“I Thought It Was My Fault Just for Being Born”. A Review of an SEL Programme for Teenage Victims of Domestic Violence

Research has established the life-altering effects of living with domestic violence on young people. Traumatic experiences negatively impact their education, leisure activities, and social-emotional learning (SEL). The secrecy concerning domestic violence means young people suffer self-blame, shame, fear of disclosure and family separation. The researcher designed a 12-week multimedia programme, ‘up2talk’, to enhance the communications skills and emotional literacy of the participants. Parents and teenagers were fully informed of the aims and previously attended the family service hosting the programme. Domestic violence was identified as a core issue, without the expectation of personal disclosure. This approach enabled young people to voice and explore the effects of domestic violence on their lives. Participants developed the elements of the programme and a family worker co-facilitated the groups. The third-party approaches: ‘how would a teenager feel?’, artistic expression, assertiveness, debates and videoing drama increased SEL and generated discussion, while protecting privacy. Parents provided two interviews concerning their children, and teenagers provided three individual interviews and ongoing group reviews. A thematic analysis showed a reduction in shame and self-blame, enhanced self-esteem and self-efficacy, increased engagement in education and recreation and improved family relationships. Themes were triangulated by facilitators’ observations, interview data, artefacts, group reviews and parental feedback. All families were offered follow-up support. The effectiveness of the interactive group indicates opportunities for its development in educational and youth settings.

A telehealth-based training model for an ambulatory care pharmacy skills course

Description: Increasingly, pharmacy services are provided using telehealth-based modalities. This paper describes a pharmacy skills course that utilised telehealth principles to train students on the technical and communications skills necessary for the ambulatory care setting. Zoom breakout rooms, electronic health records, YouTube video vignettes, and teaching assistants portraying patients/physicians simulated a telehealth-based ambulatory care setting. Evaluation: Five quizzes and six written assignments were utilised to measure student’s knowledge and skills. At the end of the course, students were evaluated through a three-station objective structured clinical exam (OSCE). Students also completed a pre/post attitudes survey. Result: Overall, students performed well on various assessments including quizzes and written assignments. The majority of the students performed well on the OSCE. Significant improvement was noted on all items in the attitudes survey. Conclusion: This study suggests that a telehealth training model can be effective in teaching pharmacy students both the technical and communication skills necessary for practice in the ambulatory care setting.

Relationship between Teachers’ Professional Training and use of Instructional Strategies to Enhance Pupils’ Literacy Skills in Lower Primary Schools in Busia County, Kenya

Children who possess adequate basic language skills develop cognitive and social skills required in life and workplace. It also enhances smooth transition, performance, and retention and completion rate. Teachers with adequate professional training skills exhibits a potential to influent development of language skills in children. The Kenyan policy states that basic education and early learning is compulsory to all children. Therefore, it is relevant that teachers are equipped with adequate training skills to become champions in the realization of the country’s overall goal in education sector. This paper presents results from a study conducted in lower primary schools in Nambale sub-county Busia County to establish whether teachers’ professional training had an influence in the way teachers use instructional strategies to enhance pupils’ literacy skills. This was essential towards improving overall academic outcomes and communications skills in children.

The Impact of Community Service Experience on the Undergraduate Students’ Learning Curve and Subsequent Changes of the Curriculum- A Quality Improvement Project at a Caribbean Medical University

Background: Community service learning seems to positively impact undergraduate medical students’ practical procedural and communications skills. Events like health fairs also strengthen the bond between healthcare providers and the wider community. Recognizing this mutually beneficial situation, national accreditation agencies and medical boards have recommended incorporating community-based learning in the core undergraduate curriculum. Our university is the first to probe medical students’ perceptions of community service in our region to the best of our knowledge.Objectives: We sought to analyze the experience of our students to improve the practical value of the curriculum.Methods: This was a qualitative survey interviewing medical students volunteering at a health fair in a Caribbean Island aimed to screen gross cardio-vascular and metabolic abnormalities in the native adult population. The focus group interviews were processed, transcribed and coded for thematic analyses by independent observers.Results: Overall, the students perceived CS as an opportunity to improve their clinical procedural and communications skills and to apply theoretical medical knowledge in practice to detect undiagnosed conditions like diabetes mellitus, hypertension and nutritional imbalance.Pedagogical implications: We have increased practical laboratory sessions by 15% in the new semester to improve our students’ practical skills.Conclusions: This is the first study that describes how community service may influence the individual learning curve of undergraduate medical students and may serve as a quality improvement tool to guide amendments to the curriculum. We opine that inter-agency, community-focused service promotes social, peer and active learning amongst undergraduate medical students.

The Importance of Partnerships for Effective Protected Area Management

Protected areas work in complex environments in which they have to liaise with governments, scientific and civil society organizations, volunteers, local stakeholders, visitors, and funders. This requires next to thematic expertise on conservation, among others legal, management, financial, administrative and communications skills and capacities. Especially the smaller protected areas struggle to efficiently operate in all these specialized fields and often lack enough in-house capacity and resources. This chapter highlights the lessons learned and evolvement of various forms of partnerships in different countries on different continents (collaborative arrangement in Laos and different formal and informal arrangements in the Western Balkans). Core to the success is to build sufficient capacity within the protected area management authorities so they understand the priorities and the resources needed to fund, manage and implement these priorities. Specialized skills and capacities needed for effective protected area management are limited in most countries and it is inefficient and too expensive to build this capacity in-house. Having a clear vision on what needs to be done and building a strong cooperation between partners through effective communication is the key to success to come to more effective protected area management either on a national, regional or transboundary level.

Book of Abstracts of the 4th Symposium on Electrical and Computer Engineering

The Symposium of Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE), integrated in the 2021 edition of FEUP’s Doctoral Congress of Engineering is an important showcase for PhD research in this broad and vibrant area, and an opportunity for doctoral students to interact, to improve communications skills, and to gather feedback on their research work.

GP Trainees' perceptions and experiences of the training placement in Psychiatry - A qualitative study

AimsThis qualitative study aims to explore the leaning needs of the GP trainees for their psychiatry placements.MethodIn this qualitative study, semi-structured interviews of eight former GP trainees were conducted. Data were transcribed and analysed using thematic analysis. Triangulation through multiple analysts” was used to improve the validity of the studyResultThis study identified six key areas of learning needs for GP trainees during their psychiatry placement. i) the on-call experience which enabled the participants to learn how to manage acutely unwell patients in psychiatry, ii) learning the self-harm and suicidal risk assessment which is an important skill for a GP practising in primary care, iii) training in relation to psychiatric medication which enabled GPs to prescribe more confidently in the community, iv) exposure to the community psychiatry which was helpful in getting exposure to community-based clinical practice, v) learning from formal teaching activities which can be tailored to cover the relevant primary care related clinical topics and finally, vi) getting the opportunity to improve the communications skills during the psychiatry placement which is useful for all doctor in training.ConclusionWe recommend that detailed induction of the service setup is required before GP trainees start on-calls and a well-defined support network should be provided and explained to the training doctors. Risk assessment teaching should be delivered by formal training, regular supervision and discussions. Training on psychiatric medication especially in the context of GP prescribing should be considered as part of formal teaching experience. Opportunities to work with community mental health teams and outpatient clinics should be generated and offered to the trainees. Formal teaching sessions should be set up with an understanding of the GP training curriculum and their learning needs. Improvement of communications skills with exposure to difficult communication scenarios under supervision during psychiatric placement should be identified as an important area of learning for the GP trainees.

Why Should Scientists be on YouTube? It’s all About Bamboo, Oil and Ice Cream

Scientific information is a key ingredient needed to tackle global challenges like climate change, but to do this it must be communicated in ways that are accessible to diverse groups, and that go beyond traditional methods (peer-reviewed publications). For decades there have been calls for scientists to improve their communication skills—with each other and the public—but, this problem persists. During this time there have been astonishing changes in the visual communication tools available to scientists. I see video as the next step in this evolution. In this paper I highlight three major changes in the visual communication tools over the past 100 years, and use three memorable items—bamboo, oil and ice cream—and analogies and metaphors to explain why and how Do-it-Yourself (DIY) videos made by scientists, and shared on YouTube, can radically improve science communication and engagement. I also address practical questions for scientists to consider as they learn to make videos, and organize and manage them on YouTube. DIY videos are not a silver bullet that will automatically improve science communication, but they can help scientists to 1) reflect on and improve their communications skills, 2) tell stories about their research with interesting visuals that augment their peer-reviewed papers, 3) efficiently connect with and inspire broad audiences including future scientists, 4) increase scientific literacy, and 5) reduce misinformation. Becoming a scientist videographer or scientist DIY YouTuber can be an enjoyable, creative, worthwhile and fulfilling activity that can enhance many aspects of a scientist’s career.

Layoffs, inequity and COVID-19: A longitudinal study of the journalism jobs crisis in Australia from 2012 to 2020

In Australia and beyond, journalism is reportedly an industry in crisis, a crisis exacerbated by COVID-19. However, the evidence revealing the crisis is often anecdotal or limited in scope. In this unprecedented longitudinal research, we draw on data from the Australian journalism jobs market from January 2012 until March 2020. Using Data Science and Machine Learning techniques, we analyse two distinct data sets: job advertisements (ads) data comprising 3698 journalist job ads from a corpus of over 8 million Australian job ads; and official employment data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics. Having matched and analysed both sources, we address both the demand for and supply of journalists in Australia over this critical period. The data show that the crisis is real, but there are also surprises. Counter-intuitively, the number of journalism job ads in Australia rose from 2012 until 2016, before falling into decline. Less surprisingly, for the entire period studied the figures reveal extreme volatility, characterised by large and erratic fluctuations. The data also clearly show that COVID-19 has significantly worsened the crisis. We then tease out more granular findings, including: that there are now more women than men journalists in Australia, but that gender inequity is worsening, with women journalists getting younger and worse-paid just as men journalists are, on average, getting older and better-paid; that, despite the crisis besetting the industry, the demand for journalism skills has increased; and that, perhaps concerningly, the skills sought by journalism job ads increasingly include ‘social media’ and ‘generalist communications’ skills.

A blended learning approach towards reducing the written communication gap: the role of Self-Regulated Learning dimensions

This study analyses the effectiveness of a blended learning strategy, designed to improve the written communication skills of a cohort of Accounting and Finance students. Moore and Morton (2017) stressed that the written communication gap mainly arises due to students’ inability to utilise their writing skills in a dynamic process. Therefore this paper analyses the connection between the self-regulation learning (SRL) strategy, the writing learning process and the blended learning approach. The findings reveal that SRL dimensions play a significant role in the successful application of the blended learning strategy. The dimensions also support the blended approach in enhancing written communications skills among accounting students. The study has relevant and practical implications for promoting the application of a blended learning strategy using SRL successfully. Additionally, our findings offer a learning strategy to address the unresolved skills gap, affecting written communication within Business Schools.