Analysis of prepositions: near and away from Frames of reference.

XXII Jornades de Foment de la Investigació de la Facultat de Ciències Humanes i Socials (Any 2017)Traditional strategies and procedures to learn a foreign language include the study of rules of grammar and doing exercises such as filling the gaps, repetition of words, drills, memorization of irregular verbs and sentences which may express usual expressions of everyday life. Even if the array of exercises is adequate, polysemy in prepositions causes difficulties in choosing the proper preposition conveying the meaning required by different contexts. Two prepositions of the horizontal axis (near and away from) are taken into consideration in this paper. Approaching the problem from the theory of polysemy and understanding, the use of these prepositions is explored along the dimensions of function, topology – which is the study of physical space–, and force dynamics – introduced in studies such as Navarro (1998)–, as well as the notion of frame of reference (Levinson, 2004). Then, the different senses and uses of these prepositions of the horizontal axis are systematized, explained and examples are used to illustrate the difficulties in learning a language and the doubts which students may have in some situations

Patient safety in health care professional educational curricula: examining the learning experience

This study has investigated the formal and informal ways pre-registration students from four healthcare professions learn about patient safety in order to become safe practitioners. The study aims to understand some of the issues which impact upon teaching, learning and practising patient safety in academic, organisational and practice „knowledge? contexts. In Stage 1 we used a convenience sample of 13 educational providers across England and Scotland linked with five universities running traditional and innovative courses for doctors, nurses, pharmacists and physiotherapists. We gathered examples of existing curriculum documents for detailed analysis, and interviewed course directors and similar informants. In Stage 2 we undertook 8 case studies to develop an in-depth investigation of learning and practice by students and newly qualified practitioners in universities and practice settings in relation to patient safety. Data were gathered to explore the planning and implementation of patient safety curricula; the safety culture of the places where learning and working take place; the student teacher interface; and the influence of role models and organisational culture on practice. Data from observation, focus groups and interviews were transcribed and coded independently by more than one of the research team. Analysis was iterative and ongoing throughout the study. NHS policy is being taken seriously by course leaders, and Patient Safety material is being incorporated into both formal and informal curricula. Patient safety in the curriculum is largely implicit rather than explicit. All students very much value the practice context for learning about patient safety. However, resource issues, peer pressure and client factors can influence safe practice. Variations exist in students? experience, in approach between university tutors, different placement locations – the experience each offers – and the quality of the supervision available. Relationships with the mentor or clinical educator are vital to student learning. The role model offered and the relationship established affects how confident students feel to challenge unsafe practice in others. Clinicians are conscious of the tension between their responsibilities as clinicians (keeping patients safe), and as educators (allowing students to learn under supervision). There are some apparent gaps in curricular content where relevant evidence already exists – these include the epidemiology of adverse events and error, root cause analysis and quality assessment. Reference to the organisational context is often absent from course content and exposure limited. For example, incident reporting is not being incorporated to any great extent in undergraduate curricula. Newly qualified staff were aware of the need to be seen to practice in an evidence based way, and, for some at least, the need to modify „the standard? way of doing things to do „what?s best for the patient?. A number of recommendations have been made, some generic and others specific to individual professions. Regulators? expectations of courses in relation to patient 9 safety education should be explicit and regularly reviewed. Educators in all disciplines need to be effective role models who are clear about how to help students to learn about patient safety. All courses should be able to highlight a vertical integrated thread of teaching and learning related to patient safety in their curricula. This should be clear to staff and students. Assessment for this element should also be identifiable as assessment remains important in driving learning. All students need to be enabled to constructively challenge unsafe or non-standard practice. Encounters with patients and learning about their experiences and concerns are helpful in consolidating learning. Further innovative approaches should be developed to make patient safety issues 'real' for students

Investigations and explorations in the mathematics classroom

In Portugal, since the beginning of the 1990s, problem solving became increasingly identified with mathematical explorations and investigations. A number of research studies have been conducted, focusing on students’ learning, teachers’ classroom practices and teacher education. Currently, this line of work involves studies from primary school to university mathematics. This perspective impacted the mathematics curriculum documents that explicitly recommend teachers to propose mathematics investigations in their classrooms. On national meetings, many teachers report experiences involving students’ doing investigations and indicate to use regularly such tasks in their practice. However, this still appears to be a marginal activity in most mathematics classes, especially when there is pressure for preparation for external examinations (at grades 9 and 12). International assessments such as PISA and national assessments (at grades 4 and 6) emphasize tasks with realistic contexts. They reinforce the view that mathematics tasks must be varied beyond simple computational exercises or intricate abstract problems but they do not support the notion of extended explorations. Future developments will show what paths will emerge from these contradictions between promising research and classroom reports, curriculum orientations, professional experience, and assessment frameworks and instruments

Automation and schema acquisition in learning elementary computer programming: Implications for the design of practice

Two complementary processes may be distinguished in learning a complex cognitive skill such as computer programming. First, automation offers task-specific procedures that may directly control programming behavior, second, schema acquisition offers cognitive structures that provide analogies in new problem situations. The goal of this paper is to explore what the nature of these processes can teach us for a more effective design of practice. The authors argue that conventional training strategies in elementary programming provide little guidance to the learner and offer little opportunities for mindful abstraction, which results in suboptimal automation and schema acquisition. Practice is considered to be most beneficial to learning outcomes and transfer under strict conditions, in particular, a heavy emphasis on the use of worked examples during practice and the assignment of programming tasks that demand mindful abstraction from these examples

Knowledge Transfer Needs and Methods

INE/AUTC 12.3

Parents with learning disabilities - the lived experience - a study for equal say, Glasgow

In order to more clearly identify the key issues with regard to parents with learning disabilities, Equal Say commissioned the Glasgow School of Social Work to undertake a small pilot study which aimed to: identify the likely demand for advocacy services to support parents with a learning disability living in the community, illustrate the lived experiences of parents with a learning disability and to highlight examples of good practice in terms of what works in supporting parents with a learning disability. A short survey questionnaire was sent to 94 relevant social work, health and voluntary sector organisations within Glasgow City. Five parents from within the Equal Say service who had the capacity to give informed consent were selected at random and interviewed to discuss a range of issues in relation to their parenting. Their experiences of being a parent were also discussed as were the range of support services and mechanisms in place to assist them with this role