Reflections of Practicing School Principals on Ethical Leadership and Decision-Making: Confronting Social Injustice

The study objective was to identify leadership dilemmas of practicing school administrators and their own codes of ethics to inform understandings of ethical decision-making. Ethical decision-making underpins leadership practice, theory, and preparation. Existing models for ethical leadership underplay the importance of social justice ethics in decision-making. The research encompassed a qualitative study based upon the constructivist paradigm. Data were collected in the form of interviews, document analyses, and professional observations with practicing school administrators in public schools. Dilemmas reported were analyzed utilizing ethical leadership theories together with social justice constructs. Results indicate ways practicing school administrators, faculty preparing administrators, and other business or organizational leaders can utilize ethical decision-making and leadership for organizational improvement

Application of Incident Command Structure to clinical trial management in the academic setting: principles and lessons learned

Background Clinical trial success depends on appropriate management, but practical guidance to trial organisation and planning is lacking. The Incident Command System (ICS) is the ‘gold standard’ management system developed for managing diverse operations in major incident and public health arenas. It enables effective and flexible management through integration of personnel, procedures, resources, and communications within a common hierarchical organisational structure. Conventional ICS organisation consists of five function modules: Command, Planning, Operations, Logistics, and Finance/Administration. Large clinical trials will require a separate Regulatory Administrative arm, and an Information arm, consisting of dedicated data management and information technology staff. We applied ICS principles to organisation and management of the Prehospital Use of Plasma in Traumatic Haemorrhage (PUPTH) trial. This trial was a multidepartmental, multiagency, randomised clinical trial investigating prehospital administration of thawed plasma on mortality and coagulation response in severely injured trauma patients. We describe the ICS system as it would apply to large clinical trials in general, and the benefits, barriers, and lessons learned in utilising ICS principles to reorganise and coordinate the PUPTH trial. Results Without a formal trial management structure, early stages of the trial were characterised by inertia and organisational confusion. Implementing ICS improved organisation, coordination, and communication between multiple agencies and service groups, and greatly streamlined regulatory compliance administration. However, unfamiliarity of clinicians with ICS culture, conflicting resource allocation priorities, and communication bottlenecks were significant barriers. Conclusions ICS is a flexible and powerful organisational tool for managing large complex clinical trials. However, for successful implementation the cultural, psychological, and social environment of trial participants must be accounted for, and personnel need to be educated in the basics of ICS

Teacher Candidates\u27 Perspectives on Self-Care: Lessons from the COVID-19 Pandemic

How are teacher candidates conceptualizing self-care during the COVID 19 pandemic? We initiated focused attention on educator self-care for teacher candidates after identifying this content as a missing yet necessary component of trauma-informed teaching (Authors, 2019). In the fall of 2020, with the COVID-19 pandemic affecting every element of candidates’ lives including our now remotely-delivered course, we reconsidered how that content needed to fit into the realities of learning to teach during a pandemic. Following these revisions, we explored the research question, how are candidates conceptualizing self-care during the COVID-19 pandemic? We describe findings and provide recommendations and resources for educator preparation programs (EPP) to include self-care content during COVID -19 and afterward

Infection prevention and control challeneges of using a therapeutic robot

This work was part of a National Institute for Health Research participatory action research and practice development study, which focused on the use of a therapeutic, robotic baby seal (PARO, for personal assistive robot) in everyday practice in a single-site dementia unit in Sussex. From the beginning of January 2017 until the end of September 2017, the cleaning and cleanliness of PARO was monitored through a service audit process that focused on the cleaning, amount of use and testing of contamination of PARO being used in everyday clinical practice with individuals and in group sessions. Its use and cleaning followed protocols developed by the study team, which incorporated hand hygiene and standard precaution policies. Its cleanliness was determined using an adenosine triphosphate (ATP) luminometer, with a benchmark of 50 relative light units (RLU). A reading of ATP below 50RLU is the level of cleanliness recommended for social areas in hospital settings. Throughout the study period, monitoring showed that all swab zones on PARO were within the benchmark of the 50RLU threshold for cleanliness. PARO has an emerging evidence base as a useful therapeutic device. However, introducing such devices into clinical practice may encounter barriers or concerns from an infection prevention and control (IPC) perspective. This study of PARO in clinical practice aims to address the IPC concerns raised and offers cleaning and testing protocols and results

Introducing the Clinically Aligned Pain Assessment

Introduction: The Clinically Aligned Pain Assessment (CAPA) is an innovative way of assessing pain by engaging patients in a brief conversation about their comfort, change in comfort, pain control, functionality, and sleep. Identification of the Problem: According to the Joint Commission (TJC) and the American Society for Pain Management Nursing (ASPMN) the use of the commonly used numeric rating scale (NRS) can lead to opioid overdose and ineffective treatment. Purpose of the Study: To compare post-surgical patients’ perceptions of the effectiveness of two pain assessment tools, CAPA and NRS. Methodology: An IRB approved, prospective observational study was conducted. Patients undergoing elective spinal surgery who stayed at least one night in the hospital (n=40) were included. Nurses trained in the use of CAPA, assessed patients’ pain levels first with CAPA then NRS. Patients completed a survey on discharge comparing their perception of CAPA and NRS. Results: Patient survey results show no significant difference between the numerical scale and the CAPA tool in ease of use by patients (p\u3e.05). In addition, there was no significant difference between patients perception of nurse response between the two tools, (p\u3e.05). However, there was a statistically significant difference in patient comfort level with the two tools. (p=.018) Discussion: CAPA, compared to NRS, was similarly easy for patients to use and similar in RN response.However, patients reported more comfort with use of CAPA. Changing a nurses’ longstanding practice and asking nurses on another department to cooperate with a research study were limitations to this study. Conclusion: CAPA shows promise as an alternative to simply having patients assign a number to a complex situation, like pain. Implications for Perianesthesia Nurses and Future Research: Patients emerging from anesthesia, often find the NRS difficult to use.Pain management standards for safe and effective pain management start with CAPA conversations, giving the nurse a way of documenting it. Future research to evaluate how CAPA effects pain management and patient/nurse satisfaction. To address the limitations of this study, a similar study is being conducted in our ambulatory setting. Preliminary findings will be available for discussio

The effectiveness of physical activity interventions in improving higher education students' mental health : A systematic review

Peer reviewe

The PARO seal: weighing up

The PARO robotic seal can improve the wellbeing of people with dementia, but is it safe for use on hospital wards? Kathy Martyn and colleagues carried out research and found that it passed hygiene tests. But Carlene Rowson and her collaborators claim (opposite) that infection control concerns have not been adequately answered.In this debate, they argue the case for and against PARO on hospital wardsand her collaborators claim (opposite) that infection control concerns have not been adequately answered. In this debate, they argue the case for and against PARO on hospital wards

Peer review of learning designs: Interdisciplinary SoTEL

For academics participating in graduate certificates of higher education, the advice and feedback of their teacher peers is a potentially powerful resource. This paper reports on an evaluation-in-progress of one subject in a graduate certificate for university teaching, a fully online unit on the scholarship of technology-enhanced learning (SoTEL). Two demands are made of participants in this unit: that they should develop a prototype activity using technology for learning and teaching, and that they should review and receive a review from a class peer to enhance these individual prototypes. The assumption at the heart of this unit design is that, by undertaking a review of a colleague’s learning design, the teacher learns from these additional perspectives and can then improve their own designs for learning. Challenging this assumption are multiple aspects of the context, including the relative value of design reviews from academic developers versus less experienced peers; the multiple criteria by which a design might be evaluated; and interdisciplinary work between peers. Artefacts from participants and the academic developers teaching them are analysed to probe this underlying assumption, and to consider the value of peer review in SoTEL

Computer-Assisted Legal Research

https://digitalcommons.law.uw.edu/faculty-chapters/1022/thumbnail.jp

Does visual acuity have an effect on children’s educational achievement? evidence from Peru

La inequidad es un tema importante para muchas iniciativas internacionales, incluida la actual. Un aspecto de la inequidad que ha recibido poco la atención es el impacto de la discapacidad en la educación. Este documento de trabajo explora si los niveles leves o moderados de discapacidad visual se asocian con el rendimiento educativo de los niños de 7 y 8 años en el Perú. Las estadísticas descriptivas de la muestra Young Lives sugirieron que los niños con peor agudeza visual tienen un mejor rendimiento en las pruebas de matemáticas, lectura y vocabulario. Sin embargo, cuando varias características de los niños y sus familias son incluidos como controles, los resultados se invierten, y encontramos un efecto negativo significativo de los pobres agudeza visual en las pruebas de matemáticas, marginalmente significativo para el vocabulario, y no significativo para leer