Being and becoming global citizens: Measuring progress toward SDG 4.7. Phase I: Monitoring teacher and school readiness to enact global citizenship in the Asia-Pacific region

Substantive work has been undertaken to define and frame global citizenship education (GCED). Global citizenship and related terms are included in the curricula and policy statements of many diverse nations around the world (Parker & Fraillon, 2016; APCEIU, 2020b), however, the education sector often struggles to enact and monitor GCED in ways that reflect the changing conditions of students and schools. This study responds to an identified need for enhanced tools and resources for schools and systems to monitor and evaluate GCED, in accordance with United Nations (UN) Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 4.7. This need is particularly pressing in the primary school sector, where little research has examined staff or student interpretations of GCED, and the Asia-Pacific (APAC) region, where despite significant interest, gaps in understanding and implementing GCED remain. This report presents a draft framework for monitoring effective GCED, which is relevant to systems, schools, and staff supporting upper primary school students. The framework has been developed from a review of existing instruments and research, including work undertaken to frame and assess global citizenship for the Southeast Asia Primary Learning Metrics (SEA-PLM). To develop this framework, we have also sought the input of GCED experts and teachers from the Republic of Korea, the Philippines and Australia to ensure relevance to these contexts. Accompanying the framework is a series of preliminary questions for systems, schools, and teachers designed to assist in exploring enabling conditions for the enactment of global citizenship, which is also underpinned by key findings and gaps from the literature. This study is co-funded by UNESCO’s Asia Pacific Centre for International Understanding (APCEIU) and the Global Education Monitoring (GEM) Centre – a long term partnership between ACER and the Australian Government’s Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade

Summary report. Being and becoming global citizens: Measuring progress toward SDG 4.7. Phase I: Monitoring teacher and school readiness to enact global citizenship in the Asia-Pacific region

The relationship between global citizenship and education quality was established almost a decade ago, when it was described as a target under United Nations Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 4.7 – to ‘ensure all learners acquire knowledge and skills needed to promote sustainable development.’ Despite efforts to define and frame global citizenship education (GCED), systems continue to grapple with understanding, enacting, and measuring it in ways that reflect changing local and global conditions for students, teachers and schools. This study responds to an identified need for tools and resources for systems to enact, monitor and evaluate GCED, particularly in primary school in the Asia-Pacific region. Presented here is a draft framework for monitoring effective GCED, which is relevant to systems, schools, and staff supporting upper primary school students. This was developed through a review of existing instruments and literature, consultation with experts, and data collected through questionnaires and focus group workshops with teachers from Australia, South Korea, and the Philippines

Development of a transcript to record learner creativity and curiosity

Funded with generous support by the Jacobs Foundation, the ultimate goal of this project was to develop transcripts to track learner progress in the domains of creativity and curiosity. To support this overarching goal, the research team sought to define creativity and curiosity in language that would resonate with learners and teachers and that would be appropriate across numerous cultural settings. The result of the project is a series of prototype materials and resources, specifically: literature reviews, frameworks, enabling environment summaries, reflective quizzes and transcripts. Based on insights from the literature reviews, the researchers developed frameworks to define the constructs of creativity and curiosity and to offer resources that learners can refer to in class. The researchers also hypothesize that school context is important and that schools and teachers can provide an enabling environment to support learners to be more creative and curious. Lastly, the research team propose transcripts for each domain, which are designed to balance learner reflection and teacher verification. Further research is required to validate these resources before schools implement them with the aim of evidencing student growth in creativity and curiosity

The Anti-social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Act 2014: implications for sex workers and their clients

© 2015 Taylor & Francis. The Anti-social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Act 2014 introduced new powers to deal with behaviour deemed to be ‘anti-social’. In this paper we consider how the new law could be used against sex workers and their clients and the impact this may have. Although the new powers were not intentionally designed to respond to prostitution, we suggest that they will be utilised to tackle it. We argue that the law will be used inconsistently in a way which will go directly against policy which seeks to ‘tackle demand’ and take a less punitive approach to dealing with sex workers. Despite a policy shift to see sex workers more as victims and less as offenders, we draw on existing evidence to demonstrate that the new anti-social behaviour order law will be utilised to exclude street sex workers from public spaces. We claim that a degree of ‘policy re-fraction’ will occur when the new laws are implemented by practitioners

Two Cases of Vancomycin-Induced Neutropenia

(1) Background: The incidence of vancomycin-induced neutropenia in hospitalized patients is estimated to be around 2 to 8 percent Data surrounding vancomycin-induced neutropenia is limited as it is based on a small number of observational case reports. Additionally, it is difficult to provide generalized conclusions since patient characteristics and indications for treatment vary between reports. (2) Case Reports: We present two cases of vancomycin-induced neutropenia that occurred at our facility; a 50-year-old male who developed neutropenia after treatment with vancomycin for a gluteal abscess and a 51-year-old female who developed neutropenia after treatment with vancomycin for lumbar osteomyelitis. In both cases, neutropenia resolved within 2 days of discontinuation of vancomycin. (3) Conclusions: Vancomycin-induced neutropenia is thought to be a relatively uncommon adverse drug reaction. These two cases of neutropenia likely caused by prolonged exposure to vancomycin occurred at our facility within 3 months of each other. Additional studies are needed to better understand the true incidence of this adverse drug reaction and to identify risk factors that may predispose patients to vancomycin-induced neutropenia

Creativity and Curiosity: Development of a transcript to record learner creativity and curiosity

This video presented by Sladana Kristic, Jonathan Heard, Sarah Richardson and Claire Scoular describes a project undertaken for the International Baccalaureate Organization (IBO) on the development of transcripts to record learner progress in creativity and curiosity. Funded with support by the Jacobs Foundation, the project sought to define creativity and curiosity in language that would resonate with learners and teachers and that would be appropriate across numerous cultural settings

Comparison of Students’ Self-Assessment and Simulated Patient Assessment in a Patient Counseling Evaluation and Perceived Importance of Communication Skills

The primary objective of this study was to compare students’ self-assessment ratings with simulated patient (SP) assessment ratings of communication skills in a patient counseling Objective Structured Clinical Exam (OSCE). The secondary objective was to evaluate student perceptions of the importance of communication skills in the practice of pharmacy as well as the impact of a virtual OSCE format. First-year pharmacy students completed an OSCE focused on self-care product counseling. The evaluation was graded using a rubric covering both verbal and non-verbal communication. Students who completed the course were provided a 15-question, post-evaluation survey with questions related to self-assessment of communication skills and perceptions of the importance of communication skills. Of the 138 students in the course, 68 completed the optional post-assessment survey (49% response rate). There were no statistically significant differences between the ratings by students and SPs for the four communication elements included in the self-assessment. Most of the students recognized the importance of communication skills, including developing rapport and trust. Recognition of the importance of communication skills to future practice as a pharmacist positively correlated with performance on the evaluation (r2 = 0.5409, p-value = 0.0007). Student self-assessment is an effective and cost-effective mode of feedback for practice experiences as an alternative to the use of SPs

Transitioning Competency-Based Communication Assessments to the Online Platform: Examples and Student Outcomes

In light of the COVID-19 pandemic, pharmacy education has shifted from in-person teaching and assessments to the virtual environment. Many education programs had previously adopted objective structured clinical examinations (OSCEs) to assess communication abilities in-person with standardized patients (SPs). However, comparative student outcome data between virtual and in-person methods as well as guidance on how to conduct communication-based OSCEs in the virtual environment is lacking. The University of Colorado Skaggs School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences (SSPPS) describes its methods of conducting two types of communication-based OSCEs (patient counseling and gathering a medical history). Student performance data from the two virtual OSCEs in 2020 was compared to results from two 2019 in-person OSCEs using Mann Whitney U Tests. The 2020 cohort scored significantly higher than the 2019 cohort in all variables (i.e., using effective verbal and non-verbal communication, using patient friendly education, organizing the encounter, demonstrating empathy, establishing trust, professionalism) and in overall score. However, the effect size for these findings indicate the differences between performances are generally small and more likely due to changes in grading patterns due to the pandemic

Energy response of AlGaAs soft X-ray photon counting detectors

A variety of new types of detectors based on wide band gap materials have been developed for soft X-ray spectroscopy applications (e.g. GaAs, SiC, diamond). In this report we describe the spectroscopic performance of a simple p-i-n diode fabricated on AlGaAs. The energy response of the diode, operating in photon counting mode, at room temperature has been investigated using fluorescence from a number of high purity materials. X-ray spectra over the energy range 5 keV-25 keV show this type of diode can be used for spectroscopy with promising energy resolution ( ∼ 1.3 keV) at 30°C and excellent linearity