Image to Fit the Clinical Picture: Point-of-care Ultrasound Assessment of Ebstein’s Anomaly in Peru

Ebstein’s anomaly is a congenital heart defect that when left untreated can lead to unique physical exam and ultrasound findings. This case describes a patient who presented with dyspnea and was found to have cyanosis, clubbing, and dilation of right-sided chambers on point-of-care ultrasound. The series of images highlights findings in late-stage Ebstein’s anomaly and serves as a springboard for the discussion of the pathophysiology, diagnosis, and treatment of this rare congenital heart disease

Protective Factors Among Postsecondary Students Enrolled in a First-Generation Program

For generations, researchers have examined attributes that contribute to the adaptability of low socioeconomic youth. Attributes that help one become resilient are known as protective factors. The purpose of this descriptive study was to explore the protective factor(s) that contributed to the enrollment of first-generation, low-socioeconomic status (SES) students at a southern land-grant university. The population consisted of postsecondary students in a First Scholars program during the 2015-2016 academic year. The authors examine the existing literature on the effects of low SES on postsecondary education in order to explore what assists these students in maintaining a steadfast behavior. Recommendations are made for the recruitment of students who display a higher resiliency to be successful at the postsecondary level and for the First Scholars program on how to further enhance the program

LIBERTARIAN PARTY GROWS...AND SO DO ITS CRITICS

The Libertarian Party, which calls itself “The Party of Principle,” seems to have had a special appeal during the 2016 presidential election—a campaign in which the two major party candidates started out with historically low approval numbers. Supporters of the party, such as Doug Braff, a film student from NYU, remained loyal to the party even after the election season was over. These supporters have received backlash from disappointed Hillary Clinton supporters who believe that Clinton could have won the presidency if she had garnered the votes that, instead, went to Gary Johnson, the Libertarian candidate. Here is a link to the online piece: https://nicoleashleycapstone.wordpress.com/libertarian-party-grows

Crashing the IR Party: Artists as Scholars in Institutional Repositories

Andrea Schuler, Digital Collections Librarian and Ashley Peterson, fine arts Research & Instruction Librarian began working together in July 2016 on an initiative to include visual art thesis projects in the Tufts University institutional repository. This project, now in its third year, has resulted in the addition of dozens of visual arts theses into the repository, where they are available alongside senior honors theses from across disciplines in the Schools of Arts, Sciences, and Engineering. In this presentation, Schuler & Peterson will outline their initial research into best practices and case studies regarding artwork-as-scholarship in IRs, describe their pilot project, and summarize subsequent improvements and future directions. They will focus on the affective labor of this initiative, describing how they attempt to foster student engagement, achieve faculty buy-in, and navigate a project with multiple, cross-departmental institutional stakeholders. They will also speak to the technical challenges of representing artwork in a platform designed for text files. More broadly, the presentation will highlight opportunities to engage undergraduate students in the larger scholarly conversation and to introduce concepts of open access, copyright, and licensing in a real-world situation. The project offers a low-resource model for creating access to new types of material and empowers student artists to contextualize their work within the larger body of an institution’s scholarly output, while working within the limits of a repository designed for more “traditional” scholarship. After the presentation, in addition to questions, audience members will be encouraged to share examples of related work or unmet needs at their own institutions in order to broaden the conversation

Phenomenology as a methodology for Scholarship of Teaching and Learning research

The Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL) is a rich forum where scholars from different fields and philosophical orientations find space to share their research on teaching and learning in higher education. Within this paper, we will share our individual and collective experiences of why we perceive phenomenology as a methodology well-suited for a broad range of SoTL purposes. Phenomenology is a research approach that focuses on describing the common meaning of the lived experience of several individuals about a particular phenomenon. We will discuss how phenomenology informed our own SoTL research projects, exploring the experiences of faculty and undergraduates in higher education. We will highlight the challenges and affordances that emerged from our use of this methodology. Phenomenology has motivated us to tell our stories of SoTL research and within those, to share the stories that faculty and students shared

A Brief Examination of Predictors of E-Learning Success for Novice and Expert Learners

As the prevalence of e-learning continues to grow in higher education settings, so too does the need for empirical research examining the antecedents of success in this environment. Previous research has suggested some characteristics that may determine success in an online course; however, little empirical evidence exists relating potential predictors of e-learning success with actual performance outcomes, particularly for different levels of learners. Students new to college may need different kinds of support to succeed in an online course compared to students with more experience in taking college-level courses, whether online or in-class, and navigating institutional resources. A primary goal of the current study is to determine the kinds of support needed to help lower-level and upper-level learners succeed in an e-learning environment. We assess several predictors of e-learning success and compare the relative effectiveness of these characteristics across novice and expert learners. Findings suggest that for lower-level students, access to technology predicted learner performance, whereas for upper-level students, motivation and self-discipline predicted learner performance. We discuss the implications of these results for e-learning instructors, instructional designers, and knowledge management practitioners

A Systematic Literature Review on the Academic and Athletic Identities of Student-Athletes

Academic and athletic identities are related to performance and wellbeing indicators in both the educational and sport domains, respectively. This paper presents a systematic literature review examining empirical research into the academic and athletic identities of student-athletes in dual (education and sport) careers. The 42 records identified in this review suggest that research on the academic and athletic identities of student-athletes has focused on the themes of: identity development, role conflict, career development and motivation, and student-athlete stereotypes. Future research directions are considered, including the need for mixed-methods and longitudinal assessments of academic and athletic identities to assess to dynamic nature of identity development, and to ascertain how these relate to future performance and wellbeing outcomes

Theory Building as Integrated Reflection: Understanding Physician Reflection Through Human Communication Research, Medical Education, and Ethics

Grounded in a presupposition that a single explanatory framework cannot fully account for the expansive learning processes that occur during medical residency, the article examines developing physicians’ reflective writing from three disciplinary lenses. The goal is to understand how the multi-dimensional nature of medical residency translates into assembling educational experiences and constructing meaning that cannot be fully explained through a single discipline. An interdisciplinary research team across medical education, communication, and ethics qualitatively analyzed reflective entries (N=756) completed by family medicine residents (N=33) across an academic year. Results provide evidence for moving toward an integrated thematic explanation across disciplines. The authors suggest that the integration of disciplinary explanations allows for comprehensive understanding of reflection as a cornerstone in the broader formation of the physician. Examples provide evidence for an integrated understanding of a fuller human experience by considering the three thematic explanations as co-occurring, reciprocal processes