Taking Risks With Their Hearts: Risk And Emotion In Innovative Forms Of Assessment

Research involving student and tutor responses to a ‘pedagogy of the heart’ approach in a first year university health science topic revealed anxiety, insecurity and perceptions of unpredictability in relation to an innovative arts-based assignment designed to elicit and assess experiential or imaginal knowledge. Using the lens of contemporary theories of risk, and explicitly considering the role of emotion in assessment, this paper identifies both the effectiveness of and challenges encountered in this form of assessment. It also explores the relationships between risk and emotion, and between risk and assessment, particularly for young people in the higher education context. By comparing the risks involved with the benefits to be gained, the efficacy of adopting such a pedagogical approach is reviewed

Interrogating education of the heart

This paper reports students&rsquo; responses to a curriculum focused on integrating critical approaches, and evidence-based knowledge, with an education of the heart pedagogy. A focus group was conducted with 12 student representatives from a large first year undergraduate sociology of health and illness topic taught to a number of health professional students. Discussion centred on student views and feelings about the emotional or lived experience components of the topic portrayed through films, plays and poetry as well as the arts-based assessment exercise. Student responses indicate that they found the arts-based portrayals of the lived experience insightful for developing their own theory of care, but this was tempered by feelings of insecurity in completing these forms of assessment in the competitive environment where grades are important for achieving transfer to their program of choice.&nbsp;</div

A New Sialidase Mechanism: BACTERIOPHAGE K1F ENDO-SIALIDASE IS AN INVERTING GLYCOSIDASE

Bacteriophages specific for Escherichia coli K1 express a tailspike protein that degrades the polysialic acid coat of E. coli K1 that is essential for bacteriophage infection. This enzyme is specific for polysialic acid and is a member of a family of endo-sialidases. This family is unusual because all other previously reported sialidases outside of this family are exo- or trans-sialidases. The recently determined structure of an endo-sialidase derived from bacteriophage K1F (endoNF) revealed an active site that lacks a number of the residues that are conserved in other sialidases, implying a new, endo-sialidase-specific catalytic mechanism. Using synthetic trifluoromethylumbelliferyl oligosialoside substrates, kinetic parameters for hydrolysis at a single cleavage site were determined. Measurement of kcat/Km at a series of pH values revealed a dependence on a single protonated group of pKa 5. Mutation of a putative active site acidic residue, E581A, resulted in complete loss of sialidase activity. Direct 1H NMR analysis of the hydrolysis of trifluoromethylumbelliferyl sialotrioside revealed that endoNF is an inverting sialidase. All other wild type sialidases previously reported are retaining glycosidases, implying a new mechanism of sialidase action specific to this family of endo-sialidases