Literary Practices and the Curriculum Context: Exploring the Production of Assignments in a South African Vocational Higher Education Institution

This thesis explores curriculum construction and the production of assignments in two courses at a vocational higher education institution in South Africa, namely Film and Video Technology and Graphic Design. The influence of the vocational curriculum context on student and lecturer practices is examined through two analytical frameworks, literacy as social practice and Bernstein's concept of recontextualisation. An ethnographic methodology was used to investigate the broader curriculum context and literacy practices engaged in by students and lecturers. Fieldwork was carried out over a six-month period, while generating and collecting fieldnote, interview, documentary and photographic data. The analysis is presented as two separate case studies, one in each department. The study's interpretive approach is used to bring together the Bernstein focus on recontextualisation and curriculum with the Academic Literacies notion of literacy practice. The significant role of the curriculum context in the patterning of the literacy practices students engage in when producing their assignments is therefore recognised. The findings highlight the way the university of technology sectoral domain operates as a third aspect in the recontextualisation process alongside the professional and disciplinary domains, resulting in conflicting messages. Primacy is given to texts and literacy practices that resemble those in the professional domains. However, essayist literacies are also foregrounded and reflect generic and decontextualized understandings of writing that function as an important mechanism through which the sectoral domain asserts its position in the academy. The research demonstrates that the Academic Literacies and Bernsteinian frames can successfully be combined in empirical research, allowing the individual students' experiences to be located within broader institutional and sectoral structures in a way that challenges deficit views of the student. A further conclusion drawn is how an Academic Literacies lens can help to identify the workings of the sectoral domain thus broadening the analytical frame beyond individual institutional conditions

Student Academic Literacy Practices in a South African Vocational Web Design Higher Education Course

This study explores and describes the academic literacy practices of students completing a vocationally orientated web design and development course at Hoerikwaggo University of Technology, a higher education institution in South Africa. The research study proposes a more inclusive conceptualisation of academic literacies to accommodate the multimodal and digital texts produced by students on the course. An academic literacies research perspective is used as a conceptual framework for the study, accepting an understanding of literacy as being constitutive of the sociocultural environments and practices in which reading and writing is used. In keeping with the methodological perspectives espoused by academic literacies research, an ethnographic oriented approach was used. Data collection was primarily informed by participant observation activities and semi-structured interviews with student participants. Thematic analysis of fieldnotes and interview transcripts was used as the main data analysis tool. The analysis of the study highlights the primacy of the multimodal text and its influence in shaping the academic literacy practices in the course, along with the ways in which digital technologies, foregrounded in the professional domain of web design and development, mediate the nature of these literacy practices. Overall the study confirms the awareness, in much research in the academic literacies field, of the need to recognise and respect the distinctiveness of literacy practices in different academic contexts

Web design discourse and access : a case study of student entry into a web design Discourse in the Multimedia Technology programme at CPUT

Includes bibliographical references (leaves 109-117).This thesis represents an instance of my engagement as a reflective practitioner to explore how access opportunities into a web design Discourse can be enhanced. The study is located in the Multimedia Skills subject which is part of the Certificate in Multimedia Technology at Cape Peninsula University of Technology. In describing student entry into a web design environment, insights into academic literacy practices within the multimedia and web design environment are provided. The theoretical concepts of Discourse, interest, intertextuality, literacy, acquisition and learning are used to ground the conceptual framework of the study, while an interpretative case study is utilized as research methodology. Using the notion of recontextualisation, how the professional Discourse of web design was appropriate into the curriculum of the Multimedia Skills subject and the Multimedia Technology programme is described. This analysis identifies a core identity distinction between web designers (who have a strong visual focus) and web developers (who foreground technical competencies) which is supported by the subject focus in the programme. The research considers two key data sources, personal websites and semi-structured interviews. These account for student performances in and meta-knowledge of the web design Discourse and reveal evidence of how Discourses were reflected in student design decision-making in their personal websites. The differential experiences of student access to the web design Discourse prompt the consideration of how learning and acquisition activities could be used in the classroom to facilitate more balanced performance and meta-knowledge expression

Promoting physical activity among individuals diagnosed with schizophrenia and related disorders: testing a skills-based curiculum

Individuals diagnosed with serious mental illnesses die, on average, 25 years earlier than the general population. This early mortality rate is attributed to negative symptoms that make healthy behaviors, such as exercise, difficult, as well as to antipsychotic medications that carry significant physical side effects. Exercise has been shown to improve life expectancy and studies have shown that even chronically mentally ill individuals are capable of participating in physical exercise with support. Mental skills such as goal setting, visualization, self-talk, and energy management have been taught to the general population to improve exercise behavior. These skills have also been taught successfully to individuals diagnosed with serious mental illnesses for the purpose of symptom management. This, however, is the first study to examine the effects of teaching these mental skills to people diagnosed with serious mental illnesses for the purpose of promoting exercise. This dissertation examines a six-week skills-based curriculum highlighting the benefits of exercise as well as teaching a set of mental skills described above. Ten individuals participated, most were in their early twenties and all carried a diagnosis of schizophrenia or a related disorder. Participants were assessed at baseline, immediately following the intervention, six weeks after the intervention, and 12 weeks after the intervention. Measures included the Rapid Assessment of Physical Activity (RAPA), a semi-structured interview inquiring about the different mental skills and a quality of life questionnaire. Participants also completed helping alliance and consumer satisfaction surveys at the end of the intervention. A 73% attendance rate was noted and statistically significant differences were seen in physical activity and mental skills knowledge between baseline and immediately following the intervention and between baseline and 6 weeks post-intervention. No quality of life change was indicated. These results indicate that the intervention was acceptable to the population as evidenced by an adequate attendance rate and that further research is warranted due to the statistically significant improvements in two outcome areas. These findings indicate that a skills-based curriculum teaching motivational skills to individuals diagnosed with serious mental illnesses is an intervention worth exploring further with larger and more diverse samples

Pollinator Networks in Established Urban Prairies Compared to Rural Remnant Prairies

Prairies support over 800 species of plants, insects, birds, fish, and mammals, even though only 1% of remnant prairies remain in the United States. Importantly, urban prairie “gardens/plots” are gaining popularity for their ecological services. However, it is not known to what extent these small urban prairies can sustain the plant-pollinator interactions that are vital to both the insects and the plants. The goal of my research was to examine plant/pollinator interactions in three urban prairies in southwest Missouri and compare them to rural prairies because rural prairies were predicted to have stronger plant/pollinator networks. Rural units were: Woods Prairie, Providence Prairie, and La Petite Gemme Prairie. Urban units were all in Springfield, MO: Valley Water Mill Park, Kickapoo Edge Prairie at Nathaniel Greene Park, and the Springfield Conservation Nature Center. From May through August 2018, I sampled the five most abundant forbs in bloom, the number of pollinator visits, and fidelity from dawn to dusk in all six units. I also examined the habitat matrices within an 8 km2 radius around each prairie using ArcGIS Pro Online. I found that similarity between focal forb species in rural prairies and urban prairies was low. Insect visitation was significantly dependent on prairie type (rural/ urban), month, insect group, and the interactions between them. Insect fidelity did not significantly differ between rural and urban prairies. The percentage of impervious surfaces in and around prairie types, as well as urban habitat matrices, did not negatively impact insect pollinator visits. These results suggest that current management of urban prairie units may be sufficient to sustain the same level of pollinator services as in rural prairies

Integration of Problem -Solving and Values Clarification Strategies, Toward the Self-Actualizing Individual

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Public Libraries Respond to the Opioid Crisis in Collaboration with Their Communities: An Introduction

The nation is experiencing an opioid epidemic. As communities across the country feel the epidemic’s impact, public health and human service organizations are implementing responses that include healthcare, education, law enforcement and the judicial system, emergency services, drug and addiction counseling, and community services. Public libraries around the country are choosing to be part of this response. With funding from a grant from the Institute of Museum and Library Services, OCLC and the Public Library Association will identify, synthesize, and share knowledge and resources that will help public libraries and their community partners develop effective strategies and community-driven coalitions that work together to address the opioid epidemic in America. This project is called, “Public Libraries Respond to the Opioid Crisis with Their Communities.” This article is the first of two about the project and it focuses on the issues and preliminary themes surfacing in interviews with library staff and the partners. A second article will focus on the data analysis and overall findings

Cloning and characterization of a conjugated bile acid hydrolase gene from Clostridium perfringens.

The gene encoding a conjugated bile acid hydrolase (CBAH) from Clostridium perfringens 13 has been cloned and expressed in Escherichia coli, and its nucleotide sequence has been determined. Nucleotide and predicted amino acid sequence analyses indicated that the gene product is related to two previously characterized amidases, a CBAH from Lactobacillus plantarum (40% identity) and a penicillin V amidase from Bacillus sphaericus (34% identity). The product is apparently unrelated to a CBAH from C. perfringens for which N-terminal sequence information was determined. The gene product was purified from recombinant E. coli and used to raise antibody in rabbits. The presence of the protein in C. perfringens was then confirmed by immunoblot analysis. The protein was shown to have a native molecular weight of 147,000 and a subunit molecular weight of 36,100, indicating its probable existence as a tetramer. Disruption of the chromosomal C. perfringens CBAH gene with a chloramphenicol resistance cartridge resulted in a mutant strain which retained partial CBAH activity. Polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis followed by enzymatic activity staining and immunoblotting indicated that the mutant strain no longer expressed the cloned CBAH (CBAH-1) but did express at least one additional CBAH (CBAH-2). CBAH-2 was immunologically distinct from CBAH-1, and its mobility on native polyacrylamide gels was different from that of CBAH-1. Furthermore, comparisons of pH optima and substrate specificities of CBAH activities from recombinant E. coli and wild-type and mutant C. perfringens provided further evidence for the presence of multiple CBAH activities in C. perfringens. Originally published Applied and Environmental Microbiology, Vol. 61, No. 7, July 199

The Values Grounded Learning Environment: Developing a Positive School Culture and Student Success

The Values Grounded Learning Environment training provides educators with a comprehensive positive behavior management model, including basic strategies for effective limit setting and positive reinforcement. It is a user friendly model that can be implemented in a variety of educational settings and provides a framework for thoughtfully responding to student behaviors and emphasizing student and staff accountability

Natural history of falls in an incident cohort of Parkinson’s disease: early evolution, risk and protective features

The natural history of falls in early Parkinson’s disease (PD) is poorly understood despite the profound effect of falls on outcome. The primary aim of this study was to describe the natural history of falls, and characterise fallers over 54 months in 99 newly diagnosed people with PD. Seventy-nine (79.7%) participants fell over 54 months and 20 (20.3%) remained falls-naïve. Twenty six (26.2%) reported retrospective falls at baseline. Gait outcomes, disease severity and self-efficacy significantly discriminated across groups. Subjective cognitive complaints emerged as the only significant cognitive predictor. Without exception, outcomes were better for non-fallers compared with fallers at any time point. Between group differences for 54 month fallers and non-fallers were influenced by the inclusion of retrospective fallers and showed a broader range of discriminant characteristics, notably stance time variability and balance self-efficacy. Single fallers (n = 7) were significantly younger than recurrent fallers (n = 58) by almost 15 years (P = 0.013). Baseline performance in early PD discriminates fallers over 54 months, thereby identifying those at risk of falls. Clinical profiles for established and emergent fallers are to some extent distinct. These results reiterate the need for timely interventions to improve postural control and gait