WORKPLACE SUBSTANCE USE, THE RISK OF OCCUPATIONAL INJURY, AND TESTING

Over the past 20 years, the "workplace substance abuse prevention industry" has grown enormously in size and has become more sophisticated in its marketing approach. Drug testing alone has become a $6 billion industry. Employee assistance programs are now widely used by employers at significant cost. This thesis presents a brief review of drug use patterns as related to occupational injuries together with a history of workplace testing. Results from studies suggest that drug-free workplace programs are an important public health approach to improving workplace health and safety through early intervention and, quite possibly, substance abuse prevention

Progressive development of scientific literacy through assessment in inquiry-based biomedical science curricula

A key outcome of science education is the development of graduates' scientific literacy, defined as "an individual's scientific knowledge, and use of that knowledge to identify questions, to acquire new knowledge, to explain scientific phenomena, and to draw evidence-based conclusions..." (OECD, 2010; pg 137). These skills are reflected throughout the Science Threshold Learning Outcomes (Jones, Yates and Kelder, 2011). To progressively develop such advanced skills within a broad major like biomedical science, it is essential to guide students along critical learning pathways. We have designed a series of inquiry-based classes to scaffold the development of these skills and vertically-integrated these across the curriculum (Zimbardi, Bugarcic, Colthorpe, Good and Lluka 2013), with this design receiving national recognition as best practice (Elliott, Boin, Irving, Johnson and Galea 2010; Kirkup and Johnson 2013). To facilitate skills development within these classes, students undertake increasingly complex assessment tasks as they progress through each course, requiring them to draw on their developing content knowledge to propose and undertake experiments, and to make conclusions based on their findings and evidence from scientific literature. Longitudinal analysis of a variety of assessment tasks from students across four semesters demonstrates the developmental trajectory of these skills. Specifically, they demonstrate increases in their ability to formulate testable hypotheses with measurable outcomes, their appreciation of cutting-edge methodologies and deeper understanding of the contestable nature of increasingly complex areas of scientific knowledge. This article reports on the design and use of these assessment tasks within the series of inquiry-based curricula, and their impact on the progression of student learning

Student outcomes from diverse undergraduate research experiences - findings from a multi-disciplinary study

Undergraduate research experiences (UREs) provide students with opportunities to engage in high impact experiential learning. UREs have been especially prevalent in the sciences, but there are now extensive banks of case studies demonstrating the use of UREs as an educationally enriching activity in nearly all disciplines. This study investigated the diversity of UREs available across a wide range of disciplines at a large Australian research-intensive university and examined the perceived benefits. Through group interviews with 68 academics, we gathered detailed information about 81 URE activities, across 28 Schools within the institution (representing 77.8% of Schools), ranging from archaeology to political science, from biology to social work and from law to journalism. The most common URE model observed was that of activities embedded in courses. Across disciplines the most common feature was the requirement for students to engage with the research literature in their field. A smaller number of models incorporated features which allowed students to engage in other high impact learning activities such as community-based activities and internships. Although we identified a large ‘set’ of perceived student outcomes across the varied URE models the generic graduate attributes attained by students through these UREs appeared to be independent of the discipline itself. In most cases, the UREs were available to all students rather than an elite or specialist cohort. This leads us to believe that across a range of disciplinary contexts, there are many ways to use UREs to achieve high levels of engagement of large cohorts of students

A Feasibility Study of Cellulosic Isobutanol Production—Process Simulation and Economic Analysis

Renewable liquid biofuels for transportation have recently attracted enormous global attention due to their potential to provide a sustainable alternative to fossil fuels. In recent years, the attention has shifted from first-generation bioethanol to the production of higher molecular weight alcohols, such as biobutanol, from cellulosic feedstocks. The economic feasibility of such processes depends on several parameters such as the cost of raw materials, the fermentation performance and the energy demand for the pretreatment of biomass and downstream processing. In this work, two conceptual process scenarios for isobutanol production, one with and one without integrated product removal from the fermentor by vacuum stripping, were developed and evaluated using SuperPro Designer®. In agreement with previous publications, it was concluded that the fermentation titer is a crucial parameter for the economic competitiveness of the process as it is closely related to the energy requirements for product purification. In the first scenario where the product titer was 22 g/L, the energy demand for downstream processing was 15.8 MJ/L isobutanol and the unit production cost of isobutanol was $2.24/L. The integrated product removal by vacuum stripping implemented in the second scenario was assumed to improve the isobutanol titer to 50 g/L. In this case, the energy demand for the product removal (electricity) and downstream processing were 1.8 MJ/L isobutanol and 10 MJ/L isobutanol, respectively, and the unit production cost was reduced to$1.42/L. The uncertainty associated with the choice of modeling and economic parameters was investigated by Monte Carlo simulation sensitivity analysis

Effect of Ripeness and Drying Process on Sugar and Ethanol Production from Giant Reed (<em>Arundo donax L</em>.)

The work highlighted the influence of the water content within the starting biomass, drying procedure and ripeness on the enzymatic digestibility of the giant reed, one of the most suitable nonfood crops for bioenergy and bio-compound production. Fresh green reed was treated as received, while oven-dried green and ripe reed were humidified before the steam explosion pretreatment that was carried out at 210 ℃ for 10 minutes. The exploded biomasses were extracted with water to remove the soluble hemicellulose and potential inhibitors; the insoluble residue was submitted to enzymatic hydrolysis and alcoholic fermentation. The process was evaluated in terms of sugars recovery and ethanol yield. After the sequence of pretreatment, enzymatic hydrolysis and fermentation by Saccharomyces cerevisiae 132 g; 103 g; 162 g of ethanol; and 77 g; 63 g; 92 g of pentosanes were respectively obtained from 1 kgDM of fresh green reed; dried green reed or ripe reed. The ripe reed contains more carbohydrates than the green reed and the resulting sugar and ethanol production was higher, in spite of lower saccharification yield. While drying the fresh biomass is good practice for biomass preservation, it negatively affects the recovery of free sugars and the ethanol production, because of fiber hornification which hinders enzyme access in the hydrolysis step

Facilitating timely feedback in the Biomedical Sciences

It is clear that feedback is one of the most influential factors on student learning gains (Hattie & Timperley 2007). However, student course and subject evaluations reveal that the provision feedback is rated poorly, and students often fail to engage with the feedback that is provided (Price, O’Donovan, & Rust, 2007). Students regularly seek more feedback, but as class sizes increase, the ability of academic staff to provide timely and detailed feedback to individuals decreases. This project developed a method of providing detailed, specific and timely feedback to students of the biomedical sciences in large class settings at institutions in Australia and the UK. We investigated the extent and quality of feedback provided through analysis of annotated scripts, and examined how students interpreted and used the feedback received, by identifying how student work was modified in response to feedback. Further, we examined the effectiveness of feedback in enhancing student learning through improvements in student learning gains. REFERENCES Hattie, J. & Timperley, H. (2007). Review of Educational Research, 77(1), 81–112. Price, M., O’Donovan, B., & Rust, C. (2007). Innovations in Education and Teaching International, 44(2), 143-152

Implementing and evaluating online meta-learning communities to encourage the development of learning skills in first year students

Introduction The transition from secondary to tertiary education is fraught with challenges for students (Kantanis, 2000; van der Meer, Jansen, & Torenbeek, 2010). University students need to cope with changing academic expectations surrounding independent learning, time management and levels of academic challenge. Therefore, there is a need for students to re-assess the efficacy and efficiency of their learning strategies when transitioning to university, and it is imperative that the meta-cognitive skills required to evaluate learning are taught explicitly (Krause, 2005). This study evaluated the use of online meta-learning communities to encourage students to reflect on the development of their learning skills through collaboration within a social context. Methods First year anatomy and physiology students participated in online meta-learning communities as part of their course assessment. In previous iterations of the course students completed four ‘individual’ meta-learning tasks, each consisting of six questions completed individually through Blackboard as a short answer test. Meta-learning questions were aimed at encouraging students to think about their learning to date, their learning strategies, and possible changes to strategies leading up to exams. Students received a small percentage (2-3%) towards their overall grade for completing each task. In the current project, students self-allocated to a ‘meta-learning blog’ containing up to five students. Students posted selected answers to meta-learning questions on the group blog, and subsequently reflected on their peer’s blog responses as part of the next meta-learning task. Responses to selected meta-learning questions from consenting students (n=194; 78%) were subsequently analysed for research using inductive thematic analysis. Results After sharing their learning strategies with group members in the first meta-learning task, students were prompted in the second meta-learning task to reflect on the usefulness of their peer’s strategies for their own study routine leading up to the mid-semester exam. Of the 177 students who responded to this question, 88% identified new strategies they could incorporate. In the final meta-learning task, students were asked about the impact of the meta-learning communities on their learning. Of the 171 students who responded to the question, 86% indicated that the task had at least one positive impact on their learning, 2% indicated that the task had a negative impact by taking up time, and 18% reported a neutral impact on their learning. Students could report a combination of positive, negative and neutral impacts. The most frequent positive impacts included ‘identifying new strategies’ (n=60), ‘sharing ideas on learning’ (n=33) and ‘identifying effective or efficient strategies’ (n=31). The most frequently reported neutral impact was ‘already aware of learning strategies’ (n=10). Thirty-four students provided suggestions for future improvements, including making the task ‘more interactive’ (n=9), providing ‘more shared content questions’ (n=8) and ‘increasing the group size’ (n=8). Conclusions The results from this study suggest that many first year students are still refining their learning strategies as they transition to university. The meta-learning communities prompted students to consider new learning strategies by providing a scaffolded, social environment for sharing strategies with each other online. References Kantanis, Tanya. (2000). The role of social transition in students': adjustment to the first-year of university. Journal of Institutional Research, 9(1), 100-110. Krause, Kerri-Lee Dawn. (2005). Serious thoughts about dropping out in first year: Trends, patterns and implications for higher education. Studies in Learning, Evaluation, Innovation and Development, 2(3), 55-68. van der Meer, Jacques, Jansen, Ellen, & Torenbeek, Marjolein. (2010). It's almost a mindset that teachers need to change: first‐year students' need to be inducted into time management. Studies in Higher Education, 35(7), 777-791