Journal articles on the topic 'Personal epistemology; medical students; problem-based learning'

When the Journal asked the fledgling Medical School to explain to the interested observer and the sceptic what the concept of Problem-Based Learning (PBL) meant to those staff members who might have to adapt their teaching methods, Tom Poyser’s name came up. Tom is a final year medical student at Liverpool who took a year out of the course to study International Health at Leeds. The Journal is pleased to publish this personal account of his experiences of the PBL curriculum at Lancaster, where he has been impressed with the personal nature of the teaching and the sense of involvement that students have with the practice of medicine. Minor editorial changes have had to be made to correct Tom’s misunderstanding that Lancaster was a ‘quiet’ medical community before the arrival of the medical school! For those of us who are looking for reassurance that the modern medical curriculum delivers an education comparable with the traditional one, here is a personal view that reflects the experience of a student and his peers.

Background: Moral reasoning is a vital skill in the nursing profession. Teaching moral reasoning to students is necessary toward promoting nursing ethics. Objectives: The aim of this study was to compare the effectiveness of problem-based learning and lecture-based methods in ethics education in improving (1) moral decision-making, (2) moral reasoning, (3) moral development, and (4) practical reasoning among nursing students. Research design: This is a repeated measurement quasi-experimental study. Participants and research context: The participants were nursing students in a University of Medical Sciences in west of Iran who were randomly assigned to the lecture-based (n = 33) or the problem-based learning (n = 33) groups. The subjects were provided nursing ethics education in four 2-h sessions. The educational content was similar, but the training methods were different. The subjects completed the Nursing Dilemma Test before, immediately after, and 1 month after the training. The data were analyzed and compared using the SPSS-16 software. Ethical considerations: The program was explained to the students, all of whom signed an informed consent form at the baseline. Findings: The two groups were similar in personal characteristics (p > 0.05). A significant improvement was observed in the mean scores on moral development in the problem-based learning compared with the lecture-based group (p < 0.05). Although the mean scores on moral reasoning improved in both the problem-based learning and the lecture-based groups immediately after the training and 1 month later, the change was significant only in the problem-based learning group (p < 0.05). The mean scores on moral decision-making, practical considerations, and familiarity with dilemmas were relatively similar for the two groups. Conclusion: The use of the problem-based learning method in ethics education enhances moral development among nursing students. However, further studies are needed to determine whether such method improves moral decision-making, moral reasoning, practical considerations, and familiarity with the ethical issues among nursing students.

Background. Medical education is rated as one of the most difficult trainings to endure. Throughout their undergraduate years, medical students face numerous stressors. Coping with these stressors requires access to a variety of resources, varying from personal strengths to social support. We aimed to explore the perceived stress, stressors, and coping strategies employed by medical students studying in a problem-based learning curriculum. Methodology. This is a cross-sectional study of randomly selected medical students that explored demographics, perceived stress scale, sources of stress, and coping strategies. Results. Of the 378 medical students that participated in the study, males were 59.3% and females 40.7%. Nearly 53% of the students often felt stressed, and a third felt that they could not cope with stress. Over 82% found studying stressful and 64.3% were not sleeping well. Half of the students reported low self-esteem. Perceived stress scores were statistically significantly high for specific stressors of studying in general, worrying about future, interpersonal conflict, and having low self-esteem. Coping strategies that were statistically significantly applied more often were blaming oneself and being self-critical, seeking advice and help from others, and finding comfort in religion. Female students were more stressed than males but they employ more coping strategies as well. Conclusions. Stress is very common among medical students. Most of the stressors are from coursework and interpersonal relationships. Low self-esteem coupled with self-blame and self-criticism is quite common.

With the accomplishment of the writing that follow we pretended to investigate what the current importance of applying the learning through problems in the teaching of Roman Law, against the traditional theoretical and magistral classes. Influencing in the reach of the methodological requirements emerged with the new plans of study Law Degree, under the EHEA; as well, in the development of a set of skills in students, that will be very helpful once time they finish and face the difficulties of today's labor market, because they are the true protagonists of the teaching and learning process. Therefore, with the implementation of this first case about the economic regime of marriage compared with other unmarried partners as concubinage, dowry and the role of women, forms of servitude or inheritance, we approach the students to casuism roman jurisprudence completing the ideas seen in the previous practice; in this way, they will understand that the important thing is not to give the solution to case proposed but legal reasoning, through discussions in groups and personal work, getting a deeper knowledge of applicable rules and institutions.

Introduction. One of the main trends in the transformation of post-industrial education is the transfer of educational-activity to the internet. E-learning is available in its mobile version. This determines the development of the possibility of total continuous learning with the emphasis in this segment of intellectual learning. The latter is directly related to artificial intelligence, the selectivity of educational practices and the design of a personal educational environment (hereinafter – PIC). The actualization and design of the POS is the most difficult segment in the design of the electronic information and educational space (hereinafter – EEEP) of any educational institution. This manifested itself already at the stage of early e-learning, became apparent at the m-learning, (mobil learning) and is even more actualized at the stages of u-learning (ubiquitous learning) – тотального обучения and smart e-learning – интеллектуального обучения.Purpose setting. The aim of this article is to analyze what has been achieved in understanding the PIC problamatics at the stage of e-learning in the scope of the EEEP of the university.Methodology and methods of the study. The article is based on the methodogical principles of connectivism (W. G. Bowen, A. Marey, N. A. Kolesnikova, M. Horne, H. Steaker, A. Krol and other) as applied to the transformation of the modern pedagogical practices towards their individualization. The ideas of D. Buckley, actualized by the concepts of «personalization for the student» and «personalization of the student», by Mohammed Amin Chatti, whe substantiated the position of the PIC not only as a subjective set of tools for its creation, but also on the transfer of control over them to the continuously student, turned out to be important for the work. Sean Fitzgerald’s advice on the importance of the projective method for creating an individual educational space is also valuable. To date, there is no single definition and understanding of PIC, but as domestic teachers and philosophers of education (A. N. Ksenofontova, A. B. Ledeneva, A. B. Vasilchenko, A. V. Slepukhin, V. A. Starodubtsev, Yu. Duknich, I. Yu. Malkova, A. V. Feshchenko and other), and foreign (M. Martin, S. Wilson, A. Cann, S. Russel and others) agree that variability as the main property of EIOS (EEES, ICOS, ICOP) is the main determinant of design and creation PIC. The second «conciliatory» point is that PIC is an environment for the “new generation” of Zetas and Alphas, integrating artificial intelligence, needs, meanings, values and abilities of individuals of the “gigital economy” and “gigital education” in its development.Results. By the current time, the most development approaches in the formation of PIC are personological (based on which the subjectivity of the student is realized through his personal, including educational experience) and activity (based on the principle of autodidacties). In our opinion, it has a greater epistemological potential. The author tried to demonstrate the rationale for this in the article.Conclusions. Self-regulation, self-government, self-organization based on information and communication technologies are the main positional characteristics of PIC in the volume of an formation is carried out on the basis of the ICOS and informal learning, which integrates POCs of both learners and educatory. The subject in the case is a motivated student. Formal (mass) education presupposes the formation of another type of ICOP, more standardized for poorly motivated students. The professional educational space is the meaning of the type of ICOP.

Background: COVID-19 became world health problem because of its rapid transmission among humans. Cause of that, Ministry of Education and Culture in Indonesia negated class at school and changed it to online class at home. But for some courses like communication, the students must communicate directly to the interlocutor. An online-based health communication learning model is required so that health communication learning continues to run optimally. This study aims to evaluate the new ways of learning health communication through reading journals and delivered in various media.Case study: The communication courses begin with a journal reading task based on predetermined Topics. This task is done in groups, and consists of 5 to 6 peoples. Then, the journal must be submitted in various educational media such as slide presentations, posters, or videos (participants are free to choose the media used) and will be presented via live Instagram or Zoom. Evaluation of this task was conducted to analyze the skills of communication and was assessed by their seniors in medical profession students of Sriwijaya University (peer review). The students was also give feedback (voluntarily) through the questionnaire on this task. Total of 40 presentations and educational media has been evaluated. Most of the students choose poster as their media promotion. The scoring is closed to balance, 55% enough and 45% good (discussion). Connection failure (60.63%) was the main problem that arise when they present the task.Conclusion: Students skill for making media promotion as they props for present the journal was good. The report and presentation of this task was satisfying. The students feel to have the effect of increasing their ability and personal knowledge on health communication. This task was effective for medical students to learn about health communication.

Purpose: Emotional intelligence (EI) is a trainable skillset and has been shown to have a positive impact on clinician wellbeing, patient outcomes, and other personal and professional factors. This review aimed to evaluate and summarize current intervention strategies designed to improve EI in nursing and medical students.Results: Interventions varied by theme, content, learning activities, and duration. Nine different EI measurement instruments were utilized; learning outcomes were assessed by modified Kirkpatrick classifications. Nine out of 12 studies showed significant positive improvements in EI outcome measures post-intervention. Our review demonstrated moderate to high quality OCEBM level 1b and 2b evidence, moderate quality MERSQI/NOS-E risk of bias appraisal, and GRADE-defined desirable intervention effects with respect to positive modifications in Kirkpatrick identified learner perceptions and attitudes.Conclusions: Nearly all interventions resulted in positive change in EI. The greatest improvements resulted from intervention content relating to self-awareness, empathy, problem-solving, stress coping, and use/management of emotions, involved group-based learning activities, and were delivered in 10-15 hours spread over 8-12 weeks. No specific recommendations can be made about timing of interventions within nursing or medical professional curricula. Further research and development of objective behavioral EI skill assessments and patient outcomes is warranted.

While teaching in a tutorial, seminar, or problem-based learning group format may be the most fun and most active/interactive for both learner and faculty mentor, there are situations in medical student education in which various constraints require the use of the “lecture” format. Similar constraints may occur in the field of continuing medical education, or graduate medical education, as well. When this occurs, the faculty mentor can increase the active participation of the learners in the audience by continuously stressing seven key pedagogical (androgogical) principles. These include: 1) begin the learning exercise with a clinical example or anecdote to show the relevance of the material to the student; 2) frequently ask the students whether they have ever seen examples of what you describe in their previous experience with patients, personal experience, experience with relatives, etc.; 3) ask students frequently whether they have heard similar material presented differently in other courses; 4) recruit students to help solve “mystery cases”; 5) show examples of similar material from real life (e.g., patient descriptions, or even excerpts from favorite TV shows); 6) ask students to help summarize key points at the end of the session; and 7) allow, or even encourage, whispering during the class. Using some or all of these techniques can help turn a “lecture format” into a much more fun, interactive, and valuable session that emphasizes “learning” rather than “teaching.”

This communication is neither a comprehensive review of my research, nor a description about my recent new original scientific findings in smooth muscle or in cell Ca2+. For that intention, I will choose to publish via a regular channel, certainly not in this special edition. My intention is to take this opportunity to recapitulate Dr. Daniel's thoughts and spirits through the progress of my research, teaching, and personal development at McMaster University, stemming largely from Dr. Daniel's life-long interest in the regulation of Ca2+ in the control of smooth muscle function, specifically the vascular smooth muscle. Being a culturally adsorbent person, I am sure that my thoughts and behavior must have been substantially influenced by Dr. Daniel over 27 years of our collaboration. His influence may have molded me into whom and what I am today, both socially and scientifically. Equally, I may also have influenced him in some particular or peculiar way. Dr. Daniel's academic contribution is globally well known for, but not limited to, his insightful and productive research in smooth muscle, but also for his effective application of problem-based learning to education in pharmacology and his influence on students and colleagues.Key words: vascular biology, smooth muscle, endothelial cell, calcium regulation, herbal pharmacology, hypertension, problem-based learning.

Introduction: The learning takes place, mainly, by the integration of new knowledge acquired to previously existing ones, that is, by the elaboration of new information, in any of its previously analyzed forms. In the Problem Based Learning (PBL) method, constructivism is obtained at the expense of activation of prior knowledge, elaboration of new information, establishment of goals for self-directed study, and increament in the complexity of semantic networks in the final discussion of problem solving. Quality of life (QoL) can be considered as a subject of multiple approaches, contextualizations and applicability of which is used by several areas of knowledge. All the components that make up the quality of life can be measured and evaluated using quantitative instruments, including questionnaires, the main one being the WHOQOL-Bref, developed by the WHO, for having a cross-cultural evaluation methodology that allows uniform results. Objectives: To analyze in a global way the quality of life of medical students who work in the PBL model of the University of Ribeirão Preto (UNAERP). Methodology: A total of 90 students from the UNAERP medical school, aged over 18, enrolled in the 1st, 6th and 11th stages were included in this study. After signing the TCLE approved by the local CEP, the students answered a questionnaire based on the WHOQOL-bref. Results: A total of 55.5% of the women and 44.5% of the men with a mean age varying according to the stages (20 years, 1st stage, 22 years, 6th stage and 26 years in the 11th stage) were evaluated. When analyzing the degree of satisfaction of the students with regard to the PBL methodology, a percentage of 49.1% satisfaction was observed at the beginning of the course (1st stage), followed by 65.4% in the 6th stage and 77% at the end of the course (11th stage). The student’s satisfaction with the ability to perform the activities of his day-to-day recorded that in the first stage, 21.2% can carry out their activities with adequacy; in stage 6, 34.5% and in stage 11, 69.8% feel satisfied or very satisfied in this analysis. Students also had increased satisfaction with their academic performance when compared to the beginning and end of the course; on the other hand, in the intermediate phase, a percentage decrease can be observed as can be observed in the first stage: 42.8%; 6th stage: 33.5%; 11: 77%. Discussion and conclusions of the results: In this study, we measured the quality of life of university students of medicine at UNAERP and then made them reflect on how they deal with their personal, physical, social and mental issues throughout their training course. The PBL methodology enhances the need for independent study and focuses on student-led learning and improvement, which allows the student to evolve with a progressive improvement in the ability to perform day-to-day tasks and academic performance.

Students who study medicine and the younger generation can become environment conscious through the project "Four elements of nature - harmony in everyday life", developed by the staff of the Department of Medical Biology of I.Horbachevsky Ternopil National Medical University Ministry of Health of Ukraine together with the University of Rzeszow (Poland). The efficiency of formation of personal and professional qualities of a student, the required knowledge, skills and abilities to think rationally and meet modern ecological challenges, ability to actively promote ecological mindset and convey ecological knowledge to younger generations (kids, schoolchildren, students) are studied and analyzed. The article presents a variety of interactive methods and forms of teaching students, which should be used in the formation and education of environmental mindset. The experience gained in the implementation of certain stages of the project is shown, namely: the use of the method of "teaching-learning", the method of questionnaires, the achievements of scientific work and volunteer work of students. It was determined that the practical implementation of the tasks and goals of environmental education in educational institutions is based on the principles of the relationship of theoretical knowledge with the practical activities of young people in this field; inclusion of ecological aspects in the structure of subject, special generalizing topics; use of interactive and problem-based teaching methods; a combination of classroom and extracurricular environmental work.

The article reflects the relevance of using interactive teaching methods based on the involvement of all participants of the educational process, who are being impelled to pass through the specific training materials within the relevant discipline and each topic in particular. The article also highlights the distinct features of innovative teaching techniques, their types and characteristics. There have been analyzed small group methods, brainstorming, discussion, case method, business game, and debriefing techniques. A variety of teaching methods, the requirements for their selection make instructors and lecturers of a higher medical school to opt teaching methods thoroughly for each topic in order to enhance their own methodology of teaching subjects than in general should considerably contribute to professional task solving of diagnosis, treatment and prevention of diseases. The paper presents the implementation of some methods into interactive professional training at the Department of Internal Medicine of the Prof. M.M. Berezhnitsky Dentistry Faculty, Ivano-Frankivsk National Medical University. The 3rd year dental students are often involved into training activities through the methods of small group working and "brainstorming" that allows to deeper understanding and better mastering of theoretical knowledge. In order to improve subject comprehension, the 4th year students are involved into topic-related discussions and problem-solving tasks. The case method in its different designs and business games are used to consider and analyze an each individual clinical case in the discipline course. The debriefing technique seems to be effective to improve practical skills required by a typical discipline curriculum. The implementation of interactive training techniques is a prerequisite for ensuring the effectiveness of the teaching and learning the discipline "Internal Medicine". Such training tactics provide fostering of students' professional thinking, promote their professional and personal growth, stimulate learning and cognitive activity, master the skills of comprehensive analysis of situations and prompt decision making.

The article deals with the problem of forming a linguistic personality of foreign medical students. The article highlights the problem of forming the language personality of a foreign medical education seeker in the context of changes in the world and domestic educational systems. The authors analyze the relevance and appropriateness of using mobile technologies in Ukrainian language classes as a foreign language, taking into account the modern development of society, organizational and technological foundations of studying the subject «Ukrainian as a Foreign Language». Considering the trend of transition of users from the operation of desktop personal computers to more mobile portable devices (tablets, smartphones) and based on the problems of organizing the educational process, the assumption of the effectiveness and relevance of mobile technology in teaching Ukrainian as a foreign language. Based on the analysis of the existing definitions of the term "mobile learning" the interpretation was offered, in which mobile devices are the means to achieve didactic objectives. The potential of the use of mobile technologies in education is analysed, as well as the factors that complicate their applications by teachers are given. The domestic experience of using mobile devices for educational purposes is considered. The authors argue that there are many opportunities to transfer information materials to the learner. Options for using mobile learning in Ukrainian as a foreign language classes are shown. The article proposes the use of smartphones when performing practical tasks; target platforms in the study of topics; independent language acquisition; when repeating the material in extracurricular time. The advantages of using mobile devices as convenient tools for accessing cloud services to organize joint activities of students are considered.

Problem: Medical students often feel unprepared to care for patients whose cultural backgrounds differ from their own. Programs in medical schools have begun to address health: inequities; however, interventions vary in intensity, effectiveness, and student experience. Intervention: The authors describe an intensive 2-day diversity, equity, and inclusion curriculum for medical students in their orientation week prior to starting formal classes. Rather than using solely a knowledge-based “cultural competence” or a reflective “cultural humility” approach, an experiential curriculum was employed that links directly to fundamental communication skills vital to interactions with patients and teams, and critically important to addressing interpersonal disparities. Specifically, personal narratives were incorporated to promote individuation and decrease implicit bias, relationship-centered skills practice to improve communication across differences, and mindfulness skills to help respond to bias when it occurs. Brief didactics highlighting student and faculty narratives of difference were followed by small group sessions run by faculty trained to facilitate sessions on equity and inclusion. Context: Orientation week for matriculating first-year students at a US medical school. Impact: Matriculating students highly regarded an innovative 2-day diversity, equity, and inclusion orientation curriculum that emphasized significant relationship-building with peers, in addition to core concepts and skills in diversity, equity, and inclusion. Lessons learned: This orientation represented an important primer to concepts, skills, and literature that reinforce the necessity of training in diversity, equity, and inclusion. The design team found that intensive faculty development and incorporating diversity concepts into fundamental communication skills training were necessary to perpetuate this learning. Two areas of further work emerged: (1) the emphasis on addressing racism and racial equity as paradigmatic belies further essential understanding of intersectionality, and (2) uncomfortable conversations about privilege and marginalization arose, requiring expert facilitation.

The intent of the article is to study approaches that could be used to assess a language teacher’s professional competence. The authors state that authorities often do not distinguish the concepts “competence” and “competency”, and there is no one unique approach for assessing teachers’ work. We showed that the problem could be investigated within the frames of a competency-based approach. The term competency is wider than competence, and it embraces not only the sub-competencies, such as micro and macro skills, but personal qualities, which should also become the object of assessment. The following competencies of a teacher’s competency were distinguished: professional, social, personal, and pedagogical. For designing assessment standards, we dwelt on a teaching skills competence, which is a complex combination of the following abilities: the ability to formulate and realize lesson goals; motivate students; plan a lesson; conduct a lesson; control and evaluate students’ achievements. Five standards for assessing teachers’ professional competence were proposed. Each standard includes an indicator, which gives competence characteristics, and a grading scale. A survey was conducted among the teachers of secondary schools. Its purpose was to get teachers’ opinion on the content of the standards. We found out that the issues concerning sets of exercises, active learning techniques, critical thinking need more detailed explanation. The following conclusion was drawn. The problem of assessment of teachers’ competency is urgent nowadays; and teachers do really need the assessment professional development guide. With the purpose of measuring the effectiveness of the designed standards, the experiment is planned.

It is no secret that most health professionals, after postgraduation, aim to secure an academic position in a teaching institute due to various personal and/or professional preferences. Personal interest in teaching, inspirational figure/ role model-driven career selection, fixed working hours, financial rewarding, societal respect, and relatively easier career path are some of the prominent motives for health professionals to join academia (Huda & Yousuf, 2006). Indeed, it is a personal choice of a health professional should he/she opt for an academic career path. However, a serious question to ask oneself is: Am I prepared and ready for this challenging role? As Adam Urbanski once said, “Anybody who believes that all you have to do to be a good teacher is to love to teach also has to believe that all you have to do to become a good surgeon is to love to cut.” (1946 - American Federation of Teachers) Unfortunately, most (if not all) postgraduate programs in Pakistan are designed in such a way that they focus more on the core specialty and tend not to provide dedicated training on how to conduct evidence-based teaching practices. Evidence-based teaching refers to a process in which teachers use findings of empirical and concrete research evidence to inform their teaching practices (Thomas & Bussières, 2021). This process of applying research to practice is not haphazard but systematic, and it typically follows five essential steps: ask, acquire, appraise, apply, assess. Ask refers to asking a question related to a teaching problem; acquire refers to searching and retrieving the literature evidence; appraise refers to critically appraising the quality of the acquired evidence; apply refers to extracting valid and reliable findings from the literature and applying to own teaching setting; and assess refers to assessing whether or not the application of evidence to one’s teaching helped solve the problem (Thomas et al., 2011). As most novice teachers in our education system lack an understanding of educational theory or pedagogical practices, they learn on the job and use the hit and trial method to improve their teaching practices (Iqbal et al., 2020). Consequently, these health professionals cum teachers often use those teaching strategies that are not supported by evidence to positively influence student learning. Some of the known ill-informed teaching strategies include didactic lectures, teacher-dominated small group learning, borrowed teaching strategies from foreign education systems, and misuse of learning styles in instruction. These teaching malpractices result in wastage of limited educational resources, student demotivation, failure to achieve curricular goals, and a poor reflection on the personal and institutional portfolio. More importantly, it affects the overall healthcare system as these teachers are responsible for producing safe and high-quality healthcare providers for tomorrow. As of Ernest Leroy, “A poor surgeon hurts 1 person at a time, but a poor teacher hurts 130 (students) and consequently hundreds of patients”. What are the Potential Solutions? Here one wonders that what could be the possible solutions to this gruesome problem. Below, I describe some solutions that can be broadly classified into three domains. Responsibilities of Teachers: First of all, the health professionals assuming teaching roles should consume their time, efforts, and available resources to acquire pedagogical competence through formal and structured training so that they can practice evidence-based teaching. Moreover, due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, many international Universities are now offering virtual professional development courses. The teachers could use these opportunities to develop their knowledge and skills in educational theory and practice. Second, they should regularly consult literature evidence to learn and incorporate teaching strategies in instruction that are known to support knowledge retention and schema formation. Some of these strategies are: assessing prior knowledge and linking new information to it, summarizing information at the end of educational event, providing cognitive or hands-on rehearsal opportunities, providing constructive feedback on learning, nurturing learners’ metacognition et cetera. Third, they should align instructional methods to the desired curricular outcomes. For instance, if a final year medical student is expected to skillfully examine, diagnose and manage a patient with diabetes then the teaching approaches should be focused more on developing their cognitive and psychomotor skills through clinical or simulation-based teaching instead of imparting cognitive knowledge through didactic lectures. Finally, they should motivate students to be independent and self-directed learners and advocate the use of evidence-based learning strategies that can help in their learning, such as, peer-assisted learning, near-peer tutoring, collaborative learning, cognitive rehearsals, et cetera. Responsibilities of Institutions: Next to teachers, the onus to ensure evidence-based teaching is insinuated onto the institutions. The health professional institutes should provide sufficient continuous professional development opportunities to their teaching staff. In fact, it should be mandatory for the faculty to attend these professional development activities to polish their teaching skillset. Moreover, the planners of faculty evelopment activities should not entirely rely upon the participants’ feedback or self-reported change. They should incorporate certain evaluation methods to observe whether or not these activities helped 10HPEJ 2020 VOL 3, ISSUE. 2 bring the desired improvement in teaching practices. Some of the best methods to observe the change include peer evaluation, student feedback, graded assignments et cetera. More recently, entrustable professional activities (EPAs) have been advocated as a reliable tool to observe, evaluate and certify teaching proficiency (Iqbal & Al-Eraky, 2019). Responsibilities of Institutions: Finally, the national regularity bodies, such as, Pakistan Medical Commission (PMC) and the Higher Education Commission (HEC) should devise minimum standards for health professionals, in addition to their core specialty, who wish to choose an academic career. A postgraduate qualification in the respective specialty is certainly not sufficient to warrant the teaching proficiency of the aspirants. A basic qualification in education should be a prerequisite to secure a teaching position in health professional colleges. Additionally, it is also the responsibility of these regulatory bodies to standardize the professional development programs across Pakistan to maintain quality. Lastly, the regulatory bodies should also come up with a plan to regulate the certification of the faculty by legitimizing a continuous professional development framework. Sethi and Wajid (2020) have suggested a re-evaluation of professional growth through documentation of continuous professional development activities instead of renewing the registration by mere payment of the prescribed fee. Their recommendation is strongly supported by growing evidence which suggests that a decline in competence over time is very much possible if the skillset is not regularly practiced and polished through continuous professional development (Steinert et al., 2016). This editorial is an appeal to the teachers, educators, administrators, and policymakers to support evidence-based teaching practices in academia to ensure meaningful and effective education. It is about time that individuals, institutions, and regulatory bodies start paying attention to evidence-based teaching so that a resource strained education and healthcare system of Pakistan could be streamlined.

Este estudo teve como objetivo verificar a percepção dos acadêmicos, do terceiro e quarto semestres, do Curso de Medicina da Universidade Anhanguera-Uniderp de Campo Grande- MS, sobre a metodologia ativa de ensino e aprendizagem, suas correlações com as bases neurológicas e seus pontos diferenciais com relação à metodologia tradicional. O estudo foi realizado no período de agosto de 2017 a julho de 2018, contemplando 110 estudantes, que responderam, por meio de questionário, 14 perguntas referentes ao tema proposto. Os resultados foram positivos para a metodologia ativa, tendo como destaque os conceitos da autoaprendizagem, consolidação dos estudos e competência para resolução de problemas por meio desse método. Além disso, houve uma forte correlação entre o entendimento do funcionamento do PBL (Problem Based Learning – metodologia ativa) e o estudo das bases neurológicas, o que reforça a importância deste na grade curricular do Curso de Medicina. Conclui-se que a metodologia ativa vem sendo reconhecida, positivamente, pelos acadêmicos de medicina e que o profissional formado (egresso) nesse modelo apresenta características, que se traduzem em diversas qualidades, as quais poderão auxiliar a sua carreira profissional. Entretanto, são necessários mais estudos que explicitem as implicações de tal metodologia na vida pessoal de cada acadêmico.Palavras-chave: PBL. Metodologias de Ensino. Medicina. Abstract This study aimed to verify the perception of the third and fourth semesters of the course of Medicine of Anhanguera-Uniderp University of Campo Grande-MS, on the active teaching and learning methodology, their correlations with the neurological bases and their points with traditional methodology. The study was carried out from August 2017 to July 2018, with 110 students, who answered, through a questionnaire, 14 questions related to the proposed theme. The results were positive for the active methodology, highlighting the concepts of self-learning, consolidation of studies and competence to solve problems through this method. In addition, there was a strong correlation between the understanding of the functioning of PBL (Problem Based Learning) and the study of the neurological bases, which reinforces the importance of the same in the curricular curriculum of the Medicine Course. It is concluded that the active methodology has been positively recognized by medical academics and that the trained professional (alumnus) in this model has characteristics, which translate into several qualities, which may help their professional career. However, further studies are needed to explain the implications of such methodology in the personal life of each academic.Keywords: PBL. Teaching Methodologies. Medicine.

The biggest challenge for the health professionals is to support their patients and to guide them through the stages of dying. When working with dying patients, we become more sensitive to our own mortality and to our own vulnerability. Attitudes to death and the resulting primordial fear affects behavior patterns in people “working with death and loss”. However, if we focus far too close and far too long on the illness of our patients, our relationship with them may be endangered and may cause to feelings of rejection and guilt. Finding ways to establish relationships that go beyond illness and death thus becomes crucial in our efforts to maintain and promote the dignity, intimacy, and quality of life that our patients deserve. The shortage of well-trained staff is a problem of the modern world in the field of care for dying patients. Adequate education and training for such professionals is a necessary first step toward a more compassionate, humanistic, and dignified care for dying people. The data from own researches carried out among 162 healthcare professionals and 23 patients from 8 hospitals and 3 hospices of Sofia, outlines their basic difficulties and personal experiences in the provision of health care and care for seriously ill and dying patients. Used methods include: documentary method, inquiry method - direct inquiry, observation. Approximately 2/3 of respondents have difficulty in communicating with a dying patient and his relatives. To increase the understanding and to improve the care of people who are near death, there needs to be a change in the attitudes and the stereotypes that physicians, psychologists, social workers, nurses and caregivers. Lack of education in developing communication skills that help connect medical professionals to their patients and families; and also, ways to take control on dealing with suffering, death and loss, are the main source to keep professional distress. Good communication between medical staff and patients is based on both psychological established rules for interaction between people and the specific behavioral health practice models. The development of emotional competence should be present as an essential element in the process of professional training of healthcare professionals. In this connection Faculty of Public Health at the Medical University - Sofia provides education on Communication skills in student learning and postgraduate training of medical professionals. Here innovative approaches to improve emotional intelligence of the healthcare staff are applying. The failure to recognize and to acknowledge the own feelings while working with the dying patient is the biggest obstacle in front of empathic care. Patient-centered approach holds a significant place in the training of healthcare professionals. Interventions are focused on issues like consultation style, developing empathy, identifying and handling emotional problems. In the learning process, the most activating effect in this direction is the reflexive practice with real patients, aimed at mastering the appropriate style of counseling, developing empathy and dealing with emotional problems. In order to overcome on the educational deficit and need from enhancing health professionals’ competences in the field of person- centered care started the implementation of "learning at the working place" in medical and social institutions. We carry out discussion using educational presentation and interactive activities. The external training and discussions on current issues in health care for dying patients associated with the specifics of the workplace has many advantages, such as discussing concrete issues and case studies related to care places, reflection and sharing experience, saving the time of healthcare professionals. Substantial reserves are offered with informal processes and episodic learning in the workplace and their combination with formal education. Such training for students and working healthcare professionals can improve communication with patients and facilitate empathic professional support and care for sufferers.

The special issue has been focussed to overcome the challenges of scalability, which includes size scalability, geographical scalability, administrative scalability, network and synchronous communication limitation, etc.The challenges also emerge with the development of recent applications. Hence this proposal has been planned to handle the scalability issues in recent applications. This special issue invites researchers, engineers, educators, managers, programmers, and users of computers who have particular interests in parallel processing and/or distributed computing and artificial intelligence to submit original research papers and timely review articles on the theory, design, evaluation, and use of artificial intelligence and parallel and/or distributed computing systems for emerging applications. The ten papers in this special issue cover a range of aspects of theoretical and practical research development on scalable computing. The proposal provides an effective forum for communication among researchers and practitioners from various scientific areas working in a wide variety of problem areas, sharing a fundamental common interest in improving the ability of parallel and distributed computer systems, intelligent techniques, and deep learning mechanisms and advanced soft computing techniques. The issue covers wide range of applications, but with scalable problems that to be solved by perfect hybridization of distributed computing and artificial intelligence.The first paper is “CPU-Memory Aware VM Consolidation for Cloud Data Centers” introduced a CPU Memory aware VM placement algorithm is proposed for selecting suitable destination host for migration. The Virtual Machines are selected using Fuzzy Soft Set (FSS) method VM selection algorithm. The proposed placement algorithm considers CPU, Memory, and combination of CPU-Memory utilization of VMs on the source host.In “Bird Swarm Optimization-based stacked autoencoder deep learning for umpire detection and classification”, presented the umpire detection and classification by proposing an optimization algorithm. The overall procedure of the proposed approach involves three steps, like segmentation, feature extraction, and classification. Here, the classification is done using the proposed Bird Swarm Optimization-based stacked autoencoder deep learning classifier (BSO-Stacked Autoencoders), that categories into umpire or others.In “Enhanced DBSCAN with Hierarchical tree for Web Rule Mining”, proposed an enhanced web mining model based on two contributions. At first, the hierarchical tree is framed, which produces different categories of the searching queries (different web pages). Next, to hierarchical tree model, enhanced Density-Based Spatial Clustering of Applications with Noise (DBSCAN) technique model is developed by modifying the traditional DBSCAN. This technique results in proper session identification from raw data. Moreover, this technique offers the optimal level of clusters necessitated for hierarchical clustering. After hierarchical clustering, the rule mining is adopted. The traditional rule mining technique is generally based on the frequency; however, this paper intends to enhance the traditional rule mining based on utility factor as the second contribution. Hence the proposed model for web rule mining is termed as Enhanced DBSCAN-based Hierarchical Tree (EDBHT).In “A comprehensive survey of the Routing Schemes for IoT applications”, this review article provides a detailed review of 52 research papers presenting the suggested routing protocols based on the content-based, clustering-based, fuzzy-based, Routing Protocol for Low power (RPL) and Lossy Networks, tree-based and soon. Also, a detailed analysis and discussion are made by concerning the parameters, simulation tool, and year of publication, network size, evaluation metrics, and utilized protocols. In “Chicken-Moth Search Optimization-Based Deep Convolutional Neural Network For Image Steganography”, proposed an effective pixel prediction based on image stegonography is developed, which employs error dependent Deep Convolutional Neural Network (DCNN) classifier for pixel identification. Here, the best pixels are identified from the medical image based on DCNN classifier using pixel features, like texture, wavelet energy, Gabor, scattering features, and so on. The DCNN is optimally trained using Chicken-Moth search optimization (CMSO). The CMSO is designed by integrating Chicken Swarm Optimization (CSO) and Moth Search Optimization (MSO) algorithm based on limited error.In “An Efficient Dynamic Slot Scheduling Algorithm for WSN MAC: A Distributed Approach”, an effective TDMA based slot scheduling algorithm needs to be designed. In this paper, we propose a TDMA based algorithm named DYSS that meets both the timeliness and energy efficiency in handling the collision. This algorithm finds an effective way of preparing the initial schedule by using the average two-hop neighbors count. Finally, the remaining un-allotted nodes are dynamically assigned to slots using a novel approach.In “Artefacts removal from ECG Signal: Dragonfly optimization-based learning algorithm for neural network-enhanced adaptive filtering”, proposed a method utilizes the adaptive filter termed as the (Dragonfly optimization + Levenberg Marqueret learning algorithm) DLM-based Nonlinear Autoregressive with eXogenous input (NARX) neural network for the removal of the artefacts from the ECG signals. Once the artefact signal is identified using the adaptive filter, the identified signal is subtracted from the primary signal that is composed of the ECG signal and the artefacts through an adaptive subtraction procedure.In “A Comprehensive Review on State-of-the-Art Image Inpainting Techniques”, this survey makes a critical analysis of diverse techniques regarding various image inpainting schemes. This paper goes under (i) Analyzing various image inpainting techniques that are contributed in different papers. (ii) Makes the comprehensive study regarding the performance measures and the corresponding maximum achievements in each contribution. (iii) Analytical review concerning the chronological review and various tools exploited in each of the reviewed works.In “An Efficient Way of Finding Polarity of Roman Urdu Reviews by Using Boolean Rules”, proposed a novel approach by using Boolean rules for the identification of the related and non-related comments. Related reviews are those which show the behavior of a customer about a particular product. Lexicons are built for the identification of noise, positive and negative reviews.The final paper is “Forecasting the Impact of Social Media Advertising among College Students using Higher Order Statistical Functions”, this research work plans to develop a statistical review that concerns on social media advertising among college students from diverse universities. The review analysis on social media advertising is given under six sections such as: (i) Personal Profile; (ii) Usage; (iii) Assessment; (iv) Higher Order statistics like Community, Connectedness, Openness, Dependence, and Participation; (v) Trustworthiness such as Trust, Perceived value and Perceived risk; and (vi) Towards advertisement which involves attitude towards advertisement, response towards advertisement and purchase intension.

This study aims to determine the effectiveness of using mind mapping method in improving early childhood educator’s skill in mastering the child development assessment. This research is quasi-experimental using a pre-test and post-test design. The population was the entire classes of early childhood education training held by LPK Yayasan Indonesia Mendidik Jaka Sampurna at Cileungsi, Bogor. The participants were 45 early childhood educators. This study used three research methods which are implemented from learning methods in child development assessment was as pre-test and post-test. Data were collected by using two instruments to measure early childhood educators for child development assessment. The data were analysed by using t-test to measures the differences data in pre-test and post-test. The results showed that the use of mind mapping methods can help early childhood educators to improve their mastery of the development assessment concept which averages 51.9 percent. It showed significant results with ttest value is 18,266 (N = 10, α = 0,0). This capacity building is reinforced by various qualitative findings which arise from early childhood educators’ awareness to change the old learning style into learning by mind mapping method as a learning method that follows how the brain works. This study also found that early childhood educators as adults who are in the stage of formal thinking have shown an understanding that mind mapping method are appropriate, fast, easy and practical in mastering various development assessment concepts. Early childhood educators believe that they can use the method for mastering other material concepts. Keywords: Assessment, Brain-based teaching, Mind mapping References Anthony, J. N. (2001). Educational Assesment of Student. New Jersey: Merril Prentice Hall. Armstrong, T. (2009). Multiples Intelligences in the Classroom. Virginia: SCD. Bagnato, S. J. (2007). Authentic Assessment for Early Childhood Intervention. 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This paper aims to portray the overall picture of poverty in the world and mentions the key solution to overcome poverty from a critical perspective. The data and figures were quoted from a number of researchers and organizations in the field of poverty around the world. Simultaneously, the information strengthens the correlations among poverty and lack of education. Only appropriate philosophies of education can improve the country’s socio-economic conditions and contribute to effective solutions to worldwide poverty. In the 21st century, despite the rapid development of science and technology with a series of inventions brought into the world to make life more comfortable, human poverty remains a global problem, especially in developing countries. Poverty, according to Lister (2004), is reflected by the state of “low living standards and/or inability to participate fully in society because of lack of material resources” (p.7). The impact and serious consequences of poverty on multiple aspects of human life have been realized by different organizations and researchers from different contexts (Fraser, 2000; Lister, 2004; Lipman, 2004; Lister, 2008). This paper will indicate some of the concepts and research results on poverty. Figures and causes of poverty, and some solutions from education as a key breaker to poverty will also be discussed. Creating a universal definition of poverty is not simple (Nyasulu, 2010). There are conflicts among different groups of people defining poverty, based on different views and fields. Some writers, according to Nyasulu, tend to connect poverty with social problems, while others focus on political or other causes. However, the reality of poverty needs to be considered from different sides and ways; for that reason, the diversity of definitions assigned to poverty can help form the basis on which interventions are drawn (Ife and Tesoriero, 2006). For instance, in dealing with poverty issues, it is essential to intervene politically; economic intervention is very necessary to any definition of this matter. A political definition necessitates political interventions in dealing with poverty, and economic definitions inevitably lead to economic interventions. Similarly, Księżopolski (1999) uses several models to show the perspectives on poverty as marginal, motivation and socialist. These models look at poverty and solutions from different angles. Socialists, for example, emphasize the responsibilities of social organization. The state manages the micro levels and distributes the shares of national gross resources, at the same time fighting to maintain the narrow gap among classes. In his book, Księżopolski (1999) also emphasizes the changes and new values of charity funds or financial aid from churches or organizations recognized by the Poor Law. Speaking specifically, in the new stages poverty has been recognized differently, and support is also delivered in limited categories related to more specific and visible objectives, with the aim of helping the poor change their own status for sustainable improvement. Three ways of categorizing the poor and locating them in the appropriate places are (1) the powerless, (2) who is willing to work and (3) who is dodging work. Basically, poverty is determined not to belong to any specific cultures or politics; otherwise, it refers to the situation in which people’s earnings cannot support their minimum living standard (Rowntree, 1910). Human living standard is defined in Alfredsson & Eide’s work (1999) as follows: “Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and his family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary social services, and the right to security in the event of unemployment, sickness, disability, widowhood, old age or other lack of livelihood in circumstances beyond his control.” (p. 524). In addition, poverty is measured by Global Hunger Index (GHI), which is calculated by the International Food Policy Institute (IFPRI) every year. The GHI measures hunger not only globally, but also by country and region. To have the figures multi-dimensionally, the GHI is based on three indicators: 1. Undernourishment: the proportion of the undernourished as a percentage of the population (reflecting the share of the population with insufficient calorie intake). 2. Child underweight: the proportion of children under age 5 who are underweight (low weight for their age, reflecting wasting, stunted growth or both), which is one indicator of child under-nutrition. 3. Child mortality: the mortality rate of children under 5 (partially reflecting the fatal synergy of inadequate dietary intake and unhealthy environments). Apart from the individual aspects and the above measurement based on nutrition, which help partly imagine poverty, poverty is more complicated, not just being closely related to human physical life but badly affecting spiritual life. According to Jones and Novak (1999 cited in Lister, 2008), poverty not only characterizes the precarious financial situation but also makes people self-deprecating. Poverty turns itself into the roots of shame, guilt, humiliation and resistance. It leads the poor to the end of the road, and they will never call for help except in the worst situations. Education can help people escape poverty or make it worse. In fact, inequality in education has stolen opportunity for fighting poverty from people in many places around the world, in both developed and developing countries (Lipman, 2004). Lipman confirms: “Students need an education that instills a sense of hope and possibility that they can make a difference in their own family, school, and community and in the broader national and global community while it prepare them for multiple life choices.” (p.181) Bradshaw (2005) synthesizes five main causes of poverty: (1) individual deficiencies, (2) cultural belief systems that support subcultures of poverty, (3) economic, political and social distortions or discrimination, (4) geographical disparities and (5) cumulative and cyclical interdependencies. The researcher suggests the most appropriate solution corresponding with each cause. This reflects the diverse causes of poverty; otherwise, poverty easily happens because of social and political issues. From the literature review, it can be said that poverty comes from complex causes and reasons, and is not a problem of any single individual or country. Poverty has brought about serious consequences and needs to be dealt with by many methods and collective effort of many countries and organizations. This paper will focus on representing some alarming figures on poverty, problems of poverty and then the education as a key breaker to poverty. According to a statistics in 2012 on poverty from the United Nations Development Program (UNDP), nearly half the world's population lives below the poverty line, of which is less than $1.25 a day . In a statistics in 2015, of every 1,000 children, 93 do not live to age 5 , and about 448 million babies are stillborn each year . Poverty in the world is happening alarmingly. According to a World Bank study, the risk of poverty continues to increase on a global scale and, of the 2009 slowdown in economic growth, which led to higher prices for fuel and food, further pushed 53 million people into poverty in addition to almost 155 million in 2008. From 1990 to 2009, the average GHI in the world decreased by nearly one-fifth. Many countries had success in solving the problem of child nutrition; however, the mortality rate of children under 5 and the proportion of undernourished people are still high. From 2011 to 2013, the number of hungry people in the world was estimated at 842 million, down 17 percent compared with the period 1990 to 1992, according to a report released by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) titled “The State of Food Insecurity in the World 2013” . Although poverty in some African countries had been improved in this stage, sub-Saharan Africa still maintained an area with high the highest percentage of hungry people in the world. The consequences and big problems resulting from poverty are terrible in the extreme. The following will illustrate the overall picture under the issues of health, unemployment, education and society and politics ➢ Health issues: According a report by Manos Unidas, a non- government organization (NGO) in Spain , poverty kills more than 30,000 children under age 5 worldwide every day, and 11 million children die each year because of poverty. Currently, 42 million people are living with HIV, 39 million of them in developing countries. The Manos Unidas report also shows that 15 million children globally have been orphaned because of AIDS. Scientists predict that by 2020 a number of African countries will have lost a quarter of their population to this disease. Simultaneously, chronic drought and lack of clean water have not only hindered economic development but also caused disastrous consequences of serious diseases across Africa. In fact, only 58 percent of Africans have access to clean water; as a result, the average life expectancy in Africa is the lowest in the world, just 45 years old (Bui, 2010). ➢ Unemployment issues: According to the United Nations, the youth unemployment rate in Africa is the highest in the world: 25.6 percent in the Middle East and North Africa. Unemployment with growth rates of 10 percent a year is one of the key issues causing poverty in African and negatively affecting programs and development plans. Total African debt amounts to $425 billion (Bui, 2010). In addition, joblessness caused by the global economic downturn pushed more than 140 million people in Asia into extreme poverty in 2009, the International Labor Organization (ILO) warned in a report titled The Fallout in Asia, prepared for the High-Level Regional Forum on Responding to the Economic Crisis in Asia and the Pacific, in Manila from Feb. 18 to 20, 2009 . Surprisingly, this situation also happens in developed countries. About 12.5 million people in the United Kingdom (accounting for 20 percent of the population) are living below the poverty line, and in 2005, 35 million people in the United States could not live without charity. At present, 620 million people in Asia are living on less than $1 per day; half of them are in India and China, two countries whose economies are considered to be growing. ➢ Education issues: Going to school is one of the basic needs of human beings, but poor people cannot achieve it. Globally, 130 million children do not attend school, 55 percent of them girls, and 82 million children have lost their childhoods by marrying too soon (Bui, 2010). Similarly, two-thirds of the 759 million illiterate people in total are women. Specifically, the illiteracy rate in Africa keeps increasing, accounting for about 40 percent of the African population at age 15 and over 50 percent of women at age 25. The number of illiterate people in the six countries with the highest number of illiterate people in the world - China, India, Indonesia, Brazil, Bangladesh and Egypt - reached 510 million, accounting for 70 percent of total global illiteracy. ➢ Social and political issues: Poverty leads to a number of social problems and instability in political systems of countries around the world. Actually, 246 million children are underage labors, including 72 million under age 10. Simultaneously, according to an estimate by the United Nations (UN), about 100 million children worldwide are living on the streets. For years, Africa has suffered a chronic refugee problem, with more than 7 million refugees currently and over 200 million people without homes because of a series of internal conflicts and civil wars. Poverty threatens stability and development; it also directly influences human development. Solving the problems caused by poverty takes a lot of time and resources, but afterward they can focus on developing their societies. Poverty has become a global issue with political significance of particular importance. It is a potential cause of political and social instability, even leading to violence and war not only within a country, but also in the whole world. Poverty and injustice together have raised fierce conflicts in international relations; if these conflicts are not satisfactorily resolved by peaceful means, war will inevitably break out. Obviously, poverty plus lack of understanding lead to disastrous consequences such as population growth, depletion of water resources, energy scarcity, pollution, food shortages and serious diseases (especially HIV/AIDS), which are not easy to control; simultaneously, poverty plus injustice will cause international crimes such as terrorism, drug and human trafficking, and money laundering. Among recognizable four issues above which reflected the serious consequences of poverty, the third ones, education, if being prioritized in intervention over other issues in the fighting against poverty is believed to bring more effectiveness in resolving the problems from the roots. In fact, human being with the possibility of being educated resulted from their distinctive linguistic ability makes them differential from other beings species on the earth (Barrow and Woods 2006, p.22). With education, human can be aware and more critical with their situations, they are aimed with abilities to deal with social problems as well as adversity for a better life; however, inequality in education has stolen opportunity for fighting poverty from unprivileged people (Lipman, 2004). An appropriate education can help increase chances for human to deal with all of the issues related to poverty; simultaneously it can narrow the unexpected side-effect of making poverty worse. A number of philosophies from ancient Greek to contemporary era focus on the aspect of education with their own epistemology, for example, idealism of Plato encouraged students to be truth seekers and pragmatism of Dewey enhanced the individual needs of students (Gutex, 1997). Education, more later on, especially critical pedagogy focuses on developing people independently and critically which is essential for poor people to have ability of being aware of what they are facing and then to have equivalent solutions for their problems. In other words, critical pedagogy helps people emancipate themselves and from that they can contribute to transform the situations or society they live in. In this sense, in his most influential work titled “Pedagogy of the Oppressed” (1972), Paulo Freire carried out his critical pedagogy by building up a community network of peasants- the marginalized and unprivileged party in his context, aiming at awakening their awareness about who they are and their roles in society at that time. To do so, he involved the peasants into a problem-posing education which was different from the traditional model of banking education with the technique of dialogue. Dialogue wasn’t just simply for people to learn about each other; but it was for figuring out the same voice; more importantly, for cooperation to build a social network for changing society. The peasants in such an educational community would be relieved from stressfulness and the feeling of being outsiders when all of them could discuss and exchange ideas with each other about the issues from their “praxis”. Praxis which was derived from what people act and linked to some values in their social lives, was defined by Freire as “reflection and action upon the world in order to transform it” (p.50). Critical pedagogy dialogical approach in Pedagogy of the Oppressed of Freire seems to be one of the helpful ways for solving poverty for its close connection to the nature of equality. It doesn’t require any highly intellectual teachers who lead the process; instead, everything happens naturally and the answers are identified by the emancipation of the learners themselves. It can be said that the effectiveness of this pedagogy for people to escape poverty comes from its direct impact on human critical consciousness; from that, learners would be fully aware of their current situations and self- figure out the appropriate solutions for their own. In addition, equality which was one of the essences making learners in critical pedagogy intellectually emancipate was reflected via the work titled “The Ignorant Schoolmaster” by Jacques Rancière (1991). In this work, the teacher and students seemed to be equal in terms of the knowledge. The explicator- teacher Joseph Jacotot employed the interrogative approach which was discovered to be universal because “he taught what he didn’t know”. Obviously, this teacher taught French to Flemish students while he couldn’t speak his students’ language. The ignorance which was not used in the literal sense but a metaphor showed that learners can absolutely realize their capacity for self-emancipation without the traditional teaching of transmission of knowledge from teachers. Regarding this, Rancière (1991, p.17) stated “that every common person might conceive his human dignity, take the measure of his intellectual capacity, and decide how to use it”. This education is so meaningful for poor people by being able to evoking their courageousness to develop themselves when they always try to stay away from the community due the fact that poverty is the roots of shame, guilt, humiliation and resistance (Novak, 1999). The contribution of critical pedagogy to solving poverty by changing the consciousness of people from their immanence is summarized by Freire’s argument in his “Pedagogy of Indignation” as follows: “It is certain that men and women can change the world for the better, can make it less unjust, but they can do so from starting point of concrete reality they “come upon” in their generation. They cannot do it on the basis of reveries, false dreams, or pure illusion”. (p.31) To sum up, education could be an extremely helpful way of solving poverty regarding the possibilities from the applications of studies in critical pedagogy for educational and social issues. Therefore, among the world issues, poverty could be possibly resolved in accordance with the indigenous people’s understanding of their praxis, their actions, cognitive transformation, and the solutions with emancipation in terms of the following keynotes: First, because the poor are powerless, they usually fall into the states of self-deprecation, shame, guilt and humiliation, as previously mentioned. In other words, they usually build a barrier between themselves and society, or they resist changing their status. Therefore, approaching them is not a simple matter; it requires much time and the contributions of psychologists and sociologists in learning about their aspirations, as well as evoking and nurturing the will and capacities of individuals, then providing people with chances to carry out their own potential for overcoming obstacles in life. Second, poverty happens easily in remote areas not endowed with favorable conditions for development. People there haven’t had a lot of access to modern civilization; nor do they earn a lot of money for a better life. Low literacy, together with the lack of healthy forms of entertainment and despair about life without exit, easily lead people into drug addiction, gambling and alcoholism. In other words, the vicious circle of poverty and powerlessness usually leads the poor to a dead end. Above all, they are lonely and need to be listened to, shared with and led to escape from their states. Community meetings for exchanging ideas, communicating and immediate intervening, along with appropriate forms of entertainment, should be held frequently to meet the expectations of the poor, direct them to appropriate jobs and, step by step, change their favorite habits of entertainment. Last but not least, poor people should be encouraged to participate in social forums where they can both raise their voices about their situations and make valuable suggestions for dealing with their poverty. Children from poor families should be completely exempted from school fees to encourage them to go to school, and curriculum should also focus on raising community awareness of poverty issues through extracurricular and volunteer activities, such as meeting and talking with the community, helping poor people with odd jobs, or simply spending time listening to them. Not a matter of any individual country, poverty has become a major problem, a threat to the survival, stability and development of the world and humanity. Globalization has become a bridge linking countries; for that reason, instability in any country can directly and deeply affect the stability of others. The international community has been joining hands to solve poverty; many anti-poverty organizations, including FAO (Food and Agriculture Organization), BecA (the Biosciences eastern and central Africa), UN-REDD (the United Nations Programme on Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation), BRAC (Building Resources Across Communities), UNDP (United Nations Development Programme), WHO (World Health Organization) and Manos Unidas, operate both regionally and internationally, making some achievements by reducing the number of hungry people, estimated 842 million in the period 1990 to 1992, by 17 percent in 2011- to 2013 . The diverse methods used to deal with poverty have invested billions of dollars in education, health and healing. The Millennium Development Goals set by UNDP put forward eight solutions for addressing issues related to poverty holistically: 1) Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger. 2) Achieve universal primary education. 3) Promote gender equality and empower women. 4) Reduce child mortality. 5) Improve maternal health. 6) Combat HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases. 7) Ensure environmental sustainability. 8) Develop a global partnership for development. Although all of the mentioned solutions carried out directly by countries and organizations not only focus on the roots of poverty but break its circle, it is recognized that the solutions do not emphasize the role of the poor themselves which a critical pedagogy does. More than anyone, the poor should have a sense of their poverty so that they can become responsible for their own fate and actively fight poverty instead of waiting for help. It is not different from the cores of critical theory in solving educational and political issues that the poor should be aware and conscious about their situation and reflected context. It is required a critical transformation from their own praxis which would allow them to go through a process of learning, sharing, solving problems, and leading to social movements. This is similar to the method of giving poor people fish hooks rather than giving them fish. The government and people of any country understand better than anyone else clearly the strengths and characteristics of their homelands. It follows that they can efficiently contribute to causing poverty, preventing the return of poverty, and solving consequences of the poverty in their countries by many ways, especially a critical pedagogy; and indirectly narrow the scale of poverty in the world. In a word, the wars against poverty take time, money, energy and human resources, and they are absolutely not simple to end. Again, the poor and the challenged should be educated to be fully aware of their situation to that they can overcome poverty themselves. They need to be respected and receive sharing from the community. All forms of discrimination should be condemned and excluded from human society. When whole communities join hands in solving this universal problem, the endless circle of poverty can be addressed definitely someday. More importantly, every country should be responsible for finding appropriate ways to overcome poverty before receiving supports from other countries as well as the poor self-conscious responsibilities about themselves before receiving supports from the others, but the methods leading them to emancipation for their own transformation and later the social change.

Background: The aftermath of the 1910 Flexner report resulted in significant gaps in the structure of medical education. Experiential co-curricular opportunities can contribute to addressing these gaps. Purpose: To explore, from a holistic social constructionism perspective, the added value of a co-curricular program, designed and implemented based on Kolb’s Experiential Learning Theory. Methodology/Approach: In this case study, randomly selected medical students, who had participated in an experiential co-curricular program, undertook focus group sessions. Data were inductively analyzed using thematic analysis based on constructivist epistemology. Findings/Conclusions: Benefits at the individual/student level included three interlinked themes: personal, academic, and professional development. The personal development theme related to building character and resilience, and the academic development theme related to application of theory and previously acquired knowledge. Four categories surfaced within the professional development theme. Emergent categories at the community level were institutional advancement, contribution to host centers, and giving back to the community. Implications: Co-curricular programs, that are based on Kolb’s Experiential Learning Theory (ELT) and that foster learning as participation in the social world, humanize medical education, and nurture holistic millennial physicians.

Abstract Background Genetic testing rapidly penetrates into all medical specialties and medical students must acquire skills in this area. However, many of them consider it difficult. Furthermore, many find these topics less appealing and not connected to their future specialization in different fields of clinical medicine. Student-centred strategies such as problem-based learning, gamification and the use of real data can increase the appeal of a difficult topic such as genetic testing, a field at the crossroads of genetics, molecular biology and bioinformatics. Methods We designed an electronic teaching application which students registered in the undergraduate Medical Biology course can access online. A study was carried out to assess the influence of implementation of the new method. We performed pretest/posttest evaluation and analyzed the results using the sign test with median values. We also collected students’ personal comments. Results The newly developed interactive application simulates the process of molecular genetic diagnostics of a hereditary disorder in a family. Thirteen tasks guide students through clinical and laboratory steps needed to reach the final diagnosis. Genetics and genomics are fields strongly dependent on electronic databases and computer-based data analysis tools. The tasks employ publicly available internet bioinformatic resources used routinely in medical genetics departments worldwide. Authenticity is assured by the use of modified and de-identified clinical and laboratory data from real families analyzed in our previous research projects. Each task contains links to databases and data processing tools needed to solve the task, and an answer box. If the entered answer is correct, the system allows the user to proceed to the next task. The solving of consecutive tasks arranged into a single narrative resembles a computer game, making the concept appealing. There was a statistically significant improvement of knowledge and skills after the practical class, and most comments on the application were positive. A demo version is available at https://medbio.lf2.cuni.cz/demo_m/. Full version is available on request from the authors. Conclusions Our concept proved to be appealing to the students and effective in teaching medical molecular genetics. It can be modified for training in the use of electronic information resources in other medical specialties.

Executive functions (EF) are a collection of cognitive domains governing task initiation, motor planning, attention, and goal-oriented action. Difficulties with EF have marked impacts on adaptive living skills, learning outcomes, and quality of life for people with cognitive and psychosocial disabilities, as well as the broader population. While there is considerable research interest in EF training intervention for disabled populations, very few studies explore metacognitive intervention for people with cognitive disabilities. Metacognition comprises conscious beliefs and strategies around task management and goal setting. Metacognitive awareness has been shown to mediate the effects of executive function on self-regulated learning. Metacognitive interventions have also shown promise in general education, military training, and medical practice. We present a virtual reality experience deploying agent-based modeling to support explicit metacognitive strategy instruction for undergraduate students of all neurotypes. Our results support that explicit instructional material explaining executive function and metacognition in relation to problem-solving experiences influenced participant self-concept and awareness of personal traits and cognitive processes.

He problem of interaction between language and society is more and more relevant in the modern world. Changes of the world have influenced the discourse in various spheres of communication. Moreover the progress of medicine has led to changes in the system of medical terms, and, consequently, to difficulties in understanding of terms in the ordinary consciousness. A person always wants to understand other people and to be understood by them. So it is the main goal of communication. The article deals with the issue of the functioning of medical terms in the minds of first-year French-speaking students. First-year stu- dents have the ordinary consciousness. Medical terms, which are studied by them (first-year students), function in the ordinary consciousness in incorrect form. It's because they are based on associations, feelings which the person has during the process of cognition, and, therefore, they must be interpreted. During the process of learning, there is a need to clarify the personal meanings that medical students have in regarding to special terms. In this article the author gives the results of the research concerning the French-speaking students' knowledge of medical terminology. The author gives examples of the perception and rethinking of medical terms based on common knowledge and examines the formation of scientific knowledge to develop the language of medicine in the consciousness of students and its competent use in the future.

Abstract. Lately, the growing popularity of distance education: in 2014 on Google the most common search question was complete higher education. The development of education based on the principles of continuity, equal access, personal orientation forms a conceptually new model of education is "Open education". Therefore, the problem arises to use the appropriate modern educational technologies. The use of the information educational environment for student learning is one of the main implementations in institutions of higher education. The article presents the use of information and educational environment while training in the Ivano-Frankivsk national medical University and in the Zaporizhzhia state medical University, briefly discloses the use of Microsoft Office 365 and SharePoint. According to the developed questionnaire questioning of students of various forms of training and courses, interest in e-learning using Office 365 and summed up in the use of information and educational environment of the students of Ivano-Frankivsk national medical University and Zaporozhzhia state medical University. Research methods: analysis was conducted on the basis of materials of scientific works of contemporary researchers in the field of cloud services, questionnaires, processing of online sources and modern literature to clarify how to use Office 365. During the research were used such methods as analysis of theoretical sources on the use of Internet resources in educational process, study and generalization of experience of organization of independent work of students using information-educational environment. According to the Order of the MESU of April 25. 2013 №. 466 «On approving decree of distance education». Virtual education expands and updates the assignment of the teacher, make him a coach-consultant who shall coordinate the educational process, continually improve the courses that he teaches, increase creativity and skills in accordance with the innovations and innovation. The questionnaire has been made for surveying students of full-time and part-time forms of education. The results of usage the virtual learning environment by students of the full-time and part-time form of education are presented due to the prepared strict questions. After analyzing the forms of education and knowledge of students in the use of the material presented to them in Microsoft Office 365 and SharePoint, of course, it can be argued that the students of day form of education are more likely to use the site to prepare for couples and testing even at home.

On May 18, 2003, the Australian Minister for Education, Brendon Nelson, appeared on the Channel Nine Sunday programme. The Yoda of political journalism, Laurie Oakes, attacked him personally and professionally. He disclosed to viewers that the Minister for Education, Science and Training had suffered a false start in his education, enrolling in one semester of an economics degree that was never completed. The following year, he commenced a medical qualification and went on to become a practicing doctor. He did not pay fees for any of his University courses. When reminded of these events, Dr Nelson became agitated, and revealed information not included in the public presentation of the budget of that year, including a ‘cap’ on HECS-funded places of five years for each student. He justified such a decision with the cliché that Australia’s taxpayers do not want “professional students completing degree after degree.” The Minister confirmed that the primary – and perhaps the only – task for university academics was to ‘train’ young people for the workforce. The fact that nearly 50% of students in some Australian Universities are over the age of twenty five has not entered his vision. He wanted young people to complete a rapid degree and enter the workforce, to commence paying taxes and the debt or loan required to fund a full fee-paying place. Now – nearly two years after this interview and with the Howard government blessed with a new mandate – it is time to ask how this administration will order education and value teaching and learning. The curbing of the time available to complete undergraduate courses during their last term in office makes plain the Australian Liberal Government’s stance on formal, publicly-funded lifelong learning. The notion that a student/worker can attain all required competencies, skills, attributes, motivations and ambitions from a single degree is an assumption of the new funding model. It is also significant to note that while attention is placed on the changing sources of income for universities, there have also been major shifts in the pattern of expenditure within universities, focusing on branding, marketing, recruitment, ‘regional’ campuses and off-shore courses. Similarly, the short-term funding goals of university research agendas encourage projects required by industry, rather than socially inflected concerns. There is little inevitable about teaching, research and education in Australia, except that the Federal Government will not create a fully-funded model for lifelong learning. The task for those of us involved in – and committed to – education in this environment is to probe the form and rationale for a (post) publicly funded University. This short paper for the ‘order’ issue of M/C explores learning and teaching within our current political and economic order. Particularly, I place attention on the synergies to such an order via phrases like the knowledge economy and the creative industries. To move beyond the empty promises of just-in-time learning, on-the-job training, graduate attributes and generic skills, we must reorder our assumptions and ask difficult questions of those who frame the context in which education takes place. For the term of your natural life Learning is a big business. Whether discussing the University of the Third Age, personal development courses, self help bestsellers or hard-edged vocational qualifications, definitions of learning – let alone education – are expanding. Concurrent with this growth, governments are reducing centralized funding and promoting alternative revenue streams. The diversity of student interests – or to use the language of the time, client’s learning goals – is transforming higher education into more than the provision of undergraduate and postgraduate degrees. The expansion of the student body beyond the 18-25 age group and the desire to ‘service industry’ has reordered the form and purpose of formal education. The number of potential students has expanded extraordinarily. As Lee Bash realized Today, some estimates suggest that as many as 47 percent of all students enrolled in higher education are over 25 years old. In the future, as lifelong learning becomes more integrated into the fabric of our culture, the proportion of adult students is expected to increase. And while we may not yet realize it, the academy is already being transformed as a result. (35) Lifelong learning is the major phrase and trope that initiates and justifies these changes. Such expansive economic opportunities trigger the entrepreneurial directives within universities. If lifelong learning is taken seriously, then the goals, entry standards, curriculum, information management policies and assessments need to be challenged and changed. Attention must be placed on words and phrases like ‘access’ and ‘alternative entry.’ Even more consideration must be placed on ‘outcomes’ and ‘accountability.’ Lifelong learning is a catchphrase for a change in purpose and agenda. Courses are developed from a wide range of education providers so that citizens can function in, or at least survive, the agitation of the post-work world. Both neo-liberal and third way models of capitalism require the labeling and development of an aspirational class, a group who desires to move ‘above’ their current context. Such an ambiguous economic and social goal always involves more than the vocational education and training sector or universities, with the aim being to seamlessly slot education into a ‘lifestyle.’ The difficulties with this discourse are two-fold. Firstly, how effectively can these aspirational notions be applied and translated into a real family and a real workplace? Secondly, does this scheme increase the information divide between rich and poor? There are many characteristics of an effective lifelong learner including great personal motivation, self esteem, confidence and intellectual curiosity. In a double shifting, change-fatigued population, the enthusiasm for perpetual learning may be difficult to summon. With the casualization of the post-Fordist workplace, it is no surprise that policy makers and employers are placing the economic and personal responsibility for retraining on individual workers. Instead of funding a training scheme in the workplace, there has been a devolving of skill acquisition and personal development. Through the twentieth century, and particularly after 1945, education was the track to social mobility. The difficulty now – with degree inflation and the loss of stable, secure, long-term employment – is that new modes of exclusion and disempowerment are being perpetuated through the education system. Field recognized that “the new adult education has been embraced most enthusiastically by those who are already relatively well qualified.” (105) This is a significant realization. Motivation, meta-learning skills and curiosity are increasingly being rewarded when found in the already credentialed, empowered workforce. Those already in work undertake lifelong learning. Adult education operates well for members of the middle class who are doing well and wish to do better. If success is individualized, then failure is also cast on the self, not the social system or policy. The disempowered are blamed for their own conditions and ‘failures.’ The concern, through the internationalization of the workforce, technological change and privatization of national assets, is that failure in formal education results in social exclusion and immobility. Besides being forced into classrooms, there are few options for those who do not wish to learn, in a learning society. Those who ‘choose’ not be a part of the national project of individual improvement, increased market share, company competitiveness and international standards are not relevant to the economy. But there is a personal benefit – that may have long term political consequences – from being ‘outside’ society. Perhaps the best theorist of the excluded is not sourced from a University, but from the realm of fictional writing. Irvine Welsh, author of the landmark Trainspotting, has stated that What we really need is freedom from choice … People who are in work have no time for anything else but work. They have no mental space to accommodate anything else but work. Whereas people who are outside the system will always find ways of amusing themselves. Even if they are materially disadvantaged they’ll still find ways of coping, getting by and making their own entertainment. (145-6) A blurring of work and learning, and work and leisure, may seem to create a borderless education, a learning framework uninhibited by curriculum, assessment or power structures. But lifelong learning aims to place as many (national) citizens as possible in ‘the system,’ striving for success or at least a pay increase which will facilitate the purchase of more consumer goods. Through any discussion of work-place training and vocationalism, it is important to remember those who choose not to choose life, who choose something else, who will not follow orders. Everybody wants to work The great imponderable for complex economic systems is how to manage fluctuations in labour and the market. The unstable relationship between need and supply necessitates flexibility in staffing solutions, and short-term supplementary labour options. When productivity and profit are the primary variables through which to judge successful management, then the alignments of education and employment are viewed and skewed through specific ideological imperatives. The library profession is an obvious occupation that has confronted these contradictions. It is ironic that the occupation that orders knowledge is experiencing a volatile and disordered workplace. In the past, it had been assumed that librarians hold a degree while technicians do not, and that technicians would not be asked to perform – unsupervised – the same duties as librarians. Obviously, such distinctions are increasingly redundant. Training packages, structured through competency-based training principles, have ensured technicians and librarians share knowledge systems which are taught through incremental stages. Mary Carroll recognized the primary questions raised through this change. If it is now the case that these distinctions have disappeared do we need to continue to draw them between professional and para-professional education? Does this mean that all sectors of the education community are in fact learning/teaching the same skills but at different levels so that no unique set of skills exist? (122) With education reduced to skills, thereby discrediting generalist degrees, the needs of industry have corroded the professional standards and stature of librarians. Certainly, the abilities of library technicians are finally being valued, but it is too convenient that one of the few professions dominated by women has suffered a demeaning of knowledge into competency. Lifelong learning, in this context, has collapsed high level abilities in information management into bite sized chunks of ‘skills.’ The ideology of lifelong learning – which is rarely discussed – is that it serves to devalue prior abilities and knowledges into an ever-expanding imperative for ‘new’ skills and software competencies. For example, ponder the consequences of Hitendra Pillay and Robert Elliott’s words: The expectations inherent in new roles, confounded by uncertainty of the environment and the explosion of information technology, now challenge us to reconceptualise human cognition and develop education and training in a way that resonates with current knowledge and skills. (95) Neophilliacal urges jut from their prose. The stress on ‘new roles,’ and ‘uncertain environments,’ the ‘explosion of information technology,’ ‘challenges,’ ‘reconceptualisations,’ and ‘current knowledge’ all affirms the present, the contemporary, and the now. Knowledge and expertise that have taken years to develop, nurture and apply are not validated through this educational brief. The demands of family, work, leisure, lifestyle, class and sexuality stretch the skin taut over economic and social contradictions. To ease these paradoxes, lifelong learning should stress pedagogy rather than applications, and context rather than content. Put another way, instead of stressing the link between (gee wizz) technological change and (inevitable) workplace restructuring and redundancies, emphasis needs to be placed on the relationship between professional development and verifiable technological outcomes, rather than spruiks and promises. Short term vocationalism in educational policy speaks to the ordering of our public culture, requiring immediate profits and a tight dialogue between education and work. Furthering this logic, if education ‘creates’ employment, then it also ‘creates’ unemployment. Ironically, in an environment that focuses on the multiple identities and roles of citizens, students are reduced to one label – ‘future workers.’ Obviously education has always been marinated in the political directives of the day. The industrial revolution introduced a range of technical complexities to the workforce. Fordism necessitated that a worker complete a task with precision and speed, requiring a high tolerance of stress and boredom. Now, more skills are ‘assumed’ by employers at the time that workplaces are off-loading their training expectations to the post-compulsory education sector. Therefore ‘lifelong learning’ is a political mask to empower the already empowered and create a low-level skill base for low paid workers, with the promise of competency-based training. Such ideologies never need to be stated overtly. A celebration of ‘the new’ masks this task. Not surprisingly therefore, lifelong learning has a rich new life in ordering creative industries strategies and frameworks. Codifying the creative The last twenty years have witnessed an expanding jurisdiction and justification of the market. As part of Tony Blair’s third way, the creative industries and the knowledge economy became catchwords to demonstrate that cultural concerns are not only economically viable but a necessity in the digital, post-Fordist, information age. Concerns with intellectual property rights, copyright, patents, and ownership of creative productions predominate in such a discourse. Described by Charles Leadbeater as Living on Thin Air, this new economy is “driven by new actors of production and sources of competitive advantage – innovation, design, branding, know-how – which are at work on all industries.” (10) Such market imperatives offer both challenges and opportunity for educationalists and students. Lifelong learning is a necessary accoutrement to the creative industries project. Learning cities and communities are the foundations for design, music, architecture and journalism. In British policy, and increasingly in Queensland, attention is placed on industry-based research funding to address this changing environment. In 2000, Stuart Cunningham and others listed the eight trends that order education, teaching and learning in this new environment. The Changes to the Provision of Education Globalization The arrival of new information and communication technologies The development of a knowledge economy, shortening the time between the development of new ideas and their application. The formation of learning organizations User-pays education The distribution of knowledge through interactive communication technologies (ICT) Increasing demand for education and training Scarcity of an experienced and trained workforce Source: S. Cunningham, Y. Ryan, L. Stedman, S. Tapsall, K. Bagdon, T. Flew and P. Coaldrake. The Business of Borderless Education. Canberra: DETYA Evaluation and Investigations Program [EIP], 2000. This table reverberates with the current challenges confronting education. Mobilizing such changes requires the lubrication of lifelong learning tropes in university mission statements and the promotion of a learning culture, while also acknowledging the limited financial conditions in which the educational sector is placed. For university scholars facilitating the creative industries approach, education is “supplying high value-added inputs to other enterprises,” (Hartley and Cunningham 5) rather than having value or purpose beyond the immediately and applicably economic. The assumption behind this table is that the areas of expansion in the workforce are the creative and service industries. In fact, the creative industries are the new service sector. This new economy makes specific demands of education. Education in the ‘old economy’ and the ‘new economy’ Old Economy New Economy Four-year degree Forty-year degree Training as a cost Training as a source of competitive advantage Learner mobility Content mobility Distance education Distributed learning Correspondence materials with video Multimedia centre Fordist training – one size fits all Tailored programmes Geographically fixed institutions Brand named universities and celebrity professors Just-in-case Just-in-time Isolated learners Virtual learning communities Source: T. Flew. “Educational Media in Transition: Broadcasting, Digital Media and Lifelong Learning in the Knowledge Economy.” International Journal of Instructional Media 29.1 (2002): 20. There are myriad assumptions lurking in Flew’s fascinating table. The imperative is short courses on the web, servicing the needs of industry. He described the product of this system as a “learner-earner.” (50) This ‘forty year degree’ is based on lifelong learning ideologies. However Flew’s ideas are undermined by the current government higher education agenda, through the capping – through time – of courses. The effect on the ‘learner-earner’ in having to earn more to privately fund a continuance of learning – to ensure that they keep on earning – needs to be addressed. There will be consequences to the housing market, family structures and leisure time. The costs of education will impact on other sectors of the economy and private lives. Also, there is little attention to the groups who are outside this taken-for-granted commitment to learning. Flew noted that barriers to greater participation in education and training at all levels, which is a fundamental requirement of lifelong learning in the knowledge economy, arise in part out of the lack of provision of quality technology-mediated learning, and also from inequalities of access to ICTs, or the ‘digital divide.’ (51) In such a statement, there is a misreading of teaching and learning. Such confusion is fuelled by the untheorised gap between ‘student’ and ‘consumer.’ The notion that technology (which in this context too often means computer-mediated platforms) is a barrier to education does not explain why conventional distance education courses, utilizing paper, ink and postage, were also unable to welcome or encourage groups disengaged from formal learning. Flew and others do not confront the issue of motivation, or the reason why citizens choose to add or remove the label of ‘student’ from their bag of identity labels. The stress on technology as both a panacea and problem for lifelong learning may justify theories of convergence and the integration of financial, retail, community, health and education provision into a services sector, but does not explain why students desire to learn, beyond economic necessity and employer expectations. Based on these assumptions of expanding creative industries and lifelong learning, the shape of education is warping. An ageing population requires educational expenditure to be reallocated from primary and secondary schooling and towards post-compulsory learning and training. This cost will also be privatized. When coupled with immigration flows, technological changes and alterations to market and labour structures, lifelong learning presents a profound and personal cost. An instrument for economic and social progress has been individualized, customized and privatized. The consequence of the ageing population in many nations including Australia is that there will be fewer young people in schools or employment. Such a shift will have consequences for the workplace and the taxation system. Similarly, those young workers who remain will be far more entrepreneurial and less loyal to their employers. Public education is now publically-assisted education. Jane Jenson and Denis Saint-Martin realized the impact of this change. The 1980s ideological shift in economic and social policy thinking towards policies and programmes inspired by neo-liberalism provoked serious social strains, especially income polarization and persistent poverty. An increasing reliance on market forces and the family for generating life-chances, a discourse of ‘responsibility,’ an enthusiasm for off-loading to the voluntary sector and other altered visions of the welfare architecture inspired by neo-liberalism have prompted a reaction. There has been a wide-ranging conversation in the 1990s and the first years of the new century in policy communities in Europe as in Canada, among policy makers who fear the high political, social and economic costs of failing to tend to social cohesion. (78) There are dense social reorderings initiated by neo-liberalism and changing the notions of learning, teaching and education. There are yet to be tracked costs to citizenship. The legacy of the 1980s and 1990s is that all organizations must behave like businesses. In such an environment, there are problems establishing social cohesion, let alone social justice. To stress the product – and not the process – of education contradicts the point of lifelong learning. Compliance and complicity replace critique. (Post) learning The Cold War has ended. The great ideological battle between communism and Western liberal democracy is over. Most countries believe both in markets and in a necessary role for Government. There will be thunderous debates inside nations about the balance, but the struggle for world hegemony by political ideology is gone. What preoccupies decision-makers now is a different danger. It is extremism driven by fanaticism, personified either in terrorist groups or rogue states. Tony Blair (http://www.number-10.gov.uk/output/Page6535.asp) Tony Blair, summoning his best Francis Fukuyama impersonation, signaled the triumph of liberal democracy over other political and economic systems. His third way is unrecognizable from the Labour party ideals of Clement Attlee. Probably his policies need to be. Yet in his second term, he is not focused on probing the specificities of the market-orientation of education, health and social welfare. Instead, decision makers are preoccupied with a war on terror. Such a conflict seemingly justifies large defense budgets which must be at the expense of social programmes. There is no recognition by Prime Ministers Blair or Howard that ‘high-tech’ armory and warfare is generally impotent to the terrorist’s weaponry of cars, bodies and bombs. This obvious lesson is present for them to see. After the rapid and successful ‘shock and awe’ tactics of Iraq War II, terrorism was neither annihilated nor slowed by the Coalition’s victory. Instead, suicide bombers in Saudi Arabia, Morocco, Indonesia and Israel snuck have through defenses, requiring little more than a car and explosives. More Americans have been killed since the war ended than during the conflict. Wars are useful when establishing a political order. They sort out good and evil, the just and the unjust. Education policy will never provide the ‘big win’ or the visible success of toppling Saddam Hussein’s statue. The victories of retraining, literacy, competency and knowledge can never succeed on this scale. As Blair offered, “these are new times. New threats need new measures.” (ht tp://www.number-10.gov.uk/output/Page6535.asp) These new measures include – by default – a user pays education system. In such an environment, lifelong learning cannot succeed. It requires a dense financial commitment in the long term. A learning society requires a new sort of war, using ideas not bullets. References Bash, Lee. “What Serving Adult Learners Can Teach Us: The Entrepreneurial Response.” Change January/February 2003: 32-7. Blair, Tony. “Full Text of the Prime Minister’s Speech at the Lord Mayor’s Banquet.” November 12, 2002. http://www.number-10.gov.uk/output/Page6535.asp. Carroll, Mary. “The Well-Worn Path.” The Australian Library Journal May 2002: 117-22. Field, J. Lifelong Learning and the New Educational Order. Stoke on Trent: Trentham Books, 2000. Flew, Terry. “Educational Media in Transition: Broadcasting, Digital Media and Lifelong Learning in the Knowledge Economy.” International Journal of Instructional Media 29.1 (2002): 47-60. Hartley, John, and Cunningham, Stuart. “Creative Industries – from Blue Poles to Fat Pipes.” Department of Education, Science and Training, Commonwealth of Australia (2002). Jenson, Jane, and Saint-Martin, Denis. “New Routes to Social Cohesion? Citizenship and the Social Investment State.” Canadian Journal of Sociology 28.1 (2003): 77-99. Leadbeater, Charles. Living on Thin Air. London: Viking, 1999. Pillay, Hitendra, and Elliott, Robert. “Distributed Learning: Understanding the Emerging Workplace Knowledge.” Journal of Interactive Learning Research 13.1-2 (2002): 93-107. Welsh, Irvine, from Redhead, Steve. “Post-Punk Junk.” Repetitive Beat Generation. Glasgow: Rebel Inc, 2000: 138-50. Citation reference for this article MLA Style Brabazon, Tara. "Freedom from Choice: Who Pays for Customer Service in the Knowledge Economy?." M/C Journal 7.6 (2005). echo date('d M. Y'); ?> <http://journal.media-culture.org.au/0501/02-brabazon.php>. APA Style Brabazon, T. (Jan. 2005) "Freedom from Choice: Who Pays for Customer Service in the Knowledge Economy?," M/C Journal, 7(6). Retrieved echo date('d M. Y'); ?> from <http://journal.media-culture.org.au/0501/02-brabazon.php>.

This journal has a complex subtitle: Media, technology and lifelong learning. The subtitle will to many of our readers be perceived as a synonymous to “ICT in education”. However, ICT in education is strongly influenced by informatics and psychology. Even if schools are main receivers of educational technology, not many inventions in the field stem from the educational field itself. There are many tendencies reminding us of the continual conflict between technology and education. The task of this journal has the aim to discuss media and technology on educational grounds. One might think that in the ideal world, media and technologies would develop gradually from good practice where the technology would fit to the expressed needs and desires of the teachers and students of the actual situation. Ivan Illich brings such an example to the fore: in the 7th century the process of christening the people in Northern Europe came to slow down. For some reasons it was difficult to teach newly recruited students in the monastery schools Latin and therefore Christianity. Some clever monks in Ireland came up with the idea of inserting a graphical sign - an open space - to mark the differences between letters that ends a word and starts the next (Illich 1995, p. 87). Inserting an open space, made words distinct and a lot easier to understand. This innovation speeded up the learning process not only for slow learners of the Northern Europe, but for the whole community of readers worldwide. Inserting a space greatly improved the technology of writing, reading and teaching. A genuinely simple innovation radically changed how writing was undertaken, and the innovation came from teaching. It might not be common to think of writing as technology. In Carl Mitcham’s seminal work “Thinking through technology” he points out how technology has developed historically, and covers a number of shapes and forms. In the modern everyday conception of technology, most people – as well as academics – think of technology as visible artefacts, gadgets, gizmos or whatever material expressions it may take. But a wider interpretation is that technology is an expression of “how things work”. According to Mitcham (1994), technology can be identified on many levels: as knowledge, as artefacts, as activity, and as volition. In this sense didactics and didactical interventions are both knowledge and activity. But there are also manifest artefacts representing didactics, that act as the type of “organ projections” that technology has been conceived to be: textbooks, classrooms, computers, projectors etc.. The problem with educational technology is that so much of it does not come as a response to expressed desires and needs. This is a general concern with technology. Technologies are invented for some specific purpose – or simply because it was possible to develop. By accident or serendipity it is all of a sudden applied to some other function. Dissemination of technology is difficult to predict, its patterns, means and ends is difficult to foresee. Our first contributor, Bjørn Hofmann, deals with this phenomenon, and he describes this as an uncontrollable technology. He explains how rather technology controls us. From being a means, technology now has become the end in itself. Hofmann offers us also a profound critique of this position. He claims there is a fundamental link between values and technology. We, educators as well as citizens in general, have a certain responsibility to screen and test technology according to its effects. We have to evaluate the ethics of the technology that surrounds us, and never accept this superfluous fact implied in “technological determination”. He asks us to trace the values inherent in the technology in question and seek beyond the imperatives of technology, for the ethics of technology. The second article addresses a specific context of teaching about human communication. Halvor Nordby seeks to explore the nature of face-to-face and interactive communication and the respective challenges that students of a national further education program for medical paramedics experience. Nordby builds his paper on an analysis of the communicative situations paramedics often find themselves in. He addresses two main questions: What are the basic problems of understanding paramedics confront when they meet patients and other health personnel in face-to-face situations? And how are these problems similar to, but also different from, the challenges they confront when they communicate interactively via radio or telephone with other health personnel? Nordby uses philosophy of mind and language to understand these situations and provides us with an analytical framework for not only understanding the similarities and differences, but also to avoid misunderstandings. Nordby’s paper is an excellent example on how one can develop fine research from investigating one’s own teaching. Another insight from Carl Mitcham is how technology seems to follow steps of naturalistic innovation. What started as an idea and turned into standard procedures in a community of practitioners became more or less fundamental “rules of thumb”, written down in manuals, and distributed in the community. In the next stage one seeks for more consistent systems of predictions, such as ‘if A, then B’ appear, a semi-scientific stage which strives for Scientific precision. In its final stage, agents of the community seek to legitimize and systematize what once was a practical rule by transforming it to science. Now, scientific theories are of two kinds, Mitcham argues: the highest status is gained by being defined as a substantial theory, to which most nature sciences belong. The second group, operational theories, offer less absolute certainty, more insecurity, less predictability. Think of “thermodynamics” and “management” as examples of the two kinds. Education is often trapped between these types of scientific theory. On one hand most teachers act on the grounds of “rules of thumb”, believing there is a good reason to claim that “If I do A, B will follow”. These are dimensions of the personal knowledge teachers carry without giving it much thought. University teachers are no exception in this respect. Even if they seek to build their research on scientific theories, their lives are just as based on personal knowledge as any layperson. When it comes to teaching, university teachers are equally attached do unreflected traditions, habits and unjustified patterns of action. The last paper deals with how scientific interventions into education seeks to challenge established “ways of doing things”, by changing methods of assessment. The paper suggests that giving students proper feedback on their written essays pays off significantly: more students pass the exam, and with better results. Raaheim has screened the available literature on what seems to have a positive effect on student learning when writing papers, and shows how using a different method improves the studying conditions for students. He offers a technological innovation that illuminates the recursive process between the developmental levels of technologies. The obligation of educators is to improve the chances for learners to fulfil their aims. Even if education never can become a scientific theory on par with “substantial” theories, the obligation is still there to increase the chance for making A be followed by B. Literature: Illich, I. (1995): In the Vineyard of the text. A Commentary to Hugh's Didascalicon. The University of Chicago Press, Chicago. Mitcham, C. (1994): Thinking through technology : the path between engineering and philosophy . University of Chicago Press, Chicago.

Morning report (MR) is a valued educational experience in internal medicine training programs. Many senior residents and faculty have not received formal training in how to effectively facilitate MR. Faculty at the University of Toronto were surveyed to provide insights into what they felt were key elements for the successful facilitation of MR. These insights fell within 5 major categories: planning and preparation, the case, running the show, wrapping up and closing the loop.Résumé Le rapport du matin (RM) est un outil pédagogique précieux dans les programmes de formation en médecine interne. Nombre de résidents séniors et de membres du corps enseignant n’ont toutefois jamais reçu de formation officielle sur la façon de faciliter l’élaboration du RM. Nous avons sondé les membres du corps enseignant de l’université de Toronto pour avoir un aperçu de ce qu’ils percevaient comme étant des éléments-clés susceptibles d’améliorer grandement l’élaboration du RM. Les réponses reçues se répartissent en cinq principales catégories: la planification et la préparation du RM, les caractéristiques du cas évalué, l’importance et la façon de prendre en main le processus, le résumé des informations et l’art de « boucler la boucle». Morning report (MR) has long been an integral and valued part of Internal Medicine training programs in North America.1,2 Some residents recognize MR as the most important educational activity during their training.3 Medical students, residents and faculty typically attend MR. Although the structure and function of MR can vary across institutions, it usually involves a case-based discussion facilitated by a faculty member, chief medical resident (CMR), or other senior resident. The facilitator discusses pertinent aspects of one or more clinical cases to teach medical knowledge, clinical reasoning and other important aspects of physician competencies, such as communication and collaboration skills. 4 Residents have expressed a preference for an interactive teaching session led by an individual with extensive medical knowledge and excellent clinical acumen.5Despite trainees’ perceptions about the core educational function of MR and their preference for skilled facilitators, most residents and many faculty have never received any formal training on how to conduct an effective MR. This, coupled with a lack of resources in the literature, may contribute to feelings of trepidation about assuming the role of facilitator.6 Based on this need, we were invited by the organizing group of residents at the 2015 Canadian CMR Conference, held in Toronto, Canada, to lead a seminar to introduce CMRs to the principles of effective MR facilitation. The conference was attended by over 70 current and future CMRs. In preparation for this seminar, we reviewed available literature and found that practical guidelines on how to facilitate a successful MR were generally lacking. To help us to provide guidance and to capture broad opinions and experiences, we recruited a sample of 24 faculty at the University of Toronto, including many award-winning teachers whose experience in leading MR ranges from 3 to over 30 years. We asked them to provide insights into what they felt were key elements of facilitating a successful MR. While not a systematic collection of data, their insights taken together represent a broad experience base. Given the relative lack of evidence-based literature describing how to facilitate MR, we decided to disseminate a refined summary of the shared wisdom we uncovered in hopes that it would benefit other CMRs and junior faculty as they take on this challenging role.The insights provided fall within 5 main themes (Table 1) which are discussed below, followed by a brief discussion about future directions for MR:1) Planning and preparation2) The case3) Running the show4) Wrapping up5) Closing the LoopTable 1. Experience-Based Tips to Running an Effective Morning ReportPLANNING AND PREPARATION:1) Ensure audiovisual aids are present and working before starting. 2) Start and end on time. 3) Encourage all faculty to attend and participate. 4) Know the audience (including names).THE CASE:5) The case can be undifferentiated or one for which the diagnosis and even response to treatment is known. 6) There are pros and cons to the facilitator knowing details of the case in advance. 7) If details of the case are not known to the facilitator, determine with the person presenting if the discussion should be focused on diagnosis, management or other pertinent issues. 8) Cases need not be limited to inpatients and can include ambulatory cases and case simulations.RUNNING THE SHOW:9) Establish a respectful learning climate. 10) Personal anecdotes and reflections on past cases can engage the audience. 11) Ensure time is spent discuss learning issues valuable to all present. 12) Facilitate and engage in discussion rather than deliver a lecture. 13) Use a mix of pattern recognition (heuristics) and analytical reasoning strategies. 14) Start with a question that has an obvious answer if dealing with a quiet audience. 15) Promote volunteerism for answers as much as possible, but direct a question to a specific person if no one volunteers. 16) Begin by engaging the most junior learners and advance to involve senior learners. 17) Encourage resource stewardship and evidence-based medicine. 18) Acknowledge areas of uncertainty and don’t be afraid to say “I don’t know”. 19) Teaching “scripts” or the use of a systematic approach to developing a differential diagnosis can be used when discussing less familiar topics. 20) Highlight the variability in clinical approach amongst "the experts" in the room.WRAPPING-UP:21) Ensure there is time to summarize “take home points”. 22) Provide learners with the opportunity to summarize what they have learned.CLOSING THE LOOP23) Reinforcement of learning can include a distribution of a relevant paper or providing a summary of learning points via email or blog. 24) Maintain a case log to ensure a balanced curriculum. 25) Provide feedback to the case presenter and facilitator.Planning and Preparation It is important for the organizer and facilitator (these may or may not be the same person) to be diligent when preparing for MR. The person in charge of organizing MR should ensure that all necessary audiovisual equipment is in working order, which may be as simple as ensuring there is a whiteboard and working marker. To optimize housestaff attendance, the sessions and facilitators should be scheduled in a regular and predictable way. The lure of a light breakfast should not be underestimated and may add to the social aspect of this event. Sessions should begin and finish on time (or even slightly early). Ideally, deferring pages for all but critical clinical issues should occur. Having faculty regularly attend MR as audience participants, and not just as facilitators, improves the attendance of learners who see through role-modelling the importance of continuing medical education and lifelong learning. Faculty presence also raises the level of discussion around grey areas of diagnosis and management, providing trainees with a spectrum of opinions and approaches to clinical medicine, specifically role-modelling how faculty approach clinical uncertainty. The organizer must also ensure that someone, usually a trainee, is responsible for bringing the details of one or more clinical cases to be discussed.The facilitator should ensure they know the names and year of training of the housestaff in attendance. It is helpful if the organizer can provide a list (ideally with pictures) of those who will be in attendance for the facilitator to reference. Over time, this helps to develop a sense of community within the group. It also allows the facilitator to engage all participants and with the goals of first posing level-specific questions to the more junior learners and ending with the most senior learners.The Case The selected clinical case can be either a new patient seen in consultation in the past 24 hours or a patient that has been in hospital for some time and for whom results of investigations and response to treatment are known. Ideally, the majority of the cases selected should not involve particularly rare medical issues and should mirror the clinical case mix of patients being cared for by the trainees. Trainees will benefit more from discussions about common clinical problems rather. However, to highlight issues of diagnostic reasoning, it can be beneficial to occasionally discussing uncommon case including typical presentations of rare diseases or unusual presentations of common problems.The faculty surveyed expressed differing opinions when asked if they thought the details of the case should be known to the facilitator in advance. Knowing the details of the case in advance can ensure the facilitator is comfortable with the content area and allows them to focus on aspects of the case that they think will have the highest learning impact for trainees. However, when the case is not known to the facilitator, the audience will be more likely to garner insight into the clinical reasoning process of the facilitator. The opportunity to learn about the cognitive process that an “expert” uses when generating a differential diagnosis and formulating plans for investigation and management is potentially much more valuable than the discussion of content that could be read in a textbook or electronically. When the details of a case are not known, the discussion is more spontaneous and the lines of discussion are more reflective of the thoughts of the trainees, rather than the facilitator. The discussion can be guided by the case itself and the trainees’ questions and answers. A mixed approach to case discussion will provide the variety that the participants value.Although traditionally MR has focused on the diagnosis or management of one or more clinical cases from the inpatient service, its format is flexible enough to provide opportunity for discussion or for other important aspects of patient care. MR can also address ambulatory cases,7 include the presence of a real patient for the purposes of highlighting history-taking and clinical findings and also incorporate discussion of simulated cases, such as code blue scenarios. The discussion can also be enriched by the health professionals from other disciplines including, pharmacists, physical therapists, occupational therapists, nurses, and social workers. The case can also be selected to allow the discussion to be focused on other specific elements of management, such as resource utilization and “choosing wisely,”8 quality and safety, bioethics, and evidence-based medicine.9Running the Show In developing their skills in facilitation, many of the faculty surveyed discussed that they continuously build on the facilitation skills that they have learned over time, the basic principles of which are described elsewhere.10,11 Through feedback and reflection, they adapt to a style that reflects how they believe the MR should be conducted.The facilitator must establish a respectful climate at MR that is conducive to learning. He or she must ensure that the session is collegial and enforce that the goal of the session is learning, rather than showmanship. The environment should encourage interaction and permit people to ask questions. Trainees should feel comfortable enough to answer questions and test hypotheses, even if answers are incorrect. However, the facilitator must ensure that the correct information is conveyed to the group and that incorrect answers are explored as key teaching points. Humour can put people at ease. Self-deprecating humour can be non-threatening and freely employed if it is within the facilitator’s comfort zone. However, humour should never come at the expense of a trainee. Personal anecdotes and reflections on past cases can engage the audience, relax the atmosphere and vividly impart key facts and clinical wisdom.It is important for the facilitator to be respectful of time. Trainees often report that too much time is spent on reviewing the history and physical examination and on the development of an exhaustive differential diagnosis while less time is spent on investigation and management issues, which senior trainees find most valuable. There need not be a fixed formula related to how much time to spend on specific components of the case. A skilled facilitator will expand and abbreviate aspects of the case discussion based on the specific case presented. Some cases represent excellent opportunities to review evidence-based physical examination, some may highlight issues of resource stewardship related to investigation and some are particularly well-suited to discussion of evidence-based management.The facilitator should facilitate a clinical discussion, rather than deliver a didactic talk. He or she should coach the audience to identify key historical facts or findings on physical examination to allow everyone to fully participate in the case formulation and clinical reasoning that will follow. Demonstrating a mix of pattern recognition and heuristics (e.g., “Quick – what do you think the diagnosis is?”) and analytical reasoning strategies will help trainees learn to employ and recognize the strengths and limitations of each.In the face of a quiet audience, questions that have obvious answers should be posed first. The facilitator should promote volunteerism as much as possible; however, addressing specific members of the audience prevents silence and can help ensure everyone is engaged in the discussion. Sensitivity to the level of trainee is important. A facilitator should avoid potential embarrassment of a trainee by allowing a more junior learner to come up with the answer to a question that the more senior trainee could not answer. In other words, there should be an inviolate sequence wherein, for any given topic, the facilitator starts with trainees at an appropriate level for the questions and moves upward sequentially by level of training. This allows participants to relax and set their focus on learning, rather than avoiding eye contact and fearing embarrassment.A skilled facilitator should not allow any one person to dominate the discussion and should also refrain from asking multiple questions to the same participant. However, it can be valuable to challenge a respondent or the group to elaborate on their answers, as this can uncover gaps in knowledge and understanding and provide additional opportunities for learning.It is important to ensure that the discussion is of interest to trainees at all levels. If faculty are present, their opinions should be sought throughout the case. It is helpful to highlight the variability in approach amongst “the experts” in the room. Judicious use and justification of investigations should be encouraged to promote learning about resource stewardship and evidence-based medicine principles should be incorporated, when relevant.Many facilitators are anxious about how to handle situations where they don’t know the answer to a particular clinical problem. In these cases, a demonstration of the clinical reasoning process and a focus on an approach to clinical problems can be helpful. Some of the most useful discussions centre on how to deal with uncertainty and on how to find answers to clinical questions in real-time using available resources. The facilitator should not hesitate to say “I don’t know,” as this demonstrates that nobody has infinite knowledge and role-models the necessity of recognizing one’s limitations. Teaching scripts relating to specific topics or the use of an etiologic or body systems-based approach to developing a differential diagnosis are helpful teaching approaches6.Wrapping Up Sufficient time should be dedicated to recapitulation and repetition of one to 3 key take home messages. This serves to reinforce the important points that were discussed and to ensure that participants walk away with key messages to facilitate learning. Having a few members of the audience identify what they have learned is often beneficial as the facilitator may not identify the same issues as the trainees.Closing the Loop Further reinforcement can occur if a summary of the take home points, or a relevant paper, is circulated by email or posted to a blog.12 This must be done in a manner that protects patient confidentiality. Updates on previously presented diagnostic dilemmas will enhance learning. Finally, the organizer of MR can keep a log of cases that have been presented to avoid excessive repetition of topics and ensure a balanced curriculum.A process for the person presenting the case to be provided with feedback about their presentation skills by the facilitator or peers should be implemented. It is also important for the facilitator to receive feedback about their teaching and the session overall. Feedback will help faculty refine their facilitation skills, especially if coupled with faculty development initiatives to improve teaching skills.13 It may also be important for novice clinician teachers who need to build a teaching portfolio as part of their academic review and promotion process. 14 If it is clear the faculty utilize the feedback, it serves to role-model self-reflection and promote a culture of frequent formative feedback.The Future of MR MR has a long tradition and can be an evolving teaching format capable of meeting current educational needs. For example, with the implementation of competency-based medical education (CBME) into residency training programs, the competencies being developed for Internal Medicine trainees can provide a framework to organize aspects of learning experiences, including MR. 15 Issues of advocacy and stewardship may be highlighted as explicit learning points of cases, as MR allows for discussion of authentic core clinical tasks and problems, avoiding the reduction of competencies to endless lists taught without the necessary context needed for deeper learning.16 There are also challenges to implementing and sustaining a successful MR in today's current training climate. Issues such as duty-hour restrictions, increased volume and acuity of patients, and pressure to discharge patients early in the day17–19 have prompted some to modify the traditional MR. An “afternoon report” allows for attention to clinical duties early in the day and preserves teaching for later in the day. MR should continue to evolve to meet current education and healthcare delivery needs, and these innovations should be described in the literature and studied.Although these tips have been generated from shared experiences at a single centre, we believe they will be useful to facilitators in many other settings, as they represent the experiences of many facilitators with many cumulative years of experience. This article is intended to stimulate others to reflect upon and discuss what they have found to be the key elements to facilitating a successful MR.Acknowledgements We would like to thank our colleagues who contributed tips and whose teaching has influenced the careers of countless trainees: Dr. Ahmed Bayoumi, Dr. Isaac Bogoch, Dr. Mark Cheung, Dr. Allan Detsky, Dr. Irfan Dhalla, Dr. Vera Dounaevskaia, Dr. Trevor Jamieson, Dr. Lauren Lapointe Shaw, Dr. Jerome A. Leis, Dr. Don Livingstone, Dr. Julia Lowe, Dr. Ophyr Mourad, Dr. Valerie Palda, Dr. Joel Ray, Dr. Donald Redelmeier, Dr. Steve Shadowitz, Dr. Rob Sargeant.References1. Parrino TA, Villanueva AG. The principles and practice of MR. JAMA 1986;256(6):730–33.2. Amin Z, Guajardo J, Wisniewski W, Bordage G, Tekian A, Niederman LG. MR: focus and methods over the past three decades. Acad Med 2000;75(10):S1–S5.3. Gross CP, Donnelly GB, Reisman AB, Sepkowitz KA, Callahan MA. Resident expectations of MR: a multi-institutional study. Arch Int Med 1999;159(16):1910–14.4. McNeill M, Ali SK, Banks DE, Mansi IA. MR: can an established medical education tradition be validated? J Grad Med Educ 2013;5(3):374–84.5. Ways M, Kroenke K, Umali J, Buchwald D. MR: A survey of resident attitudes. Arch Int Med 1995;155(13):1433–37.6. Sacher AG, Detsky AS. Taking the stress out of MR: an analytic approach to the differential diagnosis. J Gen Intern Med 2009;24(6):747–51.7. Wenderoth S, Pelzman F, Demopoulos B. Ambulatory MR. J Grad Med Educ 2002;17(3):207–209.8. Kane GC, Holumzer C, Sorokin R. Utilization management MR: Purpose, planning and early experience in a university hospital residency program. Sem Med Pract 2001;4(1):27–36.9. Banks DE, Runhua Shi M. Decreased hospital length of stay associated with presentation of cases at MR with librarian support. J Med Libr Assoc 2007;95(4):381–87.10. Azer SA. Challenges facing PBL tutors: 12 tips for successful group facilitation. Med Teach 2005;27(8):676–81.11. Skeff KM. Enhancing teaching effectiveness and vitality in the ambulatory setting. J Gen Intern Med 1988;3(1):S26–S33.12. Bogoch II, Frost DW, Bridge S, Lee TC, Gold WL, Pansiko DM, Cavalcanti R. MR blog: a web-based tool to enhance case-based learning. Teach Learn Med 2012;24(3):238–41.13. Boerboom TB, Stalmeijer RE, Dolmans DH, Jaarsma DA. How feedback can foster professional growth of teachers in the clinical workplace: A review of the literature. Stud Educ Eval 2015;46:47–52.14. Fleming VM, Schindler N, Martin GJ, DaRosa DA. Separate and equitable promotion tracks for clinician-educators. JAMA 2005;294(9):1101–1104.15. Frank JR, Snell LS, Ten Cate O, Holmboe ES, Carraccio C, Swing SR, Harris, KA. Competency-based medical education: theory to practice. Med Teach, 2010;32(8):638–45.16. Hawkins RE, Welcher CM, Holmboe ES, Kirk LM, Norcini JJ, Simons KB, Skochelak SE. Implementation of competency‐based medical education: are we addressing the concerns and challenges? Med Educ. 2015;49(11):1086–1102.17. Arora VM, Georgitis E, Siddique J, Vekhter B, Woodruff JN, Humphrey HJ, Meltzer DO. Association of workload of on-call medical interns with on-call sleep duration, shift duration, and participation in educational activities. JAMA 2008;300(10):1146–53.18. Horwitz LI, Krumholz HM, Huot SJ, Green ML. Internal medicine residents' clinical and didactic experiences after work hour regulation: a survey of chief residents. J Gen Int Med 2006;21(9):961–65.19. 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In this paper we explore the rise of anti-gambling apps in the context of the massive expansion of gambling in new spheres of life (online and offline) and an acceleration in strategies of anticipatory and individualised management of harm caused by gambling. These apps, and the techniques and forms of labour they demand, are examples of and a mechanism through which a mode of governance premised on ‘self-care’ and ‘self-control’ is articulated and put into practice. To support this argument, we explore two government initiatives in the Australian context. Quit Pokies, a mobile app project between the Moreland City Council, North East Primary Care Partnership and the Victorian Local Governance Association, is an example of an emerging service paradigm of ‘self-care’ that uses online and mobile platforms with geo-location to deliver real time health and support interventions. A similar mobile app, Gambling Terminator, was launched by the NSW government in late 2012. Both apps work on the premise that interrupting a gaming session through a trigger, described by Quit Pokies’ creator as a “tap on the shoulder” provides gamblers the opportunity to take a reflexive stance and cut short their gambling practice in the course of play. We critically examine these apps as self-disciplining techniques of contemporary neo-liberalism directed towards anticipating and reducing the personal harm and social risk associated with gambling. We analyse the material and discursive elements, and new forms of user labour, through which this consumable media is framed and assembled. We argue that understanding the role of these apps, and mobile media more generally, in generating new techniques and technologies of the self, is important for identifying emerging modes of governance and their implications at a time when gambling is going through an immense period of cultural normalisation in online and offline environments. The Australian context is particularly germane for the way gambling permeates everyday spaces of sociality and leisure, and the potential of gambling interventions to interrupt and re-configure these spaces and institute a new kind of subject-state relation. Gambling in Australia Though a global phenomenon, the growth and expansion of gambling manifests distinctly in Australia because of its long cultural and historical attachment to games of chance. Australians are among the biggest betters and losers in the world (Ziolkowski), mainly on Electronic Gaming Machines (EGM) or pokies. As of 2013, according to The World Count of Gaming Machine (Ziolkowski), there were 198,150 EGMs in the country, of which 197,274 were slot machines, with the rest being electronic table games of roulette, blackjack and poker. There are 118 persons per machine in Australia. New South Wales is the jurisdiction with most EGMs (95,799), followed by Queensland (46,680) and Victoria (28,758) (Ziolkowski). Gambling is significant in Australian cultural history and average Australian households spend at least some money on different forms of gambling, from pokies to scratch cards, every year (Worthington et al.). In 1985, long-time gambling researcher Geoffrey Caldwell stated thatAustralians seem to take a pride in the belief that we are a nation of gamblers. Thus we do not appear to be ashamed of our gambling instincts, habits and practices. Gambling is regarded by most Australians as a normal, everyday practice in contrast to the view that gambling is a sinful activity which weakens the moral fibre of the individual and the community. (Caldwell 18) The omnipresence of gambling opportunities in most Australian states has been further facilitated by the availability of online and mobile gambling and gambling-like spaces. Social casino apps, for instance, are widely popular in Australia. The slots social casino app Slotomania was the most downloaded product in the iTunes store in 2012 (Metherell). In response to the high rate of different forms of gambling in Australia, a range of disparate interest groups have identified the expansion of gambling as a concerning trend. Health researchers have pointed out that online gamblers have a higher risk of experiencing problems with gambling (at 30%) compared to 15% in offline bettors (Hastings). The incidence of gambling problems is also disproportionately high in specific vulnerable demographics, including university students (Cervini), young adults prone to substance abuse problems (Hayatbakhsh et al.), migrants (Tanasornnarong et al.; Scull & Woolcock; Ohtsuka & Ohtsuka), pensioners (Hing & Breen), female players (Lee), Aboriginal communities (Young et al.; McMillen & Donnelly) and individuals experiencing homelessness (Holsworth et al.). While there is general recognition of the personal and public health impacts of gambling in Australia, there is a contradiction in the approach to gambling at a governance level. On one hand, its expansion is promoted and even encouraged by the federal and state governments, as gambling is an enormous source of revenue, as evidenced, for example, by the construction of the new Crown casino in Barangaroo in Sydney (Markham & Young). Campaigns trying to limit the use of poker machines, which are associated with concerns over problem gambling and addiction, are deemed by the gambling lobby as un-Australian. Paradoxically, efforts to restrict gambling or control gambling winnings have also been described as un-Australian, such as in the Australian Taxation Office’s campaign against MONA’s founder, David Walsh, whose immense art collection was acquired with the funds from a gambling scheme (Global Mail). On the other hand, people experiencing problems with gambling are often categorised as addicts and the ultimate blame (and responsibility) is attributed to the individual. In Australia, attitudes towards people who are arguably addicted to gambling are different than those towards individuals afflicted by alcohol or drug abuse (Jean). While “Australians tend to be sympathetic towards people with alcohol and other drug addictions who seek help,” unless it is seen as one of the more socially acceptable forms of occasional, controlled gambling (such as sports betting, gambling on the Melbourne Cup or celebrating ANZAC Day with Two-Up), gambling is framed as an individual “problem” and “moral failing” (Jean). The expansion of gambling is the backdrop to another development in health care and public health discourse, which have for some time now been devoted to the ideal of what Lupton has called the “digitally engaged patient” (Lupton). Technologies are central to the delivery of this model of health service provision that puts the patient at the centre of, and responsible for, their own health and medical care. Lupton has pointed out how this discourse, while appearing new, is in fact the latest version of the 1970s emphasis on the ‘patient as consumer’, an idea given an extra injection by the massive development and availability of digital and interactive web-based and mobile platforms, many of these directed towards the provision of health and health-related information and services. What this means for patients is that, rather than relying solely on professional medical expertise and care, the patient is encouraged to take on some of this medical/health work to conduct practices of ‘self-care’ (Lupton). The Discourse of ‘Self-Management’ and ‘Self-Care’ The model of ‘self-care’ and ‘self-management’ by ‘empowering’ digital technology has now become a dominant discourse within health and medicine, and is increasingly deployed across a range of related sectors such as welfare services. In recent research conducted on homelessness and mobile media, for example, government department staff involved in the reform of welfare services referred to ‘self-management’ as the new service paradigm that underpins their digital reform strategy. Echoing ideas and language similar to the “digitally engaged patient”, customers of Centrelink, Medicare and other ‘human services’ are being encouraged (through planned strategic initiatives aimed at shifting targeted customer groups online) to transact with government services digitally and manage their own personal profiles and health information. One departmental staff member described this in terms of an “opportunity cost”, the savings in time otherwise spent standing in long queues in service centres (Humphry). Rather than view these examples as isolated incidents taking place within or across sectors or disciplines, these are better understood as features of an emerging ‘discursive formation’ , a term Foucault used to describe the way in which particular institutions and/or the state establish a regime of truth, or an accepted social reality and which gives definition to a new historical episteme and subject: in this case that of the self-disciplined and “digitally engaged medical/health patient”. As Foucault explained, once this subject has become fully integrated into and across the social field, it is no longer easy to excavate, since it lies below the surface of articulation and is held together through everyday actions, habits and institutional routines and techniques that appear to be universal, necessary and/normal. The way in which this citizen subject becomes a universal model and norm, however, is not a straightforward or linear story and since we are in the midst of its rise, is not a story with a foretold conclusion. Nevertheless, across a range of different fields of governance: medicine; health and welfare, we can see signs of this emerging figure of the self-caring “digitally engaged patient” constituted from a range of different techniques and practices of self-governance. In Australia, this figure is at the centre of a concerted strategy of service digitisation involving a number of cross sector initiatives such as Australia’s National EHealth Strategy (2008), the National Digital Economy Strategy (2011) and the Australian Public Service Mobile Roadmap (2013). This figure of the self-caring “digitally engaged” patient, aligns well and is entirely compatible with neo-liberal formulations of the individual and the reduced role of the state as a provider of welfare and care. Berry refers to Foucault’s definition of neoliberalism as outlined in his lectures to the College de France as a “particular form of post-welfare state politics in which the state essentially outsources the responsibility of the ‘well-being' of the population” (65). In the case of gambling, the neoliberal defined state enables the wedding of two seemingly contradictory stances: promoting gambling as a major source of revenue and capitalisation on the one hand, and identifying and treating gambling addiction as an individual pursuit and potential risk on the other. Risk avoidance strategies are focused on particular groups of people who are targeted for self-treatment to avoid the harm of gambling addiction, which is similarly framed as individual rather than socially and systematically produced. What unites and makes possible this alignment of neoliberalism and the new “digitally engaged subject/patient” is first and foremost, the construction of a subject in a chronic state of ill health. This figure is positioned as terminal from the start. They are ‘sick’, a ‘patient’, an ‘addict’: in need of immediate and continuous treatment. Secondly, this neoliberal patient/addict is enabled (we could even go so far as to say ‘empowered’) by digital technology, especially smartphones and the apps available through these devices in the form of a myriad of applications for intervening and treating ones afflictions. These apps range fromself-tracking programs such as mood regulators through to social media interventions. Anti-Pokie Apps and the Neoliberal Gambler We now turn to two examples which illustrate this alignment between neoliberalism and the new “digitally engaged subject/patient” in relation to gambling. Anti-gambling apps function to both replace or ‘take the place’ of institutions and individuals actively involved in the treatment of problem gambling and re-engineer this service through the logics of ‘self-care’ and ‘self-management’. Here, we depart somewhat from Foucault’s model of disciplinary power summed up in the institution (with the prison exemplifying this disciplinary logic) and move towards Deleuze’s understanding of power as exerted by the State not through enclosures but through diffuse and rhizomatic information flows and technologies (Deleuze). At the same time, we retain Foucault’s attention to the role and agency of the user in this power-dynamic, identifiable in the technics of self-regulation and in his ideas on governmentality. We now turn to analyse these apps more closely, and explore the way in which these articulate and perform these disciplinary logics. The app Quit Pokies was a joint venture of the North East Primary Care Partnership, the Victorian Local Governance Association and the Moreland City Council, launched in early 2014. The idea of the rational, self-reflexive and agentic user is evident in the description of the app by app developer Susan Rennie who described it this way: What they need is for someone to tap them on the shoulder and tell them to get out of there… I thought the phone could be that tap on the shoulder. The “tap on the shoulder” feature uses geolocation and works by emitting a sound alert when the user enters a gaming venue. It also provides information about each user’s losses at that venue. This “tap on the shoulder” is both an alert and a reprimand from past gambling sessions. Through the Responsible Gambling Fund, the NSW government also launched an anti-pokie app in 2013, Gambling Terminator, including a similar feature. The app runs on Apple and Android smartphone platforms, and when a person is inside a gambling venue in New South Wales it: sends reminder messages that interrupt gaming-machine play and gives you a chance to re-think your choices. It also provides instant access to live phone and online counselling services which operate 24 hours a day, seven days a week. (Google Play Store) Yet an approach that tries to prevent harm by anticipating the harm that will come from gambling at the point of entering a venue, also eliminates the chance of potential negotiations and encounters a user might have during a visit to the pub and how this experience will unfold. It reduces the “tap on the shoulder”, which may involve a far wider set of interactions and affects, to a software operation and it frames the pub or the club (which under some conditions functions as hubs for socialization and community building) as dangerous places that should be avoided. This has the potential to lead to further stigmatisation of gamblers, their isolation and their exclusion from everyday spaces. Moreland Mayor, Councillor Tapinos captures the implicit framing of self-care as a private act in his explanation of the app as a method for problem gamblers to avoid being stigmatised by, for example, publicly attending group meetings. Yet, curiously, the app has the potential to create a new kind of public stigmatisation through potentially drawing other peoples’ attention to users’ gambling play (as the alarm is triggered) generating embarrassment and humiliation at being “caught out” in an act framed as aberrant and literally, “alarming”. Both Quit Pokies and Gambling Terminator require their users to perform ‘acts’ of physical and affective labour aimed at behaviour change and developing the skills of self-control. After downloading Quit Pokies on the iPhone and launching the app, the user is presented an initial request: “Before you set up this app. please write a list of the pokies venues that you regularly use because the app will ask you to identify these venues so it can send you alerts if you spend time in these locations. It will also use your set up location to identify other venues you might use so we recommend that you set up the App in the location where you spend most time. Congratulation on choosing Quit Pokies.”Self-performed processes include installation, setting up, updating the app software, programming in gambling venues to be detected by the smartphone’s inbuilt GPS, monitoring and responding to the program’s alerts and engaging in alternate “legitimate” forms of leisure such as going to the movies or the library, having coffee with a friend or browsing Facebook. These self-performed labours can be understood as ‘technologies of the self’, a term used by Foucault to describe the way in which social members are obliged to regulate and police their ‘selves’ through a range of different techniques. While Foucault traces the origins of ‘technologies of the self’ to the Greco-Roman texts with their emphasis on “care of oneself” as one of the duties of citizenry, he notes the shift to “self-knowledge” under Christianity around the 8th century, where it became bound up in ideals of self-renunciation and truth. Quit Pokies and Gambling Terminator may signal a recuperation of the ideal of self-care, over confession and disclosure. These apps institute a set of bodily activities and obligations directed to the user’s health and wellbeing, aided through activities of self-examination such as charting your recovery through a Recovery Diary and implementing a number of suggested “Strategies for Change” such as “writing a list” and “learning about ways to manage your money better”. Writing is central to the acts of self-examination. As Jeremy Prangnell, gambling counsellor from Mission Australia for Wollongong and Shellharbour regions explained the app is “like an electronic diary, which is a really common tool for people who are trying to change their behaviour” (Thompson). The labours required by users are also implicated in the functionality and performance of the platform itself suggesting the way in which ‘technologies of the self’ simultaneously function as a form of platform work: user labour that supports and sustains the operation of digital systems and is central to the performance and continuation of digital capitalism in general (Humphry, Demanding Media). In addition to the acts of labour performed on the self and platform, bodies are themselves potentially mobilised (and put into new circuits of consumption and production), as a result of triggers to nudge users away from gambling venues, towards a range of other cultural practices in alternative social spaces considered to be more legitimate.Conclusion Whether or not these technological interventions are effective or successful is yet to be tested. Indeed, the lack of recent activity in the community forums and preponderance of issues reported on installation and use suggests otherwise, pointing to a need for more empirical research into these developments. Regardless, what we’ve tried to identify is the way in which apps such as these embody a new kind of subject-state relation that emphasises self-control of gambling harm and hastens the divestment of institutional and social responsibility at a time when gambling is going through an immense period of expansion in many respects backed by and sanctioned by the state. Patterns of smartphone take up in the mainstream population and the rise of the so called ‘mobile only population’ (ACMA) provide support for this new subject and service paradigm and are often cited as the rationale for digital service reform (APSMR). Media convergence feeds into these dynamics: service delivery becomes the new frontier for the merging of previously separate media distribution systems (Dwyer). Letters, customer service centres, face-to-face meetings and web sites, are combined and in some instances replaced, with online and mobile media platforms, accessible from multiple and mobile devices. These changes are not, however, simply the migration of services to a digital medium with little effective change to the service itself. Health and medical services are re-invented through their technological re-assemblage, bringing into play new meanings, practices and negotiations among the state, industry and neoliberal subjects (in the case of problem gambling apps, a new subjectivity, the ‘neoliberal addict’). These new assemblages are as much about bringing forth a new kind of subject and mode of governance, as they are a solution to problem gambling. This figure of the self-treating “gambler addict” can be seen to be a template for, and prototype of, a more generalised and universalised self-governing citizen: one that no longer needs or makes demands on the state but who can help themselves and manage their own harm. Paradoxically, there is the potential for new risks and harms to the very same users that accompanies this shift: their outright exclusion as a result of deprivation from basic and assumed digital access and literacy, the further stigmatisation of gamblers, the elimination of opportunities for proximal support and their exclusion from everyday spaces. References Albarrán-Torres, César. “Gambling-Machines and the Automation of Desire.” Platform: Journal of Media and Communication 5.1 (2013). Australian Communications and Media Authority. “Australians Cut the Cord.” Research Snapshots. Sydney: ACMA (2013) Berry, David. Critical Theory and the Digital. Broadway, New York: Bloomsbury Academic, 2014 Berry, David. Stunlaw: A Critical Review of Politics, Arts and Technology. 2012. ‹http://stunlaw.blogspot.com.au/2012/03/code-foucault-and-neoliberal.html›. Caldwell, G. “Some Historical and Sociological Characteristics of Australian Gambling.” Gambling in Australia. Eds. G. Caldwell, B. Haig, M. Dickerson, and L. Sylan. Sydney: Croom Helm Australia, 1985. 18-27. Cervini, E. “High Stakes for Gambling Students.” The Age 8 Nov. 2013. ‹http://www.theage.com.au/national/education/high-stakes-for-gambling-students-20131108-2x5cl.html›. Deleuze, Gilles. "Postscript on the Societies of Control." October (1992): 3-7. Foucault, Michel. “Technologies of the Self.” Eds. Luther H. Martin, Huck Gutman and Patrick H. Hutton. Boston: University of Massachusetts Press, 1988 Hastings, E. “Online Gamblers More at Risk of Addiction.” Herald Sun 13 Oct. 2013. ‹http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/online-gamblers-more-at-risk-of-addiction/story-fni0fiyv-1226739184629#!›.Hayatbakhsh, Mohammad R., et al. "Young Adults' Gambling and Its Association with Mental Health and Substance Use Problems." Australian and New Zealand Journal of Public Health 36.2 (2012): 160-166. Hing, Nerilee, and Helen Breen. "A Profile of Gaming Machine Players in Clubs in Sydney, Australia." Journal of Gambling Studies 18.2 (2002): 185-205. Holdsworth, Louise, Margaret Tiyce, and Nerilee Hing. "Exploring the Relationship between Problem Gambling and Homelessness: Becoming and Being Homeless." Gambling Research 23.2 (2012): 39. Humphry, Justine. “Demanding Media: Platform Work and the Shaping of Work and Play.” Scan: Journal of Media Arts Culture, 10.2 (2013): 1-13. Humphry, Justine. “Homeless and Connected: Mobile Phones and the Internet in the Lives of Homeless Australians.” Australian Communications Consumer Action Network. Sep. 2014. ‹https://www.accan.org.au/grants/completed-grants/619-homeless-and-connected›.Lee, Timothy Jeonglyeol. "Distinctive Features of the Australian Gambling Industry and Problems Faced by Australian Women Gamblers." Tourism Analysis 14.6 (2009): 867-876. Lupton, D. “The Digitally Engaged Patient: Self-Monitoring and Self-Care in the Digital Health Era.” Social Theory & Health 11.3 (2013): 256-70. Markham, Francis, and Martin Young. “Packer’s Barangaroo Casino and the Inevitability of Pokies.” The Conversation 9 July 2013. ‹http://theconversation.com/packers-barangaroo-casino-and-the-inevitability-of-pokies-15892›. Markham, Francis, and Martin Young. “Who Wins from ‘Big Gambling’ in Australia?” The Conversation 6 Mar. 2014. ‹http://theconversation.com/who-wins-from-big-gambling-in-australia-22930›.McMillen, Jan, and Katie Donnelly. "Gambling in Australian Indigenous Communities: The State of Play." The Australian Journal of Social Issues 43.3 (2008): 397. Ohtsuka, Keis, and Thai Ohtsuka. “Vietnamese Australian Gamblers’ Views on Luck and Winning: Universal versus Culture-Specific Schemas.” Asian Journal of Gambling Issues and Public Health 1.1 (2010): 34-46. Scull, Sue, Geoffrey Woolcock. “Problem Gambling in Non-English Speaking Background Communities in Queensland, Australia: A Qualitative Exploration.” International Gambling Studies 5.1 (2005): 29-44. Tanasornnarong, Nattaporn, Alun Jackson, and Shane Thomas. “Gambling among Young Thai People in Melbourne, Australia: An Exploratory Study.” International Gambling Studies 4.2 (2004): 189-203. Thompson, Angela, “Live Gambling Odds Tipped for the Chop.” Illawarra Mercury 22 May 2013: 6. Metherell, Mark. “Virtual Pokie App a Hit - But ‘Not Gambling.’” Sydney Morning Herald 13 Jan. 2013. ‹http://www.smh.com.au/digital-life/smartphone-apps/virtual-pokie-app-a-hit--but-not-gambling-20130112-2cmev.html#ixzz2QVlsCJs1›. Worthington, Andrew, et al. "Gambling Participation in Australia: Findings from the National Household Expenditure Survey." Review of Economics of the Household 5.2 (2007): 209-221. Young, Martin, et al. "The Changing Landscape of Indigenous Gambling in Northern Australia: Current Knowledge and Future Directions." International Gambling Studies 7.3 (2007): 327-343. Ziolkowski, S. “The World Count of Gaming Machines 2013.” Gaming Technologies Association, 2014. ‹http://www.gamingta.com/pdf/World_Count_2014.pdf›.

If I find out that you have bought a $90 red light sabre, Tara, well there's going to be trouble. -- Kevin Brabazon A few Saturdays ago, my 71-year old father tried to convince me of imminent responsibilities. As I am considering the purchase of a house, there are mortgages, bank fees and years of misery to endure. Unfortunately, I am not an effective Big Picture Person. The lure of the light sabre is almost too great. For 30 year old Generation Xers like myself, it is more than a cultural object. It is a textual anchor, and a necessary component to any future history of the present. Revelling in the aura of the Australian release for Star Wars: The Phantom Menace, this paper investigates popular memory, an undertheorised affiliation between popular culture and cultural studies.1 The excitement encircling the Star Wars prequel has been justified in terms of 'hype' or marketing. Such judgements frame the men and women cuing for tickets, talking Yodas and light sabres as fools or duped souls who need to get out more. My analysis explores why Star Wars has generated this enthusiasm, and how cultural studies can mobilise this passionate commitment to consider notions of popularity, preservation and ephemerality. We'll always have Tattooine. Star Wars has been a primary popular cultural social formation for a generation. The stories of Luke Skywalker, Princess Leia, Han Solo, Chewbacca, Darth Vader, Yoda, C-3PO and R2D2 offer an alternative narrative for the late 1970s and 1980s. It was a comfort to have the Royal Shakespearian tones of Alec Guinness confirming that the Force would be with us, through economic rationalism, unemployment, Pauline Hanson and Madonna discovering yoga. The Star Wars Trilogy, encompassing A New Hope, The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi, was released between 1977 and 1983. These films have rarely slipped from public attention, being periodically 'brought back' through new cinematic and video releases. The currency of Star Wars is matched with the other great popular cultural formations of the post-war period: the James Bond series and Star Trek. One reason for the continued success of these programmes is that other writers, film makers and producers cannot leave these texts alone. Bond survives not only through Pierce Brosnan's good looks, but the 'Hey Baby' antics of Austin Powers. Star Trek, through four distinct series, has become an industry that will last longer than Voyager's passage back from the Delta Quadrant. Star Wars, perhaps even more effectively than the other popular cultural heavyweights, has enmeshed itself into other filmic and televisual programming. Films like Spaceballs and television quizzes on Good News Week keep the knowledge system and language current and pertinent.2 Like Umberto Eco realised of Casablanca, Star Wars is "a living example of living textuality" (199). Both films are popular because of imperfections and intertextual archetypes, forming a filmic quilt of sensations and affectivities. Viewers are aware that "the cliches are talking among themselves" (Eco 209). As these cinematic texts move through time, the depth and commitment of these (con)textual dialogues are repeated and reinscribed. To hold on to a memory is to isolate a moment or an image and encircle it with meaning. Each day we experience millions of texts: some are remembered, but most are lost. Some popular cultural texts move from ephemera to popular memory to history. In moving beyond individual reminiscences -- the personal experiences of our lifetime -- we enter the sphere of popular culture. Collective or popular memory is a group or community experience of a textualised reality. For example, during the Second World War, there were many private experiences, but certain moments arch beyond the individual. Songs by Vera Lynn are fully textualised experiences that become the fodder for collective memory. Similarly, Star Wars provides a sense-making mechanism for the 1980s. Like all popular culture, these texts allow myriad readership strategies, but there is collective recognition of relevance and importance. Popular memory is such an important site because it provides us, as cultural critics, with a map of emotionally resonant sites of the past, moments that are linked with specific subjectivities and a commonality of expression. While Star Wars, like all popular cultural formations, has a wide audience, there are specific readings that are pertinent for particular groups. To unify a generation around cultural texts is an act of collective memory. As Harris has suggested, "sometimes, youth does interesting things with its legacy and creatively adapts its problematic into seemingly autonomous cultural forms" (79). Generation X refers to an age cohort born between the mid-1960s and the mid-1970s. Finally cultural studies theorists have found a Grail subculture. Being depthless, ambivalent, sexually repressed and social failures, Xers are a cultural studies dream come true. They were the children of the media revolution. Star Wars is integral to this textualised database. A fan on the night of the first screening corrected a journalist: "we aren't Generation X, we are the Star Wars generation" (Brendon, in Miller 9). An infatuation and reflexivity with the media is the single framework of knowledge in which Xers operate. This shared understanding is the basis for comedy, and particularly revealed (in Australia) in programmes like The Panel and Good News Week. Television themes, lines of film dialogue and contemporary news broadcasts are the basis of the game show. The aesthetics of life transforms television into a real. Or, put another way, "individual lives may be fragmented and confused but McDonald's is universal" (Hopkins 17). A group of textual readers share a literacy, a new way of reading the word and world of texts. Nostalgia is a weapon. The 1990s has been a decade of revivals: from Abba to skateboards, an era of retro reinscription has challenged linear theories of history and popular culture. As Timothy Carter reveals, "we all loved the Star Wars movies when we were younger, and so we naturally look forward to a continuation of those films" (9). The 1980s has often been portrayed as a bad time, of Thatcher and Reagan, cold war brinkmanship, youth unemployment and HIV. For those who were children and (amorphously phrased) 'young adults' of this era, the popular memory is of fluorescent fingerless gloves, Ray Bans, 'Choose Life' t-shirts and bubble skirts. It was an era of styling mousse, big hair, the Wham tan, Kylie and Jason and Rick Astley's dancing. Star Wars action figures gave the films a tangibility, holding the future of the rebellion in our hands (literally). These memories clumsily slop into the cup of the present. The problem with 'youth' is that it is semiotically too rich: the expression is understood, but not explained, by discourses as varied as the educational system, family structures, leisure industries and legal, medical and psychological institutions. It is a term of saturation, where normality is taught, and deviance is monitored. All cultural studies theorists carry the baggage of the Birmingham Centre into any history of youth culture. The taken-for-granted 'youth as resistance' mantra, embodied in Resistance through Rituals and Subculture: The Meaning of Style, transformed young people into the ventriloquist's puppet of cultural studies. The strings of the dancing, smoking, swearing and drinking puppet took many years to cut. The feminist blade of Angela McRobbie did some damage to the fraying filaments, as did Dick Hebdige's reflexive corrections in Hiding in the Light. However, the publications, promotion and pedagogy of Gen X ended the theoretical charade. Gen X, the media sophisticates, played with popular culture, rather than 'proper politics.' In Coupland's Generation X, Claire, one of the main characters believed that "Either our lives become stories, or there's just no way to get through them." ... We know that this is why the three of us left our lives behind us and came to the desert -- to tell stories and to make our own lives worthwhile tales in the process. (8) Television and film are part of this story telling process. This intense connection generated an ironic and reflexive literacy in the media. Television became the basis for personal pleasures and local resistances, resulting in a disciplined mobilisation of popular cultural surfaces. Even better than the real thing. As the youngest of Generation Xers are now in their late twenties, they have moved from McJobs to careers. Robert Kizlik, a teacher trainer at an American community college expressed horror as the lack of 'commonsensical knowledge' from his new students. He conducted a survey for teachers training in the social sciences, assessing their grasp of history. There was one hundred percent recognition of such names as Madonna, Mike Tyson, and Sharon Stone, but they hardly qualify as important social studies content ... . I wondered silently just what it is that these students are going to teach when they become employed ... . The deeper question is not that we have so many high school graduates and third and fourth year college students who are devoid of basic information about American history and culture, but rather, how, in the first place, these students came to have the expectations that they could become teachers. (n. pag.) Kizlik's fear is that the students, regardless of their enthusiasm, had poor recognition of knowledge he deemed significant and worthy. His teaching task, to convince students of the need for non-popular cultural knowledges, has resulted in his course being termed 'boring' or 'hard'. He has been unable to reconcile the convoluted connections between personal stories and televisual narratives. I am reminded (perhaps unhelpfully) of one of the most famous filmic teachers, Mr Holland. Upon being attacked by his superiors for using rock and roll in his classes, he replied that he would use anything to instil in his students a love of music. Working with, rather than against, popular culture is an obvious pedagogical imperative. George Lucas has, for example, confirmed the Oprahfied spirituality of the current age. Obviously Star Wars utilises fables, myths3 and fairy tales to summon the beautiful Princess, the gallant hero and the evil Empire, but has become something more. Star Wars slots cleanly into an era of Body Shop Feminism, John Gray's gender politics and Rikki Lake's relationship management. Brian Johnson and Susan Oh argued that the film is actually a new religion. A long time ago in a galaxy far far away -- late 1970s California -- the known universe of George Lucas came into being. In the beginning, George created Star Wars. And the screen was without form, and void. And George said, 'Let there be light', and there was Industrial Light and Magic. And George divided the light from the darkness, with light sabres, and called the darkness the Evil Empire.... And George saw that it was good. (14) The writers underestimate the profound emotional investment placed in the trilogy by millions of people. Genesis narratives describe the Star Wars phenomenon, but do not analyse it. The reason why the films are important is not only because they are a replacement for religion. Instead, they are an integrated component of popular memory. Johnson and Oh have underestimated the influence of pop culture as "the new religion" (14). It is not a form of cheap grace. The history of ideas is neither linear nor traceable. There is no clear path from Plato to Prozac or Moses to Mogadon. Obi-Wan Kenobi is not a personal trainer for the ailing spirituality of our age. It was Ewan McGregor who fulfilled the Xer dream to be the young Obi Wan. As he has stated, "there is nothing cooler than being a Jedi knight" (qtd. in Grant 15). Having survived feet sawing in Shallow Grave and a painfully large enema in Trainspotting, there are few actors who are better prepared to carry the iconographic burden of a Star Wars prequel. Born in 1971, he is the Molly Ringwall of the 1990s. There is something delicious about the new Obi Wan, that hails what Hicks described as "a sense of awareness and self- awareness, of detached observation, of not taking things seriously, and a use of subtle dry humour" (79). The metaphoric light sabre was passed to McGregor. The pull of the dark side. When fans attend The Phantom Menace, they tend to the past, as to a loved garden. Whether this memory is a monument or a ruin depends on the preservation of the analogue world in the digital realm. The most significant theoretical and discursive task in the present is to disrupt the dual ideologies punctuating the contemporary era: inevitable technological change and progress.4 Only then may theorists ponder the future of a digitised past. Disempowered groups, who were denied a voice and role in the analogue history of the twentieth century, will have inequalities reified and reinforced through the digital archiving of contemporary life. The Web has been pivotal to the new Star Wars film. Lucasfilm has an Internet division and an official Website. Between mid November and May, this site has been accessed twenty million times (Gallott 15). Other sites, such as TheForce.net and Countdown to Star Wars, are a record of the enthusiasm and passion of fans. As Daniel Fallon and Matthew Buchanan have realised, "these sites represent the ultimate in film fandom -- virtual communities where like-minded enthusiasts can bathe in the aura generated by their favourite masterpiece" (27). Screensavers, games, desktop wallpaper, interviews and photo galleries have been downloaded and customised. Some ephemeral responses to The Phantom Menace have been digitally recorded. Yet this moment of audience affectivity will be lost without a consideration of digital memory. The potentials and problems of the digital and analogue environments need to be oriented into critical theories of information, knowledge, entertainment and pleasure. The binary language of computer-mediated communication allows a smooth transference of data. Knowledge and meaning systems are not exchanged as easily. Classifying, organising and preserving information make it useful. Archival procedures have been both late and irregular in their application.5 Bocher and Ihlenfeldt assert that 2500 new web sites are coming on-line every day ("A Higher Signal-to-Noise Ratio"). The difficulties and problems confronting librarians and archivists who wish to preserve digital information is revealed in the Australian government's PADI (Preserving Access to Digital Information) Site. Compared with an object in a museum which may lie undisturbed for years in a storeroom, or a book on a shelf, or even Egyptian hieroglyd on the wall of a tomb, digital information requires much more active maintenance. If we want access to digital information in the future, we must plan and act now. (PADI, "Why Preserve Access to Digital Information?") phics carve The speed of digitisation means that responsibility for preserving cultural texts, and the skills necessary to enact this process, is increasing the pressure facing information professionals. An even greater difficulty when preserving digital information is what to keep, and what to release to the ephemeral winds of cyberspace. 'Qualitative criteria' construct an historical record that restates the ideologies of the powerful. Concerns with quality undermine the voices of the disempowered, displaced and decentred. The media's instability through technological obsolescence adds a time imperative that is absent from other archival discussions.6 While these problems have always taken place in the analogue world, there was a myriad of alternative sites where ephemeral material was stored, such as the family home. Popular cultural information will suffer most from the 'blind spots' of digital archivists. While libraries rarely preserve the ephemera of a time, many homes (including mine) preserve the 'trash' of a culture. A red light sabre, toy dalek, Duran Duran posters and a talking Undertaker are all traces of past obsessions and fandoms. Passion evaporates, and interests morph into new trends. These objects remain in attics, under beds, in boxes and sheds throughout the world. Digital documents necessitate a larger project of preservation, with great financial (and spatial) commitments of technology, software and maintenance. Libraries rarely preserve the ephemera -- the texture and light -- of the analogue world. The digital era reduces the number of fan-based archivists. Subsequently forfeited is the spectrum of interests and ideologies that construct the popular memory of a culture. Once bits replace atoms, the recorded world becomes structured by digital codes. Only particular texts will be significant enough to store digitally. Samuel Florman stated that "in the digital age nothing need be lost; do we face the prospect of drowning in trivia as the generations succeed each other?" (n. pag.) The trivia of academics may be the fodder (and pleasures) of everyday life. Digitised preservation, like analogue preservation, can never 'represent' plural paths through the past. There is always a limit and boundary to what is acceptable obsolescence. The Star Wars films suggests that "the whole palette of digital technology is much more subtle and supple; if you can dream it, you can see it" (Corliss 65). This film will also record how many of the dreams survive and are archived. Films, throughout the century, have changed the way in which we construct and remember the past. They convey an expressive memory, rather than an accurate history. Certainly, Star Wars is only a movie. Yet, as Rushkoff has suggested, "we have developed a new language of references and self-references that identify media as a real thing and media history as an actual social history" (32). The build up in Australia to The Phantom Menace has been wilfully joyful. This is a history of the present, a time which I know will, in retrospect, be remembered with great fondness. It is a collective event for a generation, but it speaks to us all in different ways. At ten, it is easy to be amazed and enthralled at popular culture. By thirty, it is more difficult. When we see Star Wars, we go back to visit our memories. With red light sabre in hand, we splice through time, as much as space. Footnotes The United States release of the film occurred on 19 May 1999. In Australia, the film's first screenings were on 3 June. Many cinemas showed The Phantom Menace at 12:01 am, (very) early Thursday morning. The three main players of the GNW team, Paul McDermott, Mikey Robbins and Julie McCrossin, were featured on the cover of Australia's Juice magazine in costumes from The Phantom Menace, being Obi-Wan, Yoda and Queen Amidala respectively. Actually, the National Air and Space Museum had a Star Wars exhibition in 1997, titled "Star Wars: The Magic of Myth". For example, Janet Collins, Michael Hammond and Jerry Wellington, in Teaching and Learning with the Media, stated that "the message is simple: we now have the technology to inform, entertain and educate. Miss it and you, your family and your school will be left behind" (3). Herb Brody described the Net as "an overstuffed, underorganised attic full of pictures and documents that vary wildly in value", in "Wired Science". The interesting question is, whose values will predominate when the attic is being cleared and sorted? This problem is extended because the statutory provision of legal deposit, which obliges publishers to place copies of publications in the national library of the country in which the item is published, does not include CD-ROMs or software. References Bocher, Bob, and Kay Ihlenfeldt. "A Higher Signal-to-Noise Ratio: Effective Use of WebSearch Engines." State of Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction Website. 13 Mar. 1998. 15 June 1999 <http://www.dpi.state.wi.us/dpi/dlcl/lbstat/search2.php>. Brody, Herb. "Wired Science." Technology Review Oct. 1996. 15 June 1999 <http://www.techreview.com/articles/oct96/brody.php>. Carter, Timothy. "Wars Weary." Cinescape 39 (Mar./Apr. 1999): 9. Collins, Janet, Michael Hammond, and Jerry Wellington. Teaching and Learning with Multimedia. London: Routledge, 1997. Corliss, Richard. "Ready, Set, Glow!" Time 18 (3 May 1999): 65. Count Down to Star Wars. 1999. 15 June 1999 <http://starwars.countingdown.com/>. Coupland, Douglas. Generation X. London: Abacus, 1991. Eco, Umberto. Travels in Hyper-Reality. London: Picador, 1987. Fallon, Daniel, and Matthew Buchanan. "Now Screening." Australian Net Guide 4.5 (June 1999): 27. Florman, Samuel. "From Here to Eternity." MIT's Technology Review 100.3 (Apr. 1997). Gallott, Kirsten. "May the Web Be with you." Who Weekly 24 May 1999: 15. Grant, Fiona. "Ewan's Star Soars!" TV Week 29 May - 4 June 1999: 15. Hall, Stuart, and Tony Jefferson, eds. Resistance through Rituals. London: Hutchinson, 1976. Harris, David. From Class Struggle to the Politics of Pleasure: the Effects of Gramscianism on Cultural Studies. London: Routledge, 1992. Hebdige, Dick. Hiding in the Light. London: Routledge, 1988. Hopkins, Susan. "Generation Pulp." Youth Studies Australia Spring 1995. Johnson, Brian, and Susan Oh. "The Second Coming: as the Newest Star Wars Film Illustrates, Pop Culture Has Become a New Religion." Maclean's 24 May 1999: 14-8. Juice 78 (June 1999). Kizlik, Robert. "Generation X Wants to Teach." International Journal of Instructional Media 26.2 (Spring 1999). Lucasfilm Ltd. Star Wars: Welcome to the Official Site. 1999. 15 June 1999 <http://www.starwars.com/>. Miller, Nick. "Generation X-Wing Fighter." The West Australian 4 June 1999: 9. PADI. "What Digital Information Should be Preserved? Appraisal and Selection." Preserving Access to Digital Information (PADI) Website. 11 March 1999. 15 June 1999 <http://www.nla.gov.au/padi/what.php>. PADI. "Why Preserve Access to Digital Information?" Preserving Access to Digital Information (PADI) Website. <http://www.nla.gov.au/padi/why.php>. Rushkoff, Douglas. Media Virus. Sydney: Random House, 1994. Citation reference for this article MLA style: Tara Brabazon. "A Red Light Sabre to Go, and Other Histories of the Present." M/C: A Journal of Media and Culture 2.4 (1999). [your date of access] <http://www.uq.edu.au/mc/9906/sabre.php>. Chicago style: Tara Brabazon, "A Red Light Sabre to Go, and Other Histories of the Present," M/C: A Journal of Media and Culture 2, no. 4 (1999), <http://www.uq.edu.au/mc/9906/sabre.php> ([your date of access]). APA style: Tara Brabazon. (1999) A red light sabre to go, and other histories of the present. M/C: A Journal of Media and Culture 2(4). <http://www.uq.edu.au/mc/9906/sabre.php> ([your date of access]).

Indigenous cross-cultural training has been around since the 1980s. It is often seen as a way to increase the skills and competency of staff engaged in providing service to Indigenous clients and customers, teaching Indigenous students within universities and schools, or working with Indigenous communities (Fredericks and Bargallie, “Indigenous”; “Which Way”). In this article we demonstrate how such training often exposes power, whiteness, and concepts of an Indigenous “other”. We highlight how cross-cultural training programs can potentially provide a setting in which non-Indigenous participants can develop a deeper realisation of how their understandings of the “other” are formed and enacted within a “white” social setting. Revealing whiteness as a racial construct enables people to see race, and “know what racism is, what it is not and what it does” (Bargallie, 262). Training participants can use such revelations to develop their racial literacy and anti-racist praxis (Bargallie), which when implemented have the capacity to transform inequitable power differentials in their work with Indigenous peoples and organisations.What Does the Literature Say about Cross-Cultural Training? An array of names are used for Indigenous cross-cultural training, including cultural awareness, cultural competency, cultural responsiveness, cultural safety, cultural sensitivity, cultural humility, and cultural capability. Each model takes on a different approach and goal depending on the discipline or profession to which the training is applied (Hollinsworth). Throughout this article we refer to Indigenous cross-cultural training as “cultural competence” or “cultural awareness” and discuss these in relation to their application within higher education institutions. While literature on health and human services programs in Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and other nation states provide clear definitions of terms such as “cultural safety”, cultural competence or cultural awareness is often lacking a concise and consistent definition.Often delivered as a half day or a one to two-day training course, it is unrealistic to think that Indigenous cultural competence can be achieved through one’s mere attendance and participation. Moreover, when courses centre on “cultural differences” and enable revelations about those differences they are in danger of presenting idealised notions of Indigeneity. Cultural competence becomes a process through which an Indigenous “other” is objectified, while very little is offered by way of translating knowledge and skills into practice when working with Indigenous peoples.What this type of learning has the capacity to do is oversimplify and reinforce racism and racist stereotypes of Indigenous peoples and Indigenous cultures. What is generally believed is that if non-Indigenous peoples know more about Indigenous peoples and cultures, relationships between Indigenous and non-Indigenous peoples will somehow improve. The work of Goenpul scholar Aileen Moreton-Robinson is vital to draw on here, when she asks, has the intellectual investment in defining our cultural differences resulted in the valuing of our knowledges? Has the academy become a more enlightened place in which to work, and, more important, in what ways have our communities benefited? (xvii)What is revealed in a range of studies – whether centring on racism and discrimination or the ongoing disparities across health, education, incarceration, employment, and more – is that despite forty plus years of training focused on understanding cultural differences, very little has changed. Indigenous knowledges continue to be devalued and overlooked. Everyday and structural racisms shape everyday experiences for Indigenous employees in Australian workplaces such as the Australian Public Service (Bargallie) and the Australian higher education sector (Fredericks and White).As the literature demonstrates, the racial division of labour in such institutions often leaves Indigenous employees languishing on the lower rungs of the employment ladder (Bargallie). The findings of an Australian university case study, discussed below, highlights how power, whiteness, and concepts of “otherness” are exposed and play out in cultural competency training. Through their exposure, we argue that better understandings about Indigenous Australians, which are not based on culture difference but personal reflexivity, may be gained. Revealing What Was Needed in the Course’s Foundation and ImplementationThis case study is centred within a regional Australian university across numerous campuses. In 2012, the university council approved an Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander strategy, which included a range of initiatives, including the provision of cross-cultural training for staff. In developing the training, a team explored the evidence as it related to university settings (Anning; Asmar; Butler and Young; Fredericks; Fredericks and Thompson; Kinnane, Wilks, Wilson, Hughes and Thomas; McLaughlin and Whatman). This investigation included what had been undertaken in other Australian universities (Anderson; University of Sydney) and drew on the recommendations from earlier research (Behrendt, Larkin, Griew and Kelly; Bradley, Noonan, Nugent and Scales; Universities Australia). Additional consultation took place with a broad range of internal and external stakeholders.While some literature on cross-cultural training centred on the need to understand cultural differences, others exposed the problems of focusing entirely on difference (Brach and Fraser; Campinha-Bacote; Fredericks; Spencer and Archer; Young). The courses that challenged the centrality of cultural difference explained why race needed to be at the core of its training, highlighting its role in enabling discussions of racism, bias, discrimination and how these may be used as means to facilitate potential individual and organisational change. This approach also addressed stereotypes and Eurocentric understandings of what and who is an Indigenous Australian (Carlson; Gorringe, Ross and Forde; Hollinsworth; Moreton-Robinson). It is from this basis that we worked and grew our own training program. Working on this foundational premise, we began to separate content that showcased the fluidity and diversity of Indigenous peoples and refrained from situating us within romantic notions of culture or presenting us as an exotic “other”. In other words, we embraced work that responded to non-Indigenous people’s objectified understandings and expectations of us. For example, the expectation that Indigenous peoples will offer a Welcome to Country, performance, share a story, sing, dance, or disseminate Indigenous knowledges. While we recognise that some of these cultural elements may offer enjoyment and insight to non-Indigenous people, they do not challenge behaviours or the nature of the relationships that non-Indigenous people have with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples (Bargallie; Fredericks; Hollinsworth; Westwood and Westwood; Young).The other content which needed separating were the methods that enabled participants to understand and own their standpoints. This included the use of critical Indigenous studies as a form of analysis (Moreton-Robinson). Critical race theory (Delgado and Stefancic) was also used as a means for participants to interrogate their own cultural positionings and understand the pervasive nature of race and racism in Australian society and institutions (McLaughlin and Whatman). This offered all participants, both non-Indigenous and Indigenous, the opportunity to learn how institutional racism operates, and maintains discrimination, neglect, abuse, denial, and violence, inclusive of the continued subjugation that exists within higher education settings and broader society.We knew that the course needed to be available online as well as face-to-face. This would increase accessibility to staff across the university community. We sought to embed critical thinking as we began to map out the course, including the theory in the sections that covered colonisation and the history of Indigenous dispossession, trauma and pain, along with the ongoing effects of federal and state policies and legislations that locates racism at the core of Australian politics. In addition to documenting the ongoing effects of racism, we sought to ensure that Indigenous resistance, agency, and activism was highlighted, showing how this continues, thus linking the past to the contemporary experiences of Indigenous peoples.Drawing on the work of Bargallie we wanted to demonstrate how Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples experience racism through systems and structures in their everyday work with colleagues in large organisations, such as universities. Participants were asked to self-reflect on how race impacts their day-to-day lives (McIntosh). The final session of the training focused on the university’s commitment to “Closing the Gap” and its Reconciliation Action Plan (RAP). The associated activity involved participants working individually and in small groups to discuss and consider what they could contribute to the RAP activities and enact within their work environments. Throughout the training, participants were asked to reflect on their personal positioning, and in the final session they were asked to draw from these reflections and discuss how they would discuss race, racism and reconciliation activities with the governance of their university (Westwood and Westwood; Young).Revelations in the Facilitators, Observers, and Participants’ Discussions? This section draws on data collected from the first course offered within the university’s pilot program. During the delivery of the in-person training sessions, two observers wrote notes while the facilitators also noted their feelings and thoughts. After the training, the facilitators and observers debriefed and discussed the delivery of the course along with the feedback received during the sessions.What was noticed by the team was the defensive body language of participants and the types of questions they asked. Team members observed how there were clear differences between the interest non-Indigenous participants displayed when talking about Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples and a clear discomfort when they were asked to reflect on their own position in relation to Indigenous people. We noted that during these occasions some participants crossed their arms, two wrote notes to each other across the table, and many participants showed discomfort. When the lead facilitator raised this to participants during the sessions, some expressed their dislike and discomfort at having to talk about themselves. A couple were clearly unhappy and upset. We found this interesting as we were asking participants to reflect and talk about how they interpret and understand themselves in relation to Indigenous people and race, privilege, and power.This supports the work of DiAngelo who explains that facilitators can spend a lot of time trying to manage the behaviour of participants. Similarly, Castagno identifies that sometimes facilitators of training might overly focus on keeping participants happy, and in doing so, derail the hard conversations needed. We did not do either. Instead, we worked to manage the behaviours expressed and draw out what was happening to break the attempts to silence racial discussions. We reiterated and worked hard to reassure participants that we were in a “safe space” and that while such discussions may be difficult, they were worth working through on an individual and collective level.During the workshop, numerous emotions surfaced, people laughed at Indigenous humour and cried at what they witnessed as losses. They also expressed anger, defensiveness, and denial. Some participants revelled in hearing answers to questions that they had long wondered about; some openly discussed how they thought they had discovered a distant Aboriginal relative. Many questions surfaced, such as why hadn’t they ever been told this version of Australian history? Why were we focusing on them and not Aboriginal people? How could they be racist when they had an Aboriginal friend or an Aboriginal relative?Some said they felt “guilty” about what had happened in the past. Others said they were not personally responsible or responsible for the actions of their ancestors, questioning why they needed to go over such history in the first place? Inter-woven within participants’ revelations were issues of racism, power, whiteness, and white privilege. Many participants took a defensive stance to protect their white privilege (DiAngelo). As we worked through these issues, several participants started to see their own positionality and shared this with the group. Clearly, the revelation of whiteness as a racial construct was a turning point for some. The language in the group also changed for some participants as revelations emerged through the interrogation and unpacking of stories of racism. Bargallie’s work exploring racism in the workplace, explains that “racism”, as both a word and theme, is primarily absent in conversations amongst non-Indigenous colleagues. Despite its entrenchment in the dialogue, it is rarely, if ever addressed. In fact, for many non-Indigenous people, the fear of being accused of racism is worse than the act of racism itself (Ahmed; Bargallie). We have seen this play out within the media, sport, news bulletins, and more. Lentin describes the act of denying racism despite its existence in full sight as “not racism”, arguing that its very denial is “a form of racist violence” (406).Through enhancing racial literacy, Bargallie asserts that people gain a better understanding of “what racism is, what racism is not and how race works” (258). Such revelations can work towards dismantling racism in workplaces. Individual and structural racism go hand-in-glove and must be examined and addressed together. This is what we wanted to work towards within the cultural competency course. Through the use of critical Indigenous studies and critical race theory we situated race, and not cultural difference, as central, providing participants with a racial literacy that could be used as a tool to challenge and dismantle racism in the workplace.Revelations in the Participant Evaluations?The evaluations revealed that our intention to disrupt the status quo in cultural competency training was achieved. Some of the discussions were difficult and this was reflected in the feedback. It was valuable to learn that numerous participants wanted to do more through group work, conversations, and problem resolution, along with having extra reading materials. This prompted our decision to include extra links to resource learning materials through the course’s online site. We also opted to provide all participants with a copy of the book Indigenous Australia for Dummies (Behrendt). The cost of the book was built into the course and future participants were thankful for this combination of resources.One unexpected concern raised by participants was that the course should not be “that hard”, and that we should “dumb down” the course. We were astounded considering that many participants were academics and we were confident that facilitators of other mandatory workplace training, for example, staff Equal Employment Opportunity (EEO), Fire Safety, Risk Management, Occupational Health and Safety, Discrimination and more, weren’t asked to “dumb down” their content. We explained to the participants what content we had been asked to deliver and knew their responses demonstrated white fragility. We were not prepared to adjust the course and dumb it down for white understandings and comfortabilities (Leonardo and Porter).Comments that were expected included that the facilitators were “passionate”, “articulate”, demonstrated “knowledge” and effectively “dealt with issues”. A couple of the participants wrote that the facilitators were “aggressive” or “angry”. This however is not new for us, or new to other Aboriginal women. We know Aboriginal women are often seen as “aggressive” and “angry”, when non-Indigenous women might be described as “passionate” or “assertive” for saying exactly the same thing. The work of Aileen Moreton-Robinson in Australia, and the works of numerous other Aboriginal women provide evidence of this form of racism (Fredericks and White; Bargallie; Bond). Internationally, other Indigenous women and women of colour document the same experiences (Lorde). Participants’ assessment of the facilitators is consistent with the racism expressed through racial microaggression outside of the university, and in other organisations. This is despite working in the higher education sector, which is normally perceived as a more knowledgeable and informed environment. Needless to say, we did not take on these comments.The evaluations did offer us the opportunity to adjust the course and make it stronger before it was offered across the university where we received further evaluation of its success. Despite this, the university decided to withdraw and reallocate the money to the development of a diversity training course that would cover all equity groups. This meant that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples would be covered along with sexual diversity, gender, disability, and people from non-English speaking backgrounds. The content focused on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples was reduced to one hour of the total course. Including Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples in this way is not based on evidence and works to minimise Indigenous Australians and their inherent rights and sovereignty to just another “equity group”. Conclusion We set out to develop and deliver a cross-cultural course that was based on evidence and a foundation of 40 plus years’ experience in delivering such training. In addition, we sought a program that would align with the university’s Reconciliation Action Plan and the directions being undertaken in the sector and by Universities Australia. Through engaging participants in a process of critical thinking centring on race, we developed a training program that successfully fostered self-reflection and brought about revelations of whiteness.Focusing on cultural differences has proven ineffective to the work needed to improve the lives of Indigenous Australian peoples. Recognising this, our discussions with participants directly challenged racist and negative stereotypes, individual and structural racism, prejudices, and white privilege. By centring race over cultural difference in cultural competency training, we worked to foster self-revelation within participants to transform inequitable power differentials in their work with Indigenous peoples and organisations. The institution’s disbandment and defunding of the program however is a telling revelation in and of itself, highlighting the continuing struggle and importance of placing additional pressure on persons, institutions, and organisations to implement meaningful structural change. ReferencesAhmed, Sara. On Being Included: Racism and Diversity in Institutional Life. Duke University Press, 2012.Anderson, Ian. “Advancing Indigenous Health through Medical Education”. Focus on Health Professional Education: A Multi-Disciplinary Journal 13.1 (2011): 1-12.Anning, Beres. “Embedding an Indigenous Graduate Attribute into University of Western Sydney’s Courses”. Australian Journal of Indigenous Education 39 (2010): 40-52.Asmar, Christine. Final Report on the Murrup Barak of Indigenous Curriculum, Teaching and Learning at the University of Melbourne, 2010-2011. Murrup Barak – Melbourne Institute for Indigenous Development, University of Melbourne, 2011.Bargallie, Debbie. Unmasking The Racial Contract: Everyday Racisms and the Impact of Racial Microaggressions on “Indigenous Employees” in the Australian Public Service. Aboriginal Studies Press, 2020. Behrendt, Larissa. Indigenous Australia for Dummies. Wiley Publishing, 2010.Behrendt, Larissa, Steven Larkin, Robert Griew, Robert, and Patricia Kelly. Review of Higher Education Access and Outcomes for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander People: Final Report. Department of Employment, Education and Workplace Relations, 2012.Brach, Cindy, and Irene Fraser. “Can Cultural Competency Reduce Racial and Ethnic Health Disparities? A Review and Conceptual Model”. Medical Care Research and Review 57.sup 1 (2000): 181-217.Bond, Chelsea. “When the Object Teaches: Indigenous Academics in Australian Universities”. Right Now 14 (2014). <http://rightnow.org.au/opinion-3/when-the-object-teaches-indigenous-academics-in-australian-universities/>.Bradley, Denise, Peter Noonan, Helen Nugent, and Bill Scales. Review of Australian Higher Education. Australian Government, 2008.Butler, Kathleen, and Anne Young. Indigenisation of Curricula – Intent, Initiatives and Implementation. Canberra: Tertiary Education Quality and Standards Agency, 2009. 20 Apr. 2020 <http://www.teqsa.gov.au/news-publications/publications>.Campinha-Bacote, Josepha. “A Model and Instrument for Addressing Cultural Competence in Health Care”. Journal of Nursing Education 38.5 (1999): 203-207.Carlson, Bronwyn. The Politics of Identity – Who Counts as Aboriginal Today? Canberra: Aboriginal Studies Press, 2016.Delgado, Richard, and Jean Stefancic. Critical Race Theory: An Introduction. New York University Press, 2001.DiAngelo, Robin. “Nothing to Add: A Challenge to White Silence in Racial Discussions”. Understanding and Dismantling Privilege 11.1 (2012). <http://www.wpcjournal.com/article/view/10100/Nothing%20to%20add%3A%20A%20Challenge%20to%20White%20Silence%20in%20Racial%20Discussions>.Frankenburg, Ruth. White Women, Race Matters: The Social Construction of Whiteness. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1993.Fredericks, Bronwyn. “The Need to Extend beyond the Knowledge Gained in Cross-Cultural Awareness Training”. The Australian Journal of Indigenous Education 37.S (2008): 81-89.Fredericks, Bronwyn, and Debbie Bargallie. “An Indigenous Cultural Competency Course: Talking Culture, Care and Power”. 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Strategies for Breaking the Stereotypes and Changing the Conversation. AIATSIS Research Discussion Paper No. 28. Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies (AIATSIS), 2011.Hollinsworth, David. “Forget Cultural Competence: Ask for an Autobiography”. Social Work Education: The International Journal 32.8 (2013): 1048-1060.hooks, bell. Feminist Theory: From Margin to Centre. London: Pluto Press, 2000.Kinnane, Stephen, Judith Wilks, Katie Wilson, Terri Hughes, and Sue Thomas. Can’t Be What You Can’t See: The Transition of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Students into Higher Education. Final report to the Australian Government Office for Learning and Teaching. Canberra: Office of Learning and Teaching, 2014.Lentin, Alana. “Beyond Denial: ‘Not Racism’ as Racist Violence”. Continuum 32.1 (2018): 1-15.Leonardo, Zeus, and Ronald L. Porter. “Pedagogy of Fear: Toward a Fanonian Theory of ‘Safety’ in Race Dialogue”. Race Ethnicity and Education 13.2 (2010): 139-157.Lorde, Audrey. Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches. Crossing Press, 1984.McIntosh, Peggy. White Privilege and Male Privilege: A Personal Account of Coming to See Correspondences through Work in Women's Studies. Wellesley College, Center for Research on Women, 1988.McLaughlin, Juliana, and Sue Whatman. “The Potential of Critical Race Theory in Decolonizing University Curricula”. Asia Pacific Journal of Education 31.4 (2011): 365-377.Moreton-Robinson, Aileen. The White Possessive: Property, Power, and Indigenous Sovereignty. University of Minnesota Press, 2015.Sargent, Sara E., Carol A. Sedlak, and Donna S. Martsolf. “Cultural Competence among Nursing Students and Faculty”. Nurse Education Today 25.3 (2005): 214-221.Sherwood, Juanita, and Tahnia Edwards. “Decolonisation: A Critical Step for Improving Aboriginal health”. Contemporary Nurse 22.2 (2016): 178-190.Spencer, Caroline, and Frances L. Archer. “Surveys of Cultural Competency in Health Professional Education: A Literature Review”. Journal of Emergency Primary Health Care 6.2 (2008): 17.Universities Australia. National Best Practice Framework for Indigenous Cultural Competency in Australian Universities. Universities Australia, 2011. <http://www.universitiesaustralia.edu.au/lightbox/1312>.University of Sydney. National Centre for Cultural Competence, 2016. <http://sydney.edu.au/nccc/>.Westwood, Barbara, and Geoff Westwood. “Aboriginal Cultural Awareness Training: Policy v. Accountability – Failure in Reality”. Australian Health Review 34 (2010): 423-429.Young, Susan. “Not Because It’s a Bloody Black Issue! Problematics of Cross Cultural Training”. In Unmasking Whiteness: Race Relations and Reconciliation, ed. Belinda McKay, 204-219. Queensland Studies Centre, University of Queensland Press, 1999.

The debate on the social role of museums trundles along in an age where complex associations between community, collections, and cultural norms are highly contested (Silverman 3–4; Sandell, Inequality 3–23). This article questions whether, in the case of community groups whose aspirations often go unrecognised (in this case people with either blindness or low vision), there is a need to discuss and debate institutionalised approaches that often reinforce social exclusion and impede cultural access. If “access is [indeed] an entry point to experience” (Papalia), then the privileging of visual encounters in museums is clearly a barrier for people who experience sight loss or low vision (Levent and Pursley). In contrast, a multisensory aesthetic to exhibition display respects the gamut of human sensory experience (Dudley 161–63; Drobnick 268–69; Feld 184; James 136; McGlone 41–60) as do discursive gateways including “lectures, symposia, workshops, educational programs, audio guides, and websites” (Cachia). Independent access to information extends beyond Braille on toilet doors.Underpinning this article is an ongoing qualitative case study undertaken by the author involving participant observation, workshops, and interviews with eight adults who experience vision impairment. The primary research site has been the National Museum of Australia. Reflecting on the role of curators as storytellers and the historical development of museums and their practitioners as agents for social development, the article explores the opportunities latent in museum collections as they relate to community members with vision impairment. The outcomes of this investigation offer insights into emerging issues as they relate to the International Council of Museums (ICOM) definitions of the museum program. Curators as Storytellers“The ways in which objects are selected, put together, and written or spoken about have political effects” (Eilean Hooper-Greenhill qtd. in Sandell, Inequality 8). Curators can therefore open or close doors to discrete communities of people. The traditional role of curators has been to collect, care for, research, and interpret collections (Desvallées and Mairesse 68): they are characterised as information specialists with a penchant for research (Belcher 78). While commonly possessing an intimate knowledge of their institution’s collection, their mode of knowledge production results from a culturally mediated process which ensures that resulting products, such as cultural significance assessments and provenance determinations (Russell and Winkworth), privilege the knowing systems of dominant social groups (Fleming 213). Such ways of seeing can obstruct the access prospects of underserved audiences.When it comes to exhibition display—arguably the most public of work by museums—curators conventionally collaborate within a constellation of other practitioners (Belcher 78–79). Curators liaise with museum directors, converse with conservators, negotiate with exhibition designers, consult with graphics designers, confer with marketing boffins, seek advice from security, chat with editors, and engage with external contractors. I question the extent that curators engage with community groups who may harbour aspirations to participate in the exhibition experience—a sticking point soon to be addressed. Despite the team based ethos of exhibition design, it is nonetheless the content knowledge of curators on public display. The art of curatorial interpretation sets out not to instruct audiences but, in part, to provoke a response with narratives designed to reveal meanings and relationships (Freeman Tilden qtd. in Alexander and Alexander 258). Recognised within the institution as experts (Sandell, Inclusion 53), curators have agency—they decide upon the stories told. In a recent television campaign by the National Museum of Australia, a voiceover announces: a storyteller holds incredible power to connect and to heal, because stories bring us together (emphasis added). (National Museum of Australia 2015)Storytelling in the space of the museum often shares the histories, perspectives, and experiences of people past as well as living cultures—and these stories are situated in space and time. If that physical space is not fit-for-purpose—that is, it does not accommodate an individual’s physical, intellectual, psychiatric, sensory, or neurological needs (Disability Discrimination Act 1992, Cwlth)—then the story reaches only long-established patrons. The museum’s opportunity to contribute to social development, and thus the curator’s as the primary storyteller, will have been missed. A Latin-American PerspectiveICOM’s commitment to social development could be interpreted merely as a pledge to make use of collections to benefit the public through scholarship, learning, and pleasure (ICOM 15). If this interpretation is accepted, however, then any museum’s contribution to social development is somewhat paltry. To accept such a limited and limiting role for museums is to overlook the historical efforts by advocates to change the very nature of museums. The ascendancy of the social potential of museums first blossomed during the late 1960s at a time where, globally, overlapping social movements espoused civil rights and the recognition of minority groups (Silverman 12; de Varine 3). Simultaneously but independently, neighbourhood museums arose in the United States, ecomuseums in France and Quebec, and the integral museum in Latin America, notably in Mexico (Hauenschild; Silverman 12–13). The Latin-American commitment to the ideals of the integral museum developed out of the 1972 round table of Santiago, Chile, sponsored by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (Giménez-Cassina 25–26). The Latin-American signatories urged the local and regional museums of their respective countries to collaborate with their communities to resolve issues of social inequality (Round Table Santiago 13–21). The influence of Brazilian educator Paulo Freire should be acknowledged. In 1970, Freire ushered in the concept of conscientization, defined by Catherine Campbell and Sandra Jovchelovitch as:the process whereby critical thinking develops … [and results in a] … thinker [who] feels empowered to think and to act on the conditions that shape her living. (259–260)This model for empowerment lent inspiration to the ideals of the Santiago signatories in realising their sociopolitical goal of the integral museum (Assunção dos Santos 20). Reframing the museum as an institution in the service of society, the champions of the integral museum sought to redefine the thinking and practices of museums and their practitioners (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization 37–39). The signatories successfully lobbied ICOM to introduce an explicitly social purpose to the work of museums (Assunção dos Santos 6). In 1974, in the wake of the Santiago round table, ICOM modified their definition of a museum to “a permanent non-profit institution, open to the public, in the service of society and its development” (emphasis added) (Hauenschild). Museums had been transformed into “problem solvers” (Judite Primo qtd. in Giménez-Cassina 26). With that spirit in mind, museum practitioners, including curators, can develop opportunities for reciprocity with the many faces of the public (Guarini). Response to Social Development InitiativesStarting in the 1970s, the “second museum revolution” (van Mensch 6–7) saw the transition away from: traditional roles of museums [of] collecting, conservation, curatorship, research and communication … [and toward the] … potential role of museums in society, in education and cultural action. (van Mensch 6–7)Arguably, this potential remains a work in progress some 50 years later. Writing in the tradition of museums as agents of social development, Mariana Lamas states:when we talk about “in the service of society and its development”, it’s quite different. It is like the drunk uncle at the Christmas party that the family pretends is not there, because if they pretend long enough, he might pass out on the couch. (Lamas 47–48)That is not to say that museums have neglected to initiate services and programs that acknowledge the aspirations of people with disabilities (refer to Cachia and Krantz as examples). Without discounting such efforts, but with the refreshing analogy of the drunken uncle still fresh in memory, Lamas answers her own rhetorical question:how can traditional museums promote community development? At first the word “development” may seem too much for the museum to do, but there are several ways a museum can promote community development. (Lamas 52) Legitimising CommunitiesThe first way that museums can foster community or social development is to:help the community to over come [sic] a problem, coming up with different solutions, putting things into a new perspective; providing confidence to the community and legitimizing it. (Lamas 52)As a response, my doctoral investigation legitimises the right of people with vision impairment to participate in the social and cultural aspects of publicly funded museums. The Australian Government upheld this right in 2008 by ratifying the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (and Optional Protocol), which enshrines the right of people with disability to participate in the cultural life of the nation (United Nations).At least 840,700 people in Australia (a minimum of four per cent of the population) experiences either blindness or low vision (Australian Bureau of Statistics 2009). For every one person in the Australian community who is blind, nearly five other people experience low vision. The medical model of disability identifies the impairment as the key feature of a person and seeks out a corrective intervention. In contrast, the social model of disability strives to remove the attitudinal, social, and physical barriers enacted by people or institutions (Landman, Fishburn, and Tonkin 14). Therein lies the opportunity and challenge for museums—modifying layouts and practices that privilege the visual. Consequently, there is scope for museums to partner with people with vision impairment to identify their aspirations rather than respond as a problem to be fixed. Common fixes in the museums for people with disabilities include physical alterations such as ramps and, less often, special tours (Cachia). I posit that curators, as co-creators and major contributors to exhibitions, can be part of a far wider discussion. In the course of doctoral research, I accompanied adults with a wide array of sight impairments into exhibitions at the Museum of Australian Democracy at Old Parliament House, the Australian War Memorial, and the National Museum of Australia. Within the space of the exhibition, the most commonly identified barrier has been the omission of access opportunities to interpreted materials: that is, information about objects on display as well as the wider narratives driving exhibitions. Often, the participant has had to work backwards, from the object itself, to understand the wider topic of the exhibition. If aesthetics is “the way we communicate through the senses” (Thrift 291), then the vast majority of exhibits have been inaccessible from a sensory perspective. For people with low vision (that is, they retain some degree of functioning sight), objects’ labels have often been too small to be read or, at times, poorly contrasted or positioned. Objects have often been set too deep into display cabinets or too far behind safety barriers. If individuals must use personal magnifiers to read text or look in vain at objects, then that is an indicator that there are issues with exhibition design. For people who experience blindness (that is, they cannot see), neither the vast majority of exhibits nor their interpretations have been made accessible. There has been minimal access across all museums to accessioned objects, handling collections, or replicas to tease out exhibits and their stories. Object labels must be read by family or friends—a tiring experience. Without motivated peers, the stories told by curators are silenced by a dearth of alternative options.Rather than presume to know what works for people with disabilities, my research ethos respects the “nothing about us without us” (Charlton 2000; Werner 1997) maxim of disability advocates. To paraphrase Lamas, we have collaborated to come up with different solutions by putting things into new perspectives. In turn, “person-centred” practices based on rapport, warmth, and respect (Arigho 206–07) provide confidence to a diverse community of people by legitimising their right to participate in the museum space. Incentivising Communities Museums can also nurture social or community development by providing incentives to “the community to take action to improve its quality of life” (Lamas 52). It typically falls to (enthusiastic) public education and community outreach teams to engage underserved communities through targeted programs. This approach continues the trend of curators as advocates for the collection, and educators as advocates for the public (Kaitavouri xi). If the exhibition briefs normally written by curators (Belcher 83) reinforced the importance of access, then exhibition designers would be compelled to offer fit-for-purpose solutions. Better still, if curators (and other exhibition team members) regularly met with community based organisations (perhaps in the form of a disability reference group), then museums would be better positioned to accommodate a wider spectrum of community members. The National Standards for Australian Museums and Galleries already encourages museums to collaborate with disability organisations (40). Such initiatives offer a way forward for improving a community’s sense of itself and its quality of life. The World Health Organization defines health as a “state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity”. While I am not using quality of life indicators for my doctoral study, the value of facilitating social and cultural opportunities for my target audience is evident in participant statements. At the conclusion of one sensory based workshop, Mara, a female participant who experiences low vision in one eye and blindness in the other, stated:I think it was interesting in that we could talk together about what we were experiencing and that really is the social aspect of it. I mean if I was left to go to a whole lot of museums on my own, I probably wouldn’t. You know, I like going with kids or a friend visiting from interstate—that sort of thing. And so this group, in a way, replicates that experience in that you’ve got someone else to talk about your impressions with—much better than going on your own or doing this alone.Mara’s statement was in response to one of two workshops I held with the support of the Learning Services team at the National Museum of Australia in May 2015. Selected objects from the museum’s accessioned collection and handling collection were explored, as well as replicas in the form of 3D printed objects. For example, participants gazed upon and handled a tuckerbox, smelt and tasted macadamia nuts in wattle seed syrup, and listened to a genesis story about the more-ish nut recorded by the Butchulla people—the traditional owners of Fraser Island. We sat around a table while I, as the workshop mediator, sought to facilitate free-flowing discussions about their experiences and, in turn, mused on the capacity of objects to spark social connection and opportunities for cultural access. While the workshop provided the opportunity for reciprocal exchanges amongst participants as well as between participants and me, what was highly valued by most participants was the direct contact with members of the museum’s Learning Services team. I observed that participants welcomed the opportunity to talk with real museum workers. Their experience of museum practitioners, to date, had been largely confined to the welcome desk of respective institutions or through special events or tours where they were talked at. The opportunity to communicate directly with the museum allowed some participants to share their thoughts and feelings about the services that museums provide. I suggest that curators open themselves up to such exchanges on a more frequent basis—it may result in reciprocal benefits for all stakeholders. Fortifying IdentityA third way museums can contribute to social or community development is by:fortify[ing] the bonds between the members of the community and reaffirm their identities making them feel more secure about who they are; and give them a chance to tell their own version of their history to “outsiders” which empowers them. (Lamas 52)Identity informs us and others of who we are and where we belong in the world (Silverman 54). However, the process of identity marking and making can be fraught: “some communities are ours by choice … [and] … some are ours because of the ways that others see us” (Watson 4). Communities are formed by identifying who is in and who is out (Francois Dubet qtd. in Bessant and Watts 260). In other words, the construction of collective identity is reinforced through means of social inclusion and social exclusion. The participants of my study, as members or clients of the Royal Society for the Blind | Canberra Blind Society, clearly value participating in events with empathetic peers. People with vision impairment are not a homogenous group, however. Reinforcing the cultural influences on the formation of identity, Fiona Candlin asserts that “to state the obvious but often ignored fact, blind people … [come] … from all social classes, all cultural, racial, religious and educational backgrounds” (101). Irrespective of whether blindness or low vision arises congenitally, adventitiously, or through unexpected illness, injury, or trauma, the end result is an assortment of individuals with differing perceptual characteristics who construct meaning in often divergent ways (De Coster and Loots 326–34). They also hold differing world views. Therefore, “participation [at the museum] is not an end in itself. It is a means for creating a better world” (Assunção dos Santos 9). According to the Australian Human Rights Commissioner, Professor Gillian Triggs, a better world is: a society for all, in which every individual has an active role to play. Such a society is based on fundamental values of equity, equality, social justice, and human rights and freedoms, as well as on the principles of tolerance and embracing diversity. (Triggs)Publicly funded museums can play a fundamental role in the cultural lives of societies. For example, the Powerhouse Museum (Museum of Applied Arts and Sciences) in Sydney partnered with Vision Australia to host an exhibition in 2010 titled Living in a Sensory World: it offered “visitors an understanding of the world of the blindness and low vision community and celebrates their achievements” (Powerhouse Museum). With similar intent, my doctoral research seeks to validate the world of my participants by inviting museums to appreciate their aspirations as a distinct but diverse community of people. ConclusionIn conclusion, the challenge for museum curators and other museum practitioners is balancing what Richard Sennett (qtd. in Bessant and Watts 265) identifies as opportunities for enhancing social cohesion and a sense of belonging while mitigating parochialism and community divisiveness. Therefore, curators, as the primary focus of this article, are indeed challenged when asked to contribute to serving the public through social development—a public which is anything but homogenous. Mindful of cultural and social differences in an ever-changing world, museums are called to respect the cultural and natural heritage of the communities they serve and collaborate with (ICOM 10). It is a position I wholeheartedly support. This is not to say that museums or indeed curators are capable of solving the ills of society. However, inviting people who are frequently excluded from social and cultural events to multisensory encounters with museum collections acknowledges their cultural rights. I suggest that this would be a seismic shift from the current experiences of adults with blindness or low vision at most museums.ReferencesAlexander, Edward, and Mary Alexander. Museums in Motion: An Introduction to the History and Functions of Museums. 2nd ed. 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The depiction of alcohol is the focus of a growing number of content analyses in the field of social media research. Typically, the occurrence and nature of alcohol representations are coded to measure the prevalence, normalization, or even glorification of alcohol and its consumption on different social media platforms (Moreno et al., 2016; Westgate & Holliday, 2016) and smartphone apps (Ghassemlou et al., 2020). But social media platforms and smartphone apps also play a role in the prevention of alcohol abuse when they disseminate messages about alcohol risks and foster harm reduction, abstinence, and sobriety (Davey, 2021; Döring & Holz, 2021; Tamersoy et al., 2015; Westgate & Holliday, 2016). Field of application/theoretical foundation: Social Cognitive Theory (SCT; Bandura 1986, 2009) as the dominant media effects theory in communication science, is applicable and widely applied to social media representations of alcohol: According to SCT, positive media portayals of alcohol and attractive role models consuming alcohol can influence the audience’s relation to alcohol. That’s why positive alcohol portayals in the media are considered a public health threat as they can foster increased and risky alcohol consumption among media users in general and young people in particular. The negative health impact predicted by SCT depends on different aspects of alcohol portrayals on social media that have been traditionally coded in manual content analyses (Beullens & Schepers, 2013; Mayrhofer & Naderer, 2019; Moreno et al., 2010) and most recently by studies relying on computational methods for content analysis (e.g. Ricard & Hassanpour, 2021). Core aspects of alcohol representations on social media are: a) the type of communicator / creator of alcohol-related social media content, b) the overall valence of the alcohol portrayal, c) the people consuming alcohol, d) the alcohol consumption behaviors, e) the social contexts of alcohol consumption, f) the types and brands of consumed alcohol, g) the consequences of alcohol consumption, and h) alcohol-related consumer protection messages in alcohol marketing (Moreno et al., 2016; Westgate & Holliday, 2016). For example, a normalizing portrayal shows alcohol consumption as a regular and normal behavior of diverse people in different contexts, while a glorifying portrayal shows alcohol consumption as a behavior that is strongly related to positive effects such as having fun, enjoying social community, feeling sexy, happy, and carefree (Griffiths & Casswell, 2011). While criticism of glorifying alcohol portrayals in entertainment media (e.g., music videos; Cranwell et al., 2015), television (e.g., Barker et al., 2021), and advertising (e.g., Curtis et al., 2018; Stautz et al., 2016) has a long tradition, the concern about alcohol representations on social media is relatively new and entails the phenomenon of alcohol brands and social media influencers marketing alcohol (Critchlow & Moodie, 2022; Turnwald et al., 2022) as well as ordinary social media users providing alcohol-related self-presentations (e.g., showing themselves partying and drinking; Boyle et al., 2016). Such alcohol-related self-presentations might elicit even stronger identification and imitation effects among social media audiences compared to regular advertising (Griffiths & Casswell, 2011). Because of its psychological and health impact, alcohol-related social media content – and alcohol marketing in particular – is also an issue of legal regulation. The World Health Organization states that “Europe is the heaviest-drinking region in the world” and strongly advocates for bans or at least stricter regulations of alcohol marketing both offline and online (WHO, 2020, p. 1). At the same time, the WHO points to the problem of clearly differentiating between alcohol marketing and other types of alcohol representations on social media. Apart from normalizing and glorifying alcohol portayals, there are also anti-alcohol posts and comments on social media. They usually point to the health risks of alcohol consumption and the dangers of alcohol addiction and, hence, try to foster harm reduction, abstincence and sobriety. While such negative alcohol portayals populate different social media platforms, an in-depth investigation of the spread, scope and content of anti-alcohol messages on social media is largely missing (Davey, 2021; Döring & Holz, 2021; Tamersoy et al., 2015). References/combination with other methods of data collection: Manual and computational content analyses of alcohol representations on social media platforms can be complemented by qualitative interview and quantitative survey data addressing alcohol-related beliefs and behaviors collected from social media users who a) create and publish alcohol-related social media content and/or b) are exposed to or actively search for and follow alcohol-related social media content (e.g., Ricard & Hassanpour, 2021; Strowger & Braitman, 2022). Furthermore, experimental studies are helpful to directly measure how different alcohol-related social media posts and comments are perceived and evaluated by recipients and if and how they can affect their alcohol-related thoughts, feelings, and behaviors (Noel, 2021). Such social media experiments can build on respective mass media experiments (e.g., Mayrhofer & Naderer, 2019). Insights from content analyses help to select or create appropriate stimuli for such experiments. Last but not least, to evaluate the effectiveness of alcohol marketing regulations, social media content analyses conducted within a longitudinal or trend study design (including measurements before and after new regulations came into effect) should be preferred over cross-sectional studies (e.g., Chapoton et al., 2020). Example Studies for Manual Content Analyses: Coding Material Measure Operationalization (excerpt) Reliability Source a) Creators of alcohol-related social media content Extensive explorations on Facebook, Instagram and TikTok Creators of alcohol-related social media content on Facebook, Instagram and TikTok Polytomous variable “Type of content creator” (1: alcohol industry; 2: media organization/media professional; 3: health organization/health professional; 4: social media influencer; 5: ordinary social media user; 6: other) Not available Döring & Tröger (2018) Döring & Holz (2021) b) Valence of alcohol-related social media content N = 3 015 Facebook comments N = 100 TikTok videos Valence of alcohol-related social media content (posts or comments) Binary variable “Valence of alcohol-related social media content” (1: positive/pro-alcohol sentiment; 2: negative/anti-alcohol sentiment) Cohen’s Kappa average of .72 for all alcohol-related variables in codebook* Döring & Holz (2021) *Russell et al. (2021) c) People consuming alcohol N = 160 Facebook profiles (profile pictures, personal photos, and text) Portrayal of people consuming alcohol on Facebook profiles Binary variable “Number of persons on picture” (1: alone; 2: with others) Cohen’s Kappa > .90 Beullens & Schepers (2013) d) Alcohol consumption behaviors N = 160 Facebook profiles (profile pictures, personal photos, and text) Type of depicted alcohol use/consumption Polytomous variable “Type of depicted alcohol use/consumption” (1: explicit use such as depiction of person drinking alcohol; 2: implicit use such as depiction of alcohol bottle on table; 3: alcohol logo only) Cohen’s Kappa = .89 Beullens & Schepers (2013) N = 100 TikTok videos Multiple alcoholic drinks consumed per person Binary variable “Multiple alcoholic drinks consumed per person” as opposed to having only one drink or no drink per person (1: present; 2: not present) Cohen’s Kappa average of .72 for all alcohol-related variables in codebook Russell et al. (2021) N = 100 TikTok videos Alcohol intoxication Binary variable “Alcohol intoxication” (1: present; 2: not present) Cohen’s Kappa average of .72 for all alcohol-related variables in codebook Russell et al. (2021) N = 4 800 alcohol-related Tweets Alcohol mentioned in combination with other substance use Binary variable “Alcohol mentioned in combination with tobacco, marijuana, or other drugs” (1: yes; 2: no) Cohen’s Kappa median of .73 for all pro-drinking variables in codebook Cavazos-Rehg et al. (2015) e) Social contexts of alcohol consumption N = 192 Facebook and Instagram profiles (profile pictures, personal photos, and text) Portrayal of social evaluative contexts of alcohol consumption on Facebook and Instagram profiles Polytomous variable “Social evaluative context” (1: negative context such as someone looking disapprovingly at a drunk person; 2: neutral context such as no explicit judgment or emotion is shown; 3: positive context such as people laughing and toasting with alcoholic drinks) Cohen’s Kappa ranging from .68 to .91 for all variables in codebook Hendriks et al. (2018), based on previous work by Beullens & Schepers (2013) N = 51 episodes with a total of N = 1 895 scenes of the American adolescent drama series “The OC” Portrayal of situational contexts of alcohol consumption in scenes of a TV series Polytomous variable “Setting of alcohol consumption” (1: at home; 2: at adult / youth party; 3: in a bar; 4: at work; 5: at other public place) Polytomous variable “Reason of alcohol consumption” (1: celebrating/partying; 2: habit; 3: stress relief; 4: social facilitation) Cohen’s Kappa for setting of alcohol consumption .90 Cohen’s Kappa for reason of alcohol consumption .71 Van den Bulck et al. (2008) f) Types and brands of consumed alcohol N = 17 800 posts of Instagram influencers and related comments Portrayal of different alcohol types and alcohol brands in Instagram posts Polytomous variable “Alcohol type” (1: wine; 2: beer; 3: cocktails; 4: spirits; 5: non-alcoholic drinks/0% alcohol) Binary variable “Alcohol brand visibility” (1: present if full brand name, recognizable logo, or brand name in header or tag are visible; 2: non-present) String variable “Alcohol brand name” (open text coding) Krippendorff’s Alpha ranging from .69 to 1.00 for all variables in codebook Hendriks et al. (2019) g) Consequences of alcohol consumption N = 400 randomly selected public MySpace profiles Portayal of consequences of alcohol consumption on MySpace profiles Five individually coded binary variables for different consequences associated with alcohol use (1: present; 2: not present): a) “Positive emotional consequence highlighting positive mood, feeling or emotion associated with alcohol use” b) “Negative emotional consequence highlighting negative mood, feeling or emotion associated with alcohol use” c) “Positive social consequences highlighting perceived social gain associated with alcohol use” d) “Negative social consequences highlighting perceived poor social outcomes associated with alcohol use” e) “Negative physical consequences describing adverse physical consequences or outcomes associated with alcohol use” Cohen’s Kappa ranging from 0.76 to 0.82 for alcohol references and alcohol use Moreno et al. (2010) h) Alcohol-related consumer protection messages in alcohol marketing N = 554 Tweets collected from 13 Twitter accounts of alcohol companies in Ireland Alcohol-related consumer protection messages in alcohol marketing (covers both mandatory and voluntary messages depending on national legislation) Four individually coded binary variables for different alcohol-related consumer protection messages in alcohol marketing (1: present; 2: not present): a) “Warning about the risks/danger of alcohol consumption” b) “Warning about the risks/danger of alcohol consumption when pregnant” c) “Warning about the link between alcohol consumption and fatal cancers” d) “Link/reference to website with public health information about alcohol” Not available Critchlow & Moodie (2022) The presented measures were developed for specific social media platforms, but are so generic that they can be used across different social media platforms and even across mass media channels such as TV, cinema, and advertisement. 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