Student Perspectives on Reflective Writing, Improvisation, and Cooperative and Peer Learning in a Collegiate Aural Skills Course

Student-centered instructional approaches that directly engage the learner in problem-solving activities and emphasize social interaction in the construction of knowledge are known to be much more effective than traditional teaching methods. While music educators also claim to espouse these views, these strategies have yet to infiltrate the area of aural skills pedagogy, where the mode of instruction often remains limited to traditional repetition and drill. In an effort to update and improve the Ear Training and Sight Singing (ETSS) curriculum at Linfield, reflective writing, improvisation, and cooperative and peer-learning activities were integrated into the course for the 2012-2013 academic year. This study examined the efficacy of these new approaches by comparing students’ experiences, progress, and assessments to those of previous years. Though a comparison of final exam scores did not reveal a statistically significant difference in achievement, results suggest reflective writing was particularly effective for students in increasing self-awareness, organizing and reinforcing learning, increasing retention of course material, and providing opportunities for self-assessment. Data revealed a mixed effectiveness for cooperative and peer-learning activities that is often dependent on a variety of factors including the nature and goals of the activity or assignment and the level of disparity in abilities between partners. Benefits include increased accountability, motivation and practice

ORGANIZATIONAL IMPROVEMENT PLAN

Within the constraints of competing ideologies; Indigenous vs Western knowledge, health service leaders committing to embedding cultural safety and humility into health care services for Indigenous peoples, and the broader change of direction laid out by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada (2015), is the overall need to improve health care services, experiences, and outcomes of Indigenous peoples. This need includes increasing the number of Indigenous peoples working at all levels and disciplines in health, and signifies the organizations responsibility to retain those employees once they enter the system. A mainstream tertiary health care centre located in Western Canada is embarking on this journey, heeding the call to action in the spirit of reconciliation, to lead in answering the problem of practice statement “How can a mainstream tertiary health care centre in Western Canada provide a safe workplace culture to ensure -retention of Indigenous employees”

Novel methods for enhanced free electron laser output

An emerging area of free electron laser development concerns tailoring the transverse and phase profile of the light, which can result in the radiation acquiring orbital angular momentum. This thesis studies the development of novel techniques for free electron lasers with consideration of the generation of higher-order orbital angular momentum modes acting as a starting point for this research. Three new techniques are presented in this thesis. The first examines altering mode competition in a free electron laser to induce radiation of a dominant orbital angular momentum mode. The next is a scheme to produce light with spatially varying states of polarisation - obtained through the overlap of different coherent transverse light distributions. The third technique produces trains of short radiation pulses where the properties of the pulses alternate. The goal of this research is to increase the diversity of radiation from free electron lasers in order to offer something new and unlock new areas of scientific research.An emerging area of free electron laser development concerns tailoring the transverse and phase profile of the light, which can result in the radiation acquiring orbital angular momentum. This thesis studies the development of novel techniques for free electron lasers with consideration of the generation of higher-order orbital angular momentum modes acting as a starting point for this research. Three new techniques are presented in this thesis. The first examines altering mode competition in a free electron laser to induce radiation of a dominant orbital angular momentum mode. The next is a scheme to produce light with spatially varying states of polarisation - obtained through the overlap of different coherent transverse light distributions. The third technique produces trains of short radiation pulses where the properties of the pulses alternate. The goal of this research is to increase the diversity of radiation from free electron lasers in order to offer something new and unlock new areas of scientific research

Gratitude, self-monitoring and social intelligence: A prosocial relationship?

To date, gratitude has been discussed as a positive construct that is linked to various prosocial outcomes, including helping behaviours and altruism, as well as intrapersonal and interpersonal gains such as life satisfaction and social bonds. The emphasis on gratitude as positive has created a dearth of research examining its potential shadow side. This current paper attempts to explore gratitude in a more critical light in order to question whether gratitude always functions in a prosocial manner. First, the theoretical relationship between gratitude, ingratiation and impression management behaviours are explored with reference to social intelligence (SI) and self-monitoring as key constructs that might underlie gratitude’s shadow side. This argument outlines that the apparent prosocial nature of gratitude might, sometimes, mask manipulative and self-serving goals. Preliminary empirical evidence of the relationship between gratitude, SI and self-monitoring is then provided. In Study 1, three-hundred-and-eleven participants completed self-report measures on gratitude, self-monitoring and social intelligence. The results demonstrate small-to-medium and significant correlational links between these constructs. Study 2 explored whether practicing gratitude can lead to changes in impression management skills, specifically social intelligence, through the design and delivery of a gratitude versus pride intervention. This small scale intervention (N = 36) provides the first preliminary evidence that practicing gratitude can function to increase participants’ levels of social intelligence. The possible prosocial and manipulative functions of this relationship are discussed alongside suggestions for future research avenues

Active Q-switched X-Ray Regenerative Amplifier Free-Electron Laser

Despite tremendous progress in x-ray free-electron laser (FEL) science over the last decade, future applications still demand fully coherent, stable x-rays that have not been demonstrated in existing X-ray FEL facilities. In this Letter, we describe an active Q-switched x-ray regenerative amplifier FEL scheme to produce fully coherent, high-brightness, hard x rays at a high-repetition rate. By using simple electron-beam phase space manipulation, we show this scheme is flexible in controlling the x-ray cavity quality factor Q and hence the output radiation. We report both theoretical and numerical studies on this scheme with a wide range of accelerator, x-ray cavity, and undulator parameters

Free electron laser generation of X-ray Poincaré beams

An optics-free method is proposed to generate x-ray radiation with spatially variant states of polarization via an afterburner extension to a free electron laser. Control of the polarization in the transverse plane is obtained through the overlap of different coherent transverse light distributions radiated from a bunched electron beam in two consecutive orthogonally polarised undulators. Different transverse profiles are obtained by emitting at a higher harmonic in one or both of the undulators. This method enables the generation of beams structured in their intensity, phase, and polarization - so-called Poincaré beams - at high powers with tunable wavelengths. Simulations are used to demonstrate the generation of two different classes of light with spatially inhomogeneous polarization - cylindrical vector beams and full Poincaré beams

Beagle 2: Seeking the signatures of life on Mars

ESA's Beagle 2 lander will land on Mars to search for signatures of present and past life. A Gas Analysis Package (GAP) with a mass spectrometer, XRF, Mossbauer, stereo cameras, microscope, environmental sensors, rock corer/grinder, and a Mole attachment are on the lander

On Stage Māori-Medium ITE: Listening to Students’ Voices

Māori-medium initial teacher education (ITE) is a small but highly important group ‘on stage’ in te ao Māori and New Zealand education. While education plays a major role in Māori language revitalisation, Māori language is also pivotal to Māori education if the aspiration ‘to live as Māori’ (Durie, 2001) is to be fulfilled. Māori-medium teachers are critical to the success of learners and their whānau who select a Māori-medium pathway and who can make a meaningful difference to the educational outcomes of Māori (Hōhepa, Hāwea, Tamatea, & Heaton, 2014). This article draws on the students’ voices in a two-year research project that centered on the development of a teaching and learning initiative within one Māori-medium ITE programme. Building on previous work by Hōhepa et al. (2014), this study adds another layer of students’ voices to understand more clearly language related issues and student experiences in Māori-medium ITE programmes. The article presents some of the complexities associated with Māori language regeneration facing students of Māori-medium ITE, with the understanding that whatever appears on the stage is always part of a greater narrative behind the scenes

The impact of input quality on early sign development in native and non-native language learners

There is debate about how input variation influences child language. Most deaf children are exposed to a sign language from their non-fluent hearing parents and experience a delay in exposure to accessible language. A small number of children receive language input from their deaf parents who are fluent signers. Thus it is possible to document the impact of quality of input on early sign acquisition. The current study explores the outcomes of differential input in two groups of children aged two to five years: deaf children of hearing parents (DCHP) and deaf children of deaf parents (DCDP). Analysis of child sign language revealed DCDP had a more developed vocabulary and more phonological handshape types compared with DCHP. In naturalistic conversations deaf parents used more sign tokens and more phonological types than hearing parents. Results are discussed in terms of the effects of early input on subsequent language abilities