Gifted Education to Honors Education: A Curious History, a Vibrant Future

Gifted programs and honors education have evolved along parallel tracks in the past decades with little interconnection or cross-communication. Exploring what these two fields can teach each other should allow us to collaborate in addressing their overlapping goals and potential conflicts in order to better educate bright young students. At both the high school and college levels, teachers often assume that gifted students need no special attention, that we can simply get out of their way and focus our attention on students who struggle academically. Those of us in both gifted and honors education know better. At the University of Iowa, scholars and teachers in the two fields have shared our insights into how to help this special group of students, and we hope to encourage increased collaboration throughout K–16 education. My introduction to gifted education took place in 1973 as a research assistant at the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Counseling Laboratory for Superior Students (Lab). Until then, I had been a seventh-grade social studies teacher, and while I had some very bright students in my classes, I had no experience or training with gifted education. Neither I nor any of my teaching colleagues had given any thought to issues that might affect gifted students in or out of school. Over the next four years at the Lab, I worked with high school students who were identified as gifted. Many were from small towns in Wisconsin who had received little special attention to their exceptional academic/artistic abilities, especially in terms of counseling. I learned that being smart in school was a complicated issue. Through individual and group discussion sessions as well as their written responses to open-ended stems, I learned from these Lab students about hidden issues regarding giftedness. Three takeaways from my four years at the Lab formed much of my later work in gifted education: 1. Students chose to deliberately earn lower grades and did not answer questions in class so that they would not be ostracized by their classmates as brains or nerds. 2. Teachers took subtle and not so subtle swipes at their students’ intelligence. Comments by teachers such as “Of course you should know the answer to this question, you are gifted” were not viewed as compliments, nor were they meant to be. What these students figured out was that in a school setting, it was not always smart to be smart. 3. Often these students were ready to learn more complex material and at a faster pace, but the curriculum did not allow for such customizing. Educators felt that students in the same grade should take the same curriculum

Malignant Hyperthermia

Malignant hyperthermia is a rare manifestation of a genetic mutation involving the ryanodine receptors. This mutation causes a sustained intracellular calcium release that is triggered by certain anesthetics such as depolarizing neuromuscular blockers and volatile gases. The extended release of calcium functions as a dangerous catalyst for hyper-metabolism that will lead to rapid death if unrecognized and untreated. Current treatment involves the drug dantrolene in tandem with symptomatic management in the intensive care setting. Symptomatic treatment may likely involve rapid cooling, fluid resuscitation, electrolyte management, and mechanical ventilation until symptoms resolve. A literature review of malignant hyperthermia is of vital importance due to its extreme rarity. Familiarity and competency are correlative. Thus, the more often practitioners receive education on malignant hyperthermia, the more success they will have in treating and preventing death wherever it may occur

A Nation Deceived: How Schools Hold Back America's Brightest Students, Volume II

Provides a comprehensive review of research on the academic acceleration of gifted students

Development and Implementation of an Ultrasound-Guided Peripheral Intravenous Catheter Insertion Training Program for Student Registered Nurse Anesthetists

The American Association of Nurse Anesthetists (AANA) has defined the scope of nurse anesthesia practice to include services in acute, chronic, and interventional pain management, as well as the use of ultrasound (U/S) and other diagnostic technologies. However, there are no standard curriculum requirements in place that mandate graduate programs to educate student nurse anesthetists in U/S-related modalities. In addition to the AANA, the use of U/S in nurse anesthesia practice has recently been adopted by The Council on Accreditation of Nurse Anesthesia Educational Programs (COA), which characterizes U/S use by its clinical impact on the reduction in complications, increased effectiveness of regional anesthesia, and enhanced quality of vascular catheter placement. The COA has strongly recommended that student registered nurse anesthetists (SRNA) have U/S education incorporated into their curriculum for its use both in regional anesthesia and vascular access. Currently, a Nurse Anesthesia Program (NAP) at a private university in the Midwest incorporates both didactic and simulation-based experiences into the education and training of SRNAs to establish a strong foundation of knowledge and proficiency upon which a safe and effective nurse anesthesia practice can be built. However, despite the COA recommendations and surmounting evidence supporting the use of simulation-based education in improving U/S knowledge and skill proficiency, the NAP did not have a formal ultrasound training course within its curriculum to prepare its SRNAs for the clinical setting. Consequently, a recent audit report conducted by the Director of the NAP revealed that 54.7 percent of the program’s SRNAs (N = 64) have never received any U/S training prior to entering the NAP (B. Garrett, personal communication, August 1, 2021). Given the recent data and the COA recommendations, the NAP recognized a critical need to educate SRNAs in the utilization of U/S in a simulation-based DEVELOPMENT AND IMPLEMENTATION OF AN ULTRASOUND PROGRAM 3 environment prior to entering their clinical practice rotations. Therefore, the purpose of the quality improvement project was to determine whether the implementation of a simulation-based U/S-guided peripheral intravenous catheter placement (U/SGPIV) training workshop would improve clinical knowledge and skill proficiency among the NAP SRNAs. The following objectives and methods were framed using the quality improvement Plan- Do-Check-Act (PDCA) Model and were established to achieve the project’s overall aim: 1) review and synthesize the evidence from the literature, AANA guidelines, and COA recommendations towards the development of an U/S training workshop using simulation-based techniques; 2) develop and implement a simulation-based U/SGPIV course; 3) evaluate the effects of the workshop on SRNA’s clinical knowledge and proficiency related to U/S and U/SGPIV; 4) develop plan for sustainability and present project findings (e.g., pre- and post- intervention observational clinical audit data and identified compliance barriers/lessons learned), evidence-based recommendations, and a sustainment plan to the key program faculty stakeholders as well as NAP executive leaders. The project was significant as it helped the NAP in its efforts to comply with the AANA guidelines and COA requirements for education programs to incorporate U/S training into their program curriculums in preparing its SRNAs for the clinical settings

Convection Enhanced Drug Delivery for the Treatment of Brain Gliomas

Malignant brain gliomas are almost always fatal, with a five year survival rate of only 3%. This is due in part to the difficulty of treating tumors chemically or surgically. They are often deep within the brain, where drugs cannot easily diffusive due to the blood-brain barrier and where surgery could be deadly. Emerging techniques for improved treatment include direct infusion of treatment drugs, like Paclitaxel, into the tumor in a procedure known as convection-enhanced drug delivery. These procedures require days of carefully monitored infusion to ensure tumor destruction while preserving surrounding tissue. To better understand the drug distribution and dosing options for different tumor sizes without dangerous medical tests, we have modeled the drug distribution within the tumor and surrounding tissue computationally. The model shows drug distributions consistent with current clinical results after a five day procedure. This model could now be used to better define dosing levels and procedure parameters to maximize tumor removal while preserving healthy tissue in individually unique cases

A Nation Deceived: How Schools Hold Back America's Brightest Students, Volume I

Identifies twelve main reasons why schools have held back students. Includes examples of effective acceleration practice, attests to the cost effectiveness of acceleration, and provides specific ideas for promoting accelerative practices

Passive Mixing Capabilities of Micro- and Nanofibres When Used in Microfluidic Systems

Nanofibres are increasingly being used in the field of bioanalytics due to their large surface-area-to-volume ratios and easy-to-functionalize surfaces. To date, nanofibres have been studied as effective filters, concentrators, and immobilization matrices within microfluidic devices. In addition, they are frequently used as optical and electrochemical transduction materials. In this work, we demonstrate that electrospun nanofibre mats cause appreciable passive mixing and therefore provide dual functionality when incorporated within microfluidic systems. Specifically, electrospun nanofibre mats were integrated into Y-shaped poly(methyl methacrylate) microchannels and the degree of mixing was quantified using fluorescence microscopy and ImageJ analysis. The degree of mixing afforded in relationship to fibre diameter, mat height, and mat length was studied. We observed that the most mixing was caused by small diameter PVA nanofibres (450-550 nm in diameter), producing up to 71% mixing at the microchannel outlet, compared to up to 51% with polystyrene microfibres (0.8-2.7 p.m in diameter) and 29% mixing in control channels containing no fibres. The mixing afforded by the PVA nanofibres is caused by significant inhomogeneity in pore size and distribution leading to percolation. As expected, within all the studies, fluid mixing increased with fibre mat height, which corresponds to the vertical space of the microchannel occupied by the fibre mats. Doubling the height of the fibre mat led to an average increase in mixing of 14% for the PVA nanofibres and 8% for the PS microfibres. Overall, mixing was independent of the length of the fibre mat used (3-10 mm), suggesting that most mixing occurs as fluid enters and exits the fibre mat. The mixing effects observed within the fibre mats were comparable to or better than many passive mixers reported in literature. Since the nanofibre mats can be further functionalized to couple analyte concentration, immobilization, and detection with enhanced fluid mixing, they are a promising nanomaterial providing dual-functionality within lab-on-a-chip devices

TcOPT3, a Member of Oligopeptide Transporters from the Hyperaccumulator Thlaspi caerulescens, Is a Novel Fe/Zn/Cd/Cu Transporter

BACKGROUND: Thlaspi caerulescens is a natural selected heavy metal hyperaccumulator that can not only tolerate but also accumulate extremely high levels of heavy metals in the shoots. Thus, to identify the transportors involved in metal long-distance transportation is very important for understanding the mechanism of heavy metal accumulation in this hyperaccumulator. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: We cloned and characterized a novel gene TcOPT3 of OPT family from T. caerulescens. TcOPT3 was pronouncedly expressed in aerial parts, including stem and leaf. Moreover, in situ hybridization analyses showed that TcOPT3 expressed in the plant vascular systems, especially in the pericycle cells that may be involved in the long-distance transportation. The expression of TcOPT3 was highly induced by iron (Fe) and zinc (Zn) deficiency, especially in the stem and leaf. Sub-cellular localization showed that TcOPT3 was a plasma membrane-localized protein. Furthermore, heterogonous expression of TcOPT3 by mutant yeast (Saccharomyces cerevisiae) complementation experiments demonstrated that TcOPT3 could transport Fe(2+) and Zn(2+). Moreover, expression of TcOPT3 in yeast increased metal (Fe, Zn, Cu and Cd) accumulation and resulted in an increased sensitivity to cadmium (Cd) and copper (Cu). CONCLUSIONS: Our data demonstrated that TcOPT3 might encode an Fe/Zn/Cd/Cu influx transporter with broad-substrate. This is the first report showing that TcOPT3 may be involved in metal long-distance transportation and contribute to the heavy metal hyperaccumulation

Gifted Education to Honors Education: A Curious History, a Vibrant Future

Gifted programs and honors education have evolved along parallel tracks in the past decades with little interconnection or cross-communication. Exploring what these two fields can teach each other should allow us to collaborate in addressing their overlapping goals and potential conflicts in order to better educate bright young students. At both the high school and college levels, teachers often assume that gifted students need no special attention, that we can simply get out of their way and focus our attention on students who struggle academically. Those of us in both gifted and honors education know better. At the University of Iowa, scholars and teachers in the two fields have shared our insights into how to help this special group of students, and we hope to encourage increased collaboration throughout K–16 education. My introduction to gifted education took place in 1973 as a research assistant at the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Counseling Laboratory for Superior Students (Lab). Until then, I had been a seventh-grade social studies teacher, and while I had some very bright students in my classes, I had no experience or training with gifted education. Neither I nor any of my teaching colleagues had given any thought to issues that might affect gifted students in or out of school. Over the next four years at the Lab, I worked with high school students who were identified as gifted. Many were from small towns in Wisconsin who had received little special attention to their exceptional academic/artistic abilities, especially in terms of counseling. I learned that being smart in school was a complicated issue. Through individual and group discussion sessions as well as their written responses to open-ended stems, I learned from these Lab students about hidden issues regarding giftedness. Three takeaways from my four years at the Lab formed much of my later work in gifted education: 1. Students chose to deliberately earn lower grades and did not answer questions in class so that they would not be ostracized by their classmates as brains or nerds. 2. Teachers took subtle and not so subtle swipes at their students’ intelligence. Comments by teachers such as “Of course you should know the answer to this question, you are gifted” were not viewed as compliments, nor were they meant to be. What these students figured out was that in a school setting, it was not always smart to be smart. 3. Often these students were ready to learn more complex material and at a faster pace, but the curriculum did not allow for such customizing. Educators felt that students in the same grade should take the same curriculum