From the web to writing: the role of collaboration in providing first year university students with the skills to succeed

In contemporary university environments not only have student populations become more diverse, but also institutions have embraced technological advances to create new facets to the teaching and learning process. The challenges offered by virtual learning as well as the impact of email and e-learning remain largely under-researched both broadly and in relation to first year transition. First year students are now expected to not only acquire the implicit academic discourse in a timely fashion but also master the computing skills so central to contemporary university delivery. Skills central to effective and efficient academic research and writing are often perceived in an atomized and disparate way. The information skills program outlined in this paper seeks to forge connections between the processes involved in locating information and producing essays. Utilising the requisite knowledge of staff from two areas, the objective is to highlight to students how skills required to obtain information in an often virtual environment can further inform assignment preparation. In this way the role of information literacy is negotiated as intrinsic to the essay writing process as opposed to something that is seen as external. The program has been developed in consultation with academic staff to ensure that relevant research topics are demonstrated. The paper will highlight facets of the workshop and explain the reasoning behind its construction and ongoing enhancement, as well as provide justification of the need for such programs within university environments in the light of increasing diverse student populations

Storytelling engagement in the classroom: observable behavioural cues of children's story experiences

Research Doctorate - Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)The value of storytelling in a busy world, awash with multiple sound bites, myriad visual grabs and a seemingly endless input of information, is recognized and utilized in an increasing number of areas in modern society, including in all levels of education. Narrative is used in all cultures to give meaning to the human experience. When narrative is presented in the form of oral storytelling this meaning making and relevance are enhanced by focused listening and people are captivated by the shared experience that storytelling provides. This thesis addresses a gap in the literature about how children in particular engage with storytelling. In an innovative approach to storytelling research, this thesis systematically examines the observable responses of a group of primary school aged children to a long term programme of storytelling. 88 children across the school grades of Kindergarten, Third and Sixth class participated in 6 storytelling sessions each. This thesis places 12 of the videotaped storytelling sessions under critical scrutiny and analyses every verbal and physical response made by each child in order to measure both their individual and collective engagement with storytelling. In so doing, the thesis canvasses the challenges encountered in conducting such systematic research and utilises action research (Bryman, 2004; Gray, 2004) in the structure of the storytelling project and grounded theory (Dey, 1999; Glaser, 1998; Strauss & Corbin, 1998; Tuetteman, 2003) in the analysis of the collected data. Storytellers who wish to conduct similar research are provided in this thesis with a replicable method and a project template they can adapt to suit their own particular needs. The third part of the thesis is devoted to a detailed examination of what happened to the child participants as they listened to a wide variety of stories. Five clusters of Indicators of Engagement grew out of this research and they are employed as a means of measuring the individual responses to storytelling. The thesis establishes, in an academically rigorous manner, that there is indeed a means of measuring a listener’s engagement with storytelling

Following the blue bouncing ball: an evidence-based strategy for using storytelling and collaborative stretching to enhance quality of life for persons with severe cognitive impairments

People with severe cognitive impairments have the same rights to happiness, subjective well-being and a (best) quality of life as all others. Storytelling can contribute to delivering these rights. Getting the most out of storytelling for audiences of people with severe cognitive impairments poses a significant challenge to both storytellers and others responsible for providing ongoing care and support. This challenge arises because these cognitive impairments get in the way of communication, understanding and memory and diminish the intensity and duration of positive storytelling experiences. “Collaborative stretching” is a simple, intuitive but evidence-based strategy for enhancing storytelling events and storytelling experiences for participants with severe cognitive impairments and ultimately for enhancing their quality of life

Storytelling in 3D: Interrogating Engagement with Oral Storytelling in the School Classroom

This paper outlines the researcher-devised QUEST method to clarify and identify children’s engagement with oral storytelling . In a series of research challenges and solution-seeking processes, the storyteller worked with traditional storytelling approaches and also with contemporary digital recordings and analysis software to follow students’ responses to storytelling experiences . As a result of deep analysis that looked beyond the raw data and questioned why certain responses occurred, a set of Indicators of Engagement were devised . Twenty-five indicators were identified that were further broken down in clusters of common types of engagement behaviors . These indicators can be applied to future studies, with both children and adults that investigate the intriguing phenomenon of storytelling

LRPPRC mutations cause early-onset multisystem mitochondrial disease outside of the French-Canadian population

Mitochondrial Complex IV [cytochrome c oxidase (COX)] deficiency is one of the most common respiratory chain defects in humans. The clinical phenotypes associated with COX deficiency include liver disease, cardiomyopathy and Leigh syndrome, a neurodegenerative disorder characterized by bilateral high signal lesions in the brainstem and basal ganglia. COX deficiency can result from mutations affecting many different mitochondrial proteins. The French-Canadian variant of COX-deficient Leigh syndrome is unique to the Saguenay-Lac-Saint-Jean region of Québec and is caused by a founder mutation in the LRPPRC gene. This encodes the leucine-rich pentatricopeptide repeat domain protein (LRPPRC), which is involved in post-transcriptional regulation of mitochondrial gene expression. Here, we present the clinical and molecular characterization of novel, recessive LRPPRC gene mutations, identified using whole exome and candidate gene sequencing. The 10 patients come from seven unrelated families of UK-Caucasian, UK-Pakistani, UK-Indian, Turkish and Iraqi origin. They resemble the French-Canadian Leigh syndrome patients in having intermittent severe lactic acidosis and early-onset neurodevelopmental problems with episodes of deterioration. In addition, many of our patients have had neonatal cardiomyopathy or congenital malformations, most commonly affecting the heart and the brain. All patients who were tested had isolated COX deficiency in skeletal muscle. Functional characterization of patients’ fibroblasts and skeletal muscle homogenates showed decreased levels of mutant LRPPRC protein and impaired Complex IV enzyme activity, associated with abnormal COX assembly and reduced steady-state levels of numerous oxidative phosphorylation subunits. We also identified a Complex I assembly defect in skeletal muscle, indicating different roles for LRPPRC in post-transcriptional regulation of mitochondrial mRNAs between tissues. Patient fibroblasts showed decreased steady-state levels of mitochondrial mRNAs, although the length of poly(A) tails of mitochondrial transcripts were unaffected. Our study identifies LRPPRC as an important disease-causing gene in an early-onset, multisystem and neurological mitochondrial disease, which should be considered as a cause of COX deficiency even in patients originating outside of the French-Canadian population