Live Simulation for Clinical Education

The Instructional Design Portfolio

Live Simulation for Clinical Education     

Wild botanic gardens as valuable resources for innovative environmental education programmes in Latin America

Wild botanic gardens consist of natural or semi-natural land remnants immersed in large urban areas or botanic gardens, which are managed for purposes of biodiversity preservation and public recreation. In Latin America, they tend to be affected by budget limitations; however, they serve as valuable resources that permit the development of innovative environmental education programmes. Specifically, we are considering the appropriateness of implementing critical environmental education and socio-constructivist programmes. As for practical considerations, it is important to include diverse epistemologies, and therefore, strategies or procedures characteristic of science teaching, such as problem-based learning, together with other characteristics of social activism and popular education initiatives, such as assemblies or meetings, and others characteristic of more traditional and indigenous worldviews, such as celebrations of the earth. In this way, Latin American wild botanic gardens may play a role in constructing environmentally responsible societies and the nurturing of a culture of reflective inquiry.     

Using socrative as an online homework platform to increase students’ exam scores

Socrative is an online assessment and student response tool that provides opportunities to increase student engagement in the classroom. We used Socrative as an online homework completing platform to increase students’ exam scores in physics. To explore the relationships among factors and the educational effectiveness of Socrative, data from 85 undergraduate students’ final and midterm grades, and their responses to an attitude survey were used. The ANCOVA results demonstrated that the use of Socrative positively influenced students’ exam scores and a fairly significant correlation was found between students’ attitudes toward Socrative and final exam scores. Moreover, the results of the survey showed that students have moderately positive attitudes toward the use of Socrative as an online homework assignment platform. This empirical study indicates that the use of Socrative can go beyond engaging and motivating students and can be used as an online homework completing tool.     

Teaching English-Spanish cognate-recognition strategies through the Américas Book Award-winners and honor picture books

Cognates are words that are the same or nearly the same orthographically and semantically in English and Spanish. The majority of the more than 20,000 cognates are academic vocabulary words comprised of Latin and Greek roots and affixes. Several thousand cognates can be found in the picture books that have earned the Américas Book Award, which was established to honor quality multicultural books that portray Latino cultures in a positive light. The authors present lessons for teaching primary school Latino ELLs about cognates through the Américas Award picture books, as they educate their students about their rich Latino cultures.     

Measuring the “transfer of meaning” through members of equivalence classes merged via a class-specific reinforcement procedure

Seven participants received conditional discrimination training that established the 12 conditional relations A1B1, A2B2, A3B3, A1C1, A2C2, A3C3, D1E1, D2E2, D3E3, D1F1, D2F2, and D3F3. The A stimuli were pictures of faces portraying emotional expressions; the others were arbitrary forms. Correct responses resulted in presentations of class-specific reinforcers, Sr1, Sr2, and Sr3. After training, tests confirmed the formation of ABC and DEF equivalence classes. Further tests then documented the merger of the classes and the emergence of SrB, SrC, SrE, and SrF relations, showing that the class-specific reinforcers were equivalence class members. Finally, participants did Semantic Differential ratings that tested whether the emotional valence of the A stimuli transferred to the arbitrary forms, B and E. The results show that participants’ evaluations of the B and E stimuli were similar to evaluations of the A stimuli made by participants of a control group. This finding is considered as a demonstration that class-specific outcomes can mediate class merger phenomena and the transfer of functions through members of merged classes.     

Optimal Nash tuning rules for robust PID controllers

In this paper, we propose tuning rules for one degree-of-freedom proportional-integral-derivative controllers, by considering important aspects such as the trade-off in the performance in the servo and regulation operation modes and the control system robustness by constraining the maximum sensitivity peak. The different conflicting objectives are dealt with by using a multi-objective optimization algorithm to generate the trade-off optimal solutions. In this context, a simple tuning rule is determined by using the Nash solutions as a multi-criteria decision making technique. The Nash criteria is shown to provide convenient trade-off solutions for the controller tuning problem. Illustrative simulation examples show the effectiveness of the method.     

Universities,knowledge and pedagogical configurations: Glimpsing the complex university

This paper elaborates a typology of universities in which each university is characteristically associated with (i) diverse missions, (ii) different ways of producing knowledge and (iii) contrasting pedagogical configurations. Four university forms are identified, analysed and illustrated, namely the expert university, the non-elite university, the entrepreneurial university and the revolutionary university. It is suggested that the typology and the analysis of university forms offered here provide insight into the current positioning of universities in relation to the wider world and have potential in prompting new forms of university for the twenty-first century. The paper further advances another possible university for the future, namely the complex university. The complex university is part of and respectful of diverse ecosystems. It creates new frameworks to understand the world and, in that way, supports social transformations.     

A school-based motivational intervention to promote physical activity from a self-determination theory perspective

The authors analyzed the effects of a multidimensional intervention to promote physical activity (PA) in school, based on self-determination theory. The study involved 88 students, between 14 and 17 years old, who were divided into a control group (n = 59) and an experimental group (n = 29). In the experimental group, a 6-month intervention was conducted, applying a teaching unit of fitness and health in physical education (PE) classes, an extracurricular program of healthy PA, and meetings with families. Questionnaires were administered to measure different motivational variables and PA levels at four time points. Significant differences were found in favor of the experimental group in parental and peer autonomy support; integrated regulation in PE; autonomy, intrinsic, and identified regulation in leisure-time PA; moderate, hard, and very hard PA; and physical self-worth. Motivational effects were maintained over time but the effects on PA levels disappeared at 6 months.