Preparing teachers to support inclusion: The benefits of interaction between a group of pre-service teachers and a teaching assistant who is disabled.

This qualitative study investigates the development of preservice teachers' attitudes toward people with disabilities during a semester-long unit. Ten students enrolled in a special education teaching elective were interviewed before and after they were engaged in a teaching program designed to expose them to direct, structured interactions with a teaching assistant who was physically disabled. The teaching assistant interacted with students in both small and large group tutorial discussions throughout the semester. Also, students kept a reflective journal on their experiences with people with disabilities throughout the teaching program. Data were collected through the use of semi-structured interviews and journals, and analysis indicated that: (i) students developed a more positive attitude and became more comfortable in interacting with the teaching assistant during the semester, and (ii) learning experience improved their knowledge about disability issues

In search of a good neighbourhood

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Teachers' and children's personal epistemologies for moral education: Case studies in early years elementary education

While there is strong interest in teaching values in Australia and internationally there is little focus on young children’s moral values learning in the classroom. Research shows that personal epistemology influences teaching and learning in a range of education contexts, including moral education. This study examines relationships between personal epistemologies (children’s and teachers’), pedagogies, and school contexts for moral learning in two early years classrooms. Interviews with teachers and children and analysis of school policy revealed clear patterns of personal epistemologies and pedagogies within each school. A whole school approach to understanding personal epistemologies and practice for moral values learning is suggested

How Do Epistemological Beliefs Contribute To Leadership Behaviour, And the Changes Required to Meet The Needs of Today's Business Challenges?

The relationship between personal epistemological beliefs and behaviours of leaders will be undertaken as part of a doctoral research investigation. The research will also examine the changes that occur in leadership constructs and behaviour when epistemological beliefs are surfaced and explored with individuals. Leadership research and theory are briefly examined to identify a relevant leadership paradigm on which to begin the research. Similarly, epistemological beliefs and their role in leader values, decision-making and practice are discussed. Links between surfacing epistemological beliefs and leadership change are highlighted from the literature and offered as an imperative for investigation. Several postulates from the literature review are presented for consideration and as signposts for the doctoral study

Interannual variability in upper ocean salt content in the southeast Indian Ocean

An average freshening of 0.2 psu, extending from 100 degrees E to Australia, 25 degrees S to Indonesia and down to 180 m depth, persisted for more than 3 years from 1999 to 2002. We map the anomaly using CTD profiles from Argo floats and suggest that the dominant forcing for the anomaly is surface freshwater flux over the Indonesian seas that is advected into the region. Using historical CTD data and surface freshwater flux reanalysis products we show that the Indonesian Australian Basin experiences strong interannual variability in upper ocean freshwater content and that the recent fresh event, a result of a long-lasting La Nina, is unprecedented during the last 25 years

Determining crystal structures through crowdsourcing and coursework

We show here that computer game players can build high-quality crystal structures. Introduction of a new feature into the computer game Foldit allows players to build and real-space refine structures into electron density maps. To assess the usefulness of this feature, we held a crystallographic model-building competition between trained crystallographers, undergraduate students, Foldit players and automatic model-building algorithms. After removal of disordered residues, a team of Foldit players achieved the most accurate structure. Analysing the target protein of the competition, YPL067C, uncovered a new family of histidine triad proteins apparently involved in the prevention of amyloid toxicity. From this study, we conclude that crystallographers can utilize crowdsourcing to interpret electron density information and to produce structure solutions of the highest quality

Convalescent plasma in patients admitted to hospital with COVID-19 (RECOVERY): a randomised controlled, open-label, platform trial

SummaryBackground Azithromycin has been proposed as a treatment for COVID-19 on the basis of its immunomodulatoryactions. We aimed to evaluate the safety and efficacy of azithromycin in patients admitted to hospital with COVID-19.Methods In this randomised, controlled, open-label, adaptive platform trial (Randomised Evaluation of COVID-19Therapy [RECOVERY]), several possible treatments were compared with usual care in patients admitted to hospitalwith COVID-19 in the UK. The trial is underway at 176 hospitals in the UK. Eligible and consenting patients wererandomly allocated to either usual standard of care alone or usual standard of care plus azithromycin 500 mg once perday by mouth or intravenously for 10 days or until discharge (or allocation to one of the other RECOVERY treatmentgroups). Patients were assigned via web-based simple (unstratified) randomisation with allocation concealment andwere twice as likely to be randomly assigned to usual care than to any of the active treatment groups. Participants andlocal study staff were not masked to the allocated treatment, but all others involved in the trial were masked to theoutcome data during the trial. The primary outcome was 28-day all-cause mortality, assessed in the intention-to-treatpopulation. The trial is registered with ISRCTN, 50189673, and ClinicalTrials.gov, NCT04381936.Findings Between April 7 and Nov 27, 2020, of 16 442 patients enrolled in the RECOVERY trial, 9433 (57%) wereeligible and 7763 were included in the assessment of azithromycin. The mean age of these study participants was65·3 years (SD 15·7) and approximately a third were women (2944 [38%] of 7763). 2582 patients were randomlyallocated to receive azithromycin and 5181 patients were randomly allocated to usual care alone. Overall,561 (22%) patients allocated to azithromycin and 1162 (22%) patients allocated to usual care died within 28 days(rate ratio 0·97, 95% CI 0·87–1·07; p=0·50). No significant difference was seen in duration of hospital stay (median10 days [IQR 5 to >28] vs 11 days [5 to >28]) or the proportion of patients discharged from hospital alive within 28 days(rate ratio 1·04, 95% CI 0·98–1·10; p=0·19). Among those not on invasive mechanical ventilation at baseline, nosignificant difference was seen in the proportion meeting the composite endpoint of invasive mechanical ventilationor death (risk ratio 0·95, 95% CI 0·87–1·03; p=0·24).Interpretation In patients admitted to hospital with COVID-19, azithromycin did not improve survival or otherprespecified clinical outcomes. Azithromycin use in patients admitted to hospital with COVID-19 should be restrictedto patients in whom there is a clear antimicrobial indication

Changes in Primary School Teachers' Beliefs about Knowing: A Longitudinal Study

A teaching program designed to facilitate the reflection on and development of more sophisticated epistemological beliefs was implemented with 29 pre-service graduate teacher education students at a large metropolitan university in Australia in 1997. As part of the year-long teaching program, students were required to reflect in journal entries on the content of an educational psychology unit in relation to their epistemological beliefs. The students engaged in this teaching program were interviewed in relation to their beliefs about knowing at the beginning (Interview 1) and conclusion (Interview 2) of the teaching program. Eleven participants were then interviewed again (Interview 3) in their third year of teaching. The results of the qualitative data analysis of all three interviews indicated that, over time, seven participants became more constructivist in their beliefs about knowing, two maintained the same beliefs, while two described less constructivist beliefs. Implications for teaching are discussed

Student Learning to Teach: Conversing With Students About Their Epistemological Beliefs

Twenty-five preservice graduate teacher education students at the Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane, Australia were asked to describe their epistemological beliefs (beliefs about knowing, learning and teaching) at the end of their year-long course. The discussions were semi-structured and analysed from a predominantly grounded theory perspective. A number of categories of core beliefs about knowing emerged which reflected a continuum of beliefs. From naïve to more sophisticated, there was an increasing focus on truth that was constructed and reasoned with a corresponding decrease in focus on truth as absolute and received. There was also some consistency noted between core beliefs about knowing and peripheral beliefs about learning and teaching for a number of students

Knowing & Learning in Teacher Education: A Theoretical Framework of Core & Peripheral Epistemological Beliefs

The study to be reported here extends the current understanding of epistemological beliefs by taking into account another set of beliefs related to learning that have often been overlooked. This study, basing on empirical data collected via semi-structured interviews from 29 student teachers in Australia, examines how core beliefs about knowing are related to peripheral beliefs about learning. A theoretical framework is developed for considering these beliefs about knowing in relation to beliefs about learning as an overall set of epistemological beliefs - such links between the developmental epistemological beliefs and student learning research have not been made in the literature to date. As a group, it is found, students’ beliefs about knowing ranged from a focus on knowledge as absolute and received to a view that knowledge was constructed and reasoned. The categories related to learning reflected a range of beliefs from reproductive through to more transformative beliefs about learning. A relationship was noted between the more sophisticated beliefs about knowing and transformative beliefs about learning. Implications are discussed