Exploring the Integration of Disability Awareness into Tertiary Teaching and Learning Activities

A desire to have every student attending our University be aware of, and reflect on, disability in their studies and future careers, initiated our project to explore how to enhance disability awareness within all our University’s papers. In this project we systematically reviewed pertinent literature and ran an action research workshop for staff. Strategies to enhance disability awareness identified in the literature and workshop were presented and verified at an interactive conference presentation. Embedding disability awareness into curricula is challenging; staff considered themselves powerless to bring about change in their departments, but thought that one way to do so would be by modelling inclusive behaviour and by introducing subtle inclusive practices into papers taught. The identified strategies may be of use to others contemplating similar curricular modifications

Addressing Radicalisation into the Classroom - A New Approach to Teacher and Pupil Learning

This article examines one response to the UK Governments directive that radicalisation and extremism should be tackled in all UK secondary schools. The small scale study, which is set in the broader literature of teaching often difficult PHSE topics to young people in secondary school and also the use of simulations as tools for learning in the classroom, analyses the responses of teachers to being trained with and using ‘Zak’ a bespoke research based simulation on the radicalisation process. An analysis of the teacher’s’ responses indicated that it was recognised that the principales of adults manipulating children, whether for sexual gratification or radicalisation, are considered to be very important topics for staff working with young people in school settings to address. It was also recognised as to be a flexible learning tool which enabled various pathways to be explored with young people in lessons to explore and raise issues regarding many aspects of e- safety, not just radicalisation. Additionally, the teachers remarked that the social media ‘Facebook’ format of the simulation was appreciated by the young people and this appeal resulted in their immersion with it as a teaching aid. Also of significance was how the ‘Zak’ package was delivered into schools with the staff reporting that the inter-professional training delivered by specialist police trainers and the accompanying materials enhanced the learning and confidence of the teachers on this multi-faceted and complex topic

Building capacity in climate change policy analysis and negotiation: methods and technologies

Capacity building is often cited as the reason “we cannot just pour money into developing countries” and why so many development projects fail because their design does not address local conditions. It is therefore a key technical and political concept in international development. Some of the poorest countries in the world are also some of the most vulnerable to the impacts of climate change. Their vulnerability is in part due to a lack of capacity to plan and anticipate the effects of climate change on crops, water resources, urban electricity demand etc. What capacities do these countries lack to deal with climate change? How will they cope? What steps can they take to reduce their vulnerability? This innovative and high-profile research project was part of a larger project (called C3D) and conducted with non-governmental organisations in Senegal, South Africa and Sri Lanka. The research involved several participatory workshops and a questionnaire to all three research centres

An examination of Cultural Competence Training in US Medical Education Guided by the Tool for Assessing Cultural Competence Training

In the United States, medical students must demonstrate a standard level of “cultural competence,” upon graduation. Cultural competence is most often defined as a set of congruent behaviors, attitudes, and policies that come together in systems, organizations, and among professionals to enable effective work in cross-cultural situations. The Association of American Medical Colleges developed the Tool for Assessing Cultural Competence Training (TACCT) to assist schools in developing and evaluating cultural competence curricula to meet these requirements. This review uses the TACCT as a guideline to describe and assess pedagogical approaches to cultural competence training in US medical education and identify content gaps and opportunities for curriculum improvement. A total of 18 programs are assessed. Findings support previous research that cultural competence training can improve the knowledge, attitudes, and skills of medical trainees. However, wide variation in the conceptualization, implementation, and evaluation of cultural competence training programs exists, leading to differences in training quality and outcomes. More research is needed to establish optimal approaches to implementing and evaluating cultural competence training that incorporate cultural humility, the social determinants of health, and broader structural competency within the medical system

A survey of simulation techniques in commerce and defence

Despite the developments in Modelling and Simulation (M&S) tools and techniques over the past years, there has been a gap in the M&S research and practice in healthcare on developing a toolkit to assist the modellers and simulation practitioners with selecting an appropriate set of techniques. This study is a preliminary step towards this goal. This paper presents some results from a systematic literature survey on applications of M&S in the commerce and defence domains that could inspire some improvements in the healthcare. Interim results show that in the commercial sector Discrete-Event Simulation (DES) has been the most widely used technique with System Dynamics (SD) in second place. However in the defence sector, SD has gained relatively more attention. SD has been found quite useful for qualitative and soft factors analysis. From both the surveys it becomes clear that there is a growing trend towards using hybrid M&S approaches