Teachers’ Perceptions of Response-to-Intervention Reading Strategies in Middle Schools

As students enter middle school, many lack literacy skills, especially English language learners (ELLs). The purpose of this basic qualitative study was to examine what supports middle school teachers perceived they needed to be effective using response to intervention (RTI) strategies with ELLs. This basic qualitative study was framed by the RTI framework as described in the Individual with Disabilities Education Act and by Hall and Hord’s concerns-based adoption model. Interviews were conducted with eight teachers with a minimum of 3 years of service who used RTI practices in their classrooms in middle schools in school districts from the Northeast to the Midwest of the United States. Data were open coded to determine emergent themes. Findings showed that middle school teachers needed and used effective teaching intervention strategies to support RTI reading instruction and needed support from leaders and peers to increase ELLs’ academic growth in RTI reading, especially the use of comprehensive intervention in the period of COVID-19. The teachers also desired more professional development to address RTI, and shared that administrators needed to be aware of their concerns. Positive social change could occur as administrators and teacher leaders in middle schools apply the findings of this study to provide better teacher support for RTI reading strategies in their middle school classrooms with ELLs

Difference in quality of life of referred hospital patients after hospital palliative care team intervention

In 2001 Selma Browde created an expanded definition of palliative medicine in South Africa that reads as follows: ‘Palliative Care supplies active comprehensive care for the physical, emotional, psychosocial and spiritual suffering of the patient and the family. It starts at the moment of first contact with the patient with any illness at any stage and continues for the duration of the illness. If and when the illness becomes incurable, Palliative Care then plays the major or total role.’1 In the same year, Browde established a hospital palliative care team (HPCT) at the Johannesburg General Hospital. There are now six such teams in South Africa, yet no systematic evaluation had been carried out before this research

Analysis of CareFirst\u27s Performance as a Charitable Not-for-Profit Health Insurance Company in the National Capital Area

The George Washington University School of Public Health and Health Services ( GWU ) and the Georgetown University Institute for Health Care Research and Policy ( GU )conducted this analysis on behalf of the DC Appleseed Center for Law and Justice in order to examine whether, in its operations and business practices, CareFirst BlueCross BlueShield ( CareFirst ) appears to be fulfilling its chartered mission for the National Capital Area. The study began as an analysis of the coverage and access implications for the region of a proposal made by CareFirst and WellPoint Health Networks, Inc. ( WellPoint ) to convert CareFirst to for-profit status and permit its acquisition by WellPoint for a price of $1.3 billion. Maryland\u27s Commissioner of Insurance rejected the proposal in March 2003. Upon the request of CareFirst and WellPoint, the insurance commissioners in the District of Columbia and Delaware suspended their review of the transaction

Guide to chicken health and management in Ethiopia: For farmers and development agents

Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council, United KingdomDepartment for International Development, United Kingdo

Identifying, building and sustaining leadership capacity for communities of practice in higher education

Executive summary The Leadership project LE10-1734, ‘Identifying, building and sustaining leadership capacity for communities of practice in higher education’, used an iterative, reflective, action learning approach to identify and address the leadership needs and challenges for those facilitating learning and teaching communities of practice (CoPs). CoPs are increasingly established in higher education to provide opportunities for staff to form a peer learning community and to allocate dedicated time to build knowledge of learning and teaching and to share their practice, ultimately leading to improvement and innovation. An analysis of the academic literature identified confusion around the understanding of CoPs, a dearth of literature specifically on higher education, and a gap regarding the leadership role within CoPs. The leadership role within CoPs can be challenging as the CoP may have an uneasy fit within the context of higher education institutions. Often CoPs are not aligned with formal structures, and the leadership role/s within CoPs can differ significantly from those of the familiar ‘corporate’ roles of committee chair, department head or unit/course leader. Often CoP members will be from different disciplines and may include both professional and academic staff. The dynamics of collaboration within such diversity will require significant leadership skill to manage personalities and power dynamics, cultivate a supportive receptive context and provide outcomes useful for both members and institutions. Thus, for this project, the ‘leadership’ role in the CoP is designated the ‘facilitator.’ The project team’s action research methodology is detailed in Chapter 2 of this report. Data to inform a leadership needs analysis were obtained through a literature review, a broad quantitative survey of the higher education sector, as well as from in-depth qualitative investigation with key informants. The triangulation of these sources, plus input from the reference group and evaluator, provided a deep understanding of the leadership needs and challenges for those facilitating learning and teaching CoPs in higher education. Data identified most CoPs are situated within university faculties among practitioners and are, therefore, close to where student learning takes place. In evaluating how best to support and develop capability for facilitators of CoPs in the Australian context, the project team concluded that “[r]esearch … indicates that there is no one definitive set of ‘traits’ or ‘behaviours’ that characterises leaders” and there are many diverse types of successful leader with a range of qualities, skills and attributes (Jameson 2008, p. 9). Therefore, the project’s methodology highlighted a need to engage strongly with the target end users to identify their needs; this featured throughout the project. To facilitate this approach, early, continuous engagement with a stakeholder network of individuals in Australia and overseas known to facilitate or be interested in facilitating CoPs, ensured strong involvement in the project by stakeholders. Additionally, the project team developed linkages with a number of groups working in the same area overseas and with other OLT projects in Australia. Through the stakeholder network, and other interested groups, a targeted survey and in-depth interviews informed a needs analysis for CoP facilitators in the sector, which led into development of resources from the project. These resources were derived after a comprehensive literature review, survey and interviews, as depicted in Figure 2 below, as well as engagement with the stakeholder network. A rich set of Australian, higher education-specific resources designed explicitly for those who facilitate higher education communities of practice is the key outcome of the project. Based on feedback from the project survey, interviews and the stakeholder network, the resources were developed as a ’just in time, just for me‘ integrated online package aimed at disciplinary academics who were found to be the key facilitators of CoPs in the Australian setting. The resources are framed and constructed around the development phases through which CoPs typically move, as shown in Figure 3 below. Figure 2: Identifying CoP leadership needs for development and capacity building: A triangulated/iterative approach Figure 3: Phases of Communities of Practice The introductory explanations to the resources note that the need for particular skills may be more pronounced in some phases of the CoP than others and, also, that each facilitator has a separate development journey, and, thus, completes a self-audit to assess their development needs. For each phase of CoP development, there are key leadership skills, capabilities or competencies that are needed to contribute to successful leadership by the facilitator. The resources, therefore, cover a range of skills, capabilities and competencies, in each phase of CoP development. Each individual resource is constructed to be short and sharp and to stand alone, but sits within the overall framework outlined above. These resources have been tested and reviewed with target academics at Australian-based conferences and workshops and are available for free distribution via the project website . The independent evaluation of the project highlighted that the project team displayed significant strengths including a tight project design, joint leadership, a strong approach to working together that worked with the team’s strengths and the continuous engagement model through the stakeholder network. The evaluator concludes that these strengths ensured the project stayed on time and on budget to produce excellent outcomes. In particular, the project demonstrated clear value through the identification of and engagement with end users, its articulation of the strengths and use of the CoP approach in higher education, and ultimately, through its contribution to the development of CoP facilitators.

Building the English health visitor workforce as a result of the Health Visitor Implementation Plan 2011-2015: a survey study of career progression and retention for newly qualified health visitors

Aim: This study aimed to explore the extent to which health visitors who trained and qualified in both Greater London and the South West of England between September 2011 and January 2016 were employed in health visiting posts and have remained in the profession. Background: In 2011, the UK Government launched the Health Visitor Implementation Plan ‘A Call to Action’ (Department of Health, 2011) to develop the health visitor workforce by training 4200 health visitors over a four-year period. By April 2015, 4000 additional health visitors were trained, but the total workforce has since fallen back to pre-Implementation Plan size. Methods: Data were collected using a survey, completed online by participants. All participants had undertaken a health visitor education programme at one of two participating universities. The survey was distributed in January 2017 and completed by 180 individuals. Quantitative data were analysed using SPSS; association was assessed using individual chi-square tests or Fisher’s exact test. Free-text responses were thematically analysed. Findings: Most (153; 87%) participants were still working as health visitors. Length of time spent working in the community prior to completing health visitor training was associated with staying in the role ( χ2 (with Fisher’s exact test = 7.998, P = .027). Current pay was associated with attrition from the health visitor workforce ( χ2 (with Fisher’s exact test) = 67.559, P < .001.). The majority who had left the health visitor role were on higher pay bands in their new post compared to those that had stayed (12; 60%). Bronfenbrenner’s (1979) theory of socio-ecological development was used as a framework to interpret the results. While participants made an active choice to join the profession, leaving was influenced more by factors outside their control. To influence health visitor retention, both local and strategic changes are required

A multicenter comparison between Child Pugh and ALBI scores in patients treated with sorafenib for hepatocellular carcinoma

Background &amp; aims: The ALBI grade was proposed as an objective means to evaluate liver function in patients with Hepatocellular Carcinoma (HCC). ALBI grade 1 vs 2 were proposed as stratification factors within the Child Pugh (CP) A class. However, the original publication did not provide comparison with the sub-classification by points (5 to 15) within the CP classification. Methods: We retrospectively analyzed data from patients treated with sorafenib for HCC from 17 centers in United Kingdom and France. Overall survival (OS) was analyzed with the Kaplan-Meier method and a Cox regression model. Discriminatory abilities of the classifications were assessed with the log likelihood ratio, Harrell’s C statistics and Akaike information criterion. Results: Data from 1,019 patients were collected, of which 905 could be assessed for both scores. 92% of ALBI grade 1 were CP A5 while ALBI 2 included a broad range of CP scores of which 44% were CP A6. Median OS was 10.2, 7.0 and 3.6 months for CP scores A5, A6 and &gt;A6, respectively (P&lt;0.001), Hazard Ratio (HR)=1.60 (95%CI: 1.35-1.89, P&lt;0.001) for A6 vs A5. Median OS was 10.9, 6.6 and 3.0 months for ALBI grade 1, 2 and 3, respectively (P&lt;0.001), HR=1.68 (1.43-1.97, P&lt;0.001) for grade 2 vs 1. Discriminatory abilities of CP and ALBI were similar in the CP A population, but better for CP in the overall population. Conclusions: Our findings support the use CP class A as an inclusion criterion, and ALBI as a stratification factor in trials of systemic therapy