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Mode Neutral pedagogy : development, research and praxis in Higher and Professional education
Get PDFIn an attempt to answer longstanding questions of what makes students ready for learning, sustain their engagement and meet their life-long goals, I provide a critical commentary on the themes found in a unique educational framework.
I have continuously questioned why my published Mode Neutral pedagogy encourages learning to occur in my praxis as a Higher Education Academic and Operating Department Practitioner in the hospital perioperative setting. Signs of engagement, expression and commitment to learning promote individual identity alongside a visible presence. Unconditional teacher responses, and the balance of structured content and proactive communication remove barriers to learning and raise opportunities for strengthening individuals' emotional intelligence.
These aspects of human existence precede the learning elements of motivation, aspiration and belonging. The Mode Neutral Pedagogy method integrates these elements in the pre-learning phase and beyond to create a self-efficacy learning experience. The learner’s ‘sense of being’ is fundamental to this pedagogy as it fosters connectedness and a nascent self-concept, attitude and development for learning.
Those who adopt all or aspects of Mode Neutral continue to identify five intrinsically linked themes that explain why students do well throughout a Mode Neutral experience. These dominant five themes are referred to as Five Levers - they illustrate the combined effect of Identity, Presence, Co-Presence, Emotional Intelligence and Immersion on the learner’s achievements. The Five Levers discovery is unique and essential to educational development, and synthesis of new learner acquired knowledge. Pedagogical models that do not proactively consider this sense of being may place barriers in front of the learner's lifewide and lifelong learning.
There are also some limitations to this approach. In particular, transferability of the Five Levers framework is untested in other disciplines other than healthcare. It is unclear whether my personality, pre-disposition values and other attributes act as the 'glue' in Mode Neutral, rather than the presumed Five Levers. Nevertheless, this thesis provides evidence of Mode Neutral’s impact on healthcare practice for those working in hospitals
Incidental learning in storytelling
Get PDFThis article analyses trainee teachers’ experiences of incidental learning using storytelling in the English as a Second Language (ESOL) classroom in the Further Education and Skills sector. It comments on the reflections of trainee ESOL teachers using story activities in their practice and it explores their experiences of incidental learning within language teaching.
The research focuses on the responses, evaluations and perceptions of trainee teachers on the effectiveness of storytelling as a pedagogic tool to enhance language and literacy skills development and explores the impact of incidental learning on trainee teachers’ professional development.
The findings indicate that trainees experienced incidental learning whilst implementing storytelling in a wide range of contexts with various groups of learners from Entry Level 1 (beginners) to Level 2 (upper intermediate). Storytelling as a pedagogical tool was used in various forms, such as unplanned impromptu uses when demonstrating a grammatical or lexical point. The trainee teachers’ reflective accounts of incidental learning demonstrated a positive impact on their professional progress, which is mainly reflected in the components of attitudinal and intellectual change with some evidence of behavioural change too.
The key findings of the study indicate that storytelling provides creative opportunities for teachers to develop their practice incidentally. It highlights the importance of unplanned and spontaneous anecdotal stories in engaging ESOL learners in language practice and suggests that stories can be used as an effective pedagogic tool in teaching and learning
Automatic modulation classification using interacting multiple model - Kalman filter for channel estimation
Get PDFA rigorous model for automatic modulation classification (AMC) in cognitive radio (CR) systems is proposed in this paper. This is achieved by exploiting the Kalman filter (KF) integrated with an adaptive interacting multiple model (IMM) for resilient estimation of the channel state information (CSI). A novel approach is proposed, in adding up the squareroot singular values (SRSV) of the decomposed channel using the singular value decompositions (SVD) algorithm. This new scheme, termed Frobenius eigenmode transmission (FET), is chiefly intended to maintain the total power of all individual effective eigenmodes, as opposed to keeping only the dominant one. The analysis is applied over multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) antennas in combination with a Rayleigh fading channel using a quasi likelihood ratio test (QLRT) algorithm for AMC. The expectation-maximization (EM) is employed for recursive computation of the underlying estimation and classification algorithms. Novel simulations demonstrate the advantages of the combined IMM-KF structure when compared to the perfectly known channel and maximum likelihood estimate (MLE), in terms of achieving the targeted optimal performance with the desirable benefit of less computational complexity loads
Bridging the skills gap: apprentice assistant practitioners having an impact in mental healthcare services
Get PDFIt is important to have a well-trained workforce and this is especially so in mental healthcare services. This article is the first of four looking at mental healthcare services and the apprentice assistant practitioner (AAP). The background to the introduction of assistant practitioners (AP), both in generic terms and more specifically their potential in mental health provision, will be explored.
The present situation in mental health services will be examined, along with how the AP role might help mitigate some of the critical challenges faced in this area of health. The development of higher apprenticeships will be discussed in relation to standardisation of the AP role and how universally recognised apprenticeship standards around knowledge, behaviours and values will aid a more consistent understanding of the AP position and their consequent deployment in services
Sympathy and community in Walt Whitman’s Song of Myself
Get PDFWhitman’s professed sympathy for a diverse range of individuals in Song of Myself has been the subject of much criticism. Some readers see his ambition to speak to and ‘for’ all others as an imperialist prescription of homogeneity between humans, an arrogation of agency and erasure of difference. I ask if there a way of mobilizing sympathy in this poem which does not rely on the assumption of a common humanity. Briefly situating Whitman in relation to the nineteenth century discourse of sentimentalism, I go on to explore how sympathy can be heard as a shareable material affect which exceeds the moral and humanist register. With particular reference to Whitman’s use of ‘catalogues’ I look at how Song of Myself creates a ‘community of those who have nothing in common’
Assessing the business ethics of Saudi Arabian Islamic banking sector: an analysis of banks’ employees and customers perspectives
Get PDFIslamic banking involves the conduct of banking and finance activities based on the values
derived from the body of Islamic law known as Shari’ah. The infusion of ethical and social
objectives into banking activities is a fundamental requirement and distinguishing hallmark
of Islamic banking. Islamic banking is deeply entrenched in the socio-economic fabric of
Saudi Arabia. Saudi Arabia holds a very important place in the history of Islam. It is in the
area that is now Saudi Arabia that Prophet Mohamed (peace be upon him) received the
revelation of the Holy Quran and largely gave the Sunnah teachings that form the body of
the holy knowledge of Islam. The first disciples of Prophet Mohammed (peace be upon him)
started preaching, turning converts, and making disciples in the area that is modern-day
Saudi Arabia. Due to these happenings, Saudi Arabia is viewed as the cradle of Islam. As
such, faith-based institutions that operate in Saudi Arabia are on the microscope of the
public eye. Islamic banks operating in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia are no exception. By
virtue of being faith-based institutions, stakeholders have high expectations on matters to do
with ethics when it comes to Saudi Arabian Islamic banks. This research aims to present an
evaluation of the ethical performance of Islamic banks from the perspectives of customers
and employees.
Given that there is limited research conducted on the business ethics of Islamic banks at the
global level in general, and in Saudi Arabia in particular, this research will extensively use
appropriate research tools and methods to study the Saudi Islamic banking situation with
regards to the ethical performance of Islamic banks and generate crucial conclusions
pertaining to the gaps, if any, between the ideal expectations of the ethical performance and
what is practiced by the Islamic banks from the perceptions of employees and customers.
Correspondingly, this research aims to make contributions that fill up information gaps in the
extant body of literature with regards to the business ethics of Saudi based Islamic banks.
This research applies the mixed-method approach, where qualitative and quantitative tools
are used. The research study collects data from both primary and secondary sources
through literature review as well as from the questionnaires administered to the employees
and customers of four Islamic banks in Saudi Arabia. The data are analysed statistically
through descriptive statistics and inferential statistics by using the statistical software known
as SPSS. The findings reveal that there is a chasm between the perceptions of customers
and employees. Customers are majorly ambivalent about the ethical performance of Saudibased
Islamic banks. On the other hand, the employees of Islamic banks generally approve
of the ethical performance of these banks. The findings also suggest that there is room for
improvement for Islamic banks when it comes to ethical performance
An archive collection for collaborative partnership and pedagogic textile practice
No full textThis positioning paper focusses on the use of industrial and textile archive collections, examining designs, objects and related ephemera for teaching purposes, enabling students to engage with objects as part of visual and contextual investigative enquiry. This forms part of an ongoing PhD by Practice by the author, which focuses on teaching and learning, accessing the archive at the Museum of Bolton for pedagogical and creative practice. Funded by a University of Bolton, “Jenkinson Award”, this paper outlines a project with undergraduate students on the BA (Hons) Textile and Surface Design course at the University of Bolton, which forms part of the wider doctoral project. Students developed artworks responding to the broader history of textiles during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries within Bolton and surrounding areas, including textile machinery, manufacturers, mills, pattern books, textile quilts and bolt stamps which relate to global trade. An exhibition of these outcomes, was held at Bolton Museum and Art Gallery in January 2019, with part of the works going on to form a handling archive. It is hoped that some of the artworks and samples will be deposited back into the archive, alongside community education-based collaborative workshops with the museum, for future generations to learn from. From an educator perspective, discussion surrounds the students’ learning processes, models for teaching using the archive, visual enquiry, concept, project engagement, community, heritage and a sense of belonging
Constitutional statutes - a brief overview
No full textBolton University academic John McGarry explains the distinction between ordinary and constitutional statute
Mechanistic study of synergism of inorganic synergists with flame retardants
Get PDFZinc stannates (ZSs) and related metal metallates are attracting increasing attention as alternatives to antimony trioxide (ATO) for use as synergists with halogen-containing flame retardant systems (HFRs). Like ATO, ZSs show synergistic effects with both chlorine and bromine-containing FRs (BFRs) and are reported to be effective in a wide range of polymers, including PVC, polyolefins, polyester resins, polystyrene and polyamides. However, unlike ATO, ZSs are non-toxic, appear to promote char formation in char-forming polymers and can function additionally as smoke suppressants. Previous work in our laboratories has shown that ZS is more effective as a synergist than ATO when used with BFRs in polyamide 66 (PA66), producing reductions in peak heat release rates of more than twice than those achieved with ATO in cone calorimetric experiments, coupled with as much as one tenth the smoke evolution. Use of ZS in place of ATO also produced better results in UL94 tests with some BFRs in PA66. However, the exact mechanism of synergism of ZSs with HFRs is not known yet. The aim of this project was to elucidate the mechanism of synergism of zinc stannate (ZS) with HFRs as non-toxic and environmentally benign alternative to ATO. Besides, possible similarities with a number of related metal metallates including zinc hydroxy stannate (ZHS), calcium stannate (CS) and copper stannate (CuS) were investigated. PA66 as a versatile engineering polymer has been used as a model polymer. Poly(pentabromobenzyl acrylate) (PPBBA), commercially used as an effective flame retardant (FR) in combination with ZS in PA66, was selected as a model FR.
In the present work, a comparative study of the mechanisms of action of the selected metal metallates and metal oxides (MM/MOs) including ZS, ZHS, CS, CuS and ATO with the polymeric BFR, PPBBA, both on its own and when incorporated in PA66 has been carried out, using various evolved gas analysis (EGA) techniques for investigation of nature and quantity of evolved species, solid residue analysis techniques for investigation of chemical structure of remaining residues as well as quantification of elemental volatilization at different temperatures and heating regimes and thermogravimetric analysis. EGA techniques utilized in this thesis include pyrolysis coupled with gas chromatography mass spectroscopy (Py-GCMS) Pyrolysis coupled with Fourier transfer infrared spectroscopy (Py-FTIR), thermogravimetric analysis coupled with Fourier transfer infrared spectroscopy (TGA-FTIR) and tube furnace, and analysis of solid residues were conducted using X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), X-ray florescence spectroscopy (XRF) and Fourier transfer infrared spectroscopy (FTIR).
Simultaneous thermogravimetric analysis/differential thermal analysis (TGA/DTA) was also used to compare the thermal profiles of thermal degradation, under both air and nitrogen atmospheres. Experiments on mixtures of PPBBA with ZS and ATO in the absence of PA66, showed that both ZS and ATO delayed the release of bromine-containing compounds from PPBBA and that, in the case of ATO, as expected, significant quantities of antimony bromides were released. However, with ZS, the formation of zinc bromides seems to be the principal fate of bromine, with little evidence for the formation of tin bromides, in marked contrast to earlier suggestions that it is the formation of volatile tin halides that are responsible for the vapourphase synergistic effects of ZS with HFRs. CS showed similar, however more pronounced effect on delaying liberation of bromine to vapour phase and very little or no calcium and tin were volatilized even at temperatures above 650 °C. The pyrolysis of PA66 is known to follow a complex series of parallel and consecutive reactions, but neither ATO nor CuS was found to have much effect on the nature and distribution of the volatile pyrolysis products under nitrogen. However, ZS and CS appears to catalyse reaction of decomposition of PA66 and cause minor formation of charred residues (ca. 25% more char at 450°C under air atmosphere), although there is little evidence of either zinc, tin or calcium being chemically incorporated in these residues. Very little to no metal volatilization was observed when ZS and CS were incorporated in PA66. Addition of PPBBA to PA66 without synergist lead to a significant reduction in the thermal stability of PA66 accompanied by the release of brominated compounds into the vapour phase with no significant char formation, consistent with PPBBA acting entirely as a vapour phase FR. Pyrolysis and combustion studies of the ternary systems, PA66+PPBBA+MM/MOs, confirmed that ATO acts almost entirely as a vapour phase FR synergist but that ZS and CS act principally in the condensed phase by char promotion, probably due to in situ formation of zinc and tin and calcium bromides which as Lewis acids act as dehydration catalysts and promote char formation. Besides some level of intumescence was observed for these systems. It is noteworthy that ZS and CS considerably reduced the vapour phase activity of PA66+PPBBA by trapping a considerable portion of bromine that would otherwise be released into the vapour phase. Moreover, it is confirmed that the interaction of bromine is primarily with zinc in ZS and not with tin