Personal development planning in the first year

The approach to quality and standards in higher education (HE) in Scotland is enhancement led and learner centred. It was developed through a partnership of the Scottish Funding Council (SFC), Universities Scotland, the National Union of Students in Scotland (NUS Scotland) and the Quality Assurance Agency for Higher Education (QAA) Scotland. The Higher Education Academy has also joined that partnership. The Enhancement Themes are a key element of a five-part framework, which has been designed to provide an integrated approach to quality assurance and enhancement. The Enhancement Themes support learners and staff at all levels in further improving higher education in Scotland; they draw on developing innovative practice within the UK and internationally The five elements of the framework are: z a comprehensive programme of subject-level reviews undertaken by higher education institutions (HEIs) themselves; guidance is published by the SFC (www.sfc.ac.uk) z enhancement-led institutional review (ELIR), run by QAA Scotland (www.qaa.ac.uk/reviews/ELIR) z improved forms of public information about quality; guidance is provided by the SFC (www.sfc.ac.uk) z a greater voice for students in institutional quality systems, supported by a national development service - student participation in quality scotland (sparqs) (www.sparqs.org.uk) z a national programme of Enhancement Themes aimed at developing and sharing good practice to enhance the student learning experience, facilitated by QAA Scotland (www.enhancementthemes.ac.uk). The topics for the Enhancement Themes are identified through consultation with the sector and implemented by steering committees whose members are drawn from the sector and the student body. The steering committees have the task of establishing a programme of development activities, which draw on national and international good practice. Publications emerging from each Theme are intended to provide important reference points for HEIs in the ongoing strategic enhancement of their teaching and learning provision. Full details of each Theme, its steering committee, the range of research and development activities as well as the outcomes are published on the Enhancement Themes website (www.enhancementthemes.ac.uk). To further support the implementation and embedding of a quality enhancement culture within the sector - including taking forward the outcomes of the Enhancement Themes - an overarching committee, the Scottish Higher Education Enhancement Committee (SHEEC), chaired by Professor Kenneth Miller, Vice-Principal, University of Strathclyde, has the important dual role of supporting the overall approach of the Enhancement Themes, including the five-year rolling plan, as well as institutional enhancement strategies and management of quality. SHEEC, working with the individual topic-based Enhancement Themes' steering committees, will continue to provide a powerful vehicle for progressing the enhancement-led approach to quality and standards in Scottish higher education

Taking references beyond your PC: Collaborating with local and internationally dispersed colleagues to write and publish a paper

EndNote, EndNote Web and RefWorks can be used to assist you when collaborating with internationally dispersed colleagues on writing and publishing an academic paper.https://ro.ecu.edu.au/ecuposters/1001/thumbnail.jp

Examining Rhetorics of Play in Curricula in Five Provinces: Is Play at Risk in Canadian Kindergartens?

In this article, school division and Ministry of Education–based early childhood consultants and university researchers respond to the question of whether play is at risk in kindergartens in five Canadian provinces by analyzing current and previous kindergarten curricula using Sutton-Smith’s framework of rhetorics of play. We find that play is integral to kindergarten curricula in Saskatchewan and Ontario, but only implicitly mentioned in the Alberta, British Columbia, and Manitoba curricula where support documents provide more support for play. The rhetoric of play as progress is the dominant discourse of current kindergarten curricula

Creating birds of similar feathers: Leveraging similarity to improve teacher-student relationships and academic achievement

When people perceive themselves as similar to others, greater liking and closer relationships typically result. In the first randomized field experiment that leverages actual similarities to improve real-world relationships, we examined the affiliations between 315 ninth grade students and their 25 teachers. Students in the treatment condition received feedback on five similarities that they shared with their teachers; each teacher received parallel feedback regarding about half of his/her ninth grade students. Five weeks after our intervention, those in the treatment conditions perceived greater similarity with their counterparts. Furthermore, when teachers received feedback about their similarities with specific students, they perceived better relationships with those students, and those students earned higher course grades. Exploratory analyses suggest that these effects are concentrated within relationships between teachers and their “underserved” students. This brief intervention appears to close the achievement gap at this school by over 60%

Prediction Scores Do Not Correlate with Clinically Adjudicated Categories of Pulmonary Embolism in Critically Ill Patients

Copyright © 2014 Hindawi Publishing Corporation. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.BACKGROUND: Prediction scores for pretest probability of pulmonary embolism (PE) validated in outpatient settings are occasionally used in the intensive care unit (ICU).OBJECTIVE: To evaluate the correlation of Geneva and Wells scores with adjudicated categories of PE in ICU patients.METHODS: In a randomized trial of thromboprophylaxis, patients with suspected PE were adjudicated as possible, probable or definite PE. Data were then retrospectively abstracted for the Geneva Diagnostic PE score, Wells, Modified Wells and Simplified Wells Diagnostic scores. The chance-corrected agreement between adjudicated categories and each score was calculated. ANOVA was used to compare values across the three adjudicated PE categories.RESULTS: Among 70 patients with suspected PE, agreement was poor between adjudicated categories and Geneva pretest probabilities (kappa 0.01 [95% CI −0.0643 to 0.0941]) or Wells pretest probabilities (kappa −0.03 [95% CI −0.1462 to 0.0914]). Among four possible, 16 probable and 50 definite PEs, there were no significant differences in Geneva scores (possible = 4.0, probable = 4.7, definite = 4.5; P=0.90), Wells scores (possible = 2.8, probable = 4.9, definite = 4.1; P=0.37), Modified Wells (possible = 2.0, probable = 3.4, definite = 2.9; P=0.34) or Simplified Wells (possible = 1.8, probable = 2.8, definite = 2.4; P=0.30).CONCLUSIONS: Pretest probability scores developed outside the ICU do not correlate with adjudicated PE categories in critically ill patients. Research is needed to develop prediction scores for this population

The structure of statutory sentencing provisions and the development of penal law in Canada in the middle of the nineteenth century: The case of Nova Scotia and Lower Canada (1851-1860).

The purpose of this research is to analyze statutory law that existed pre-1892 and consequently to present the backdrop of what existed before the actual Criminal Code. The research will concentrate specifically on the provinces of Lower Canada and of Nova Scotia for the time period of approximately 1850-1860 and will focus on the Revised Statutes of Nova Scotia of 1851 and the Consolidated Statutes of Lower Canada of 1860. The actual objective is twofold and will allow, firstly, for the presentation of the historical context and the development of penal law for these two provinces in order to demonstrate the emergence of the particular Statutes and, secondly, for the analysis of the actual sentencing provisions that are present in the two statutory documents. The present work is shedding light on a rather untouched domain of history of law and of sentencing provisions. The study reveals very interesting trends and patterns that have led to the development of these two statutory documents for each of the provinces concerned. One is able to see the importance of certain groups of elite in view of the existence of certain sanctioned behaviours as well as the whole process of legislative manoeuvres. As well, the contents of the Revised Statutes of Nova Scotia of 1851 and the Consolidated Statutes of Lower Canada of 1860 in terms of sentencing provisions, more specifically in reference to the offences against the person, demonstrate riveting sanctions and fascinating comparisons. In all, this research represents an important and relatively new view into the whole background of pre-1892 Criminal Code era in relation to statutory laws and sentencing provisions. The study provides for a window into the past that will serve to shed light on the laws of the present. (Abstract shortened by UMI.

Understanding climate, adapting to change: indigenous cultural values and climate change impacts in North Queensland

Many authors have suggested that Indigenous communities are especially vulnerable to the direct and indirect impacts of climate change, yet there remains a paucity of fine-grained geographic data on the particular impacts of climate change on specific places and on local communities, especially Australian Indigenous communities. While there are some recent studies being undertaken with Australia's Torres Strait Island people, our research takes up the issues of vulnerability and resilience with two Indigenous communities from different environments on the mainland in North Queensland. They are the Aboriginal peoples of the rainforest and reef environments of the Wet Tropics and the Aboriginal people of the discontiguous rainforest, grasslands, dry forests and marine environments of Cape York. The results demonstrate variability in their understandings of climate change and in their capacities to anticipate and manage its impacts, while at the same time illustrating some common held themes about environmental and cultural values, observed environmental change, attributions of cause and effect, and of climate in general