Visual immersion for cultural understanding and multimodal literacy

ABSTRACT

When considering inclusive art curriculum that accommodates all learners, including English language learners, two distinct yet inseparable issues come to mind. The first is that English language learner students can use visual language and visual literacy skills inherent in visual arts curriculum to scaffold learning in and through the arts. Second, in facilitating a sense of belonging for students whose home language and cultural aesthetic may be different from those of the dominant school culture, an authentically developed multicultural art curriculum can guide self-efficacy and inclusiveness. Both aspects of teaching art for English language learners can have the added benefits of facilitating collaborative learning opportunities and increasing worldviews for all students.     

Purposefully poetic

ABSTRACT

Arts education has no firm place in Hawaii's public school system. Even the Board of Education plan and the State Department of Education's plans differ in how they refer to and make recommendations about the place or purpose of arts education. This article reviews examples of competing policy to suggest how arts-integrated style teaching could both bridge the gap and extend strategic goals. The article provides examples of how drama-integrated style teaching has positive social and academic benefits for English language learners that specifically build their self-efficacy, helping such students to become better learners. Using these examples, the article suggests potential strategic plan revisions.     

Effect of User Charges on Secondary Level Surgical Care Utilization and Out-of-Pocket Expenditures in Haryana State,India

BackgroundGeneration of resources for providing health care services is an important issue in developing countries. User charges in the form of Surgical Package Program (SPP) were introduced in all district hospitals of Haryana to address this problem. We evaluate the effect of this SPP program on surgical care utilization and out-of-pocket (OOP) expenditures.MethodsData on 25437 surgeries, from July 2006 to June 2013 in 3 districts of Haryana state, was analyzed using interrupted time series analysis to assess the impact of SPP on utilization of services. Adjustment was made for presence of any autocorrelation and seasonality effects. A cross sectional survey was undertaken among 180 patients in District hospital, Panchkula during June 2013 to assess the extent of out of pocket (OOP) expenditure incurred, financial risk protection and methods to cope with OOP expenditure. Catastrophic health expenditure, estimated as any expenditure in excess of 10% of the household consumption expenditure, was used to assess the extent of financial risk protection.ResultsUser charges had a negative effect on the number of surgeries in public sector district hospitals in all the 3 districts. The mean out-of-pocket expenditure incurred by the patients was Rs.4564 (USD 74.6). The prevalence of catastrophic expenditure was 5.6%. A higher proportion among the poorest 20% population coped through borrowing money (47.2%), while majority (86.1%) of those belonging to richest quintile paid from their monthly income or savings, or had insurance.ConclusionThere is a need to increase the public financing for curative services and it should be based on the needs of population. Any form of user charge in public sector hospitals should be removed.     

Gas Law for the Classroom

The author provides information on how science teachers can write science literacy objectives that help English language learners (ELLs) develop the scientific literacy needed for academic success in the science classroom. The article offers suggestions on how teachers can determine the vocabulary, language functions, and sentence structures that their students need to engage in critical thinking in science. An approach for collaboration with students' English as a second language (ESL) teacher is discussed.     

Happy Art

This article looks at how arts integration can boost the language development of limited English proficient students in kindergarten through second grade. I first review existing research on how young children learn and describe the special challenges faced by children who must learn in an unfamiliar language. I then identify arts-based mechanisms that boost the language development of limited English proficient students and examine strategies used by a successful urban arts-and-literacy program to enhance the language development of English language learners in the primary grades.     

Increased birth weight associated with regular pre-pregnancy deworming and weekly iron-folic acid supplementation for Vietnamese women

Background

Hookworm infections are significant public health issues in South-East Asia. In women of reproductive age, chronic hookworm infections cause iron deficiency anaemia, which, upon pregnancy, can lead to intrauterine growth restriction and low birth weight. Low birth weight is an important risk factor for neonatal and infant mortality and morbidity.

Methodology

We investigated the association between neonatal birth weight and a 4-monthly deworming and weekly iron-folic acid supplementation program given to women of reproductive age in north-west Vietnam. The program was made available to all women of reproductive age (estimated 51,623) in two districts in Yen Bai Province for 20 months prior to commencement of birth weight data collection. Data were obtained for births at the district hospitals of the two intervention districts as well as from two control districts where women did not have access to the intervention, but had similar maternal and child health indicators and socio-economic backgrounds. The primary outcome was low birth weight.

Principal Findings

The birth weights of 463 infants born in district hospitals in the intervention (168) and control districts (295) were recorded. Twenty-six months after the program was started, the prevalence of low birth weight was 3% in intervention districts compared to 7.4% in control districts (adjusted odds ratio 0.29, 95% confidence interval 0.10 to 0.81, p = 0.017). The mean birth weight was 124 g (CI 68 - 255 g, p<0.001) greater in the intervention districts compared to control districts.

Conclusions/Significance

The findings of this study suggest that providing women with regular deworming and weekly iron-folic acid supplements before pregnancy is associated with a reduced prevalence of low birth weight in rural Vietnam. The impact of this health system-integrated intervention on birth outcomes should be further evaluated through a more extensive randomised-controlled trial.     

Cloning,stem cells,and the current national debate: incorporating ethics into a large introductory biology course

Discussing the ethical issues involved in topics such as cloning and stem cell research in a large introductory biology course is often difficult. Teachers may be wary of presenting material biased by personal beliefs, and students often feel inhibited speaking about moral issues in a large group. Yet, to ignore what is happening "out there" beyond the textbooks and lab work is to do a disservice to students. This essay describes a semester-long project in which upperclass students presented some of the most complex and controversial ideas imaginable to introductory students by staging a mock debate and acting as members of the then newly appointed President's Council on Bioethics. Because the upperclass students were presenting the ideas of real people who play an important role in shaping national policy, no student's personal beliefs were put on the line, and many ideas were articulated. The introductory audience could accept or reject what they were hearing and learn information important for making up their own minds on these issues. This project is presented as an example of how current events can be used to put basic cell biology into context and of how exciting it can be when students teach students.     

Geographic disparities of breast cancer incidence in Portugal at the district level: A spatial age-period-cohort analysis, 1998-2011

BackgroundBreast cancer is the most common malignancy in women world-wide and the most common cause of cancer deaths, which can often be managed with early diagnosis and subsequent treatment. Here, we focus on geographic disparities in incidence within Portugal for three age groups of women (30−49; 50−69; 70−84 years).MethodsAge-period-cohort (APC) models are widely used in cancer surveillance, and these models have recently been extended to allow spatially-varying effects. We apply novel spatial APC models to estimate relative risk and age-adjusted temporal trends at the district level for the 20 districts in Portugal. Our model allows us to report on country-wide trends, but also to investigate geographic disparities between districts and trends within districts.ResultsAge-adjusted breast cancer incidence was increasing over 1998–2011 for all three age groups and in every district in Portugal. However, we detect spatially-structured between-district heterogeneity in relative risk and age-adjusted trends (Net Drifts) for each of the three age groups, which is most pronounced in the highly-screened (50−69yo) and late-onset (70−84yo) groups of women.ConclusionsWe present evidence of disparities in breast cancer incidence at a more granular geographic level than previously reported. Some disparities may be due to latent risk factors, which cannot be accounted for by age, birth year, and geographic location alone.ImpactOur study motivates resuming data collection for breast cancer incidence at the district level in Portugal, as well as the study of exogenous risk factors.     

Of Kwanzaa, Cinco de Mayo, and Whispering: The Need for Intercultural Education

Multicultural education aims to improve understanding among students of different ethnic groups, but it can lessen intergroup conflict only if it is implemented systematically. In multiethnic school settings, the relationships among students of different "minority" groups are problematic; conflicts need to be both understood and addressed if multicultural education is to succeed. In one inner-city California high school, the celebration of Kwanzaa leads to exclusion and isolation, and the speaking of Spanish in the classroom sparks conflict and resentments.     

Revisioning and reinstating: Music education after the Great Recession

ABSTRACT

The Great Recession caused many school districts across the country to make numerous cuts in their annual budget models. As a result of these austerity measures, administrators often reduced arts education offerings. In the current study, we highlight how budget reductions in three districts negatively impacted music education curricula, and how education policy makers in each district developed unique frameworks to revision and reinstate music instruction in their schools. Themes from multiple stakeholder interviews revealed a process for those who seek new advocacy messages including hearing the voice for the arts/music, revisioning music curricula, and understanding agents of change. A key finding in the current investigation was the importance of all players accepting and understanding the different approaches to reinstating and revisioning music curricula. Suggestions for further investigation include varying the type of district selected for investigation and including teacher and community member voice in policy discussions and development.     

Lexemic change and semantic shift in disease names

The lexicon of illness terms used by Mexican American women is affected by the practice of speaking both Spanish and English and by the coexistence of several health systems. When there is changing participation in various health systems, with increasing interference and code switching, linguistic evidence for these changes may be found. In some cases an English disease name is borrowed. In others, a cognate is coined from an English disease name. Some terms, now no longer useful, are dropped. Finally, some Spanish disease names which do not have equivalents in English or in scientific medical theory may be retained, but there is a shift in the meaning of the words themselves. The direction of the shift is towards semantic correspondence with the concepts of scientific medicine. In these ways the medical lexicon is changed, with the changes reflecting a new medical culture.College of Nursing, The University of Arizona     

药学英语学术写作初探

在西方大学,写作常常被作为最重要的学科,每一门课都是一门写作课。但在中国,很多人认为,学术论文写作仅仅是从汉语到英语的翻译。因此,很多作者提交的论文存在很多问题。仅仅有少数专家和研究生在国外知名杂志发表文章。文章审稿者通常让作者把文章全部重写。本文目的旨在为药学专门用途英语写作课程提供设计思路。设计这类课程时,主要问题是分析学习者的特定需求。其他问题包括：目标、语法结构、习得技巧以及评估等。这篇文章在实验过程中采用图示训练法,评估方式采用形成性评估与终结性评估相结合的方式,通过援引药学英语专业写作课,将此课程作为个案研究,将各个问题逐一讨论,为药学英语学术写作课程提出建议。     

A microcomputer based program for the storage and retrieval of experimental animal information

A microcomputer based program for the storage and selective retrieval of experimental animal information has been developed for use on any system which runs under CP/M system software. The program has been designed to be completely conversational, to communicate with the user in French, English, or Spanish, and to allow the user to define the data format and the alphanumeric coding scheme.     

Main Ingredients for Success in L2 Academic Writing: Outlining,Drafting and Proofreading

Spanish undergraduates of English Studies are required to submit their essays in academic English, a genre which most of them are not acquainted with. This paper aims to explore the extralinguistic side of second language (L2) academic writing, more specifically, the combination of metalinguistic items (e.g. transition and frame markers, among others) with students’ writing strategies when composing an academic text in L2 English. The research sample conveys a group of 200 Spanish undergraduates of English Studies; they are in their fourth year, so they are expected to be proficient in English academic writing but their written production quality varies considerably. Results are analysed following a mixed methodology by which metalinguistic items are statistically measured, and then contrasted with semi-structured interview results; SPSS and NVivo provide quantitative and qualitative outcomes, respectively. The analyses reveal that undergraduate students who produce complex sentences and more coherent texts employ a wider range of writing strategies both prior and while writing, being able to (un)consciously structure and design their texts more successfully. These high-scoring students make more proficient use of complex transition markers for coherence and frame markers for textual cohesion; their commonly used (pre-)writing strategies are drafting, outlining, and proofreading.     

"Quit Talking and Learn English!": Conflicting Language Ideologies in an ESL Classroom

This article addresses the relationship between educational theory—as manifested in particular ideologies of teaching and learning—and classroom practice. Based on an ethnographic study of English-as-a-second-language (ESL) learning at a Canadian senior public school, I outline a conflict between two language ideologies that give shape to, and are shaped by, the classroom practices of the ESL teacher, his assistants, and the students. I discuss the implications of this ideological conflict in terms of the opportunities ESL students are given, and that they create for themselves, to practice speaking English. I end by outlining how these findings can be used to shape educational policy as it relates to ESL classroom curricula in order to create a more equitable learning environment for ESL students.     

Post-intervention epidemiology of STH in Bangladesh: Data to sustain the gains

In 2008, Bangladesh initiated Preventive Chemotherapy (PCT) for school-age children (SAC) through bi-annual school-based mass drug administration (MDA) to control Soil-Transmitted Helminth (STH) infections. In 2016, the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare’s Program on Lymphatic Filariasis Elimination and STH (ELFSTH) initiated district-level community impact assessments with Children Without Worms (CWW) using standardized, population-based sampling to measure the post-intervention STH burden across all ages (≥ 1 yr) for the three STH species. The Integrated Community-based Survey for Program Monitoring (ICSPM) was developed by CWW and was used to survey 12 districts in Bangladesh from 2017–2020. We excluded the first two district data as piloting caused some sampling errors and combined the individual demographic and parasite-specific characteristics from the subsequent 10 districts, linking them with the laboratory data for collective analysis. Our analysis identified district-specific epidemiologic findings, important for program decisions. Of the 17,874 enrolled individuals, our results are based on 10,824 (61.0%) stool samples. Overall, the prevalence of any STH species was substantially reduced to 14% from 79.8% in 2005. The impact was similar across all ages. STH prevalence was 14% in 10 districts collectively, but remained high in four districts, despite their high reported PCT coverage in previous years. Among all, Bhola district was unique because it was the only district with high T.trichuris prevalence. Bangladesh successfully lowered STH prevalence across all ages despite targeting SAC only. Data from the survey indicate a significant number of adults and pre-school age children (PSAC) were self-deworming with purchased pills. This may account for the flat impact curve across all ages. Overall prevalence varied across surveyed districts, with persistent high transmission in the northeastern districts and a district in the central flood zone, indicating possible service and ecological factors. Discrepancies in the impact between districts highlight the need for district-level data to evaluate program implementation after consistent high PCT coverage.     

All Aboard! The Polar Express Is Traveling to Science—Understanding the States of Matter while Differentiating Instruction for Young Learners

This standards-based science lesson introduces young learners to scientific inquiry and critical thinking by using activities to demonstrate three phases of matter (solid, liquid, and gas). By learning about the states of matter through a 5E instructional approach, students are encouraged to observe changes in the states of matter and to discuss their understanding in both small and large group forums. Student participants will be involved in hands-on activities along with small and large group discourse while actively learning about the states of matter and enjoying a hot chocolate demonstration with sampling. Developmentally appropriate instructional approaches are emphasized throughout this lesson.     

Konnichiwa: Japanese scientists and their struggle to speak English: More research careers in Japan need less English

Japanese students’ seeming low proficiency of English is not caused by lack of efforts to internationalize, but rather changing career preferences. Subject Categories: S&S: Careers & Training, S&S: Economics & Business, S&S: Ethics

It seems every generation of academics complains about the poor skills of their incoming students: “They are lazy. Unprepared. Spoiled”. In fact, older people lamenting about the perceived faults and shortcomings of the next generation is probably as old as human civilization itself (Protzko & Schooler, 2019). Professors in Japan are no different in claiming that their students lack many skills, including a sufficient proficiency in speaking English.However, when the same observation is made by an outsider, such as the Chief Editor of this journal, it deserves more consideration. At a meeting of the Molecular Biology Society of Japan (MBSJ), Bernd Pulverer was struck by how effortlessly senior Japanese scientists engaged in discussions, whereas their junior colleagues appeared intimidated by the prospect of speaking aloud in English. The experience left the editor worried if there were a generation gap in communication skills that could hamper international collaborations.While English has long been a primary language for science, it has only recently become the primary language. Consider the Solvay Conference in 1927, epitomized by the photo of legendary scientists such as Einstein, Curie, and Bohr, which was a Babylonian debate. Even in the 1990s, the University of Toronto encouraged students in its mathematics program to study French, German, or Russian. Today, however, anyone aspiring to become a scientist is obliged to have a strong grasp of the English language, a point that is not lost on Japanese students.     

Assessing Coverage,Equity and Quality Gaps in Maternal and Neonatal Care in Sub-Saharan Africa: An Integrated Approach

BackgroundGaps in coverage, equity and quality of health services hinder the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals 4 and 5 in most countries of sub-Saharan Africa as well as in other high-burden countries, yet few studies attempt to assess all these dimensions as part of the situation analysis. We present the base-line data of a project aimed at simultaneously addressing coverage, equity and quality issues in maternal and neonatal health care in five districts belonging to three African countries.MethodsData were collected in cross-sectional studies with three types of tools. Coverage was assessed in three hospitals and 19 health centres (HCs) utilising emergency obstetric and newborn care needs assessment tools developed by the Averting Maternal Death and Disability program. Emergency obstetrics care (EmOC) indicators were calculated. Equity was assessed in three hospitals and 13 HCs by means of proxy wealth indices and women delivering in health facilities were compared with those in the general population to identify inequities. Quality was assessed in three hospitals using the World Health Organization’s maternal and neonatal quality of hospital care assessment tool which evaluates the whole range of aspects of obstetric and neonatal care and produces an average score for each main area of care.ResultsAll the three hospitals qualified as comprehensive EmOC facilities but none of the HCs qualified for basic EmOC. None of the districts met the minimum requisites for EmOC indicators. In two out of three hospitals, there were major quality gaps which were generally greater in neonatal care, management of emergency and complicated cases and monitoring. Higher access to care was coupled by low quality and good quality by very low access. Stark inequities in utilisation of institutional delivery care were present in all districts and across all health facilities, especially at hospital level.ConclusionOur findings confirm the existence of serious issues regarding coverage, equity and quality of health care for mothers and newborns in all study districts. Gaps in one dimension hinder the potential gains in health outcomes deriving from good performances in other dimensions, thus confirm the need for a three-dimensional profiling of health care provision as a basis for data-driven planning.     

Achievements and challenges of lymphatic filariasis elimination in Sierra Leone

BackgroundLymphatic filariasis (LF) is targeted for elimination in Sierra Leone. Epidemiological coverage of mass drug administration (MDA) with ivermectin and albendazole had been reported >65% in all 12 districts annually. Eight districts qualified to implement transmission assessment survey (TAS) in 2013 but were deferred until 2017 due to the Ebola outbreak (2014–2016). In 2017, four districts qualified for conducting a repeat pre-TAS after completing three more rounds of MDA and the final two districts were also eligible to implement a pre-TAS.Methodology/Principal findingsFor TAS, eight districts were surveyed as four evaluation units (EU). A school-based survey was conducted in children aged 6–7 years from 30 clusters per EU. For pre-TAS, one sentinel and one spot check site per district (with 2 spot check sites in Bombali) were selected and 300–350 persons aged 5 years and above were selected. For both surveys, finger prick blood samples were tested using the Filariasis Test Strips (FTS).For TAS, 7,143 children aged 6–7 years were surveyed across four EUs, and positives were found in three EUs, all below the critical cut-off value for each EU. For the repeat pre-TAS/pre-TAS, 3,994 persons over five years of age were surveyed. The Western Area Urban had FTS prevalence of 0.7% in two sites and qualified for TAS, while other five districts had sites with antigenemia prevalence >2%: 9.1–25.9% in Bombali, 7.5–19.4% in Koinadugu, 6.1–2.9% in Kailahun, 1.3–2.3% in Kenema and 1.7% - 3.7% in Western Area Rural.Conclusions/SignificanceEight districts in Sierra Leone have successfully passed TAS1 and stopped MDA, with one more district qualified for conducting TAS1, a significant progress towards LF elimination. However, great challenges exist in eliminating LF from the whole country with repeated failure of pre-TAS in border districts. Effort needs to be intensified to achieve LF elimination.