scholarly journals Re-vision, Re-tool, Re-spawn

2021 ◽  
pp. 333-351
Author(s):  
Chris Rosser ◽  
Grant Testut

Gameful design challenges instructors to rethink course design for today’s tech-saturated, pandemic-sequestered situation now that virtual is a crucial mode. We share two recent examples of gamification—curricular and co-curricular—demonstrating how gameful design yields whole-person, transformational learning. First, we describe our co-taught Bible and Classical Literature course, where hero-students journey into the dark, accomplish heroic tasks, earn badges, and engage desire-driven, side-quest learning. Second, we describe “Human Salvo: An Experiment with the Antidote to Zombification,” a virtual, Covid-inspired alternative to weekly in-person chapel offerings. Chapel-as-game responded to our shared experience of Fall 2020, fraught with four anxieties: pandemic/contagion, political tribes, economy, and racial (in)justice (the primary anxieties that characterize zombie genre as well). Examples offer assessable evidence of learning toward specified outcomes. Our aim is to spark creativity among librarians-as-teachers for re-visioning, re-tooling, and (perhaps) re-spawning as game-oriented instructors.

2008 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
pp. 76-82 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sarah M. Ginsberg

Abstract This qualitative study examined student perceptions regarding a hybrid classroom format in which part of their learning took place in a traditional classroom and part of their learning occurred in an online platform. Pre-course and post-course anonymous essays suggest that students may be open to learning in this context; however, they have specific concerns as well. Students raised issues regarding faculty communication patterns, learning styles, and the value of clear connections between online and traditional learning experiences. Student concerns and feedback need to be addressed through the course design and by the instructor in order for them to have a positive learning experience in a hybrid format course.


2002 ◽  
Vol 7 (3) ◽  
pp. 4-5

Abstract Different jurisdictions use the AMA Guides to the Evaluation of Permanent Impairment (AMA Guides) for different purposes, and this article reviews a specific jurisdictional definition in the Province of Ontario of catastrophic impairment that incorporates the AMA Guides. In Ontario, a whole person impairment (WPI) exceeding 54% or a mental or behavioral impairment of Class 4 or 5 qualifies the individual for catastrophic benefits, and individuals who do not meet the test receive a lesser benefit. By inference, this establishes a parity threshold among dissimilar injuries and dissimilar outcome assessment scales for benefits. In Ontario, the Glasgow Coma Scale (GCS) identifies patients who have a high probability of death or of severely disabled survival. The GCS recognizes gradations of vegetative state and disability, but translating the gradations for rating individual impairment on ordinal scales into a method of assessing percentage impairments cannot be done reliably, as explained in the AMA Guides, Fifth Edition. The AMA Guides also notes that mental and behavioral impairment in Class 4 (marked impairment) or 5 (extreme impairment) indicates “catastrophic impairment” by significantly impeding useful functioning (Class 4) or significantly impeding useful functioning and implying complete dependency on another person for care (Class 5). Translating the AMA Guides guidelines into ordinal scales cannot be done reliably.


2002 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 1-4, 12 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christopher R. Brigham

Abstract To account for the effects of multiple impairments, evaluating physicians must provide a summary value that combines multiple impairments so the whole person impairment is equal to or less than the sum of all the individual impairment values. A common error is to add values that should be combined and typically results in an inflated rating. The Combined Values Chart in the AMA Guides to the Evaluation of Permanent Impairment, Fifth Edition, includes instructions that guide physicians about combining impairment ratings. For example, impairment values within a region generally are combined and converted to a whole person permanent impairment before combination with the results from other regions (exceptions include certain impairments of the spine and extremities). When they combine three or more values, physicians should select and combine the two lowest values; this value is combined with the third value to yield the total value. Upper extremity impairment ratings are combined based on the principle that a second and each succeeding impairment applies not to the whole unit (eg, whole finger) but only to the part that remains (eg, proximal phalanx). Physicians who combine lower extremity impairments usually use only one evaluation method, but, if more than one method is used, the physician should use the Combined Values Chart.


2002 ◽  
Vol 7 (4) ◽  
pp. 8-10
Author(s):  
Christopher R. Brigham ◽  
Leon H. Ensalada

Abstract Recurrent radiculopathy is evaluated by a different approach in the AMA Guides to the Evaluation of Permanent Impairment (AMA Guides), Fifth Edition, compared to that in the Fourth Edition. The AMA Guides, Fifth Edition, specifies several occasions on which the range-of-motion (ROM), not the Diagnosis-related estimates (DRE) method, is used to rate spinal impairments. For example, the AMA Guides, Fifth Edition, clarifies that ROM is used only for radiculopathy caused by a recurrent injury, including when there is new (recurrent) disk herniation or a recurrent injury in the same spinal region. In the AMA Guides, Fourth Edition, radiculopathy was rated using the Injury Model, which is termed the DRE method in the Fifth Edition. Also, in the Fourth Edition, for the lumbar spine all radiculopathies resulted in the same impairment (10% whole person permanent impairment), based on that edition's philosophy that radiculopathy is not quantifiable and, once present, is permanent. A rating of recurrent radiculopathy suggests the presence of a previous impairment rating and may require apportionment, which is the process of allocating causation among two or more factors that caused or significantly contributed to an injury and resulting impairment. A case example shows the divergent results following evaluation using the Injury Model (Fourth Edition) and the ROM Method (Fifth Edition) and concludes that revisions to the latter for rating permanent impairments of the spine often will lead to different results compared to using the Fourth Edition.


2019 ◽  
Vol 24 (5) ◽  
pp. 14-15
Author(s):  
Jay Blaisdell ◽  
James B. Talmage

Abstract Ratings for “non-specific chronic, or chronic reoccurring, back pain” are based on the diagnosis-based impairment method whereby an impairment class, usually representing a range of impairment values within a cell of a grid, is selected by diagnosis and “specific criteria” (key factors). Within the impairment class, the default impairment value then can be modified using non-key factors or “grade modifiers” such as functional history, physical examination, and clinical studies using the net adjustment formula. The diagnosis of “nonspecific chronic, or chronic reoccurring, back pain” can be rated in class 0 and 1; the former has a default value of 0%, and the latter has a default value of 2% before any modifications. The key concept here is that the physician believes that the patient is experiencing pain, yet there are no related objective findings, most notably radiculopathy as distinguished from “nonverifiable radicular complaints.” If the individual is found not to have radiculopathy and the medical record shows that the patient has never had clinically verifiable radiculopathy, then the diagnosis of “intervertebral disk herniation and/or AOMSI [alteration of motion segment integrity] cannot be used.” If the patient is asymptomatic at maximum medical improvement, then impairment Class 0 should be chosen, not Class 1; a final whole person impairment rating of 1% indicates incorrect use of the methodology.


2009 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-5
Author(s):  
Craig Uejo ◽  
Marjorie Eskay-Auerbach ◽  
Christopher R. Brigham

Abstract Evaluators who use the AMA Guides to the Evaluation of Permanent Impairment (AMA Guides), Sixth Edition, should understand the significant changes that have occurred (as well as the Clarifications and Corrections) in impairment ratings for disorders of the cervical spine, thoracic spine, lumbar spine, and pelvis. The new methodology is an expansion of the Diagnosis-related estimates (DRE) method used in the fifth edition, but the criteria for defining impairment are revised, and the impairment value within a class is refined by information related to functional status, physical examination findings, and the results of clinical testing. Because current medical evidence does not support range-of-motion (ROM) measurements of the spine as a reliable indicator of specific pathology or permanent functional status, ROM is no longer used as a basis for defining impairment. The DRE method should standardize and simplify the rating process, improve validity, and provide a more uniform methodology. Table 1 shows examples of spinal injury impairment rating (according to region of the spine and category, with comments about the diagnosis and the resulting class assignment); Table 2 shows examples of spine impairment by region of the spine, class, diagnosis, and associated whole person impairment ratings form the sixth and fifth editions of the AMA Guides.


2008 ◽  
Vol 13 (2) ◽  
pp. 6-8
Author(s):  
Lorne Direnfeld ◽  
Christopher R. Brigham ◽  
Elizabeth Genovese

Abstract The AMA Guides to the Evaluation of Permanent Impairment (AMA Guides), does not provide a Diagnosis-based estimate of impairment due to syringomyelia, a disorder in which a cyst (syrinx), develops within the central spinal cord and destroys neural tissue as it expands. The AMA Guides, however, does provide an approach to rating a syringomyelia based on objective findings of neurological deficits identified during a neurological examination and demonstrated by standard diagnostic techniques. Syringomelia may occur after spinal cord trauma, including a contusion of the cord. A case study illustrates the rating process: The case patient is a 46-year-old male who fell backwards, landing on his upper back and head; over a five-year period he received a T5-6 laminectomy and later partial corpectomies of C5, C6, and C7, cervical discectomy C5-6 and C6-7; iliac crest strut graft fusion of C5-6 and C6-7; and anterior cervical plating of C5 to C7 for treatment of myelopathy; postoperatively, the patient developed dysphagia. The evaluating physician should determine which conditions are ratable, rate each of these components, and combine the resulting whole person impairments without omission or duplication of a ratable impairment. The article includes a pain disability questionnaire that can be used in conjunction with evaluations conducted according to Chapter 3, Pain, and Chapter 17, The Spine.


2003 ◽  
Vol 8 (5) ◽  
pp. 4-12
Author(s):  
Lorne Direnfeld ◽  
James Talmage ◽  
Christopher Brigham

Abstract This article was prompted by the submission of two challenging cases that exemplify the decision processes involved in using the AMA Guides to the Evaluation of Permanent Impairment (AMA Guides). In both cases, the physical examinations were normal with no evidence of illness behavior, but, based on their histories and clinical presentations, the patients reported credible symptoms attributable to specific significant injuries. The dilemma for evaluators was whether to adhere to the AMA Guides, as written, or to attempt to rate impairment in these rare cases. In the first case, the evaluating neurologist used alternative approaches to define impairment based on the presence of thoracic outlet syndrome and upper extremity pain, as if there were a nerve injury. An orthopedic surgeon who evaluated the case did not base impairment on pain and used the upper extremity chapters in the AMA Guides. The impairment ratings determined using either the nervous system or upper extremity chapters of the AMA Guides resulted in almost the same rating (9% vs 8% upper extremity impairment), and either value converted to 5% whole person permanent impairment. In the second case, the neurologist evaluated the individual for neuropathic pain (9% WPI), and the orthopedic surgeon rated the patient as Diagnosis-related estimates Cervical Category II for nonverifiable radicular pain (5% to 8% WPI).


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