Dog filters & flower crowns: Using Snapchat as a Pedagogical Tool in Higher Education

Academics overwhelmingly value social media as a tool for enhancing student learning (Moran et al, 2011). Generally, academics use information technologies and social media to engage with students in a top-down fashion i.e. it is the norm to use whatever the learning technologists deem appropriate (Liu, 2010). Snapchat is a social networking platform that is reserved for communicating with close relationships and, unlike Twitter, is generally not a method for communicating with strangers (Vaterlaus et al, 2016). Thus, any effective use of Snapchat within a learning environment must finely balance engaging with students on social media to facilitate their learning on one hand, and invading their private space on the other (Woodley & Meredith, 2012). After all, the main reason that students use social media is for social engagement, not classroom engagement (Liu, 2010).In this paper, we discuss the use of Snapchat as a learning tool, our own experiences of using this platform to engage students from two very different academic disciplines – Festival Management and Prosthetics and Orthotics, using this platform to enhance student learning and engagement in different ways. From creating ‘stories’ that help package concepts and theories to make them more accessible; to curating learning and observations from field trips; in addition to creation of learning resources, discussion groups; the possibilities of Snapchat usage within the learning environment are endless.This paper sets out to provide participants with practical advice on how to use Snapchat within the learning environment. We encourage teachers in higher education to think about how they can creatively use the app to make learning more accessible. Ultimately, Snapchat is a playful app, and the facilitation of playful learning can help promote creativity, engagement and academic achievement among students (Kangas, 2010)

Lego serious play : a global solution to challenges facing internationalisation of the HE classroom

This session will inform delegates of the outcomes of a research project examining how LEGO® Serious Play® (LSP) can be used to enhance the engagement and experience of international students in group work activities within each of the four faculties within the University of Strathclyde. Delegates will learn about the methodology of LEGO® Serious Play® and how it can be used and applied in the HE classroom to support international students in group work experiences. During this oral presentation delegates will learn the outcomes of our research project and also participate in a short demonstration of the LEGO® Serious Play® method so that they can begin to explore how the method could be applied to their own context and classroom

Supporting the engagement and experience of international students in group-work activities

This pilot project offered three separate University of Strathclyde MSc class groups the opportunity to use LSP in a group work activity designed to support their transitions from teacher-led, classbased learning to more independent 60-credit research projects. The groups consisted of both non-native speakers (NNS) and native speakers (NS) of English. Results indicate that LSP was effective in enhancing the group work experience of both NNS and NS of English, supporting the notion that inclusive learning and teaching practice benefits all students

Optically pure heterobimetallic helicates from self-assembly and click strategies

Single diastereomer, diamagnetic, octahedral Fe(II) tris chelate complexes are synthesised that contain three pendant pyridine proligands pre-organised for coordination to a second metal. They bind Cu(I) and Ag(I) with coordination geometry depending on the identity of the metal and the detail of the ligand structure, but for example homohelical (ΔFe,ΔCu) configured systems with unusual trigonal planar Cu cations are formed exclusively in solution as shown by VT-NMR and supported by DFT calculations. Similar heterobimetallic tris(triazole) complexes are synthesised via clean CuAAC reactions at a tris(alkynyl) complex, although here the configurations of the two metals differ (ΔFe,ΛCu), leading to the first optically pure heterohelicates. A second series of Fe complexes perform less well in either strategy as a result of lack of preorganisation

The role of national defence in British political debate, 1794-1812

This thesis examines the role of national defence in British parliamentary politics between 1794 and 1812. It suggests that previous analyses of the late eighteenth-century political milieu insufficiently explore the impact of war on the structure of the state. Work by J.E. Cookson, Linda Colley, J.C.D. Clark, and Paul Langford depicts a decentralised state that had little direct involvement in developing a popular “British” patriotism. Here I argue that the threat of a potential French invasion during the wars against Revolutionary and Napoleonic France provoked a drive for centralisation. Nearly all the defence measures enacted during the period gave the government a much greater degree of control over British manpower and resources. The readiness of successive governments to involve large sections of the nation in the war effort through military service, financial contributions, and appeals to the British “spirit”, resulted in a much more inclusive sense of citizenship in which questions of national participation and political franchise were unlinked. National identity was also affected, and the focus on military defence of the British Isles influenced political attitudes towards the regular army. By 1810, however, the nation was disillusioned by the lengthy struggle with France. The result of lingering political weakness was that attention shifted from national defence onto domestic corruption and venality. The aftermath of the Irish Act of Union, too, demonstrated the limits of attempts to centralise the policy of the whole United Kingdom. Significantly, however, the debates over the relationship between the centre and the localities in the 1830s and 1840s, and the response to a new French invasion threat in the 1850s and 1860s, revived themes addressed during the 1790s and 1800s. The political reaction to the invasion threats between 1794 and 1812 ultimately had more in common with a Victorian state bureaucracy than an eighteenth-century ancien régime.AHRC funded Newton Trust funde

From StrathCEKO to StrathCAN : building a community of climate education ambassadors from the bottom up in a higher education institution

The paper offers a reflective account of the University of Strathclyde’s activity and experience of implementing its first Strathclyde Climate Education Kick-Off (or StrathCEKO) as the catalyst for the emergence of a bottom-up movement involving staff and students focused on scaling up curricular and extra-curricular Climate Education activities across the institution – and beyond. StrathCEKO initially focused on two separate, but highly complementary, ‘off-the-shelf’ workshop offerings, which together encouraged participants to take a collaborative, peer-to-peer, systems thinking approach to understanding the cause and effects of climate change (i.e. the problem) and discussing/evaluating the range of mitigations and implementation challenges (i.e. the solutions) required to “keep 1.5 alive” and secure a sustainable future for all. One of these workshop offerings, Climate Fresk, is a highly engaging, gamified workshop, where participants - working with a trained facilitator in groups of 8 congregating around a table – are issued with a steady stream of cards throughout the workshop, lasting 3.5 hours in total. Each card represents a key part of the earth’s climate system, including influences on it and the impacts of it. Here, participants are challenged to use these cards to create a ‘fresk’ or collage or, from a systems thinking perspective, form a causal-loop diagram. This culminates in providing participants with a system-level view of the earth climate system, its causes, effects and impacts; and in doing so, encourages a ‘systems thinking’ approach to enhance participants’ understanding of climate change and in particular highlights less mainstream knowledge and understanding around climate tipping points. Following the original StrathCEKO, there was a realisation that despite the scalable peer-to-peer, train-the-trainer (or facilitator) model that made this Climate Education ‘tool’ so attractive to resource limited institutions, it still required a core community, with a clear identity and purpose, to take institutional ownership of these workshops to effectively roll them out. Furthermore, it was understood that ‘membership’ of this community should be open to all staff and students. The main responsibility of ‘the community’ with regards to these workshops should be for members to take individual responsibility to identify opportunities within their classes, departments, networks, even local communities, where these workshops could be organised and run – as well as collective responsibility to support these workshops as and when required. In addition to this practical, logistical, delivery role it became apparent that there was a need, and also an opportunity, for this fledgling Climate Education community to fulfil a more co-creative role. This would see staff and students come together to use other off-the-shelf Climate Education offerings developed by third parties (e.g. NGOs, think tanks), and develop more Climate (and Sustainability) Educational workshops and activities that could be used – expeditiously - by staff and students to scale-up climate education inside and outside Strathclyde. This community now has an identify, as well as a clear remit – the Strathclyde Climate Ambassadors Network (SCAN). This paper will present the journey so far, including the challenges, curriculum successes, activities under construction, as well as its strategic vision for the future

Foot Function Index for Arabic-speaking patients (FFI-Ar) : translation, cross-cultural adaptation and validation study

Background: Foot Function Index (FFI) is a valid and reliable outcome measure, which is widely used to measure the foot and ankle functional level and disorders. Until now, no validated Arabic version of the FFI is available. This study was conducted at a tertiary care hospital in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. The purpose of this project was to translate and adapt the FFI into Arabic and to evaluate its psychometric properties of validity and reliability. Methods: The study consisted of two phases. The first phase was the translation and cultural adaptation of the FFI to Arabic. The next phase involved, testing the psychometric properties of the Arabic version of the FFI on a sample of 50 consecutive participants which included internal consistency, test–retest reliability, floor and ceiling effects and construct validity. Results: The mean age of the study participants was 38 ± 12.94 years. Both the genders were evenly enrolled with 50% of the participants as male and 50% as female. Majority of them complained of plantar fasciopathy (32%) followed by pes planus (22%) and ankle sprain (18%). The scores of FFI-Ar were normally distributed, confirmed by a significant Shapiro–Wilk test. The mean value of FFI-Ar total score was 47.73 ± 19.85. There were no floor or ceiling effects seen in any of the subscales and total score. The internal consistency was good with the Cronbach’s alpha value of 0.882, 0.936 and 0.850 for the pain, disability and activity limitation subscales, respectively. The reproducibility of the FFI-Ar was analysed by intra-class correlation coefficient which revealed good to excellent test–retest reliability. A significant correlation was found between FFI-Ar and SF-36 and numeric rating scale (NRS) confirming its construct validity. Conclusion: The FFI-Arabic version showed good validity and reliability in patients with foot and ankle problems. This tool can be used in usual practice and research for analysing foot and ankle disorders in Arabic-speaking people

Variations in achievement of evidence-based, high-impact quality indicators in general practice: an observational study

Background: There are widely recognised variations in the delivery and outcomes of healthcare but an incomplete understanding of their causes. There is a growing interest in using routinely collected ‘big data’ in the evaluation of healthcare. We developed a set of evidence-based ‘high impact’ quality indicators (QIs) for primary care and examined variations in achievement of these indicators using routinely collected data in the United Kingdom (UK). Methods: Cross-sectional analysis of routinely collected, electronic primary care data from a sample of general practices in West Yorkshire, UK (n = 89). The QIs covered aspects of care (including processes and intermediate clinical outcomes) in relation to diabetes, hypertension, atrial fibrillation, myocardial infarction, chronic kidney disease (CKD) and ‘risky’ prescribing combinations. Regression models explored the impact of practice and patient characteristics. Clustering within practice was accounted for by including a random intercept for practice. Results: Median practice achievement of the QIs ranged from 43.2% (diabetes control) to 72.2% (blood pressure control in CKD). Considerable between-practice variation existed for all indicators: the difference between the highest and lowest performing practices was 26.3 percentage points for risky prescribing and 100 percentage points for anticoagulation in atrial fibrillation. Odds ratios associated with the random effects for practices emphasised this; there was a greater than ten-fold difference in the likelihood of achieving the hypertension indicator between the lowest and highest performing practices. Patient characteristics, in particular age, gender and comorbidity, were consistently but modestly associated with indicator achievement. Statistically significant practice characteristics were identified less frequently in adjusted models. Conclusions: Despite various policy and improvement initiatives, there are enduring inappropriate variations in the delivery of evidence-based care. Much of this variation is not explained by routinely collected patient or practice variables, and is likely to be attributable to differences in clinical and organisational behaviour

Asymmetric triplex metallohelices with high and selective activity against cancer cells

Small cationic amphiphilic α-helical peptides are emerging as agents for the treatment of cancer and infection, but they are costly and display unfavourable pharmacokinetics. Helical coordination complexes may offer a three-dimensional scaffold for the synthesis of mimetic architectures. However, the high symmetry and modest functionality of current systems offer little scope to tailor the structure to interact with specific biomolecular targets, or to create libraries for phenotypic screens. Here, we report the highly stereoselective asymmetric self-assembly of very stable, functionalized metallohelices. Their anti-parallel head-to-head-to-tail ‘triplex’ strand arrangement creates an amphipathic functional topology akin to that of the active sub-units of, for example, host-defence peptides and ​p53. The metallohelices display high, structure-dependent toxicity to the human colon carcinoma cell-line HCT116 ​p53++, causing dramatic changes in the cell cycle without DNA damage. They have lower toxicity to human breast adenocarcinoma cells (MDA-MB-468) and, most remarkably, they show no significant toxicity to the bacteria methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus and Escherichia coli. At a glanc