Peer assessment among first year medical students in anatomy

Peer assessment has been shown to be an effective tool to promote professionalism in medical students. Peer assessment may be particularly useful in anatomy dissection laboratory as the required close collaboration and long hours of anatomy laboratory provide students insights into their peers' work habits and interpersonal skills. The objective of this study was to quantitatively and qualitatively analyze the use of a validated peer assessment tool in Gross Anatomy. Students in a first year medical school class evaluated three members of their dissection group using an online survey tool. The mid‐course and end‐of‐course evaluation included open‐ended comments, as well as a five‐point scale that measured three work habits, two interpersonal attributes and one overall score. All 267 students completed the assignment. The overall score and four of the five other assessed categories showed significant improvement from the mid‐ to end‐of‐course evaluations. Quantitative and qualitative data also revealed significant improvement among the students who received the lowest mid‐course assessments. Seventy‐six percent of the class agreed with the statement: “Based on the feedback I received, I made a change in how I worked with or taught my peers.” The use of this peer assessment tool used by students in anatomy was associated with improvements in work habits and interpersonal attributes, particularly by the cohort of students who received the lowest mid‐course feedback. Peer assessment offers students an opportunity to improve their interpersonal skills and work habits. Anat Sci Educ 7: 144–152. © 2013 American Association of Anatomists.     

Adolescent personality theory and adolescent reading instruction

Freud postulated that there are two types of drives, primary and secondary, and that these drives are in a homeostatic balance. The drives encompass linguistic, physiological, social, and logical growth. During adolescence, there are massive structural changes in physiology and in social role, and adjustment to these changes dominates adolescent personality dynamics. The optimal method of teaching reading to adolescents is one in which substance and format are designed to aid in confronting issues that engage and influence the homeostatic exchange between primary drives and secondary drives. A set of guidelines for developing an effective program is outlined.     

An Examination of College Counselors' Work With Student Sex Addiction: Training,Screening, and Referrals

Given the prevalence of sex addiction (SA) among collegiate populations, the authors designed this study to examine college counselors' training in SA, use of formal assessments, and referrals to support groups. Results indicated that 84.4% of college counselors (N = 77) had at least one client present with SA‐related issues in the past year. Findings suggest the need for improvement in counselor training in SA, use of formal assessments, and referral practices.     

Developing math readiness through set activities

I thought T-ball would be fun to coach. The game is calledT-ball because five-year-old boys and girls try to hit a baseball that has been placed on a tee. Thetee is much larger but otherwise similar to the peg that supports a golfball. The rationale for T-ball is simple. If neophytes don't have to concentrate on hitting, they can channel all of their attention to fielding, learning rules, and comprehending the game's fundamental principles.Gerard Giordano teaches in the College of Education, New Mexico State University, Las Cruces, NM.     

Geometric characterization of a cylinder-shaped structure from laser scanner data: Development of an analysis tool and its use on a leaning bell tower

The romanesque-byzantine style, 1000 year old leaning bell tower of Caorle (Venice Province, Italy) is a unique masonry structure, characterized by single and double lancet windows harmonically distributed on a cylinder-shaped shaft surmounted by a conic cusp. A terrestrial laser scanning (TLS) survey was carried out in 2011 and some analyses were performed on the resulting point cloud to provide the following: bell tower leaning angle, wall inclination/tapering and radius, local deviation from circular shape, and local curvature. Emphasis was placed on the changes of these quantities with elevation. In order to perform these analyses, a MATLAB/Octave toolbox was developed and is available as supplementary material of this paper. In this way, a reliable picture of the current geometry of the bell tower was obtained. In particular, a correlation between leaning angle (average value 1.4° towards East-South-East) and some surface deformations and damage (bulges, brick displacements or also material loss) was found. These results are useful for cultural heritage preservation purposes.     

Nonsuicidal Self-Injury on Instagram: Examining Hashtag Trends

International Journal for the Advancement of Counselling - We sought to investigate how individuals who upload nonsuicidal self-injury (NSSI) content on Instagram conceptualize self-injury by...