Enhancing Physician Perspectives of Skilled Occupational Therapy Services for Patients with Rheumatoid Arthritis

This Capstone Project, with a focus in research, sought to identify a relationship between self-reported functional performance and participation restriction as described by satisfaction with one’s execution or participation in a described occupation. A correlational study design was employed under the mentorship of Dr. Thomas Decker, EdD, OTD, OTR/L who oversaw all IRB processes, documentation, study development and deployment, as well as co-authored and provided mentorship for creation of a publishable manuscript of this project. The established Health Assessment Questionnaire Disability Index (HAQ-DI) and the newer Keele Assessment of Participation (KAP) were the two outcome measures of focus for surveying participants diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis (RA) or similar arthritis-related conditions at a private medical practice. A significant positive correlation between the two outcome measures was identified in support of the hypothesis (p\u3c.001) indicative of moderate participation restriction for both the RA and arthritis-related populations. Results from this study indicate that assessment of factors pertaining to participation restriction rather than the sole assessment of an individual’s functional ability in rheumatology settings may be the key towards increasing referrals to skilled occupational therapy services as it is within the profession’s scope to further assess and treat factors limiting performance and participation in desired occupations. The potential collaboration between the two professions would attend to the physical function, quality of life, and overall well-being of the individual with RA or similar arthritic condition

Investigating staff capabilities and needs for effective use of online technologies

Common to all higher education institutions is the need to reform and change the curriculum to prepare students to become citizens in a world of knowledge-based economies (Bates, 2005). Students today need skills and abilities to work in teams, to cooperate, collaborate and learn with fellow students and staff in a community of learners. Within these communities learners need to be able to solve real world problems and be self-directed active learners constructing knowledge. This shift towards more active learning demands a more student-focused approach to the process of learning and teaching in higher education (Prosser & Trigwell, 1999) and that well-designed active learning is an effective way for student learning (Biggs, 2003; Ramsden, 2003; Healey & Roberts, 2004). There is also a growing body of evidence that technology applied to learning and teaching supports extended active learning in and out of class (Paulson, 2002; Williams, 2003). But ‘technology-enhanced learning demands that both technological and methodological abilities are put into play’ (Trentin, 2006, p. 182) and that it is difficult to find all these abilities in a single person. ‘However good a teacher might be in class, he/she may fail in a distance learning situation if lacking sufficient familiarity with technology-enhanced learning methods’ (Trentin, 2006, p. 184). This research suggests that faculties and universities as a whole need to pay close attention to staff capabilities and their use of technology and to offer staff development in ways that will best afford opportunities to improve on and re-think the way they teach and their students engage in learning through technology. Research undertaken in this paper investigates one faculty’s use of an online learning environment and a support structure that builds staff capabilities in using online technology to engage students in effective collaborative and meaningful real world activities.published_or_final_versio

Modeling Community Building Through Working Online

The University of Hong Kong provides on-going education for teachers and education professionals within the Faculty of Education through a Masters degree in Information Technology in Education or MSc[ITE]. The MSc[ITE] offers a flexible modular structure enabling students to progress according to their own pace. The course is delivered in a face-to-face mode supplemented by an online course room - Interactive Learning Network (ILN) which supports collaborative learning. ILN is a community-building environment designed to scaffold virtual education communities of practice where teachers and students work together as teams and engage in reflective, collegial patterns of work. ILN facilitates cognitive and social scaffolding, enabling participants to become progressively more involved in the community and to sustain their commitment and interests. This environment is designed to support programmes that rely on pedagogies that emphasize the emergence and growth of autonomous collaborative learning, rather than teacher-directed delivery of learning materials. This paper describes and analyses community building online in the foundation module for the MSc[ITE] and introduces models to assist in the design and evaluation of online learning communities.published_or_final_versionCentre of Information Technology in Education, University of Hong Kong and Education and Manpower Bureau, the Government of the Hong Kong SA

Supporting Pedagogical Practices Through the Interactive Learning Network (ILN)

Led by Mr. James Henri, Deputy Director of CITE, the IPPO project is co-investigated by six staff members of the Division of Information & Technology Studies. Like in the IPPO project, the seminar will be run as a team effort of the IPPO team.This seminar is co-organised with the Faculty of Education Research Office In this seminar, the speakers share with participants their experiences of implementing different online pedagogical practices using the ILN, the online learning support platform that CITE has developed. The speakers will draw on a collaborative action research project, the Innovative Pedagogical Practices Online (IPPO) project, funded by HKU SPACE Research Grant and launched early in 2003 within the Division of IT&S. Objectives of the study included investigating the learning styles of part-time students in the BEd ITE and LIS programs to enhance motivation and performance. Innovative practices were developed and trialed using the ILN platform to investigate how self-directed BEd students are in their learning. The ILN is a purpose built Content and Learner Management System allowing online delivery and access to materials. It is also a community-building environment where teachers/students work as teams and engage in reflective, collegial patterns of work. It facilitates both cognitive and social scaffolding, enabling educators and students to become progressively more involved in the community to sustain their commitment and interests. This environment is designed to support academic programs that rely heavily on pedagogies that emphasize the emergence and growth of autonomous, collaborative learning, rather than teacher-directed delivery of learning materials. This presentation will outline overall pedagogical design and showcase three examples of IPPO highlighting the ILN features used. The various approaches to integrating ILN to support pedagogy, peer and student-teacher interaction, and scaffolding will be demonstrated. Lecturers will provide an assessment of how well learning outcomes were achieved in their IPPO environments.published_or_final_versionCentre for Information Technology in Education, University of Hong Kon

Participation in higher education in Australia among under-represented groups: What can we learn from the Higher Education Participation Program to better support Indigenous learners?

In 1988 the release of the Higher Education: A Policy Statement White Paper focused Australia’s national higher education equity policy on “changing the balance of the student population to reflect more closely the composition of society as a whole” (Dawkins 1990, 2-3). While improvement in access and participation has been noted for women, people from non-English speaking backgrounds, and people with disabilities, the interventions has remained less effective for people from Lower Socio-Economic Status (LSES backgrounds), Indigenous peoples; rural, regional and remote residents; (Gale & Tranter, 2011; Koshy & Seymour 2014). In 2009, in response to the Bradley Review (2008), the Australian government set a new agenda again focused on equitable participation in higher education, along with associated equity targets (which have since been abandoned), and funding to enable this reform as well as increased participation. Funding was delivered through the Higher Education Participation and Partnerships Program (HEPPP), renamed the Higher Education Participation Program (HEPP) in 2015 (Australian Government Department of Education and Training, 2015). A range of national partnerships, policy initiatives and programs has been used to facilitate improved achievement in schools as well as enable access, participation and achievement in higher education. These actions have included targeted programs through the use of intervention strategies aimed at widening participation in, and improving access to higher education

The application of pressure-driven ceramic membrane technology for the treatment of industrial wastewaters – A review

© 2018 Elsevier B.V. This paper presents a review of the previous laboratory analysis and case studies on the application of the pressure-driven ceramic membrane technology for treatment of industrial wastewaters. Ceramic membranes has attracted remarkable interests in recent decades for industrial wastewater treatment because of their superior characteristic such as high fluxes, reliable working lifetime under aggressive operating conditions and ease of cleaning. The literature review revealed that the efficiency of this technology has been proven in a wide variety of wastewaters from different industries and activities including pulp and paper, textile, pharmaceutical, petrochemical, food and mining. However, there are still challenges and questions for this technology that need to be addressed in future researches such as investment cost optimisation by introducing new fabrication technologies, selectivity, permeability and packing densities improvement, fouling minimisation and proposing scale up based on experimental research results

Learning in an Online World

(Email: [email protected]) Dr Sue Trinidad has taught pre-service and post-service teachers within the Faculty of Education, Curtin University of Technology, Perth, Western Australia for the past 15 years. This has included duties of training teachers in the areas of technology, using electronic communications to enhance teaching and learning environments, information literacy skills and educational theory, supervision of training teachers on teaching practice, supervision of Masters and Doctoral students. Previously, she was a primary school teacher with the Western Australian Education Department. Sue has been involved in many consultations with local school-based projects and national projects and presents regularly at local, national and international conferences. Her research interests include technology planning and implementation, social constructivist/situated learning environments, particularly through online learning, using computers with young children and safe use of computers.The e-revolution is affecting the way we teach and learn today. Interactive technologies enable educators and students to access and build knowledge from numerous sources and multiple perspectives more easily with the Internet supporting a "social interaction model" of teaching and learning. Technology can be used as the vehicle for communication, collaboration and the framework for mediated learning that takes place between educators, peers and the wider community to produce authentic tasks, projects or investigations. Assessment can be open-ended, seamless, negotiable, educative, explicit, informative and ongoing in a community of learners, as is the feedback to students. To work in such e-learning environments our educators and students need to develop new skills. This paper reports on directions at a national level for Australia, and at a local level in Western Australia, preparing educators and students for learning in an online world. This will be illustrated through local school and university case studies.published_or_final_versionCentre for Information Technology in Education, University of Hong Kon

Connecting for innovation: Four universities collaboratively preparing pre-service teachers to teach in rural and remote Western Australia

In 2010 a group of teacher educators from four universities, experienced in rural and remote education, formed the Tertiary Educators Rural, Regional and Remote Network (TERRR Network). The collaborative goal was to improve the quality of graduates taking appointments beyond the metropolitan areas of Western Australia. The TERRR Network developed a research project to improve the capacity of universities to prepare teachers for employment in rural and remote locations. A range of outcomes emerged from the project, including: 1) the development of seven rural and remote-oriented curricula modules linked to the Australian Professional Standards for Teachers; 2) a cross-institutional field experience, and; 3) the development of a community of practice involving the Department of Education, universities and schools to address the logistical implications of placing pre-service students in rural and remote locations. This paper reports on the five phases of the project design, with a focus on learning in the field and concludes with reflections on the collaborative process used by the four universities in order to ensure that research evidence informs future policy and program development

Effect on Health Literacy on Medication Adherence in Older Latina Women with Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus

The level of health literacy (HL) can have a significant impact on an individual\u27s ability to understand how to care for themselves. Limited HL reduces access to healthcare having limited HL is associated with poor self-management of Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus (T2DM), which is common among vulnerable populations and further contributes to increased morbidity and mortality, especially in which is true in Latina/Hispanic adults who have T2DM. The purpose of the study, guided by the health belief model, was to determine what effect an educational intervention had on blood glucose levels, health literacy, and medication adherence in older Latina/Hispanic women with T2DM. Seventeen participants with T2DM met the inclusion criteria and completed 3 clinic visits over 3 weeks. Data were analyzed using repeated measures ANOVA. The results showed that the teaching session had no statistically significant effect on HL, blood glucose, and medication adherence. Further study is needed to identify additional variables which may be predictors, of adherence, such as financial need, instances of attending scheduled medical appointments, and participation in a structured diabetes education program. A structured program might include formal education classes on T2DM with classes provided both in English and Spanish and include the participation of men because gender can be a strong predictor of medication adherence among Latinos. Improving HL outcomes can help in improving overall health of individuals and communities, which effects positive social change