peers, who provide constructive feedback on aspects of performance including patient safety, cultural awareness, communication, decision making skills, teamwork and an appreciation of the role of various professionals in managing feeding problems in infants and children. Results: Participants complete a Likert-scale questionnaire to ascertain their reactions to this integrated learning experience. Ongoing findings suggest that students evaluate this learning activity very positively and have stated that they value the opportunity to exercise their clinical judgement and decision making skills. Most recent comments: ‘appreciate working alongside other student’s / multidisciplinary team approach’ As a group students engage in this team problem-solving exercise, drawing upon their strengths and abilities to learn from each other. This project provides a crucial opportunity for learning and knowledge exchange for all those medical, midwifery and nursing students involved. Reference: 1. Purdy, J. & Stewart, M (2009) ‘Feeding and Nutrition in Infants and Children: An Interprofessional Approach’. The Clinical Teacher, vol 6, no.3. Authors: Dr. Angela Bell, Centre for Medical Education, Queen’s University Belfast. Doris Corkin, Senior Lecturer (education), Children’s Nursing, School of Nursing & Midwifery, Queen’s University Belfast. Carolyn Moorhead, Midwifery Lecturer, School of Nursing & Midwifery, Queen’s University Belfast. Ann Devlin, Lecturer (education), Learning Disability Nursing, School of Nursing & Midwifery, Queen’s University Belfast.