The evaluation of student-centredness of teaching and learning: a new mixed-methods approach.

OBJECTIVE: The aim of the study was to develop and consider the usefulness of a new mixed-methods approach to evaluate the student-centredness of teaching and learning on undergraduate medical courses. An essential paradigm for the evaluation was the coherence between how teachers conceptualise their practice (espoused theories) and their actual practice (theories-in-use). METHODS: The context was a module within an integrated basic sciences course in an undergraduate medical degree programme. The programme had an explicit intention of providing a student-centred curriculum. A content analysis framework based on Weimer's dimensions of student-centred teaching was used to analyze data collected from individual interviews with seven teachers to identify espoused theories and 34h of classroom observations and one student focus group to identify theories-in-use. The interviewees were identified by purposeful sampling. The findings from the three methods were triangulated to evaluate the student-centredness of teaching and learning on the course. RESULTS: Different, but complementary, perspectives of the student-centredness of teaching and learning were identified by each method. The triangulation of the findings revealed coherence between the teachers' espoused theories and theories-in-use. CONCLUSIONS: A mixed-methods approach that combined classroom observations with interviews from a purposeful sample of teachers and students offered a useful evaluation of the extent of student-centredness of teaching and learning of this basic science course. Our case study suggests that this new approach is applicable to other courses in medical education

Nucleon Edm from Atomic Systems and Constraints on Supersymmetry Parameters

The nucleon EDM is shown to be directly related to the EDM of atomic systems. From the observed EDM values of the atomic Hg system, the neutron EDM can be extracted, which gives a very stringent constraint on the supersymmetry parameters. It is also shown that the measurement of Nitrogen and Thallium atomic systems should provide important information on the flavor dependence of the quark EDM. We perform numerical analyses on the EDM of neutron, proton and electron in the minimal supersymmetric standard model with CP-violating phases. We demonstrate that the new limit on the neutron EDM extracted from atomic systems excludes a wide parameter region of supersymmetry breaking masses above 1 TeV, while the old limit excludes only a small mass region below 1 TeV.Comment: 10 pages, 7 figure file

Chirality Selection in Open Flow Systems and in Polymerization

As an attempt to understand the homochirality of organic molecules in life, a chemical reaction model is proposed where the production of chiral monomers from achiral substrate is catalyzed by the polymers of the same enatiomeric type. This system has to be open because in a closed system the enhanced production of chiral monomers by enzymes is compensated by the associated enhancement in back reaction, and the chiral symmetry is conserved. Open flow without cross inhibition is shown to lead to the chirality selection in a general model. In polymerization, the influx of substrate from the ambience and the efflux of chiral products for purposes other than the catalyst production make the system necessarily open. The chiral symmetry is found to be broken if the influx of substrate lies within a finite interval. As the efficiency of the enzyme increases, the maximum value of the enantiomeric excess approaches unity so that the chirality selection becomes complete.Comment: 8 pages, 4 figure

Enhancement factor for the electron electric dipole moment in francium and gold atoms

If electrons had an electric dipole moment (EDM) they would induce EDMs of atoms. The ratio of the atomic EDM to the electron EDM for a particular atom is called the enhancement factor, R. We calculate the enhancement factor for the francium and gold atoms, with the results 910 plus/minus 5% for Fr and 260 plus/minus 15% for Au. The large values of these enhancement factors make these atoms attractive for electron EDM measurements, and hence the search for time-reversal invariance violation.Comment: 6 pages, no figures, uses RevTex, reference adde

Measurement of the electron's electric dipole moment using YbF molecules: methods and data analysis

We recently reported a new measurement of the electron's electric dipole moment using YbF molecules [Nature 473, 493 (2011)]. Here, we give a more detailed description of the methods used to make this measurement, along with a fuller analysis of the data. We show how our methods isolate the electric dipole moment from imperfections in the experiment that might mimic it. We describe the systematic errors that we discovered, and the small corrections that we made to account for these. By making a set of additional measurements with greatly exaggerated experimental imperfections, we find upper bounds on possible uncorrected systematic errors which we use to determine the systematic uncertainty in the measurement. We also calculate the size of some systematic effects that have been important in previous electric dipole moment measurements, such as the motional magnetic field effect and the geometric phase, and show them to be negligibly small in the present experiment. Our result is consistent with an electric dipole moment of zero, so we provide upper bounds to its size at various confidence levels. Finally, we review the prospects for future improvements in the precision of the experiment.Comment: 35 pages, 15 figure

Twelve tips for rapidly migrating to online learning during the COVID-19 pandemic

The COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in a massive adaptation in health professions education, with a shift from in-person learning activities to a sudden heavy reliance on internet-mediated education. Some health professions schools will have already had considerable educational technology and cultural infrastructure in place, making such a shift more of a different emphasis in provision. For others, this shift will have been a considerable dislocation for both educators and learners in the provision of education. To aid educators make this shift effectively, this 12 Tips article presents a compendium of key principles and practical recommendations that apply to the modalities that make up online learning. The emphasis is on design features that can be rapidly implemented and optimised for the current pandemic. Where applicable, we have pointed out how these short-term shifts can also be beneficial for the long-term integration of educational technology into the organisations' infrastructure. The need for adaptability on the part of educators and learners is an important over-arching theme. By demonstrating these core values of the health professions school in a time of crisis, the manner in which the shift to online learning is carried out sends its own important message to novice health professionals who are in the process of developing their professional identities as learners and as clinicians

The electron electric dipole moment enhancement factors of Rubidium and Caesium atoms

The enhancement factors of the electric dipole moment (EDM) of the ground states of two paramagnetic atoms; rubidium (Rb) and caesium (Cs) which are sensitive to the electron EDM are computed using the relativistic coupled-cluster theory and our results are compared with the available calculations and measurements. The possibility of improving the limit for the electron EDM using the results of our present work is pointed out.Comment: AISAMP7 Conference paper, Accepted in Journal of Physics: Conference Series: 200

Enhancement of the electric dipole moment of the electron in PbO

The a(1) state of PbO can be used to measure the electric dipole moment of the electron d_e. We discuss a semiempirical model for this state, which yields an estimate of the effective electric field on the valence electrons in PbO. Our final result is an upper limit on the measurable energy shift, which is significantly larger than was anticipated earlier: $2|W_d|d_e \ge 2.4\times 10^{25} \textrm{Hz} [ \frac{d_e}{e \textrm{cm}} ]$.Comment: 4 pages, revtex4, no figures, submitted to PR

Atomic Parity Violation and Precision Electroweak Physics - An Updated Analysis

A new analysis of parity violation in atomic cesium has led to the improved value of the weak charge, $Q_W({\rm Cs}) = -72.06 \pm 0.46$. The implications of this result for constraining the Peskin-Takeuchi parameters S and T and for guiding searches for new Z bosons are discussed.Comment: 8 pages, LaTeX, 3 figures, Submitted to Physical Review D. Updated experimental inputs and references; clarification of notatio