Munchausen by proxy: a case, chart series, and literature review of older victims

The history of an older child victim of Munchausen by proxy (MBP) is described. He was referred for evaluation after repeated sinus surgeries for recurrent sinus infections believed to be related to a falsified history of an immunodeficiency. The perpetrator was the mother of this 14-year-old victim, consistent with the majority of such cases. This case prompted a review of cases of MBP in older children reported in our hospital as well as a literature search for other cases in older children. METHODS: This study was a chart review of children over 6 years of age who had been evaluated by social services at the Children's Hospital at the Cleveland Clinic and reported as cases of Munchausen by proxy to Child Protective Services between January 2001 and June 2003. Also, an OVID, Psychline, and Pubmed literature review of published cases of Munchausen by proxy were identified, and cases occurring in the older child were selected for review. RESULTS: Older children who are the victims of Munchausen by proxy may have an induced illness, but falsified reports of symptoms and medical history to coerce the child to undergo medical procedures may be more common. Collusion of the victim with the perpetrator may also become a factor as the child ages and adopts the deception. Given the complex relationship that exists between the parent and child, it is difficult to predict whether the victim either will assist the caregiver in maintaining the factitious illness or be able to recognize the falsification. CONCLUSIONS: Older children who are the victims of Munchausen by proxy may fear consequences of revealing the factitious illness. Physicians must consider the possibility of this diagnosis whenever there are discrepancies in a child's illness that makes a factitious illness a consideration.     

Validation of a model of personalised learning

This article focuses on a Personalised Learning model which has 19 scales that were used to evaluate regional students’ perceptions of their readiness to learn, assessment processes, engagement, extent to which their learning is personalised and their associations with academic efficacy, academic achievement and student well-being. The data came from an average of 2700 students during each year of a 3-year study in six schools in provincial Victoria. A previously reported instrument was developed to measure students’ and teachers’ perceptions of the above factors affecting the implementation of Personalised Learning Plans (PLPs). It employed the latest scales to assess a range of PLP indicator variables, with all scales modified for use in an Australian context and with the total number of items kept to a minimum. Only scales that were more sensitive to PLPs were used in order to minimise the length of the instrument. There were three outcome variables: academic efficacy, academic achievement and student well-being. The emergent model demonstrates that addressing personalisation of learning and well-being depends on a combination of factors rather than “just getting one factor right”. This implies that there is a need for a coherent and collaborative approach for addressing the needs of students of low socioeconomic status.     

Revisiting Peirce’s account of scientific creativity to inform classroom practice

Abstract

Peirce made repeated attempts to clarify what he understood as abduction or creative reasoning in scientific discoveries. In this article, we draw on past and recent scholarship on Peirce’s later accounts of abduction to put a case for how teachers can apply his ideas productively to elicit and guide student creative reasoning in the science classroom. We focus on (a) his rationale for abduction, (b) conditions he recognised as necessary to support this speculative reasoning, (c) pragmatic strategies to guide inquiry and test conjectural hypotheses, and (d) his growing recognition of creative dimensions to reasoning beyond abductive inference-making. We illustrate this case through examples of a guided inquiry approach to student claim-making in the science classroom.     

“Hidden Treasures”: Librarian Office Hours for Three Health Sciences Schools

The changing needs of students and faculty have prompted UNC Chapel Hill's Health Sciences Library to reconsider the delivery of library services. Several years of outreach and office hours have yielded an array of “hidden treasures,” or secondary outcomes, of both online and in-person office hours. The online office hours are tailored for the Schools of Medicine, Pharmacy, and Public Health. This article examines the benefits that go beyond simple consultation statistics and encompass more qualitative aspects of success resulting from increased outreach, goodwill, and stronger library-departmental partnerships.     

A Preliminary Analysis of Library Holdings as Compared to the Basic Resources for Pharmacy Education List

The catalogs of 11 university libraries were analyzed against the Basic Resources for Pharmaceutical Education (BRPE) to measure the percent coverage of the core total list as well as the core sublist. There is no clear trend in this data to link school age, size, or rank with percentage of coverage of the total list or the “First Purchase” core list when treated as independent variables. Approximately half of the schools have significantly higher percentages of core titles than statistically expected. Based on this data, it is difficult to predict what percentage of titles on the BRPE a library will contain.     

Testing a student generated hypothesis using student data

We describe an activity that allows students to experience the full process of a statistical investigation, from generating the research question, to collecting data and testing a hypothesis. Implementation of the activity is described both with and without use of clickers, handheld remotes that allow instant data collection.     

Learning Through Constructing Representations in Science: A framework of representational construction affordances

Compared with research on the role of student engagement with expert representations in learning science, investigation of the use and theoretical justification of student-generated representations to learn science is less common. In this paper, we present a framework that aims to integrate three perspectives to explain how and why representational construction supports learning in science. The first or semiotic perspective focuses on student use of particular features of symbolic and material tools to make meanings in science. The second or epistemic perspective focuses on how this representational construction relates to the broader picture of knowledge-building practices of inquiry in this disciplinary field, and the third or epistemological perspective focuses on how and what students can know through engaging in the challenge of representing causal accounts through these semiotic tools. We argue that each perspective entails productive constraints on students’ meaning-making as they construct and interpret their own representations. Our framework seeks to take into account the interplay of diverse cultural and cognitive resources students use in these meaning-making processes. We outline the basis for this framework before illustrating its explanatory value through a sequence of lessons on the topic of evaporation.