A qualitative study of new secondary teacher attrition in an Iowa urban school setting

The teaching profession is constantly changing and with it comes the challenges and difficulties of teaching in the 21 st century. The challenge of the teaching profession for new teachers creates various levels of differing frustrations. These various frustrations are the reason why new teacher attrition is high not only in the United States but also more specifically, in the urban setting of Iowa schools. The focus of this study is to provide current explanations of why new teachers decide to leave teaching within the first five years of entering the profession. With the intent of understanding why specific teachers decided to leave the education profession in an urban Iowa secondary education setting. For this study, semi-structured interviews were used to understand why several new high school teachers (grades 9 through 12) in an Iowa urban school setting decided to leave the field of education within their first five years of employment. These interviews were designed to give the previously new teachers the opportunity to share their thoughts, experiences, insight, and advice concerning the challenges of being a new teacher. In addition, the study attempted to illuminate the factors perceived to be paramount to their decision to exit the teaching profession. The research offers a number of implications for educators. The study maintained a focus on the varying factors in an urban teaching setting that may cause new teachers to leave the profession. The data collected from this study could assist school administrators with professional development for new teachers. In addition, it could define the differences between student teaching and professional teaching

Teaching Resident Self-Assessment Through Triangulation of Faculty and Patient Feedback

Problem: To accurately determine one\u27s ability in any clinical competency, an individual must be able to self-assess performance and identify personal limitations. Existing research demonstrates that physicians of all levels are unreliable self-assessors. This poses a concern in medical practice, which requires continuous updates to clinical competencies and awareness of personal limitations. Few published studies examine graduate medical education curricula designed to develop self-assessment skills. Intervention: Conceptual models, such as self-determination theory, suggest that self-assessment is most effectively learned through reflective processes. The Family Medicine Residency Program at Lehigh Valley Health Network developed a learner-centered competency assessment process that integrates advising and performance review. The multisource, observable behavior-based process encourages conversation between resident and advisor. Utilizing feedback from clinical preceptors and patient surveys, advisors guide residents in determining individual learning needs in core competency areas, including relationship-centered care. Development of medical learners\u27 capacity to form relationships is one means to improving the patient experience. Context: This retrospective case study evaluates the accuracy of senior residents\u27 self-assessment in relationship-centered care compared with that of junior residents. The study population includes the 34 residents enrolled from AY 2009–2012. Data sets represent specific 6-month periods and have 3 component scores—Self, Faculty, and Patient—which were triangulated to determine concordance rates by postgraduate year level. Outcome: The concordance rate among first-years was 26.7%, whereas third-years saw 60.0% concordance. A discordance analysis found the Patient score most often deviated from the other 2 scores, whereas the Faculty score was never the sole dissenter. When all 3 scores differed, the Self score frequently fell between the other 2 scores. Lessons Learned: The principles of self-determination theory provide a valuable framework for understanding the development of residents\u27 intrinsic motivation to become lifelong learners. The trend in improved concordance rates among senior residents suggests that prompting learners to triangulate feedback from multiple sources can lead to a shift in perspective about competency. Further study is needed to determine whether our results are generalizable to other competencies and educational setting

The minimum wage in Germany: what brought the state in?

A statutory minimum wage has been introduced in Germany, in the face of business opposition but abetted by union support. The political coalition in favour of minimum wage regulation brought together the centre-left and the centre-right with the argument that regulation is needed to prevent disfunctional interaction between low wages and the social security system. Thus the dualization which characterises Germany’s inegalitarian form of coordinated capitalism has provoked a corrective political response. The paper traces the long path to government intervention and assesses why employers were unable, or unwilling, to pre-empt intervention by maintaining the coverage of collective bargaining. It is argued that market liberalization has had a paradoxical effect on employer power: intense domestic as well as international competition has reduced employers’ capacity to act strategically to fend off regulation by the government

Modulation of Myocardial Mitochondrial Mechanisms during severe Polymicrobial Sepsis in the Rat

Background: We tested the hypothesis that 5-Hydroxydecanoic acid (5HD), a putative mitoKATP channel blocker, will reverse sepsis-induced cardiodynamic and adult rat ventricular myocyte (ARVM) contractile dysfunction, restore mitochondrial membrane permeability alterations and improve survival. Methodology/Principal Findings: Male Sprague-Dawley rats (350-400 g) were made septic using 400 mg/kg cecal inoculum, ip. Sham animals received 5% dextrose water, ip. The Voltage Dependent Anion Channels (VDAC1), Bax and cytochrome C levels were determined in isolated single ARVMs obtained from sham and septic rat heart. Mitochondria and cytosolic fractions were isolated from ARVMs treated with norepinephrine (NE, 10 µmoles) in the presence/absence of 5HD (100 µmoles). A continuous infusion of 5HD using an Alzet pump reversed sepsis-induced mortality when administered at the time of induction of sepsis (-40%) and at 6 hr post-sepsis (-20%). Electrocardiography revealed that 5HD reversed sepsis-induced decrease in the average ejection fraction, Simpsons+m Mode (53.5±2.5 in sepsis and 69.2±1.2 at 24 hr in sepsis+5HD vs. 79.9±1.5 basal group) and cardiac output (63.3±1.2 mL/min sepsis and 79.3±3.9 mL/min at 24 hr in sepsis+5HD vs. 85.8±1.5 mL/min basal group). The treatment of ARVMs with 5HD also reversed sepsis-induced depressed contractility in both the vehicle and NE-treated groups. Sepsis produced a significant downregulation of VDAC1, and upregulation of Bax levels, along with mitochondrial membrane potential collapse in ARVMs. Pretreatment of septic ARVMs with 5HD blocked a NE-induced decrease in the VDAC1 and release of cytochrome C. Conclusion: The data suggest that Bax activation is an upstream event that may precede the opening of the mitoKATP channels in sepsis. We concluded that mitoKATP channel inhibition via decreased mitochondrial membrane potential and reduced release of cytochrome C provided protection against sepsis-induced ARVM and myocardial contractile dysfunction. © 2011 Chopra et al

Resident assessment facilitation team: collaborative support for activated learning

Because healthcare knowledge, practices and systems change so rapidly, physicians-in-training need to develop skills related to lifelong learning. The adult learning paradigm defines the effective professional learner as autonomous and activated. A part of the residency’s p4 (Preparing the Personal Physician for Practice) redesign, the RAFT (Resident Assessment Facilitation Team) process was designed to encourage residents’ adoption of activated learning behaviors by incorporating their participation in team-based educational planning and assessment of competence. This study examined interaction within the RAFT meetings to guage residents’ adoption of activated learning behaviors over time. In this study, transcripts of RAFT meetings from a single cohort of residents during the first and third years of training were analyzed using a grounded theory approach. Teams of at least two analysts per transcript engaged in two rounds of descriptive coding and three levels of axial coding to examine interaction during the RAFT meetings and identify how that interaction was related to residents’ activated learning. Four categories of interaction were identified: advising, managing the process of the meeting, expressing and managing emotion, and demonstrating reflective practice and mindfulness. Across those categories, 36 sub-types of messages indicated both similarities and differences between first- and third-year residents. Specifically, third-year residents took a more active leadership role in meetings; faculty team members were more likely to hand over responsibility for problem solving to thirdyear residents. Integrating residents into the RAFT advising and assessment process provides a context for residents to practice and exhibit activated learning behaviors

Time evolution of stimulated Raman scattering and two-plasmon decay at laser intensities relevant for shock ignition in a hot plasma

Laser–plasma interaction (LPI) at intensities 1015–1016 W cm2 is dominated by parametric instabilities which can be responsible for a significant amount of non-collisional absorption and generate large fluxes of high-energy nonthermal electrons. Such a regime is of paramount importance for inertial confinement fusion (ICF) and in particular for the shock ignition scheme. In this paper we report on an experiment carried out at the Prague Asterix Laser System (PALS) facility to investigate the extent and time history of stimulated Raman scattering (SRS) and two-plasmon decay (TPD) instabilities, driven by the interaction of an infrared laser pulse at an intensity 1:2 1016 W cm2 with a 100 mm scalelength plasma produced from irradiation of a flat plastic target. The laser pulse duration (300 ps) and the high value of plasma temperature (4 keV) expected from hydrodynamic simulations make these results interesting for a deeper understanding of LPI in shock ignition conditions. Experimental results show that absolute TPD/SRS, driven at a quarter of the critical density, and convective SRS, driven at lower plasma densities, are well separated in time, with absolute instabilities driven at early times of interaction and convective backward SRS emerging at the laser peak and persisting all over the tail of the pulse. Side-scattering SRS, driven at low plasma densities, is also clearly observed. Experimental results are compared to fully kinetic large-scale, two-dimensional simulations. Particle-in-cell results, beyond reproducing the framework delineated by the experimental measurements, reveal the importance of filamentation instability in ruling the onset of SRS and stimulated Brillouin scattering instabilities and confirm the crucial role of collisionless absorption in the LPI energy balance

Development of a single‐cell X‐ray fluorescence flow cytometer

Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/122448/1/jsy2pp5083.pd