Engaging students in explaining and representing pharmacology by creating blended media

Pharmacology is a challenging subject in a science degree that requires students to engage with complicated chemical reactions. Typical assessment tasks involve exams, lab reports and presentations. The aim of this study was to trial a new form of assessment task by getting students to analyse a journal article on a disease related to Pharmacology and then to explain key aspects of the article in a 4-5 minute digital media product that they create. The students had a choice of narrated media forms to represent their journal article — podcasts, digital story, video, slowmation (slow animation) or blended media. This presentation focuses on examples of blended media, which is a form that encourages students to integrate any combination of media such as video with animation and static images that students create and combine with expert-generated media from YouTube or Google Images to complement a narration to explain the science. There were 24 students enrolled in the subject Chem350 Principles of Pharmacology and each one was allocated a different journal article to summarise by making a media product. A one hour lecture was provided to students to explain how to make the different media forms supported by instructional resources on a website www.digiexplanations.com. The students then used their own technology such as mobile phones, digital still cameras and free movie making software on their own computers to create the blended media. The aim of this pilot study was to ascertain the students’ perceptions of making a blended media and how their allocated disease was represented. Data collected included observation of the students’ presentations, the blended media artifact and an interview with each student after the subject was completed. Results showed that all 24 students successfully made a 3-5 minute media product in their own time with minimal technological concerns. A wide variety of media to explain the disease in their allocated journal article were submitted including one podcast, five digital stories, 10 videos, three animations and 5 blended media. Three of the students who volunteered to be interviewed about the process of making their blended media product stated that the process was highly engaging and helped them to learn science in a new way and it was the first time they had made a narrated media product in their degree. Whilst this pilot study indicated that the students were engaged in re-representing the science content by creating a digital media product, further studies will need to be conducted to research the quality of science learning claimed by students. Blended media is a new form of student-generated media, which enables students to use their own technology to construct a narrated media product integrating many different media forms and is a multimodal representation to explain a science concept

Correlations for computation and computation for correlations

Quantum correlations are central to the foundations of quantum physics and form the basis of quantum technologies. Here, our goal is to connect quantum correlations and computation: using quantum correlations as a resource for computation - and vice versa, using computation to test quantum correlations. We derive Bell-type inequalities that test the capacity of quantum states for computing Boolean functions within a specific model of computation and experimentally investigate them using 4-photon Greenberger-Horne-Zeilinger (GHZ) states. Furthermore, we show how the resource states can be used to specifically compute Boolean functions - which can be used to test and verify the non-classicality of the underlying quantum states. The connection between quantum correlation and computability shown here has applications in quantum technologies, and is important for networked computing being performed by measurements on distributed multipartite quantum states.Deutsche ForschungsgemeinschaftBundesministerium für Bildung und ForschungBundesministerium für Wirtschaft und EnergieCarl-Zeiss-StiftungProjekt DEA

Sexual and Reproductive Health Disparities in a National Sample of Hispanic and Non-Hispanic White U.S. College Students

Hispanic students are the fastest growing minority population on U.S. college campuses. The purpose of this study was to examine differences in the sexual and reproductive health behaviors and outcomes between Hispanic and non-Hispanic White college students. Analyses utilized data from 15,518 non-married undergraduates (aged 18-24 years) responding to the Fall 2009 American College Health Association-National College Health Assessment II, a national sample of U.S. college students. Binary logistic regression analyses were used to examine disparities in sexual and reproductive health behaviors and outcomes, including sexual behavior, contraceptive and condom use, HIV testing, and STD and unintended pregnancy history, between Hispanic and non-Hispanic Whites. Hispanics had greater odds of reporting a past-year STD, although rates of reported sexual risk behaviors were no higher among Hispanics compared with non-Hispanic Whites. Compared to non-Hispanic Whites, fewer Hispanics reported using birth control pills. Hispanics were 2.5 times less likely to report using any method to prevent pregnancy, which may explain why Hispanics were more likely to report emergency contraceptive use in the past 12 months and a past-year unintended pregnancy. Important sexual health disparities exist among U.S. students, which have important practical implications for college health policy, practice, and intervention. Further research is warranted to understand the ethnic differences in the use of both hormonal and emergency contraceptives, particularly among college students

The Grizzly, September 23, 2004

Get Down in the Lounge • USGA Amendments Cause Controversy • Wismer Rumors Exposed • Family Day is Just Around the Corner • You got SERVed! • Medulla: Soul for Your Brain • Lead the Way: UC Leadership Studies Program • Care to Dance? • Opinions: Should More Public Places Move Towards a Complete No-smoking Policy?; Tattoo or not to Tattoo? • My Summer Vacation Camping at Death Pond • The Kobe Bryant Sagahttps://digitalcommons.ursinus.edu/grizzlynews/1565/thumbnail.jp

The development and validation of a scoring tool to predict the operative duration of elective laparoscopic cholecystectomy

Background: The ability to accurately predict operative duration has the potential to optimise theatre efficiency and utilisation, thus reducing costs and increasing staff and patient satisfaction. With laparoscopic cholecystectomy being one of the most commonly performed procedures worldwide, a tool to predict operative duration could be extremely beneficial to healthcare organisations. Methods: Data collected from the CholeS study on patients undergoing cholecystectomy in UK and Irish hospitals between 04/2014 and 05/2014 were used to study operative duration. A multivariable binary logistic regression model was produced in order to identify significant independent predictors of long (> 90 min) operations. The resulting model was converted to a risk score, which was subsequently validated on second cohort of patients using ROC curves. Results: After exclusions, data were available for 7227 patients in the derivation (CholeS) cohort. The median operative duration was 60 min (interquartile range 45–85), with 17.7% of operations lasting longer than 90 min. Ten factors were found to be significant independent predictors of operative durations > 90 min, including ASA, age, previous surgical admissions, BMI, gallbladder wall thickness and CBD diameter. A risk score was then produced from these factors, and applied to a cohort of 2405 patients from a tertiary centre for external validation. This returned an area under the ROC curve of 0.708 (SE = 0.013, p  90 min increasing more than eightfold from 5.1 to 41.8% in the extremes of the score. Conclusion: The scoring tool produced in this study was found to be significantly predictive of long operative durations on validation in an external cohort. As such, the tool may have the potential to enable organisations to better organise theatre lists and deliver greater efficiencies in care

Pharmacology students\u27 perceptions of creating multimodal digital explanations

Students can now digitally construct their own representations of scientific concepts using a variety of modes including writing, diagrams, 2-D and 3-D models, images or speech, all of which communicate meaning. In this study, final-year chemistry students studying a pharmacology subject created a \u27\u27blended media\u27\u27 digital product as an assignment to summarize an independently prepared technical literature review on a current research topic in pharmacology for a non-expert audience. A blended media is a simplified way for students to combine a variety of modes to complement a narration to explain a concept to others. In this study, the students learned how to create a blended media during a one-hour workshop, and used the technique to create the representation as an assessment task. The research question that guided the study was, \u27\u27What are the students\u27 perceptions of making a digital product such as blended media and how did these shape their multimodal awareness?\u27\u27 We draw from theoretical perspectives in multimodalities, representations and meaning making. Data included interviews at three points of the semester, the literature review and the digital media product. We present three case studies with volunteering students, who demonstrated a strong awareness of effective communications techniques as they attended to the audience. Making a blended media is a creative way for chemistry students to summarize complex scientific information and as a task may help to focus their multimodal awareness and developing communications skills

John Muir Trust Visitor Survey, June to October 2021, For Shiehallion, Ben Nevis, Glenridding and Sandwood Bay

A pilot visitor survey was conducted on four properties by JMT staff during 2021. The University of Cumbria was asked to analyse the data. Secondly, the authors were invited to feedback on the efficacy of the survey with a view to enhancements in the future. The following report presents the data in three ways: As quantitative results for your interpretation As geographical results A qualitative analysis and interpretation of the open text responses Sensemaking: An integrated narrative approach to highlight the potential of software to create a rich picture of visitors to JMT properties. Resources did not allow for all the possible correlations between questions or locations to be undertaken. JMT staff were asked for their priorities. We hope the results provide an indication of the potential. A clean set of data has been provided so that further presentation and analysis can be undertaken. Feedback relevant to each approach is provided after each section. The report concludes with some recommendations. This work was undertaken by students of the MA in Outdoor and Experiential Learning as a voluntary internship. I would like to thank John Hoban, Luke Kemp and Paul Moseley for all their work

Blended media: Student-generated mash-ups to promote engagement with science content

The aim of this study was to gather university student perspectives on a new type of assessment task requesting them to create blended media . Blended media is a new form of student-generated multimedia whereby students devise a narration or voiceover to explain a science concept complemented by any combination of visuals such as video, animation or still images that are original or created by others to enhance the explanation. In the assessment task all the students successfully made a blended media product in their own time using their own technology and only requiring one session of media instruction. Surprisingly, the three case students who volunteered to be interviewed stated that they had never made a media product for a science assignment before and enjoyed creating this new form of assignment because they found it engaging and interesting. It also required them to represent content in new ways. Blended media is an innovative way for students to make digital media that engages them with content and as an assessment task could be used in any subject