Teaching mathematics : self-knowledge, pupil knowledge and content knowledge

Mathematical learning is significantly influenced by the quality of mathematics teaching (Hiebert and Grouws 2007). In spite of the evidence for teachers seeking to do what they believe to be in the best interests of their learners (Schuck 2009; Gholami and Husu 2010), research and policy reports (within the UK and beyond) draw attention to insufficient mathematical attainment (Williams 2008; Eurydice 2011). Why is there this discrepancy? On the one hand, teachers are open to improving their professional practices (Escudero and S´anchez 2007), and on the other, the findings of mathematical education research make little or no impact on teachers’ practice (Wiliam 2003), even although teachers themselves think that they are enacting new or revised practices (Speer 2005)

A field guide for Agency staff operating the SIMRAD EY500 portable scientific echosounder. 2nd draft 3rd August 1999

This manual has been produced by members of the national acoustics group (NAG) and represents the first in a series of outputs designed to promote co-ordination and consistency in Agency hydroacoustic surveys. It is designed as a field guide for Agency staff operating the SIMRAD EY500 portable scientific echosounder. It should be simplistic enough for the newcomer to EY500 to be able to set up and run a mobile hydroacoustic survey with some knowledge of the supporting theory. It should act as guidance for standardisation of survey procedures providing a concise list of settings and recommendations that can be used as a quick reference guide in the field. This manual condenses 5 years of practical experience of surveying fish populations using Simrad hardware and software for surveying large rivers and still waters throughout England and Wales. This document should be used as a companion to the manufacturers instruction manual and not act as a substitute for it

Effective patient–clinician interaction to improve treatment outcomes for patients with psychosis: a mixed-methods design

BACKGROUND:At least 100,000 patients with schizophrenia receive care from community mental health teams (CMHTs) in England. These patients have regular meetings with clinicians, who assess them, engage them in treatment and co-ordinate care. As these routine meetings are not commonly guided by research evidence, a new intervention, DIALOG, was previously designed to structure consultations. Using a hand-held computer, clinicians asked patients to rate their satisfaction with eight life domains and three treatment aspects, and to indicate whether or not additional help was needed in each area, with responses being graphically displayed and compared with previous ratings. In a European multicentre trial, the intervention improved patients’ quality of life over a 1-year period. The current programme builds on this research by further developing DIALOG in the UK. RESEARCH QUESTIONS:(1) How can the practical procedure of the intervention be improved, including the software used and the design of the user interface? (2) How can elements of resource-oriented interventions be incorporated into a clinician manual and training programme for a new, more extensive ‘DIALOG+’ intervention? (3) How effective and cost-effective is the new DIALOG+ intervention in improving treatment outcomes for patients with schizophrenia or a related disorder? (4) What are the views of patients and clinicians regarding the new DIALOG+ intervention? METHODS:We produced new software on a tablet computer for CMHTs in the NHS, informed by analysis of videos of DIALOG sessions from the original trial and six focus groups with 18 patients with psychosis. We developed the new ‘DIALOG+’ intervention in consultation with experts, incorporating principles of solution-focused therapy when responding to patients’ ratings and specifying the procedure in a manual and training programme for clinicians. We conducted an exploratory cluster randomised controlled trial with 49 clinicians and 179 patients with psychosis in East London NHS Foundation Trust, comparing DIALOG+ with an active control. Clinicians working as care co-ordinators in CMHTs (along with their patients) were cluster randomised 1 : 1 to either DIALOG+ or treatment as usual plus an active control, to prevent contamination. Intervention and control were to be administered monthly for 6 months, with data collected at baseline and at 3, 6 and 12 months following randomisation. The primary outcome was subjective quality of life as measured on the Manchester Short Assessment of Quality of Life; secondary outcomes were also measured. We also established the cost-effectiveness of the DIALOG intervention using data from the Client Service Receipt Inventory, which records patients’ retrospective reports of using health- and social-care services, including hospital services, outpatient services and medication, in the 3 months prior to each time point. Data were supplemented by the clinical notes in patients’ medical records to improve accuracy. We conducted an exploratory thematic analysis of 16 video-recorded DIALOG+ sessions and measured adherence in these videos using a specially developed adherence scale. We conducted focus groups with patients (n = 19) and clinicians (n = 19) about their experiences of the intervention, and conducted thematic analyses. We disseminated the findings and made the application (app), manual and training freely available, as well as producing a protocol for a definitive trial. RESULTS:Patients receiving the new intervention showed more favourable quality of life in the DIALOG+ group after 3 months (effect size: Cohen’s d = 0.34), after 6 months (Cohen’s d = 0.29) and after 12 months (Cohen’s d = 0.34). An analysis of video-recorded DIALOG+ sessions showed inconsistent implementation, with adherence to the intervention being a little over half of the possible score. Patients and clinicians from the DIALOG+ arm of the trial reported many positive experiences with the intervention, including better self-expression and improved efficiency of meetings. Difficulties reported with the intervention were addressed by further refining the DIALOG+ manual and training. Cost-effectiveness analyses found a 72% likelihood that the intervention both improved outcomes and saved costs. LIMITATIONS:The research was conducted solely in urban east London, meaning that the results may not be broadly generalisable to other settings. CONCLUSIONS:(1) Although services might consider adopting DIALOG+ based on the existing evidence, a definitive trial appears warranted; (2) applying DIALOG+ to patient groups with other mental disorders may be considered, and to groups with physical health problems; (3) a more flexible use with variable intervals might help to make the intervention even more acceptable and effective; (4) more process evaluation is required to identify what mechanisms precisely are involved in the improvements seen in the intervention group in the trial; and (5) what appears to make DIALOG+ effective is that it is not a separate treatment and not a technology that is administered by a specialist; rather, it changes and utilises the existing therapeutic relationship between patients and clinicians in CMHTs to initiate positive change, helping the patients to improve their quality of life. FUTURE RESEARCH:Future studies should include a definitive trial on DIALOG+ and test the effectiveness of the intervention with other populations, such as people with depression. TRIAL REGISTRATION:Current Controlled Trials ISRCTN34757603. FUNDING:The National Institute for Health Research Programme Grants for Applied Research programme

Influencing interaction: Development of the design with intent method

Persuasive Technology has the potential to influence user behavior for social benefit, e.g. to reduce environmental impact, but designers are lacking guidance choosing among design techniques for influencing interaction. The Design with Intent Method, a ‘suggestion tool’ addressing this problem, is introduced in this paper, and applied to the briefs of reducing unnecessary household lighting use, and improving the efficiency of printing, primarily to evaluate the method’s usability and guide the direction of its development. The trial demonstrates that the DwI Method is quick to apply and leads to a range of relevant design concepts. With development, the DwI Method could be a useful tool for designers working on influencing user behavior

Spartan Daily, March 16, 1992

Volume 98, Issue 36https://scholarworks.sjsu.edu/spartandaily/8249/thumbnail.jp

Where Have All The Young Men Gone? Evidences and Explanations of Changing Age: Sex Ratios in Kampala

In the second half of the twentieth century the population of Kampala grew substantially and the long-remarked surplus of men over women began to level out. These general trends are equally evident in other African cities, but important differences show up when the balance of age cohorts within the male and female populations is considered. Thus in Kampala, along with population growth and a declining overall sex ratio, censuses show a growing excess of girls/young women over boys/young men. The article reviews these population data and two levels of (unenumerated) explanation for them. The first is extrapolated from Uganda's recent history; the second from observation and narrative in one densely populated parish. The argument is that changes in the age–sex ratio follow from change in the map of work options in Kampala. The disappearance of young males stems from the collapse of the formal economy, once the employer of men, and the developments in the informal economy which favour young women. This conclusion is supported by census data from Nairobi, where the formal employment structure remains relatively buoyant, and the comparable age–sex ratios are less extreme. The health policy relevance of the Kampala trend is underlined by official calculations of increasing HIV/AIDS incidence among teenage women. As long as sex work remains dominant among their options in the informal economy, one effect of their economic advantage is extra vulnerability to fatal disease

Spenser’s Dutch uncles: The family of love and the four translations of a theatre for worldlings

© José María Pérez Fernández and Edward Wilson-Lee 2014. A Theatre for Worldlings is a milestone work in more ways than one. Commonly regarded as the first English emblem book, it is “always to be remembered as containing the first printed verse of Edmund Spenser.” Yet Spenser’s contribution to A Theatre has overshadowed critical interest in the remainder of the volume, with its seemingly eclectic collection of poems, prose commentary, and woodcut illustrations. This chapter responds by restoring Spenser’s verse translations to the commentary they were originally intended to illustrate, reading poems and prose together within the broader context of the community by whom, and for whom, A Theatre was first produced. A Theatre announces itself as a product of London’s Flemish community, and it is to Flemish exiles that Jan van der Noot addresses his lengthy prose commentary on Spenser’s translations, as his references to “our natiue cou[n]trey of low Germanie” make clear (sig. H2v). In this case study of a text produced by a collaborative community of poets, printers, illustrators, and translators, I explore a particularly fruitful instance of how the sixteenth-century book trade helped “translate” ideologies across texts and translations. A Theatre for Worldlings, printed in London by Henry Bynneman in 1569, was an English translation of a volume that had originally appeared in Dutch and French formats from the London press of John Day the previous year, and the volume would go on to appear in German translation in a Cologne edition of 1572. By reading the English Theatre alongside its companion translations, this chapter undertakes a comparative exploration of the four Theatre translations in relation to their investment in the mystical tea chings of the Family of Love, focusing on the emblematic language of the poems and illustrations, the theological content of the commentary, and the context of each volume’s production in the printing houses of London and Cologne. I then move in conclusion to suggest some of the ways these Familist resonances may have influenced Spenser’s later poetry, focusing on The Ruines of Time (1591), and exploring how far its treatment of ruin was shaped by van der Noot’s own response to this theme in the four Theatre volumes

A case study using ECHO(Extraction and Classification of Homogeneous Objects) for analysis of multispectral scanner data

There are no author-identified significant results in this report

Beta: Bioprinting engineering technology for academia

Higher STEM education is a field of growing potential, but too many middle school and high school students are not testing proficiently in STEM subjects. The BETA team worked to improve biology classroom engagement through the development of technologies for high school biology experiments. The BETA project team expanded functionality of an existing product line to allow for better student and teacher user experience and the execution of more interesting experiments. The BETA project’s first goal was to create a modular incubating Box for the high school classroom. This Box, called the BETA Box was designed with a variety of sensors to allow for custom temperature and lighting environments for each experiment. It was completed with a clear interface to control the settings and an automatic image capture system. The team also conducted a feasibility study on auto calibration and dual-extrusion for SE3D’s existing 3D bioprinter. The findings of this study led to the incorporation of a force sensor for auto calibration and the evidence to support the feasibility of dual extrusion, although further work is needed. These additions to the current SE3D educational product line will increase effectiveness in the classroom and allow the target audience, high school students, to better engage in STEM education activities