Personal epistemology

Personal epistemology is a complex and contested area (Schraw 2001) with a number of approaches (i.e. as beliefs, development models, resources). However, regardless of the various approaches, personal epistemology appears to consist of specific dimensions that comprise individual understanding of knowledge and knowing and which influence comprehension, cognitive processing, and conceptual change learning (Hofer 2004). Students’ personal epistemology could be an important factor in their ability to engage with certain pedagogies in higher education (e.g. problem based learning, reflective learning) and their required levels of knowledge handling and production. There is evidence to suggest that epistemological views should be addressed in helping students cope with higher education (Kember 2001). The workshop will consider the idea that personal epistemology can be: ‘…a lens to use in understanding students’ ideas and behaviour, in assessing students’ abilities and needs, and in adapting their plans and strategies for instruction.’ (Hammer and Elby 2002, p169) However, the danger of pigeon-holing students is ever present! The workshop will therefore critically explore current thinking on personal epistemology and relate it to specific contexts and subject domains. We will look at how views on knowledge and knowing might impact on learning, and reflect on how increased understanding might allow improved methods of preparing and developing learners to deal with the constructed and complex nature of learning

Addressivity and Sociability in “Celtic Men”

This paper is part of a larger project which examines the sociable dimensions of computer-mediated communication in local newsgroups on the Internet. This paper, however, takes as its primary data a complete thread of eighty five messages posted to RumCom’s largest ISP specific newsgroup,\ud rumcom.local. The messages share the subject header “Celtic Men” and play off contributors ideas about regional aspects of masculinity and male sexuality. As a whole they provide a good example of both a specific culturally located example of developing communication and a more general example of newsgroup CMC. Using this case as our exemplar we shall hold up for examination three matters: how the technology and software supplied by RumCom influence the form of interaction within the newsgroup; how different types of addressivity are used by posters to manage their communication; and how the notion of sociability figures as a useful device to characterise the specific traits of newsgroup interaction

Qualitative exploration of the views of healthy living champions from pharmacies in England.

BACKGROUND: In England, the 'Healthy Living Pharmacy (HLP)' initiative has been trialed; positive outcomes led to national roll-out across England to 20 pathfinder sites. A HLP provides health promotion/prevention services through a structured framework to meet local population need. Non-pharmacist staff receive additional training so that they can provide these services, and are known as Healthy Living Champions (HLCs). OBJECTIVES: To explore HLCs views on their role and to identify any barriers or facilitators in performing the role. METHODS: Fourteen semi-structured face-to-face interviews were conducted during February and March 2013 in NHS Dudley, and analysed using the principles of content analysis. RESULTS: Three themes emerged from the interviews; HLC job role; training; and public awareness. HLC staff showed high levels of motivation, a strong desire to help people and felt a sense of personal reward, resulting in increased levels of job satisfaction. Training had improved their confidence but they still had reservations in offering services such as alcohol intervention and weight management. All believed that public awareness was low despite advertising. CONCLUSION: HLCs were positive toward their new role and derived job satisfaction from helping people to improve their health, although on-going training and support was perceived as important

Geometric Crossing-Minimization - A Scalable Randomized Approach

We consider the minimization of edge-crossings in geometric drawings of graphs G=(V, E), i.e., in drawings where each edge is depicted as a line segment. The respective decision problem is NP-hard [Daniel Bienstock, 1991]. Crossing-minimization, in general, is a popular theoretical research topic; see Vrt\u27o [Imrich Vrt\u27o, 2014]. In contrast to theory and the topological setting, the geometric setting did not receive a lot of attention in practice. Prior work [Marcel Radermacher et al., 2018] is limited to the crossing-minimization in geometric graphs with less than 200 edges. The described heuristics base on the primitive operation of moving a single vertex v to its crossing-minimal position, i.e., the position in R^2 that minimizes the number of crossings on edges incident to v. In this paper, we introduce a technique to speed-up the computation by a factor of 20. This is necessary but not sufficient to cope with graphs with a few thousand edges. In order to handle larger graphs, we drop the condition that each vertex v has to be moved to its crossing-minimal position and compute a position that is only optimal with respect to a small random subset of the edges. In our theoretical contribution, we consider drawings that contain for each edge uv in E and each position p in R^2 for v o(|E|) crossings. In this case, we prove that with a random subset of the edges of size Theta(k log k) the co-crossing number of a degree-k vertex v, i.e., the number of edge pairs uv in E, e in E that do not cross, can be approximated by an arbitrary but fixed factor delta with high probability. In our experimental evaluation, we show that the randomized approach reduces the number of crossings in graphs with up to 13 000 edges considerably. The evaluation suggests that depending on the degree-distribution different strategies result in the fewest number of crossings

Post qualifying specialist awards: approaches to enabling work-based learning in social work

All post-qualifying social work specialist awards are required to include ‘enabling the learning of others’, so that specialist social workers can provide basic support to learners in the workplace (GSCC 2006). This paper reports on a new programme unit we have designed at Bournemouth University. Our overall approach encompasses the necessary competences, but also provides for a more holistic and flexible outcome – capability. We follow the ideas of authors such as Lester (1995), Fook et al. (2000), and Barnett & Coate (2005) who show that professional development is more concerned with approaches and processes rather than fixed knowledge and outcomes. They place importance on practitioners developing the ability to identify and interpret the multifaceted nature of situations whilst considering a range of alternative options, in order to deal with the complexity and uncertainty of practice. The type of practice learning required to develop such skills, abilities and attributes is also necessarily rich in complexity. As Cheetham and Chivers (2001) point out there is no single theory of learning in the workplace and there is danger in placing too much reliance on a single approach. In accordance with the ideas above we advocate a mindset of continuing learning through critically reflective practice and collaboration with others. The presentation will discuss our learning materials and pedagogy, which aim to not only encourage and develop active, experiential, and critically reflective learning but also allow for the constructive and creative methods for the enabling of such learning. In this way we believe social workers may be educated to fully develop the professional capability or dynamic competence (Doel et al. 2002) that will enable themselves and others to function effectively in the complex world of practice. The specially written book for this unit will be distributed free to participants at the workshop

An enquiry into the predictive value of grammar school entrance examinations

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Role of community pharmacists in patients' self-care and self-medication

This review highlights the growing prominence of self-care and explores the contribution of community pharmacy. Firstly, background to self-care is discussed, followed by placing self-care in context with regard to the general public and accessing community pharmacy. From this perspective the contribution community pharmacy currently makes is assessed, paying particular attention to the factors that negatively impact on the ability of community pharmacy to facilitate self-care