Cytotoxicity and effect of extraction methods on the chemical composition of essential oils of Moringa oleifera seeds

Renewed interest in natural materials as food flavors and preservatives has led to the search for suitable essential oils. Moringa oleifera seed essential oil was extracted by solvent-free microwave and hydrodistillation. This study assessed its chemical constituents. Cytotoxicity of the oils was investigated using hatchability and lethality tests on brine shrimps. A total of 16 and 26 compounds were isolated from the hydrodistillation extraction (HDE) and solvent-free microwave extraction (SME) oils, respectively, which accounted for 97.515% and 97.816% of total identifiable constituents, respectively. At 24 h when the most eggs had hatched, values of the SME (56.7%) and HDE (60.0%) oils were significantly different (P<0.05) from those of sea water (63.3%) and chloramphenicol (15.0%). Larva lethality was different significantly (P<0.05) between HDE and SME oils at different concentrations and incubation periods. The median lethal concentration (LC₅₀) of the oils was >1000 mg/ml recommended as an index for non-toxicity, which gives the oil advantage over some antioxidant, antimicrobial, therapeutic, and preservative chemicals.     

Exploring factors that influence adoption of e‐learning within higher education

E‐learning is increasingly adopted in the workplace for supporting professional development and continuing education; however, in higher education, the use of e‐learning is predominantly used as a tool support teaching. As a relatively new priority for universities, this paper explores what influences its adoption. Challenges identified in the literature include organisational features of universities like faculty autonomy and dispersed academic perspectives. This study, carried out at the University of Warwick, adopted a phenomenological approach and explored participants' perceptions through a series of faculty‐based focus groups and individual interviews. Factors identified as influential to adoption of e‐learning included the institutional infrastructure, staff attitudes and skills, and perceived student expectations. Participants suggested the importance of an institutional strategy targeted at providing sufficient resources and guidance for effective implementation. This strategy needs to be supported by a varied programme of staff development and opportunities for sharing practice among colleagues. In further developing understanding in this area, it would be beneficial to replicate the study with other stakeholder groups (including the leadership team and students) to develop an institutional strategy responsive at all levels of implementation. It would also be valuable to investigate the extent to which these findings are replicated within other workplaces looking to adopt innovation.     

Thai pre-service science teachers engaging action research during their fifth year internship

As a key element in teacher education programmes, action research is a learning process in which pre-service teachers inquire, reflect on and improve their teaching practices. This qualitative study sought to understand what enhanced or hindered Thai pre-service teachers' action research projects during their student teaching. This study drew upon written reflections, focus-group interviews and observations of seminar sessions. Data analysis was inductive, involving categorical aggregation followed by a search for correspondence and patterns. The results indicated that the pre-service teachers misunderstood action research, and also held a negative attitude toward it, both of which led them to superficial analyses of practice. They struggled with time limitations, data gathering and interpretation strategies. In spite of the struggles they experienced, these pre-service science teachers did learn more about the action research through collaboratively working with cooperating teachers and university supervisors and on-campus seminar discussions held concurrently with the fifth year internship. Recognizing and understanding the reasons and thinking patterns at the root of these teachers' difficulties with learning about action research can form the basis for reflecting on and rethinking the components of science teacher preparation programmes in Thailand.     

When worlds collide: identity,culture and the lived experiences of research when ‘teaching-led’

This article presents detailed findings from the qualitative or interpretive phase of a mixed-methods case study focusing on the professional identities and lived experiences of research among six lecturers working in different capacities across the field of education in a ‘teaching-led’ higher education institution. Building upon the quantitative phase published earlier in this journal, factors both facilitating (e.g. research infrastructure, support for doctoral study) and constraining (e.g. time, space, workload, critical mass, ‘practitioner bond professionalism’, ‘organisational socialisation’, networks, roles and responsibilities, power relationships) research activity are identified. These are considered in the context of an institution often recruiting staff with ‘non-traditional’ backgrounds from within ‘the professions’ (e.g. from schools and colleges without doctorates) looking to become more ‘research-informed’ and establish a more vibrant and sustainable research culture. Recommendations for further development focus on ‘identity transitions’ and ‘cultural transformation’, emphasising the importance of research leadership and its distribution throughout the organisation. With current trends towards the apparent intensification and prioritisation of research activity over teaching, findings are considered particularly important for institutions of a similar nature to the one described here, for education departments in larger institutions also on similar journeys, and in light of an anticipated increase in demand for research activity arising from the expansion of higher education provision in further education and the private sector, where recruitment from within ‘the professions’ to teach across ‘vocational’ programmes is common.     

Improved Appreciation of Mathematics Through an IBL Liberal Arts Mathematics Course

Abstract

The author has taught an inquiry-based liberal arts mathematics class using the text “The Heart of Mathematics: An Invitation to Effective Thinking” by Edward B. Burger and Michael Starbird a total of 20 times since Spring 2001. The students in this class have almost all been in non-technical majors and many started the semester with negative or ambivalent attitudes toward mathematics based on their prior experiences. The author has gathered responses from students in this class that illustrate significant changes in their attitudes towards mathematics during the course. In particular, the responses gathered at the end of the semester are often eloquent about understanding the great ideas of mathematics that students confronted in this course and about seeing many more and varied connections between mathematics and the “real world” than they had previously realized existed.     

Students’ Perspectives on LGBTQ-Inclusive Curriculum

Implementing curriculum that is inclusive of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, and questioning (LGBTQ) people has the potential to create an equitable learning environment. In order to learn more about students’ experiences of LGBTQ-inclusive curriculum, 26 high school students with diverse racial/ethnic, sexual, and gender identities were recruited from the Gay Straight Alliance (GSA) Network in California. Students participated in focus groups conducted by telephone by GSA staff, sharing their experiences of LGBTQ-inclusive curriculum in school. Qualitative coding methods, including grounded theory, were used to identify themes and interpret students’ responses. Data revealed that LGBTQ-inclusive curriculum was most often taught in social sciences and humanities courses as stand-alone lessons. LGBTQ-inclusive curriculum rarely met standards of social justice education, though opportunities for critical conversations about systemic oppression regularly emerged. For instance, teachers often failed to intervene in LGBTQ bullying and missed teachable moments conducive to inclusive curriculum. Some students learned positive LGBTQ lessons and highlighted the ways such curriculum reflected their identities and created a supportive school climate. Implications for equitable education are discussed.     

Boarding schools: A longitudinal examination of Australian Indigenous and non-Indigenous boarders’ and non-boarders’ wellbeing

Improving educational outcomes for Indigenous Australian students is a key strategy to helping Indigenous people reach their full potential. This has resulted in well-intentioned efforts by Australian educators and governments to ensure Indigenous children have positive school experiences. However, Indigenous students still lag behind their non-Indigenous counterparts in educational outcomes. This is particularly so for Indigenous students living in rural and remote parts of Australia where educational opportunities are limited, especially in high school. One solution to this problem has been to enrol these students in boarding schools in urban and metropolitan centres. While research on the success of boarding schools for Indigenous students is scarce, what little that does exist is not encouraging. The focus of this research was to examine the effects of boarding for Indigenous (n = 11) and non-Indigenous students’ (n = 158) wellbeing (N = 1423) in two large private boys’ schools. Participating students aged 12–18 years old completed a survey measuring wellbeing constructs on two occasions, 12 months apart. Non-Indigenous boys were generally higher in wellbeing compared with Indigenous boys. There was also evidence of improved social wellbeing beyond that of non-Indigenous boarders over time. Overall, while evidence of merit was weak, boarding schools may benefit their Indigenous students’ development in social wellbeing.