Teaching on insecure foundations? Pre-service teachers in England’s perceptions of the wider curriculum subjects in primary schools

Subject marginalisation is an on-going concern across the primary education sector, particularly for the arts and humanities. This poses issues for pre-service teacher partnerships and for higher education institutions (HEIs) evaluating the role of subjects within their teacher training courses as they reform their curricula to prepare students to teach across diverse educational contexts. Through the interpretation of student voice, we disseminate a case study with primary initial teacher education (ITE) students that investigates learner perceptions of their training in under-represented foundation subjects. Emerging themes include tensions between university and school-based practices, and between curriculum models, together with the need to develop student adaptability and self-direction. The authors propose that if ITE students explore and take on the dispositions of changemakers, they will become equipped with the self-efficacy and adaptability needed to develop secure bases for teaching foundation subjects as they begin their careers

Student perceptions of learning to teach the foundation subjects : How do pre-service teachers in England perceive the curriculum subjects in primary schools – and are foundations secure?

Our study examined the development of student expertise in teaching the primary foundation subjects. In the English primary national curriculum these include, art, design technology, history, geography, art, physical education, music, modern foreign languages and computing. The perceived marginalisation of foundation subjects is an ongoing concern across the sector, particularly for the arts and humanities. Since September 2019, English schools have been working to a new Ofsted inspection framework, which requires considering their curriculum in terms of both breadth and depth. It seemed timely to explore how Initial Teacher Education (ITE), in collaboration with the schools that support primary ITE students on teaching practice, can better facilitate opportunities for students in the foundation subjects. Whilst acknowledging that there are many routes into teaching, our research focussed upon a university-based training route. We explored the ITE student voice in order to understand the opportunities presented in schools and at university to teach and learn about foundation subjects. Data came from a final year cohort of 126 ITE students on a three-year undergraduate BA Primary Education with qualified teacher status. ITE student perceptions provide a starting point to reflect on these issues and present a challenge for how we respond to their voice

Data science of the natural environment: a research roadmap

Data science is the science of extracting meaning from potentially complex data. This is a fast moving field, drawing principles and techniques from a number of different disciplinary areas including computer science, statistics and complexity science. Data science is having a profound impact on a number of areas including commerce, health, and smart cities. This paper argues that data science can have an equal if not greater impact in the area of earth and environmental sciences, offering a rich tapestry of new techniques to support both a deeper understanding of the natural environment in all its complexities, as well as the development of well-founded mitigation and adaptation strategies in the face of climate change. The paper argues that data science for the natural environment brings about new challenges for data science, particularly around complexity, spatial and temporal reasoning, and managing uncertainty. The paper also describes a case study in environmental data science which offers up insights into the promise of the area. The paper concludes with a research roadmap highlighting 10 top challenges of environmental data science and also an invitation to become part of an international community working collaboratively on these problems

The Relationship Between Sleep and Cognition in Children Referred for Neuropsychological Evaluation: A Latent Modeling Approach

Children with conditions affecting cognitive processes experience high levels of sleep disturbance, which may further compound the cognitive ramifications of their disorders. Despite this, existing studies in this area have been primarily confined to only particular diagnostic groups and/or a limited scope of sleep and cognitive parameters. The current study characterized the nature of sleep problems and examined the relationship between a wide range of sleep-related problems and cognitive functioning in a large (N = 103) diagnostically heterogeneous sample of youth (aged 6–16) referred for neuropsychological assessment. Structural equation modeling was used to examine the relationship between sleep-related problems (i.e., daytime sleepiness, sleep onset latency, sleep fragmentation, sleep time variability, sleep debt) and cognitive performance (i.e., executive functioning, sustained attention, memory, processing speed). Sleep fragmentation emerged as the most prominent sleep-related problem in the present sample. Structural equation modeling demonstrated a negative association between sleep-related problems and cognition that did not reach statistical significance (β = −0.084, p = 0.629). The current statistical approach may be used as a conceptual framework for future work examining these multi-dimensional constructs in a parsimonious fashion

Association of Serum Bilirubin with the Severity and Outcomes of Intracerebral Hemorrhages

Intracerebral hemorrhage (ICH) is the second most common subtype of stroke, and it is often associated with a high mortality rate and significant morbidity among survivors. Recent studies have shown that bilirubin, a product of heme metabolism, can exhibit cytoprotective, antioxidant and, anti-inflammatory properties. However, little is known about the role of bilirubin in combating several pathophysiological pathways caused by intracerebral bleeding in patients with ICH. In this study, data were collected retrospectively on 276 patients with ICH who were admitted to a university hospital between 5 January 2014 and 31 December 2017. We assessed the relationship between levels of total, direct, and indirect serum bilirubin and assessments of initial stroke severity and clinical outcomes by using Spearman’s rank correlation and Kruskal-Wallis H tests. A secondary examination of the carrier protein albumin was also undertaken. Our study found that higher levels of direct bilirubin were correlated with worse admission Glasgow Coma Scales (GCS) (rs = −0.17, p = 0.011), worse admission ICH Scores (rs = 0.19, p = 0.008), and worse discharge modified Rankin Scales (mRS) (rs = 0.15, p = 0.045). Direct bilirubin was still significantly correlated with discharge mRS after adjusting for temperature at admission (rs = 0.16, p = 0.047), oxygen saturation at admission (rs = 0.15, p = 0.048), white blood cell count (rs = 0.18, p = 0.023), or Troponin T (rs = 0.25, p = 0.001) using partial Spearman’s correlation. No statistical significance was found between levels of total or indirect bilirubin and assessments of stroke severity and outcomes. In contrast, higher levels of albumin were correlated with better admission GCS (rs = 0.13, p = 0.027), discharge GCS (rs = 0.15, p = 0.013), and discharge mRS (rs = −0.16, p = 0.023). We found that levels of total bilirubin, direct bilirubin, and albumin were all significantly related to discharge outcomes classified by discharge destinations (p = 0.036, p = 0.014, p = 0.016, respectively; Kruskal-Wallis H tests). In conclusion, higher direct bilirubin levels were associated with greater stroke severity at presentation and worse outcomes at discharge among patients with ICH. Higher levels of albumin were associated with lower stroke severity and better clinical outcomes. Future prospective studies on the free bioactive bilirubin are needed to better understand the intricate relationships between bilirubin and ICH