Walking Several Inches Taller: Student Reflections on a University Conference on the Lived Experience of Refugee Children and Families.

The development of higher order thinking skills is an important pedagogic outcome of Foundation and BA degrees within the UK as it enables students to work positively with complex issues within early years practice.  Our annual conference, held at a university within the West Midlands, is one strategy for this development.  The conference under consideration was held in 2017 and was entitled ‘Lived Experience of Refugee Children and their Families.’ This offered students an experience of understanding at first hand the plight of refugee children and families and the implications for practice. At the end of the conference the students were asked to critically reflect on their experience and to present this as a 500 word piece of writing during the fortnight after the conference. Using a hermeneutic and interpretive approach to analyse the writing, three key themes emerged which included: the impact of learning through first-hand experience, changes in perspective previously informed by negative media coverage and developing politicisation and positioning of self as a result of the conference. Students identified a number of actions they would take as a result of their learning. The value of a critically reflective opportunity after conferences was highlighted as an essential part of developing higher order thinking and gaining maximum impact for the student learning from the experience

Additional file 1: of DNA methylation in a Scottish family multiply affected by bipolar disorder and major depressive disorder

Table S1. Sample demographic information for the individuals included in this study. Table S2. Comparison of 12 normalisation methods. Table S3. Probes attaining an uncorrected p-value of ≤ 0.05 in the comparison of individuals carrying the linked haplotype (LH) and married in controls (MI), ranked by p-value. Table S4. Probes attaining an uncorrected p-value of ≤ 0.05 in the comparison of affected individuals carrying the linked haplotype (ALH) and married in controls (MI), ranked by p-value. Table S5. Probes attaining an uncorrected p-value of ≤ 0.05 in the comparison of unaffected individuals carrying the linked haplotype (ULH) and married in controls (MI), ranked by p-value. Table S6. Probes attaining an uncorrected p-value of ≤ 0.05 in the comparison of affected individuals carrying the linked haplotype (ALH) and unaffected carriers of the linked haplotype (ULH), ranked by p-value. Table S7. Differentially methylated regions (DMRs) identified in affected carriers of the linked haplotye(ALH) compared to married in controls (MI), ranked by p-value. Table S8. Differentially methylated regions (DMRs) identified in carriers of the linked haplotye (LH) compared to married in controls (MI), ranked by p-value. Table S9. Differentially methylated regions (DMRs) identified in unaffected carriers of the linked haplotye (ULH) compared to married in controls (MI), ranked by p-value. Table S10. Differentially methylated regions (DMRs) identified in affected carriers of the linked haplotye (ALH) compared to unaffected carriers of the linked haplotype (ULH), ranked by p-value. Table S11. Significantly enriched molecular process gene ontology (GO) categories identified in the ALH vs. MI comparison. Table S12. Significantly enriched biological function gene ontology (GO) categories identified in the ALH vs. MI comparison. Table S13. Significantly enriched cellular component gene ontology (GO) categories identified in the ALH vs. MI comparison. Table S14. Significantly enriched molecular process gene ontology (GO) categories identified in the ULH vs. MI comparison. Table S15. Significantly enriched biological function gene ontology (GO) categories identified in the ULH vs. MI comparison. Table S16. Significantly enriched cellular component gene ontology (GO) categories identified in the ULH vs. MI comparison. Table S17. Significantly enriched molecular process gene ontology (GO) categories identified in the ALH vs. ULH comparison. Table S18. Significantly enriched biological function gene ontology (GO) categories identified in the ALH vs. ULH comparison. Table S19. Significantly enriched molecular process gene ontology (GO) categories identified in the LH vs. MI comparison. Table S20. Significantly enriched biological function gene ontology (GO) categories identified in the LH vs. MI comparison. Table S21. Significantly enriched cellular component gene ontology (GO) categories identified in the LH vs. MI comparison. Table S22. Details of the qRT-PCR assays used to measure the seven reference genes assessed for the stability of their expression using geNorm [75]. XLSX 8646 kb