Understanding the views of children with complex learning and communication needs for person-centred planning

Background Children with special educational needs and disability (SEND) have the right to express their views about matters affecting them. This includes children severely affected by disability who are required to entrust adults to speak on their behalf. The literature exploring the participation of children with complex learning and communication needs (CLCN) in decision-making using person-centred planning (PCP) is limited. Aims This study explores how adults understand the views of children with CLCN and how this understanding can inform PCP. Sample Three children with CLCN aged 4-11 years attending one special school, their mothers and two professionals working with each child. Other professionals and one father also took part in the PCP meetings. Method Social constructivist grounded theory methodology was employed, emphasising researcher reflexivity and co-construction of research with participants. Individual interviews with adult participants took place followed by observations of the children in school, observations of their PCP meetings, and discussion of data analysis with participants. Results Research findings relate to three psychological concepts: agency and self-efficacy, social construction, and an ecological perspective upon human development. Conclusions Understanding the views of children with CLCN takes place over time in relational and social contexts. Different interpretations of a child’s communication are considered when adults collaborate, leading to shared understandings of a child’s views being socially constructed. Adults infer the meaning of a child’s views about what is important to them for the future from their understanding of the child’s views about their immediate contexts, which informs PCP

Using Blackboard Learn to create an open online course

In this session we will discuss the way that we have used Blackboard Learn to create the University's first open, online course, entitled Study Skills for Academic Success. The course is designed to improve students’ academic skills and confidence, and was originally delivered as a 100% face-to-face course. In the session we will outline the way that we took this version of the course and transformed it first into a blended course, and then into an entirely online course. It was very important to us for the online course to be very interactive, participatory and reflective, and for it not simply to be a content repository or video library. Thus, the online course makes extensive use of e-tivities to structure the learning experiences/activities, and provide opportunities for discussion and reflection. We were keen not to lose the sociability of a face-to-face course, and so the online course also makes major use of the collaborative tools in Blackboard (particularly blogs and discussion boards), so that students still feel that they are part of a community of learning and can benefit from the peer-to-peer interactions which are such an important part of the learning process. For private reflection we used the Journals tool. Lastly, we were keen both to monitor learning and also to avoid overloading the students with e-tivities and tasks, so instead of presenting the course components en bloc to the students, the course is structured around eight specific sets of activities, each of which is adaptively released to students via the completion of tests. We have completed delivery of the blended version of the course, and have used feedback from this to create the new fully online version of the course. This version is currently being beta-tested (January 2014) and is due for first delivery to University of Northampton students in March 2014. From May 2014 onwards it will be offered on a rolling basis via the CourseSites MOOC catalog, and we will be contacting all students who make an application to the University of Northampton to encourage them to register and take part in the course

Using OERs and e-tivities to create a collaborative, mobile friendly, learner-centred course

This presentation will outline the process of taking a face-to-face course, and transforming it through three distinct stages into an entirely online course. The transitional stages are: (1) course delivered online plus approximately twelve hours of face-to-face contact; (2) course delivered online with online tutor involvement only; (3) course delivered online with minimal or no tutor involvement (SOOC/MOOC) This presentation will discuss the process of transforming the course, delivering the first transitional version of the new course (which at the time of writing, May 2013, is currently underway), and the plans for the second and third stages of delivery. The evaluation of the completed stage one version of the course will be finalised during July 2013. The redesigned course is entitled Study Skills for Academic Success, and is a ten credit level four course designed to build confidence in mature students who are new (or returning) to Higher Education. The course is delivered in the months before students begin their first year of study, and costs are kept as low as possible as students fund the course themselves. The problem that motivated this significant course redesign was threefold. Firstly, the course was becoming increasingly popular, and it was proving difficult for teaching staff to meet this demand. Secondly, because costs were kept deliberately low, the course was not financially sustainable and a wider roll-out of the course was not economically viable. Thirdly, because the students studying on the course were often still in full-time employment, the face-to-face mode of delivery was increasingly not meeting the needs of the learners, who required a more open and flexible model. Two possible solutions to these problems were considered, both of which focussed on the scalability and sustainability of the course. The first option was to keep delivering the face-to-face version of the course and either increasing the cost to the student, or requiring a subsidy from the student’s department at the University. However, this approach was dismissed as it still did not meet the needs of the learner for a more flexible mode of delivery. In addition, neither the students nor the University departments wanted to bear the necessary additional costs. This meant that a second solution was required, and the one chosen was to create a scalable and sustainable online course that could solve all three problems that we needed to address. The online course made significant use of OERs, and each week was structured around an e-tivity (see, Salmon, 2004, 2011, 2012). This allowed us to ensure that course content would be engaged in as part of a structured activity that involved engagement with content, collaboration with peers and the course moderator, and reflection

Die sensorische Lateralität als Indikator für emotionale und kognitive Reaktionen auf Umweltreize beim Tier. The use of sensory laterality for indicating emotional and cognitive reactions on environmental stimuli in animals

Zusammenfassung Viele Tiere zeigen eine eindeutige sensorische Lateralität, sprich sie benutzen bevorzugt ein Auge, ein Ohr, oder eine Nüster zur Aufnahme von Sinneseindrücken. Dies korreliert in den meisten Fällen nicht mit der motorischen Lateralität, sondern wird viel mehr durch die einseitige Verarbeitung von Informationen in den jeweiligen Gehirnhemisphären bedingt. So werden emotionale Reaktionen von der rechten, reaktiven Gehirnhemisphäre und rationale Reaktionen von der linken, kognitiven Gehirnhemisphäre gesteuert. Da die Gehirnhälften zum Großen Teil mit den kontrolateralen Sinnesorganen verbunden sind lässt die Seite mit welcher Sinneseindrücke aufgenommen werden Schlüsse auf deren Informationsgehalt zu. So zeigen Tiere bei linksseitiger Aufnahme von Sinneseindrücken vermehrt reaktive, emotionalen Reaktionen, wie etwa bei Angst oder freudige Erregung, und bei rechtsseitig aufgenommene Sinneseindrücke eher rationales, gesteuertes Verhalten. Zudem verstärkt sich die sensorische Lateralität wenn Tiere Stress erfahren, sprich wenn sie wiederholt mit Situationen anthropogenen oder natürlichen Ursprungs konfrontiert werden denen sie nicht gewachsen sind, wie etwa bei unpassenden Haltungs- und Trainingsbedingungen, oder bei unausweichlichem Raubtierdruck und sozialer Konkurrenz. Eine stark ausgeprägte, zunehmende sensorische Lateralität kann daher auf ein beeinträchtigtes Wohlergehen der Tiere hinweisen. Summary Many animals are lateralized when using sensory organs such as the eyes, ears or nostrils. Sensory laterality is not, as previously believed, caused by adjustment to motor laterality, but rather by one sided information processing in the particular brain hemispheres. While the right hemisphere predominantly analyses emotional information, the left hemisphere governs controlled rational, cognitive decisions. Since the brain hemispheres are largely connected with contralateral sensory organs, it is possible to infer how the information may be being interpreted by the side of preferred eye, ear or nostril used. The left eye usually dominates in emotional situations, i.e. fear or positive excitement, and the right eye in rational situations. Moreover, laterality increases when animals are stressed, e.g. when animals are confronted with anthropogenic or natural factors they can not handle, such as unsuitable housing or training conditions or unavoidable predation pressure and social competition. A strong or increasing laterality could therefore potentially indicate welfare issues

Sensory laterality in affiliative interactions in domestic horses and ponies (Equus caballus)

Many studies have been carried out into both motor and sensory laterality of horses in agonistic and stressful situations. Here we examine sensory laterality in affiliative interactions within four groups of domestic horses and ponies (N = 31), living in stable social groups, housed at a single complex close to Vienna, Austria, and demonstrate for the first time a significant population preference for the left side in affiliative approaches and interactions. No effects were observed for gender, rank, sociability, phenotype, group, or age. Our results suggest that right hemisphere specialization in horses is not limited to the processing of stressful or agonistic situations, but rather appears to be the norm for processing in all social interactions, as has been demonstrated in other species including chicks and a range of vertebrates. In domestic horses, hemispheric specialization for sensory input appears not to be based on a designation of positive versus negative, but more on the perceived need to respond quickly and appropriately in any given situation.Publisher PDFPeer reviewe

Improving the School Context of Early Adolescence Through Teacher Attunement to Victimization: Effects on School Belonging

The present study examined the effects of teacher attunement to victimization on student perceptions of the bullying culture of their schools as a means of fostering a sense of belonging among early adolescents. Participants (n = 1,264) in sixth grade reported on the frequency that they had been bullied, and teachers were asked to report students who were “picked on.” Teacher attunement represented the correspondence between self-identified and teacher-identified victims. Attunement at the beginning of the school year was related to positive changes in student reports that their peers would intervene in bullying; in turn, sense of belonging was greater when students perceived that their peers would intervene in bullying. Teacher attunement was indirectly related to greater belonging through its impact on student perceptions of the bullying context

Social learning across species - horses (Equus caballus) learn from humans by observation

This study examines whether horses can learn by observing humans, given that they identify individual humans and orientate on the focus of human attention. We tested 24 horses aged between 3 and 12. Twelve horses were tested on whether they would learn to open a feeding apparatus by observing a familiar person. The other 12 were controls and received exactly the same experimental procedure, but without a demonstration of how to operate the apparatus. More horses from the group with demonstration (8/12) reached the learning criterion of opening the feeder twenty times consecutively than horses from the control group (2/12), and younger horses seemed to reach the criterion more quickly. Horses not reaching the learning criteria approached the human experimenters more often than those that did. The results demonstrate that horses learn socially across species, in this case from humans

A scalable approach to legal question answering

Lexis Answers is a question answering service deployed within a live production system. In this paper we provide an overview of the system, an insight into some of the key AI challenges, and a brief description of current evaluation techniques

Global impacts of energy demand on the freshwater resources of nations

The growing geographic disconnect between consumption of goods, the extraction and processing of resources, and the environmental impacts associated with production activities makes it crucial to factor global trade into sustainability assessments. Using an empirically validated environmentally extended global trade model, we examine the relationship between two key resources underpinning economies and human well-being—energy and freshwater. A comparison of three energy sectors (petroleum, gas, and electricity) reveals that freshwater consumption associated with gas and electricity production is largely confined within the territorial boundaries where demand originates. This finding contrasts with petroleum, which exhibits a varying ratio of territorial to international freshwater consumption, depending on the origin of demand. For example, although the United States and China have similar demand associated with the petroleum sector, international freshwater consumption is three times higher for the former than the latter. Based on mapping patterns of freshwater consumption associated with energy sectors at subnational scales, our analysis also reveals concordance between pressure on freshwater resources associated with energy production and freshwater scarcity in a number of river basins globally. These energy-driven pressures on freshwater resources in areas distant from the origin of energy demand complicate the design of policy to ensure security of fresh water and energy supply. Although much of the debate around energy is focused on greenhouse gas emissions, our findings highlight the need to consider the full range of consequences of energy production when designing policy

Transforming Learning: Challenges and Opportunities through School Libraries

Researchers will share papers exploring the SIG theme, Transforming Learning: Challenges and Opportunities through School Libraries. This interactive SIG session includes presentation of each research paper followed by open dialogue and Q&A regarding issues raised by the papers, implications for practice, and future areas for research. The following papers were selected for presentation: Teachers’ Perceptions of Students’ News Literacy (Lesley S. J. Farmer), Lead Like a Librarian (Pamela Harland), Challenges and Opportunities: Transforming Learning through Implementation of the 2018 National School Library Standards for Learners, School Librarians, and School Libraries (Carl A. Harvey II, Jen R. Spisak, Karla B. Collins, and Audrey P. Church), and Discourses of Adolescence/ts and Collection Development (Jenna Spiering and Kate Lechtenberg)