Alcohol Education: An Exploratory Study Of Teacher Opinions And Drinking Practices

As the teacher’s role in preventing problems related to alcohol abuse became more important, it is incumbent upon educators and alcohologists to explore the opinions and views which teachers bring with them into the class on alcohol education. Specifically, what views and opinions do high school teachers have toward alcohol education and how do these views relate to their drinking practices and their socio-demographic variables

Encouraging Student Attendance and Engagement in Lectures & Workshops in the Pre- and Post-Covid World

In the post-Covid era, second year chemistry lectures are fully flipped with all content being online.  All the live lecture sessions are used for group work and are fully interactive.  Students have agency in the lectures by directing what is taught in these student-led sessions.  Students find the sessions very engaging and respond positively.  In particular they value the agency they are given.  In a second study that took place pre- Covid, workshops are changed from 1-hour to 2-hour sessions but with half the number and a much simplified timetable for students. Group work and peer-assessment with marking criteria help make the sessions engaging for students and more useful.  The increased level of attendance from less than 20% to more than 70% (in the best case) is evidence of increased value to the students and success of the new format.

Lost or found? Discovering data needed for research

Finding data is a necessary precursor to being able to reuse data, although relatively little large-scale empirical evidence exists about how researchers discover, make sense of and (re)use data for research. This study presents evidence from the largest known survey investigating how researchers discover and use data that they do not create themselves. We examine the data needs and discovery strategies of respondents, propose a typology for data reuse and probe the role of social interactions and literature search in data discovery. We consider how data communities can be conceptualized according to data uses and propose practical applications of our findings for designers of data discovery systems and repositories. Specifically, we consider how to design for a diversity of practices, how communities of use can serve as an entry point for design and the role of metadata in supporting both sensemaking and social interactions.Comment: Harvard Data Science Review (2020