Publishing with accessibility standards from the inside out

Key points

• Publishers should layer on the right standards to create accessible publications.
• Accessible publications have accessible content at the core, wrapped in semantic structure, and topped off with accessible metadata.
• Resources to help publishers implement accessibility in their programmes are available.

     

Teacher Perceptions of School Consultant Social Influence Strategies: Replication and Expansion

The goals were to (a) replicate the findings of previous research with regard to the Consultee/Teacher Version of the Interpersonal Power Inventory (IPI), and (b) advance the literature by examining IPI scores about a current consultation relationship. Sample 1 included 99 elementary school teachers (44.4% Hispanic) who completed the IPI. Results replicated Erchul et al. Sample 2 (N = 37; 45.9% Hispanic) represented a subset of Sample 1 who participated in a consultation project and completed the IPI about influence in their current consultation relationship. The results advance the literature by offering evidence for convergent and predictive validity of the IPI soft power bases. Teachers who reported being influenced by soft power strategies experienced greater change in their behaviors and their students’ behaviors than those who reported being not influenced by such strategies. Implications for research and practice in school consultation are discussed.     

Measure Twice,Cut Once: The Temporality of Communication Design

The familiar folk saying, “Measure twice, cut once,” with origins in carpentry design certainly indicates that the issue of measurement is central to good design work. The equally important—if implicit—wisdom to which it points is that it takes more time, or a careful pace of action, to do so properly. To develop our central arguments about the temporality of communication design, we first describe how the consideration of varying time scales offers great utility in the communication design enterprise and elaborate on the designable features of temporality for human interaction. Next, we draw on Ballard's typology of work-based activity cycles to offer some temporally based design principles for the design of work. We then apply these insights to various work activities that unfold at various time scales and illustrate how concern with temporality (rather than only time) may lead to a redesign of communication. In the conclusion, we attend to an underlying issue implicated throughout the preceding discussion: the pace at which the designer proceeds.     

Continuing professional development: pedagogical practices of interprofessional simulation in health care

The increasing complexity of health care practice makes continuing professional development (CPD) essential for health care professionals. Simulation-based training is a CPD activity that is often applied to improve interprofessional collaboration and the quality of care. The aim of this study is to explore simulation as a pedagogical practice for the CPD of health care professionals. Specifically, the study focuses on how a professional development activity, the simulation, is enacted to support interprofessional collaboration and learning. A practice theory perspective is used as the theoretical framework. In this, the professional practice is conceptualised as being embodied, relational and situated in sociomaterial arrangements. Ten introduction and reflection sessions following interprofessional full-scale manikin-based simulations with professionals were video-recorded. The recordings were analysed following a stepwise qualitative collaborative approach developed for the purpose. The key findings suggest that the professional competence activity is enacted and interconnected with and governed by historical traditions of institutional teaching practices as well as simulation practices. Despite the intentions of team and interprofessional training, the institutional teaching and simulation practices constrain and hinder the intended outcomes of professional development in interprofessional collaboration.     

Inclusive Education in New Zealand: culture,context and ideology

Parents and teachers in New Zealand who have developed inclusive, non‐ discriminatory classrooms and schools are supported by education and human rights legislation and by recent policy on special education. Resistance to inclusion within the education system may be seen as reflecting disablist attitudes and practices. Inclusion values diversity, not assimilation. It is consistent with separate development, which might be chosen, for example, by those in the deaf and Maori communities as a means to maintain their language and culture. Education policies and practices are examined from the perspective of disability as a sociopolitical issue within a broader context of new right, libertarian ideologies that have impacted on the resources and structure of education and other state activities in New Zealand over the last decade.