Enhancing nursing home care for seniors: impact of a living classroom on nursing assistant’s education

ABSTRACT

Nursing Assistants (NAs) are the largest workforce in nursing homes, but often lack adequate preparation for their role. The Living Classroom (LC) is an integrated learning approach, whereby a NA program is delivered in a nursing home (NH) in collaboration with a community college. This paper describes the implementation and evaluation of the LC. Mixed methods were used to gather data from 48 NA students, 5 faculty, and 42 NH staff over 30 weeks. Students, faculty, and nursing home staff described the LC as a positive learning experience. Students’ gerontological knowledge increased over time (p = .0012). Students reported very positive relationships with program mentors and NH residents. The LC provides a unique approach to prepare NAs to work in nursing homes. This model could expand to other educational programs with a gerontology focus.     

Effects of maze geometry and experience on exploratory behavior in the rat

Rats were exposed twice in a rotated sequence to a series of six mazes, consisting of hexagonal alleys, balanced for different alley length and structural complexity. Locomotor activity increased with alley length and decreased with structural complexity of the mazes. Locomotion became less stereotyped with increased experience, showing an increasing number of turns, less constant velocity, loss of the initial preference for outward leading alleys and weakening of the forward tendency at reentry from side alleys into hexagonal alleys. In contrast to these qualitative changes of locomotion, the amount of activity remained almost unchanged throughout the experiment. The results suggest that these increases in locomotion complexity depend upon complex interactions between experience and stimulus content of the mazes.     

SPIRAL OF DISAPPOINTMENT: DECLINE IN ACHIEVEMENT AMONG GIFTED ADOLESCENTS

The view that the pattern of development and the scholastic performance of potentially highly gifted children are as prone to disturbances as those of less gifted youngsters is now widely accepted. The emergence of giftedness and the unfolding of talent has been shown to be a developmental process, in which a variety of cognitive, noncognitive, and ecopsychological preconditions are involved. Whether the observed developmental patterns of a young person are harmonious or disruptive depends on what has been described in the literature as a favourable (vs. unfavourable) constellation of facilitating factors. With the help of a dynamic model, case studies of failure and refusal to perform in school among young underachievers are analyzed and related to previous school experiences.     

Combining issues of “girl-suited” science teaching,STS and constructivism in a physics textbook

This paper outlines the design of a physics textbook that addresses issues of gender-inclusive physics teaching, STS and constructivism. Difficulties of addressing these issues in a textbook for normal classes, which has to compete with other textbooks on the market will be discussed. Specializations: constructivist approaches in science education research and practice. Specializations: gender issues in science instruction. Specializations: primary education, integrated science. Specializations: STS, phenomenological oriented physics instruction. Specializations: peace education within science education.     

Prediction of self-reported knowledge with over-claiming, fluid and crystallized intelligence and typical intellectual engagement

We investigated the usefulness of the Over-Claiming Questionnaire (OCQ) as a measure of cognitive abilities. In OCQs respondents are asked to rate their familiarity with items of academic or everyday knowledge (Paulhus, Harms, Bruce, & Lysy, 2003). Some items exist in reality (reals), and others do not (foils). We developed four OCQs, each consisting of 40 reals and 8 foils from the domains of Science, Humanities and Civics. The OCQs were administered in a longitudinal rotation design to 112 participants who attended the 9th school grade at the beginning of the study. In latent variable regression analyses 53% of variation in the reals could be explained by fluid and crystallized intelligence and over-claiming as indicated by responses to foils. Further variation in responses to reals and foils was explained by intellectual engagement. Our results show that self-reported knowledge, although positively related to measures of ability, to a large extent reflects over-claiming.     

丛林中的守财奴

[童话大意]一个农场主有一个忠诚的仆人,这个仆人辛辛苦苦地给他干了三年的活,而他却没有付给仆人任何工钱。后来仆人打定主意,想出去看看外面的世界,不再干下去了。他找到农场主说:"我为你勤勤恳恳地做了这么久的事,相信你会根据我的劳动付给我应得的工钱。"农场主是一个极其吝惜的守财奴,只拿出三便士给他,也就是一年一便士的工钱。可怜的仆人对钱没有多少概念,     

Teacher Judgments of Student Reading and Math Skills: Associations With Child- and Classroom-Related Factors

The purpose of the study was to examine whether students’ linguistic skills and task-avoidant behavior (i.e., the child-related factors) and the mean level of academic skills (reading comprehension and math) of classmates (i.e., the class-related factor) are associated with teacher judgments of children’s reading comprehension and math skills. The participants were third-grade Estonian-speaking students (n?=?656; age 9?11 years) and their classroom teachers (n?=?51). The results of the structural equation modeling path analyses indicated that teachers tend to judge students showing higher academic and linguistic skills and lower avoidance behavior as higher on the reading comprehension and math skills. In contrast, the classmates’ higher academic skill level was related to lower judgments of individual children’s reading comprehension and math skills by teachers.     

Early career teachers’ sense of professional agency in the classroom: associations with turnover intentions and perceived inadequacy in teacher–student interaction

Teachers’ capacity to learn intentionally and responsively in the classroom is particularly vulnerable during the first years in the profession. This study investigated the interrelations between early career teachers’ turnover intentions, perceived inadequacy in teacher–student interaction, and sense of professional agency in the classroom. The survey data were collected from 284 in-service teachers with not more than 5 years of experience and analysed by structural equation modelling (SEM). The results showed that the negative relation between turnover intentions and early career teachers’ sense of professional agency was completely mediated by perceived inadequacy in teacher–student interaction. The results indicate that experiences of insufficient abilities to solve pedagogically and socially challenging student situations have a crucial effect on early career teacher’s capacity for adaptive reflection and active transformation of instruction.     

Adolescents’ Social Networks: Exploring Different Patterns of Socio-Digital Participation

The purpose of the study was to assess adolescents’ participation in various socio-digital activities by using a self-report questionnaire, a social networking questionnaire, and interviews. The participants (n?=?253) were grade 6–9 students from a multicultural lower-secondary school in Finland. Three profiles of socio-digital participation were identified: friendship oriented basic participators (n?=?161), gaming-oriented participators (n?=?61), and creative participators (n?=?31) intensively engaged in diverse socio-digital practices. The analyses revealed systematic differences in social networking relations as a function of adolescents’ social-digital participation profile and gender. The reciprocal values in hanging out, liking, and media multiplexity were highest for creative participators, whereas gaming-oriented participators were less socially active than their peers. The socio-digital expertise of creative participators was socially recognized by a larger group of peers than that of the other groups. The study produces methodological tools suitable for collecting systematic longitudinal data of socio-digital practices of larger groups of adolescents in future.