Intelligent Job Aids For Professionals: Lessons Learned From Medicine

With the rapid advancements in artificial intelligence, computer science, and information management seen today, it is becoming increasingly feasible to improve the performance of professional white collar workers with intelligent job aids (i.e., expert systems). Already, performance technologists are advocating and predicting their wide spread adoption. Nevertheless, while such high tech performance interventions are relatively new to business, they have existed in medical research labs and clinics for nearly 20 years. Because of the almost ideal match between medical decision making and the emergent capabilities of knowledge engineering, artificial intelligence researchers made medicine one of their major testing grounds. In this article, I summarize the use of intelligent job aids in medicine as a source of insights for anticipating how they can and should be used by professionals in other areas. These insights include three generalizations which form the conclusion of the paper: (a) intelligent job aids must address a real need, (b) they must be compatible with professionals' larger “performance systems,” and (c) the adoption of intelligent job aids will depend as much on future trends as on the professionals' needs or performance systems.     

The emergent literacy skills of four-year-old children receiving free kindergarten early childhood education in New Zealand

This study investigated the emergent literacy and language skills of four-year-old children in New Zealand during their kindergarten year prior to school-entry. A total of 92 four-year-old children from a range of socio-economic areas were seen individually at their local kindergarten and were assessed on code-related measures (letter name knowledge, initial phoneme awareness, emergent name writing) and meaning-related measures (story comprehension and retelling ability). Approximately, 60% of the parents completed a home literacy questionnaire. Regression analyses showed no effect for age on any of the code-related measures. In contrast, significant effects for age were found on story comprehension and retelling ability. There were no differences in performance based on gender with two exceptions: Girls performed better than boys on letter name knowledge and early name writing. Questionnaire results suggested literacy activities were valued in the home environment with most parents reporting reading to their child each night, and the majority of parents reported owning more than 60 children’s books. Results from the current study suggest more explicit teaching may be necessary within the kindergarten curriculum to facilitate the code-related skills linked to successful word recognition ability and early spelling development.     

An argument for vindicating a Marxist ontology in environmental education research

Abstract

In this paper, we analyse the status and significance of adopting a Marxist ontological perspective in the field of Brazilian environmental education. We draw on the concept of labour developed by Marx, where labour is used as a category to articulate the relationships humans establish with nature and which, historically, have an impact on their living conditions. Given the ongoing process of destroying the material basis of life under a Capitalist means of production, we argue that environmental educators and researchers require refinements to the theoretical and methodological frameworks they use to understand contradictions between development and sustainability in Brazil. This includes meeting their responsibilities to help others and themselves overcome the current capitalist model governing the social and material production of life.     

Serving,learning and mentoring through the Big Brothers Big Sisters Program

This study describes the collaborative partnership between a Big Brothers Big Sisters organization, an elementary school and the College of Education at a public university. The partnership utilized a mentoring system consisting of elementary students, college students, elementary teachers and university faculty. Benefits of the various stakeholders are discussed.     

The lost history of American veterinary medicine: the need for preservation

Objective:

The objective of this study was to survey holdings of ephemeral veterinary literature.

Methods:

WorldCat OCLC catalog, the Library of Congress online catalog, the US National Agricultural Library online catalog, and the Dictionary Catalog of the National Agricultural Library, 1862–1965, were used to determine current library holdings of materials published by veterinary schools that are no longer in existence and veterinary associations that are defunct, veterinary supply catalogs, veterinary house organs, patent medicine publications, and veterinary advertisements. Individual library catalogs were also consulted. In addition, the practice of removing advertisements from bound volumes was examined.

Results:

There are many gaps in the cataloged library holdings of primary source materials relating to the history of the education of veterinarians in the United States.

Conclusions:

A proactive action plan needs to be designed and activated to locate, catalog, and preserve this primary source material of veterinary medicine for posterity.

Highlights

• Veterinary libraries have failed to catalog or retain important primary veterinary source materials.
• Several types of veterinary gray literature, with individual pieces scattered across multiple kinds of libraries, are at high risk for loss from the historical record.

Implications

• Academic, veterinary, medical, and special librarians should be involved in efforts to preserve their institutional, local, and state materials; to identify and locate hidden collections of materials, both in uncataloged collections and in the hands of private collectors; and to mentor new librarians about their role in preserving the history of medicine.
• The results of this survey of primary source materials documenting US veterinary medical education suggest the need for a parallel study of medical education and other health professions education.
• The time is now, not only to digitize important scarce veterinary materials for both preservation and improved access, but also to archive present day institutional output (paper and electronic).

     

Classroom-based science research at the introductory level: changes in career choices and attitude

Our study, focused on classroom-based research at the introductory level and using the Phage Genomics course as the model, shows evidence that first-year students doing research learn the process of science as well as how scientists practice science. A preliminary but notable outcome of our work, which is based on a small sample, is the change in student interest in considering different career choices such as graduate education and science in general. This is particularly notable, as previous research has described research internships as clarifying or confirming rather than changing undergraduates' decisions to pursue graduate education. We hypothesize that our results differ from previous studies of the impact of engaging in research because the students in our study are still in the early stages of their undergraduate careers. Our work builds upon the classroom-based research movement and should be viewed as encouraging to the Vision and Change in Undergraduate Biology Education movement advocated by the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the National Science Foundation, and other undergraduate education stakeholders.     

The impact of a Curriculum for Resilience Promotion in Deaf Children and Adolescents

Resilience is an interactive process involving internal skills that should be promoted, especially in the early stages of development. This study aims to adapt and implement two themes from the European Curriculum for Resilience Promotion – RESCUR, namely, ‘Developing Communication Skills’ and ‘Establishing and Maintaining Healthy Relationships’, for deaf and hard-of-hearing (DHH) students. The study included 37 children and adolescents from three Portuguese regions and its impact was evaluated through the perspectives of the students, their guardians and their teachers. Each 90-minute session was implemented weekly. The sessions followed the RESCUR curriculum structure with necessary adaptations to the mindfulness activities, stories, role-play and worksheets. The mean scores increased from pre- to post-intervention assessment on all instruments, namely, KIDSCREEN-10 (children/adolescents), KIDSCREEN-10 (guardians) and CYRM-28 (teachers). The implementation of adapted curricula promoting resilience seems to be beneficial to DHH children, allowing the development of specific resilience-associated skills, and thus enhancing health, well-being and quality of life.