An Adventure Therapy Mountain Bike Program for Middle School Students: A Pilot Study

Adolescence is a time of significant physical, mental, emotional, and social development marked by numerous transitions and challenges. Middle school is one of the earliest and perhaps first times of significant social and physical transition that impacts early adolescent development. As a result, schools are becoming a primary care setting for children and families to identify and address mental health needs. However, only 2% of school mental health services are provided by licensed professionals. Therefore, schools and service providers continue to seek out comprehensive modalities that can efficiently provide preventative and responsive interventions to students beyond individual and school counseling services. Adventure Therapy (AT) is an approach that mental health professionals in schools can use to foster mental health in students. The purpose of this dissertation is to test an adapted AT program for the school setting during the course of the academic semester to assist incoming middle schoolers adjusting to a new environment and navigate developmental transitions. A mountain bike specific program was created to assess the effectiveness of the kinesthetic activity along with the addition of AT concepts. The program was informed by a conceptual framework that integrates the EcoWellness holistic model of wellbeing with AT. The effects of an AT mountain bike program and a non-AT mountain bike program on middle school students’ perceptions of group climate (i.e. Engagement, Conflict, and Avoidance) and factors of resiliency (i.e. Optimism, Self-Efficacy, and Adaptability) were tested in this study using an experimental design. The program was implemented in a charter arts public school in Northwest Arkansas as an introduction to mountain biking course. An observed sample of 30 participants were used for the data analysis. The visual analysis of the profile plots indicated differences within and between groups on all outcome variables. However, further analyses using the mixed model for a two-group experimental design with repeated measures to test statistical significance yielded few differences. There were statistically significant effects for participant Engagement and Conflict based on the Group Climate Questionnaire (MacKenzie, 1983). The only statistically significant effect for resiliency factors was on Adaptability as measured by the Resiliency Scales for Children and Adolescents – Sense of Mastery. Despite the few statistically significant results, clinical significance indicates the treatment group saw a greater increase and sustainability in scaled rankings when compared to the comparison group. This pilot study sought to explore the effects of developing an AT program centered around a specific kinesthetic activity on group and individual participant outcomes. According to the literature review, this is one of the few studies that focuses on a specific kinesthetic activity, particularly mountain biking from an AT perspective. Additionally, this study informs research and clinical application for the development of an AT program with middle school students in a school setting. The outcomes of this program provide clinical and practical significance to inform the field of counseling and further the development of AT practices

Recommendations for the Role and Responsibilities of School-Based Mental Health Counselors

School counselors (SCs) are tasked with addressing the academic, career, and personal/social development of all students. As mental health issues experienced by school-aged children have increased, SCs have been unable to provide adequate mental health services. Because of barriers to receiving communitybased mental health services, school-based services are becoming increasingly necessary. In this article we propose that School-Based Mental Health Counselors (SBMHCs), specifically trained to work with schoolaged children and placed within a school setting, are appropriate for meeting students’ mental health needs. Although SBMHCs are not new to counseling, we make specific recommendations and suggestions for the training and practice of SBMHCs so that they can collaborate with SCs to meet the mental health needs of all students

Modeling and Solving the Rush Hour puzzle

We introduce the physical puzzle Rush Hour and its generalization. We briefly survey its complexity limits, then we model and solve it using declarative paradigms. In particular, we provide a constraint programming encoding in MiniZinc and a model in Answer Set Programming and we report and compare experimental results. Although this is simply a game, the kind of reasoning involved is the same that autonomous vehicles should do for exiting a garage. This shows the potential of logic programming for problems concerning transport problems and self-driving cars

Turtle Island: Working with Indigenous Grandparents and their Grandchildren in Group Counseling

Turtle Island is a culturally grounded psycho-educational group program for Indigenous early adolescents and their grandparents. It is designed to increase the inter-personal connection between Indigenous grandparents and grandchildren, facilitate the transmission of tribal/cultural values to future generations, improve a historically significant support system for Indigenous youth, and enhance greater awareness and feelings of connections with Nature. The authors present activities and processes to support clinicians and their consideration for working with Indigenous clients. All phases of implementation, from participant and facilitator recruitment to the concluding honoring feast, as well as group activities, process questions, and accompanying projects, are described in detail

Recommendations for Counselor Education and Supervision Programs to Improve Gatekeeping Processes Developed from Doctoral Student Experiences

The purpose of this qualitative study was to explore the experiences of eleven doctoral students at three CACREP accredited programs to address issues in counselor education and supervision programs and faculty face regarding gatekeeping. The information was used to develop and provide recommendations for gatekeeping procedures that can be implemented at the departmental and classroom levels. Ways programs can improve the training of doctoral students for gatekeeping roles and responsibilities, steps faculty can take to create an environment which supports gatekeeping at their institution, as well as support doctoral students as they grow into future gatekeepers of the profession are discussed

An Integrative Pedagogical Approach to Teaching Counseling Supervision

Counselor Education programs are required to prepare doctoral students to become supervisors, however there is both no single agreed upon pedagogy or method, as well as a seeming lack of culturally responsive pedagogy or teaching methods for instructing students in learning and developing supervision knowledge and skills in counseling supervision courses (Korcuska, 2016). The authors propose the integration of established pedagogical approaches to address students’ implicit and explicit bias in order to develop cultural competence and humility in becoming culturally responsive supervisors. The authors provide an overview of Critical Race, Feminist, and Experiential Learning theories and how these theories can be infused to enable Counselor Educators to teach future supervisors with a diverse blend of methods. A sample case study is provided

PERAN MATA KULIAH MODUL NUSANTARA DALAM PENINGKATAN SIKAP TOLERANSI TERHADAP BUDAYA MELALUI PERTUKARAN MAHASISWA MERDEKA 2

Modul Nusantara merupakan salah satu mata kuliah wajib bagi mahasiswa berpartisipasi dalam program pertukaran pelajar mandiri. Modul Nusantara merupakan rangkaian kegiatan yang berfokus pada penciptaan pemahaman  dan tujuan holistik  memperkenalkan kekayaan budaya nusantara dalam berbagai hal. Tujuan dari program ini adalah untuk mengetahui bagaimana kegiatan modul  Nusantara berperan dalam meningkatkan toleransi budaya. Penelitian ini ditujukan untuk mahasiswa dalam melakukan program pertukaran mahasiswa merdeka Universitas HKBP Nommensen Medan  tahun 2022-2023. Mengumpulkan informasi melalui observasi dan dokumentasi. Nilai Modular Nusantara memiliki peran untuk meningkatkan sikap toleransi budaya di kalangan mahasiswa baru. Hasil Penelitian sebanyak 60% mahasiswa memilih program Pertukaran Mahasiswa, sebanyak 60% mahasiswa menyatakan ada peningkatan softskill dengan baik setelah mengikuti kegiatan MBKM (Merdeka Belajar Kampus Merdeka), sebanyak 74% mahasiswa menyatakan kegiatan MBKM untuk Perguruan Tinggi sesuai kebutuhan lulusan di masa yang akan datang, 91% mahasiswa menyatakan ketertarikan terhadap program MBKM

Respiratory Tissue Engineering: Current Status and Opportunities for the Future.

Currently, lung disease and major airway trauma constitute a major global healthcare burden with limited treatment options. Airway diseases such as chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and cystic fibrosis have been identified as the fifth highest cause of mortality worldwide and are estimated to rise to fourth place by 2030. Alternate approaches and therapeutic modalities are urgently needed to improve clinical outcomes for chronic lung disease. This can be achieved through tissue engineering of the respiratory tract. Interest is growing in the use of airway tissue-engineered constructs as both a research tool, to further our understanding of airway pathology, validate new drugs, and pave the way for novel drug therapies, and also as regenerative medical devices or as an alternative to transplant tissue. This review provides a concise summary of the field of respiratory tissue engineering to date. An initial overview of airway anatomy and physiology is given, followed by a description of the stem cell populations and signaling processes involved in parenchymal healing and tissue repair. We then focus on the different biomaterials and tissue-engineered systems employed in upper and lower respiratory tract engineering and give a final perspective of the opportunities and challenges facing the field of respiratory tissue engineering

Development of multi-depth probing 3D microelectrode array to record electrophysiological activity within neural cultures

Microelectrode arrays (MEAs) play a crucial role in investigating the electrophysiological activities of neuronal populations. Although two-dimensional neuronal cell cultures have predominated in neurophysiology in monitoring in-vitro the electrophysiological activity, recent research shifted toward culture using three-dimensional (3D) neuronal network structures for developing more sophisticated and realistic neuronal models. Nevertheless, many challenges remain in the electrophysiological analysis of 3D neuron cultures, among them the development of robust platforms for investigating the electrophysiological signal at multiple depths of the 3D neurons’ networks. While various 3D MEAs have been developed to probe specific depths within the layered nervous system, the fabrication of microelectrodes with different heights, capable of probing neural activity from the surface as well as from the different layers within the neural construct, remains challenging. This study presents a novel 3D MEA with microelectrodes of different heights, realized through a multi-stage mold-assisted electrodeposition process. Our pioneering platform allows meticulous control over the height of individual microelectrodes as well as the array topology, paving the way for the fabrication of 3D MEAs consisting of electrodes with multiple heights that could be tailored for specific applications and experiments. The device performance was characterized by measuring electrochemical impedance, and noise, and capturing spontaneous electrophysiological activity from neurospheroids derived from human induced pluripotent stem cells. These evaluations unequivocally validated the significant potential of our innovative multi-height 3D MEA as an avant-garde platform for in vitro 3D neuronal studies