Service–Learning in Undergraduate Nursing Education: Where is the Reflection?

Service–Learning is recognized as a valuable pedagogy that involves experiential learning, reflection, and reciprocal learning. Reflection is a critical component because it assists students to develop critical thinking and social awareness as they reflect upon their experiential learning with community partners. Although there is a proliferation of literature about service–learning, upon closer examination, it is apparent that some authors do not place emphasis on reflection when reporting on service–learning projects. This begs the question, “Where is the reflection?” The purpose of this article is to provide an overview and describe misrepresentations and exemplars of service–learning. After providing an overview of service–learning, examples of how service–learning is misrepresented in the literature are discussed. Exemplars of service–learning are also cited. Calling attention to how service–learning is reported in the literature will increase awareness about the need to critically evaluate articles for evidence of reflection

Service Learning in Undergraduate Nursing Education: Strategies to Facilitate Meaningful Reflection

Service learning is recognized as a valuable pedagogy involving experiential learning, reflection, and reciprocal learning. Students develop critical thinking and social awareness by using the crucial activity of reflecting upon their experiential learning with community partners. The purpose of this paper is to demystify the process of reflection by identifying best practices to enhance reflection and offering suggestions for grading. By understanding “the what” and “the how” of reflection, educators can implement service learning experiences designed to include the essential component of reflection. Strategies for facilitating meaningful reflection are described including descriptions of what students should reflect upon and how to initiate reflection through writing, reading, doing, and telling. Grading rubrics are suggested to facilitate evaluation of student reflection. When properly implemented, service learning encourages students to be good citizens of the world. By using best practices associated with reflection, students can be challenged to think critically about the world and how their service can achieve community goals

The HELP inequality on trees

We establish analogues of Hardy and Littlewood's integro-differential equation for Schrödinger-type operators on metric and discrete trees, based on a generalised strong limit-point property of the graph Laplacian

Resummed effective action in the world-line formalism

Using the world-line method we resum the scalar one-loop effective action. This is based on an exact expression for the one-loop action obtained for a background potential and a Taylor expansion of the potential up to quadratic order in x-space. We thus reproduce results of Masso and Rota very economically. An alternative resummation scheme is suggested using ``center of mass'' based loops which is equivalent under the assumption of vanishing third and higher derivatives in the Taylor expansion but leads to simplified expressions. In an appendix some general issues concerning the relation between world-line integrals with fixed end points versus integrals with fixed center are clarified. We finally note that this method is also very valuable for gauge field effective actions where it is based on the Euler--Heisenberg type resummation.Comment: 15 page

Experimental approaches to referential domains and the on-line processing of referring expressions in unscripted conversation

Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Little houses and casas pequenas: Message formulation and syntactic form in unscripted speech with speakers of English and Spanish

During unscripted speech, speakers coordinate the formulation of pre-linguistic messages with the linguistic processes that implement those messages into speech. We examine the process of constructing a contextually appropriate message and interfacing that message with utterance planning in English (the small butterfly) and Spanish (la mariposa pequeña) during an unscripted, interactive task. The coordination of gaze and speech during formulation of these messages is used to evaluate two hypotheses regarding the lower limit on the size of message planning units, namely whether messages are planned in units isomorphous to entire phrases or units isomorphous to single lexical items. Comparing the planning of fluent pre-nominal adjectives in English and post-nominal adjectives in Spanish showed that size information is added to the message later in Spanish than English, suggesting that speakers can prepare pre-linguistic messages in lexically-sized units. The results also suggest that the speaker can use disfluency to coordinate the transition from thought to speech

Rational solutions of pairs of diagonal equations, one cubic and one quadratic

We obtain an essentially optimal estimate for the moment of order 32/3 of the exponential sum having argument $\alpha x^3+\beta x^2$. Subject to modest local solubility hypotheses, we thereby establish that pairs of diagonal Diophantine equations, one cubic and one quadratic, possess non-trivial integral solutions whenever the number of variables exceeds 10

Task conflict in the Stroop task: When Stroop interference decreases as Stroop facilitation increases in a low task conflict context.

In the present study participants completed two blocks of the Stroop task, one in which the response-stimulus interval (RSI) was 3500 ms and one in which RSI was 200 ms. It was expected that, in line with previous research, the shorter RSI would induce a low Task Conflict context by increasing focus on the color identification goal in the Stroop task and lead to a novel finding of an increase in facilitation and simultaneous decrease in interference. Such a finding would be problematic for models of Stroop effects that predict these indices of performance should be affected in tandem. A crossover interaction is reported supporting these predictions. As predicted, the shorter RSI resulted in incongruent and congruent trial reaction times (RTs) decreasing relative to a static neutral baseline condition; hence interference decreased as facilitation increased. An explanatory model (expanding on the work of Goldfarb and Henik, 2007) is presented that: (1) Shows how under certain conditions the predictions from single mechanism models hold true (i.e., when Task conflict is held constant); (2) Shows how it is possible that interference can be affected by an experimental manipulation that leaves facilitation apparently untouched; and (3) Predicts that facilitation cannot be independently affected by an experimental manipulation

Non-thermal recombination - a neglected source of flare hard X-rays and fast electron diagnostic

Context. Flare Hard X-Rays (HXRs) from non-thermal electrons are commonly treated as solely bremsstrahlung (f-f), recombination (f-b) being neglected. This assumption is shown to be substantially in error, especially in hot sources, mainly due to recombination onto Fe ions. Aims. We analyse the effects on HXR spectra and electron diagnostics by including non-thermal recombination onto heavy elements in our model. Methods. Using Kramers hydrogenic cross sections with effective Z, we calculate f-f and f-b spectra for power-law electron spectra, in both thin and thick target limits, and for Maxwellians, with summation over all important ions. Results. We find that non-thermal electron recombination, especially onto Fe, must, in general, be included together with f-f, for reliable spectral interpretation, when the HXR source is hot. f-b contribution is greatest when the electron spectral index is large, and any low energy cut-off small. f-b spectra recombination edges mean a cut-off in F(E) appears as a HXR feature at Photon energy = Ec + Vz, offering an Ec diagnostic. Including f-b lowers, greatly in some cases, the F(E) needed for prescribed HXR fluxes and, even when small, seriously distorts F(E) as inferred by inversion or forward fitting based on f-f alone. Conclusions. f-b recombination from non-thermal electrons can be an important contributor to HXR spectra and should be included in spectral analyses, especially for hot sources. Accurate results will require use of better cross sections than ours and consideration of source ionisation structure.Comment: 13 pages, 2 tables, 9 figures, Accepted for publication in A&

Oxygen Isotopes of Al-Rich Chondrules from Unequilibrated Ordinary Chondrites

Al-rich chondrules (ARCs) are a rare constituent of chondrites. They have relatively high bulk Al_2O_3 content (> 10 wt%), which is due to the presence of Al-rich phases, such as plagioclase, spinel, Al-rich glass etc. [1]. ARCs share some chemical and petrologic characteristics with Ca, Al-rich inclusions (CAis), and may represent a genetic link between ferromagnesian chondrules and CAis