A Literature Review of Benefits of Postoperative Ambulation in Patients Over Age 65

Postoperative ambulation (walking) is an intervention performed by nurses in the healthcare setting to promote the recovery process after surgery. Elderly patients that undergo surgery are more at risk for developing postoperative complications compared to the younger population. ​​Complications can include pneumonia, urinary retention, ileus, blood clots, and surgical site infections. Such complications can be deadly. When patients experience postoperative complications, they have prolonged hospital stays which lead to unexpected and costly medical expenses and slow their recovery process. Postoperative complications especially impact elderly patients as their overall health may decline. Ambulation techniques are a key intervention in preventing these complications. These techniques include the distance that patients ambulate, number of ambulation occurrences, and length of time between surgery and first ambulation. Finding ways to inform nurses’ practices in prioritizing early ambulation in postoperative elderly patients may decrease poorer health outcomes and prevent the use of unnecessary resources. We are conducting a review of the literature surrounding the topic of the benefits of postoperative ambulation in patients over age 65. The importance of this review is to evaluate the efficacy of postoperative ambulation in relation to length of hospital stay or rehabilitation admission. The aim of this review is to explore published research on current practices around ambulation techniques. Using the PRISMA technique for this literature search, we are examining research findings on early ambulation after surgery within the elderly patient population and its effect, if any, on the length of stay in the hospital or rehab admission. Our review is currently in process

Enhancing Self-Compassion: An Empirical Comparison of Expressive Writing and Meditation

The current study investigates the comparative effectiveness of expressive writing and meditation in enhancing self-compassion among young adults. Self-compassion entails qualities such as of treating oneself with the same kindness and support one would offer a friend when facing moments of suffering or pain and has been shown to reduce stress among young adults (Ferrari et al., 2019). Participants were recruited to a study about stress reduction and randomly assigned to one of three conditions (i.e., expressive writing, meditation, or placebo control). Expressive writing prompts and meditations each featured the three components of self-compassion (common humanity, mindfulness, and self-kindness). The placebo control group received activities, such as coloring and origami materials. The study is on-going and preliminary results will be provided that compare whether differences in levels of self-compassion exist among participants in the three conditions. This study provides the first known direct comparison between expressive writing and meditation interventions to enhance self-compassion. We expect to find that the expressive writing condition will show greater levels of self-compassion relative to the meditation and control conditions. Results will contribute to the understanding of scalable interventions with empirical support that may foster self-compassion among college students

Interdisciplinary Integration: The Advantages of Social Studies and English Language Arts Integration

According to Moser (2019), when two or more disciplines are working together, they advance student understanding beyond the scope of a single discipline or area. With interdisciplinary integration, students acquire skills that allow an understanding to see the connections between different disciplines. The implementation of interdisciplinary integration programs is essential for students to view that knowledge is not static; knowledge is always growing and connected. Education needs to gravitate toward the direction where there is interaction and fusion of different content knowledge rather than compartmentalizing knowledge in a single discipline category. Interdisciplinary teaching can be used to achieve active in-depth learning. Tuuliki (2021) mentions that students were mentally, physically, socially, and emotionally engaged when two or more disciplines cross. Creating this unique learning experience is effective when using social studies and English Language Arts content. According to Shifflet and Hunt (2019), social studies content seems to be disappearing in public school education. Teachers have difficulty finding time to properly teach social studies curriculum and keep students interested in the content. Without implementing social studies curriculum, schools fail to pass on the skills, aptitudes, and habits that are needed for a way of democratic life and to be a participating citizen within the society. Shifflet and Hunt express that integration of social studies into English Language Arts is valued for time instructional time for social studies and facilitates a more comprehensive examination of targeted social studies concepts. The K-6 social studies curriculum is encouraged to move in a new direction, one that promotes a curriculum model that is based on key concepts, questions that drive inquiry, and civic action plans. This research conceptualizes practices in interdisciplinary teaching, especially the integration of social studies and English Language Arts curriculum, by looking at current interdisciplinary programs at the elementary and middle school levels. I conducted research in a rural elementary school in a classroom with fifteen students. My research designed and developed ways to integrate subject specific, especially English Language Arts and social studies, content to benefit students’ knowledge in both subject matters. I examined student redacted work samples, field notes and reflections, lesson plans, and student anecdotal records to note the growth of student understanding

Student Choice: Effects on Engagement and Conceptual Understanding

The provision of student choice and its effect on engagement and conceptual understanding is a relatively new area of education research. Recent studies on student choice have explored how to create meaningful choices for students and how to implement student choice in the classroom. Student choice has been found to have the ability to positively affect engagement and academic performance, in general. In this study, student choice is defined as the autonomy that students are given over their learning (Evans & Boucher, 2015). The term conceptual understanding refers to comprehension of mathematical concepts, operations, and relations (National Research Council, 2001). During the teacher’s student teaching semester in a third-grade classroom, the teacher implemented weekly math reteaching centers where students were allowed to select which learning center they thought would be beneficial in improving their conceptual understanding. In addition, students completed weekly self-assessments to reflect on their areas of strengths and weaknesses in their conceptual understanding of given topics. The teacher conducted this study with the goal of identifying a positive relationship between student choice and engagement and conceptual understanding. The teacher analyzed the classroom data using the idea that students’ sense of autonomy can promote intrinsic motivation in the classroom (Evans & Boucher, 2015). The teacher analyzed anecdotal records, student work samples, and observation notes to determine the impact of student choice on engagement and conceptual understanding. This study contributes valuable insights to the existing body of knowledge on student choice that educators can build upon in both theory and practice to foster advancements in students’ engagement and conceptual understanding

Call of the Void

Call of the Void is a fictional story set after the last show of the famous illusionist Lyall Messer, which ended as a tragedy when six thousand people in the audience disappeared from their seats. The story’s protagonist, Tony Bartier, tells the story of Messer as a person and his thoughts on what led Messer to a mass murder and subsequent suicide. The story encompasses multiple formats, including transcriptions of talk show interviews with Messer, excerpts from Messer’s diary, and even sections with abstract incomprehensible voices that grow louder and angrier. My intention is to address Dostoevsky’s question of whether a person has a right to take lives and to do so within the atmosphere of tragedy and despair that exists in Russian literature. Call of the Void is a detective fiction that simultaneously explores the mysterious disappearance of Messer’s audience and why and how a person might come to commit a horrific crime of murder