Addressing Students’ Mental Health Needs in Faculty-Led Study Abroad Courses

The increased enrollment of students with mental health needs in U.S. higher education, paired with increasing emphasis on study abroad participation has led campus mental health professionals to consider how their services might extend to serve students with mental health needs who are studying abroad. When it comes to faculty led courses, instructors can play a key role in providing on-the-ground support for students experiencing mental health challenges. The findings from this study provide key insights that college mental health professionals can use to better understand and support these instructors as they serve on the front lines of addressing students’ mental health needs while they are away from campus. In particular, our findings point to key ways that college mental health professionals can partner with education abroad offices to provide effective pre-departure training and in-country support for faculty instructors

Factors Influencing Accessibility to American Public Higher Education

Since their inception in the early 1900s, community colleges have been about making higher education accessible. While their initial purpose was to overcome the geography barrier to higher education, the mission of community colleges and higher education on the whole has expanded over time to mitigate other barriers to higher education to include gender, race, religion, and socioeconomic barriers. As public support for higher education has changed over time, institutions have had to change their tuition and fee structure to make up the budget shortfall created by the decreases in public funding. How have these changes impacted accessibility to public higher education, and community colleges in particular? This paper addresses the question of accessibility from a student perspective, an institutional perspective, and an international perspective. Regression analysis and descriptive statistics are used to determine factors that influence accessibility to public higher education

Social benefit bonds: financial markets inside the state

The provision of social services in Australia has changed dramatically in recent decades. Governments have expanded social provision without expanding the public sector by directly subsidising private provision, by contracting private agencies, both non-profit and for-profit, to deliver services, and through a number of other subsidies and vouchers. Private actors receive public funds to deliver social services to citizens, raising a range of important questions about financial and democratic accountability: 'who benefits', 'who suffers' and 'who decides'. This book explores these developments through rich case studies of a diverse set of social policy domains. The case studies demonstrate a range of effects of marketisation, including the impact on the experience of consumer engagement with social service systems, on the distribution of social advantage and disadvantage, and on the democratic steering of social policy

Toward Safer Opioid Prescribing in HIV care (TOWER): a mixed-methods, cluster-randomized trial

Background The 2016 U.S. Centers for Disease Control Opioid Prescribing Guideline (CDC Guideline) is currently being revised amid concern that it may be harmful to people with chronic pain on long-term opioid therapy (CP-LTOT). However, a methodology to faithfully implement the CDC guideline, measure prescriber adherence, and systematically test its effect on patient and public health outcomes is lacking. We developed and tested a CDC Guideline implementation strategy (termed TOWER), focusing on an outpatient HIV-focused primary care setting. Methods TOWER was developed in a stakeholder-engaged, multi-step iterative process within an Information, Motivation and Behavioral Skills (IMB) framework of behavior change. TOWER consists of: 1) a patient-facing opioid management app (OM-App); 2) a progress note template (OM-Note) to guide the office visit; and 3) a primary care provider (PCP) training. TOWER was evaluated in a 9-month, randomized-controlled trial of HIV-PCPs (N&thinsp;=&thinsp;11) and their patients with HIV and CP-LTOT (N&thinsp;=&thinsp;40). The primary outcome was CDC Guideline adherence based on electronic health record (EHR) documentation and measured by the validated Safer Opioid Prescribing Evaluation Tool (SOPET). Qualitative data including one-on-one PCP interviews were collected. We also piloted patient-reported outcome measures (PROMs) reflective of domains identified as important by stakeholders (pain intensity and function; mood; substance use; medication use and adherence; relationship with provider; stigma and discrimination). Results PCPs randomized to TOWER were 48% more CDC Guideline adherent (p&thinsp;&lt;&thinsp;0.0001) with significant improvements in use of: non-pharmacologic treatments, functional treatment goals, opioid agreements, prescription drug monitoring programs (PDMPs), opioid benefit/harm assessment, and naloxone prescribing. Qualitative data demonstrated high levels of confidence in conducting these care processes among intervention providers, and that OM-Note supported these efforts while experience with OM-App was mixed. There were no intervention-associated safety concerns (defined as worsening of any of the PROMs). Conclusions CDC-guideline adherence can be promoted and measured, and is not associated with worsening of outcomes for people with HIV receiving LTOT for CP. Future work would be needed to document scalability of these results and to determine whether CDC-guideline adherence results in a positive effect on public health. Trial registration https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT03669939. Registration date: 9/13/2018 &nbsp;</p

Mobility Improvements After a High-cadence Dynamic Cycling Intervention in an Individual with Motor Neuron Disease: A Case Study

International Journal of Exercise Science 14(3): 791-801, 2021. Previous exercise studies in individuals with motor neuron disease have shown some positive benefits but the stress of regular exercise could result in overuse weakness in this population. The purpose of this case study is to determine the efficacy, and tolerability of a high-cadence dynamic cycling intervention in an individual with motor neuron disease. A 67-year-old male with significant lower extremity weakness and a diagnosis of idiopathic motor neuron disease completed six 30-minute sessions of high cadence dynamic cycling over a two-week period using a custom-built motorized ergometer with the motor speed set at 80 revolutions per minute. This intervention resulted in an 80.4 m increase in walking distance during the six-minute walk test (21% increase), with a lower rating of perceived exertion than at baseline. Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis Functional Rating Scale- Revised scores improved slightly (2.4%) suggesting that the intervention was tolerated, and it did not compromise the participant’s physical function. These data show that this intervention can improve mobility, is well-tolerated and minimizes the risk of overuse weakness in an individual with motor neuron disease

Online + International: Utilizing Theory to Maximize Intercultural Learning in Virtual Exchange Courses

Virtual exchanges (VEs) are course-based experiences designed to promote global learning, often by integrating cross-cultural interactions and collaborations with people from other areas of the world into coursework in a virtual format. Due to the widespread disruption of the COVID-19 pandemic, VEs have seen an increase in popularity. However, research findings on the effectiveness of VEs are mixed, and limited guidance is available to VE instructors on how to structure and facilitate these programs. The purpose of this paper is to highlight how theories and literature in two distinct areas of scholarship, Intergroup Contact theory and the Community of Inquiry model in online learning, could be applied to VEs to maximize student learning. We discuss each of these theories first and then highlight how they could be applied to VEs using illustrative examples from a pilot study of five VE courses offered at one institution during the summer of 2021

Using an adaptive e-learning curriculum to enhance digital literacy: challenges and opportunities

Universities have established the need for digital literacies as key graduate outcomes and must support students' development in these areas (Lea, 2013; Littlejohn, Beetham & McGill, 2012). In an era of widening participation, it is erroneous to assume all students will enter the sector with the technological skills required to support their studies. While some may be "skilled technology users", many will lack the digital competencies required for academic success (Jisc, 2014). Students need support for developing digital literacies, but explicit teaching may lead to frustration, as some are forced to "learn" skills they possess, while others are lost in the crowd. Adaptive learning technologies are particularly suited to addressing student diversity, as they automatically adjust to individual student's needs. This paper documents the development of a digital literacies curriculum that utilises an adaptive e-Learning platform to prepare students for technology-rich academic environments. The curriculum was co-developed by academics and librarians and consists of lessons on information literacy, media literacy, and online identity management. The paper outlines the pedagogical underpinnings of the lessons, alongside the challenges and opportunities observed during development process, and reflects on the impacts of adaptive technologies on teaching in blending learning environments

Student Learning Objectives: What Instructors Emphasize in Short-Term Study Abroad

Given that higher education institutions are increasingly utilizing short-term study abroad courses as a means to develop students’ intercultural competency, it is important to determine if and how the instructors leading these programs are incorporating intercultural learning into their courses. By examining learning objectives embedded within syllabi from short-term study abroad courses, the purpose of this study was to identify the relative extent to which instructors emphasize disciplinary and intercultural learning in teaching short-term study abroad courses, and to examine the types of intercultural learning that instructors are explicitly including in their courses. Findings point to a wide diversity of emphasis on disciplinary content and intercultural learning, with slightly more courses emphasizing disciplinary content than intercultural learning. Of those learning objectives that focus on intercultural learning, the vast majority focused on intercultural knowledge rather than skills or attitudes

Adjustments in the Labor and Real Estate Markets : Estimates of the Time Series Variation in the Natural Vacancy Rate

Acknowledgement We thank CBRE Econometric Advisors for provision of most of the data used for this study.Publisher PD