CoRe: A way to build pedagogical content knowledge for beginning teachers

Research has shown that one of the factors which enables teachers to be effective is their rich pedagogical content knowledge (PCK). Beginning teachers need support to develop this PCK and recent research in the field has proposed a conceptual tool known as “content representations”, or CoRes, as a model for doing this. The study reported here brought together science and technology experts in content and pedagogy, early career secondary teachers, and researchers to design a CoRe to assist development of teacher PCK. The study then researched the early career teachers’ use of the CoRe in their planning and delivery of a unit in their classrooms to examine the effect of the CoRe on teaching and learning, and on the development of the teachers’ PCK

A comparison of wheat and barley response to herbicides between southern New South Wales and southern Queensland

Herbicide tolerance of wheat and barley cultivars has been tested at Wagga Wagga in southern New South Wales since the 1980s and on the Darling Downs in southern Queensland since 1999. Although each project tests the cultivars and herbicides specific for their region, a number of herbicides and cultivars were common to each project. Overall, response between the two projects was similar for approximately 50% of the common cultivar × herbicide combinations. Crop damage was greater from testing in southern New South Wales than in southern Queensland for over a third of the common cultivar × herbicide combinations. This reinforces the need for regional testing for variations in cultivar tolerances to herbicide

Local curriculum development in sustainability education in New Zealand secondary schools

Sustainability, though not well understood, is an increasingly important concept in society, and as such has become incorporated in school curricula. In New Zealand, sustainability was added to the national curriculum in 2007 as a non subject-bound thematic link through the values and key competencies associated with student learning. Teachers use the national curriculum, a statement of policy describing educational objectives, to plan their classroom practice with their particular learners in mind, a process referred to as local curriculum development. Though sustainability education is new to New Zealand teachers, there is a strong history of environmental education where implementation has been successful in many primary schools, in which the curriculum is integrated. In the secondary school setting, the implementation of non subject-bound learning, like environmental education, has proven to be less successful, partly due to the siloed nature of subject specialisation. Sustainability as the interaction between environmental, social and economic perspectives has proven to be particularly difficult to address in such siloed secondary schools. This study investigates the sense making practices of some English, science, social science and technology secondary teachers as they interpret sustainability in the national curriculum and create local sustainability curricula in their school settings. The research occurred three years after the introduction of the revised national curriculum and at a time when few professional learning opportunities existed to support teacher professional development. The research is founded on sociocultural learning theory drawing on concepts of mediated action, and situated and distributed cognition. Research data was generated over a year-long collaborative action research programme and analysed using Cultural Historical Activity Theory as a tool. The findings indicate that these teachers were challenged by the siloed nature of curriculum delivery in addressing the holistic nature of sustainability in their local curriculum development. Teachers’ personal sociocultural backgrounds were influential in their sustainability curriculum development practices. These experiences influenced their perspective of sustainability, often limiting their perception of sustainability. These perspectival views of sustainability had direct influence on teacher’s curriculum development, constraining planned learning in sustainability to their perspective. Where teachers worked independently in their school to develop local curriculum their perspectives went unchallenged, resulting in local curricula that addressed only parts of the nature of sustainability. Teachers’ perspectives of sustainability also influenced their ongoing professional learning choices in a conservative manner. Without intervention, this self-reinforcement of existing perceptions may lead to strengthening curriculum silos and further constrain sustainability education. Where teachers worked collegially across curriculum silos, and had opportunities to negotiate meaning around sustainability and sustainability education in the wider culture of the school, their perceptions of sustainability become more comprehensive, leading to local sustainability curricula which reflected more fully the holistic nature of sustainability. Meaning making around sustainability and sustainability education, in the culture of the school, includes considering how sustainability is expressed in the national curriculum, what is meant by assessment of learning in sustainability, the role of students in curriculum development and the influence of external stakeholders in local curriculum development

A framework for predicting the non-visual effects of daylight - part I: photobiology-based model

This paper investigates the formulation of a modelling framework for the nonvisual effects of daylight, such as entrainment of the circadian system and maintenance of alertness. The body of empirical data from photobiology studies is now sufficient to start developing preliminary non-visual lighting evaluation methods for lighting design. Eventually, these non-visual effects have the potential to become a relevant quantity to consider when assessing the overall daylighting performance of a space. This paper describes the assumptions and general approach that were developed to propose a modeling framework for occupant exposure to non-visual effects of light, and presents a novel means of visualising the ‘circadian potential’ of a point in space. The proposed approach uses current outcomes of photobiology research to define – at this point static – threshold values for illumination in terms of spectrum, intensity and timing of light at the human eye. These values are then translated into goals for lighting simulation, based on vertical illuminance at the eye, that – ultimately – could become goals for building design. A new climate-based simulation model has been developed to apply these concepts to a residential environment. This will be described in Part 2 of this paper

A smart sewer asset information model to enable an ‘Internet of Things’ for operational wastewater management

Real-time prediction of flooding is vital for the successful future operational management of the UK sewerage network. Recent advances in smart infrastructure and the emergence of the Internet of Things (IoT), presents an opportunity within the wastewater sector to harness and report in real-time sewer condition data for operation management. This study presents the design and development of a prototype Smart Sewer Asset Information Model (SSAIM) for an existing sewerage network. The SSAIM, developed using Industry Foundation Class version 4 (IFC4) an open neutral data format for BIM, incorporates distributed smart sensors to enable real-time monitoring and reporting of sewer asset performance. Results describe an approach for sensor data analysis to facilitate the real-time prediction of flooding

Pre-service teachers' perceptions of technology and technology education

Technology teachers’ perceptions and understanding of the nature of technology heavily influences their perceptions of technology education and consequently shapes their teaching practice. Understanding the nature of technology is also an important component of technology education and in 2007 the New Zealand technology curriculum introduced a new strand called the Nature of Technology. An important part of initial teacher education programmes is therefore to help student teachers develop their concepts and philosophies of technology and technology education. This paper reports findings from a survey of New Zealand student teachers’ perceptions of technology and technology education before and after their involvement in a compulsory course in technology education. The findings reported here are some of the initial results from one institution but are part of a larger project aimed at brining together similar data from across the country to inform development of pre-service technology education programmes

Deconstruction of a Metastatic Tumor Microenvironment Reveals a Common Matrix Response in Human Cancers.

We have profiled, for the first time, an evolving human metastatic microenvironment by measuring gene expression, matrisome proteomics, cytokine and chemokine levels, cellularity, extracellular matrix organization, and biomechanical properties, all on the same sample. Using biopsies of high-grade serous ovarian cancer metastases that ranged from minimal to extensive disease, we show how nonmalignant cell densities and cytokine networks evolve with disease progression. Multivariate integration of the different components allowed us to define, for the first time, gene and protein profiles that predict extent of disease and tissue stiffness, while also revealing the complexity and dynamic nature of matrisome remodeling during development of metastases. Although we studied a single metastatic site from one human malignancy, a pattern of expression of 22 matrisome genes distinguished patients with a shorter overall survival in ovarian and 12 other primary solid cancers, suggesting that there may be a common matrix response to human cancer.Significance: Conducting multilevel analysis with data integration on biopsies with a range of disease involvement identifies important features of the evolving tumor microenvironment. The data suggest that despite the large spectrum of genomic alterations, some human malignancies may have a common and potentially targetable matrix response that influences the course of disease. Cancer Discov; 8(3); 304-19. ©2017 AACR.This article is highlighted in the In This Issue feature, p. 253

Impact of Extended-Duration Shifts on Medical Errors, Adverse Events, and Attentional Failures

BACKGROUND: A recent randomized controlled trial in critical-care units revealed that the elimination of extended-duration work shifts (≥24 h) reduces the rates of significant medical errors and polysomnographically recorded attentional failures. This raised the concern that the extended-duration shifts commonly worked by interns may contribute to the risk of medical errors being made, and perhaps to the risk of adverse events more generally. Our current study assessed whether extended-duration shifts worked by interns are associated with significant medical errors, adverse events, and attentional failures in a diverse population of interns across the United States. METHODS AND FINDINGS: We conducted a Web-based survey, across the United States, in which 2,737 residents in their first postgraduate year (interns) completed 17,003 monthly reports. The association between the number of extended-duration shifts worked in the month and the reporting of significant medical errors, preventable adverse events, and attentional failures was assessed using a case-crossover analysis in which each intern acted as his/her own control. Compared to months in which no extended-duration shifts were worked, during months in which between one and four extended-duration shifts and five or more extended-duration shifts were worked, the odds ratios of reporting at least one fatigue-related significant medical error were 3.5 (95% confidence interval [CI], 3.3–3.7) and 7.5 (95% CI, 7.2–7.8), respectively. The respective odds ratios for fatigue-related preventable adverse events, 8.7 (95% CI, 3.4–22) and 7.0 (95% CI, 4.3–11), were also increased. Interns working five or more extended-duration shifts per month reported more attentional failures during lectures, rounds, and clinical activities, including surgery and reported 300% more fatigue-related preventable adverse events resulting in a fatality. CONCLUSIONS: In our survey, extended-duration work shifts were associated with an increased risk of significant medical errors, adverse events, and attentional failures in interns across the United States. These results have important public policy implications for postgraduate medical education

The Effect of a Dynamic Lighting Schedule on Neurobehavioral Performance During a 45-Day Simulated Space Mission

Study Objective: We previously reported that during a 45-day simulated space mission, a dynamic lighting schedule (DLS) improved circadian phase alignment and performance assessed once on selected days. This study aimed to evaluate how DLS affected performance on a 5-minute psychomotor vigilance task (PVT) administered multiple times per day on selected days. Methods: Sixteen crewmembers (37.4 ± 6.7 years; 5F) underwent six cycles of 2 × 8-hour/night followed by 5 × 5-hour/night sleep opportunities. During the DLS (n = 8), daytime white light exposure was blue-enriched (∼6000 K; Level 1: 1079, Level 2: 76 melanopic equivalent daytime illuminance (melEDI) lux) and blue-depleted (∼3000-4000 K; L1: 21, L2: 2 melEDI lux) 3 hours before bed. In the standard lighting schedule (SLS; n = 8), lighting remained constant (∼4500K; L1: 284, L2 62 melEDI lux). Effects of lighting condition (DLS/SLS), sleep condition (5/8 hours), time into mission, and their interactions, and time awake on PVT performance were analyzed using generalized linear mixed models. Results: The DLS was associated with fewer attentional lapses (reaction time [RT] \u3e 500 milliseconds) compared to SLS. Lapses, mean RT, and 10% fastest/slowest RTs were worse following 5 compared to 8 hours of sleep but not between lighting conditions. There was an effect of time into mission on RTs, likely due to sleep loss. Overall performance differed by time of day, with longer RTs at the beginning and end of the day. There were more lapses and slower RTs in the afternoon in the SLS compared to the DLS condition. Results: The DLS was associated with fewer attentional lapses (reaction time [RT] \u3e 500 milliseconds) compared to SLS. Lapses, mean RT, and 10% fastest/slowest RTs were worse following 5 compared to 8 hours of sleep but not between lighting conditions. There was an effect of time into mission on RTs, likely due to sleep loss. Overall performance differed by time of day, with longer RTs at the beginning and end of the day. There were more lapses and slower RTs in the afternoon in the SLS compared to the DLS condition. Conclusions: Future missions should incorporate DLS to enhance circadian alignment and performance. This paper is part of the Sleep and Circadian Rhythms: Management of Fatigue in Occupational Settings Collection