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Might be of interest? Jim

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Comic strips and cartoons are two effective instructional tools to use in class with students from different grades. They are effective because they engage students in meaningful learning experiences where they get to practice key skills such as writing, reading, speaking and communicating. By definition, a comic strip is "an open-ended dramatic narrative about a recurring set of characters told in a series of drawings, often including dialogue in balloons and a narrative text, published serially in newspapers" (Inge, p. 631 cited in Snyder, 1997). In today's post, we are sharing with you a some very good resources to help you make the best of comic strips in your teaching.

pixton.com

Why use comic strips in your teaching:
Here are some of the reasons why you might want to include comic strips in your classroom instruction (see the list of sources at the bottom of this post to learn more)

Comics are fun, interesting and motivating.

Comics promote a wide variety of skills: cognitive, intellectual, social, and cultural.

Can be used with students in different school grades.

Can be used to teach different school subjects.

Can help students develop higher-order thinking skills (sequencing, predicting, inferring, synthesizing, analyzing, evaluating...etc).

Enhance students engagement with multimodal texts.

Make students aware of the multimodal means through which meanings are constructed and communicated.

Ideal teaching tools for teaching a target language

Visually illustrated content is much easier to process, understand and remember.

Can be used to teach reading, writing, listening, and speaking skills.

Makebeliefscomix.com

Uses of comic strips in class
There are different ways you can integrate comic strips in your classroom. Here is an abbreviated list of ideas we put together based on various sources (see list at the bottom of this post).

Digital storytelling: students (in small groups or individually) create a narrative storyline and illustrate it with relevant graphics.

Students use comic strips to visually retell a story they have read.

You can use comic strips to introduce a topic and have students brainstorm ideas

Provide students with pre-designed comic strip with missing panels and ask them to fill in the blanks to complete the story. (writing activity)

Provide students with blanked out comic strip and ask them to write a story based on the illustrated characters. (writing activity, promote predicting skills)

Use comic strips to raise students awareness to topics such as racism, bullying, digital citizenship...etc.

Use comic strips in language learning to teach vocabulary, grammar, communication (use of language in contextual situations), writing, and reading.

Use comics to improve students speaking skills by asking them to act out comics they created. Alternatively you can engage students in oral discussions about the content of the comics.

The following are some of our favourite tools you can use with your students to create beautiful comic strips and cartoons. We have only included tools that are student-friendly and that are easy and simple to use. These tools provide a wide variety of pre-designed materials such as characters, backgrounds, images, objects, text balloons, dynamic panels...etc. Students select the materials to illustrate their comics, write their content in the provided dialogue boxes and then share their finished product with others.

1- Make Beliefs Comix

An excellent and easy to use tool for creating beautiful comic strips. It provides you with a diverse cast of characters, speech bubbles, props, backgrounds, objects and many more. Your finished product can be printed, saved to disk or shared with others through email.

2- Comic Creator

Another great tool students can use to design their own comic strips. It offers backgrounds, characters, and props required for visual illustrations. It also comes with a planning sheet that has detailed instructions and tips on how to use the tool.
3- Pixton
Pixton allows students to easily create stunning comics using a drag and drop editor. They can choose from 'fully posable characters to dynamic panels, props, and speech bubbles, every aspect of a comic can be controlled in an intuitive click-n-drag motion.'
4- Witty Comics
Provides you with a set of pre-designed characters, scenes and dialogue boxes to write your story. You need to log in to save your work.
5- StoryboardThat
Allows students to create beautiful storyboards. It provides more features than the tools mentioned above. Students can choose from scenes, characters, shapes, textables, and even upload their own images to use in their storyboards.

Sources:
Snyder, E. (1997). Teaching the sociology of sport: Using a comic strip in the classroom. Teaching Sociology, 25(3), 239-243.
Comic Strips Creation Tools (Google Sites)
26 Ways to Use Comics in the Classroom and 5 Free Tools for Creating Comics (Free Technology for Teachers)
Comics in The Classroom: Why Comics? (TEACH)
Using Comics in the English Language Classroom (James Whiting, Plymouth State University)
Using Cartoons and Comic Strips (British Council)
Comics in the Classroom as an Introduction to Narrative Structure (ReadWriteThink)

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Teachers Guide to The Use of Comic Strips in Class: Some Helpful Tools and Resources - Educators Technology

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Comic strips and cartoons are two effective instructional tools to use in class with students from different grades. They are effective because they engage students in meaningful learning experiences where they get to practice key skills such as writing, reading, speaking and communicating. By definition, a comic strip is "an open-ended dramatic narrative about a...

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http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/articles/6F2X8TpsxrJpnsq82hggHW/dr-atul-gawande-2014-reith-lectures

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Media and Medical/Health Education - Hannah

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Media and Medical/Health Education - Hannah

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Catherine

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Catherine Bell , , general practitioner

Moss Valley Medical Practice, The Valleys Medical Partnership, Eckington, Sheffield, UK

Correspondence to C Bell catherine.gray{at}doctors.org.uk

Accepted 17 November 2017

As a general practitioner, I have often wondered why some patients immediately attempt to consult their GP about minor ailments of short duration. As the mother of a toddler and frequent witness to the children's television series Peppa Pig, I might have discovered the answer.

Peppa Pig centres around a young pig, Peppa, her family (brother George, Mummy Pig, Daddy Pig), and animal friends and members of the community.

Dr Brown Bear, a single handed GP with whom the Pig family is registered, appears to provide his patients with an excellent service-prompt and direct telephone access, continuity of care, extended hours, and a low threshold for home visits. But could this depiction of general practice be contributing to unrealistic expectations of primary care? In this article, I present three case studies and consider the potential impact Dr Brown Bear's actions could have on patient behaviour.

Case study 1: Not very well

A 3 year old piglet develops an erythematous maculopapular facial rash. Her parents call Dr Brown Bear, who operates a "doctor first" telephone triage system. Dr Brown Bear advises putting the patient to bed and opts to make an urgent home visit.

He examines the patient's tongue, diagnoses a "rash," and reassures the parents it is "nothing serious." He offers a dose of medicine, despite admitting this is purely in response to the patient's request, and says the rash is likely to clear up quickly regardless.

Case study 2: George catches a cold

Parents call Dr Brown Bear on a Saturday regarding an 18 month old piglet with a 2 minute history of coryzal symptoms after playing outside without his rain hat.

Dr Brown Bear telephone triages and makes an urgent home visit.

After examining the throat, he diagnoses an upper respiratory tract infection and advises bed rest and warm milk. Symptoms resolve within 12 hours.

Case study 3: Pedro's cough

A 3 year old pony coughs three times while attending playgroup. The nursery teacher immediately calls Dr Brown Bear, who telephone triages and makes an urgent visit to the playgroup. In a green light car. With sirens.

Dr Brown Bear takes a focused history, asking if it is "a tickly cough or a chesty cough?" and inquires about duration of symptoms. He does not commit aloud to a diagnosis, but administers a dose of medicine immediately and warns that the cough is potentially transmissible.

The rest of the playgroup attendees and their parents become symptomatic, and all are given a dose of an unspecified pink medicine.

Dr Brown Bear also quickly becomes symptomatic. His patients attend the surgery to administer his dose of medicine, and to sing to him.

Discussion

Given that Peppa Pig is broadcast and encountered by parents in more than 180 countries worldwide, the influence of his portrayal of the work of primary care physicians is likely to be significant.

Case 1 questions whether Dr Brown Bear is an unscrupulous private practitioner, rather than an NHS GP. ¹ In this case of a probable viral rash, he could reasonably have encouraged self management (with appropriate safety netting) or asked the family to attend surgery for assessment. His decision not to suggests a potential financial incentive for conducting an arguably clinically inappropriate home visit.

Case 1 is also an example of unnecessary prescribing for a viral illness, and encourages patients to attempt to access their GP inappropriately. Depending on interpretation of the medicine, Dr Brown Bear is either prescribing antibiotics in an era of rising antibiotic resistance, or is issuing on prescription medication (paracetamol?) that is available over the counter. In the context of the UK's NHS, this creates a potential drain on resources.

In Case 2, Dr Brown Bear conducts a telephone triage outside normal working hours and again opts to make a clinically inappropriate urgent home visit. Had he explored Daddy Pig's ideas, concerns, and expectations, he would have discovered that Daddy Pig already had a good understanding of the likely diagnosis and self limiting nature of the illness. However, Dr Brown Bear's management was at least clinically appropriate on this occasion, and his advice might encourage the family to self manage similar illnesses in future.

By Case 3, Dr Brown Bear displays signs of "burnout." His disregard for confidentiality, parental consent, record keeping, and his self prescribing indicate that the burden of demand from his patient population is affecting his health. He is no longer able to offer the level of service his patients have come to expect. ²

Conclusion

Conflicts of interest: None declared. It may look like my child is sponsored by Peppa Pig, but any claims to this effect are false.

Provenance and peer review: Not commissioned; not externally peer reviewed.

¹ Despite being a UK resident with access to the NHS, it is possible that Daddy Pig holds private health insurance through his employer-readers well versed in Peppa Pig will be aware he works as a structural engineer, whereas Mummy Pig writes nonsense letters on her computer from home for no obvious reason. They both, however, appear to be regularly available to drop off and collect their children from playgroup without any additional childcare. Further study is needed to ascertain how this is achieved.

Another contributing factor to Dr Brown Bear's exhaustion is likely to be that he also provides medical cover for a community rehabilitation ward (Series 3: Hospital).

³ To quote Mr Potato in Fruit, Series 4: "Apple, orange, banana, pear, and pineapple too; Eat five pieces of fruit a day, because they're good for you!"

⁴ Recruitment of a cohort of control patients without prior exposure to the subject material has proved difficult.

Peppa Pig conveys many positive public health messages, encouraging healthy eating, exercise, and road safety. ³ However, from (repeated, mostly involuntary) review of the subject material, I hypothesise that exposure to Peppa Pig and its portrayal of general practice raises patient expectation and encourages inappropriate use of primary care services. Further study is needed to confirm this. ⁴

Dr Brown Bear was approached for his perspective on the cases discussed; however, he is unable to comment pending the outcome of a fitness to practise investigation.

Footnotes

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Does Peppa Pig encourage inappropriate use of primary care resources?

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Catherine Bell , , general practitioner Moss Valley Medical Practice, The Valleys Medical Partnership, Eckington, Sheffield, UK Correspondence to C Bell catherine.gray{at}doctors.org.uk Accepted 17 November 2017 As a general practitioner, I have often wondered why some patients immediately attempt to consult their GP about minor ailments of short duration.

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Sherina's summary

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Dan - Enhancing Communication in oncology outpatient consultations

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Dan - Enhancing Communication in oncology outpatient consultations

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(opens in Google Slides)

Link to original paper here:

https://doi.org/10.1111/medu.13264

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Hot Topics: Discourses of  Widening Participation

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Sean/summary

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Mal's Paper

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Mal's talk

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In happier times, there was a story Eric Harrison used to tell his players at Manchester United, as the coach who helped bring through the Class of '92, about a piece of advice he once received from the centre-half he regarded as the hardest man he had ever seen on a football pitch.

George Curtis will always be best remembered as John Sillett's managerial partner on the day Coventry City won the 1987 FA Cup. Yet for Harrison's generation in the 1950s and 1960s he was the kind of centre‑half who could trouble even the most granite-jawed opponent. Harrison played with him on their national service and was always fascinated how a man of 5ft 11in won so many headers against players who were well over 6ft. "No problem," Curtis explained, "early in the game, when the first ball comes up the middle, I don't head the ball. I head the back of the centre-forward's head against the ball - and he doesn't usually come back for more."

Harrison liked what he heard so much he adopted the same tactic, as you might expect for a man whose nickname during 10 years as a wing‑half at Halifax Town was "Chopper". Harrison, by his own admission, saw every header as a personal challenge, no matter what was in the way.

Yet it had its consequences. His wife, Shirley, told me a story recently about her first pregnancy and the arrival of their baby daughter, Kim. Harrison was in another part of the hospital that day, suffering one of his regular concussions, and missed the birth. That one wiped him out for three days.

He is 79 now and the most famous players from his list of successes Old Trafford are still in thrall of their old coach. Yet it hasn't been easy for anyone when they have called in to see him this year. "Eric still talks about them - Giggsy, Beckham, Scholesy, the Nevilles - but he doesn't recognise them now," Shirley explains. "He recognises me and his daughters, but not even the grandchildren. The players have all been to visit but it wasn't the Eric they knew. Scholesy, in particular, found it really hard. They all did. It was upsetting for all of them." Beckham had turned up with a carrot cake he had baked with his children and a bottle of whisky. Afterwards, he sat in his car and wept.

By now, you have probably read about Harrison's deteriorating health and the inevitable concerns that maybe he has suffered from what the coroner in Jeff Astle's inquest described as "industrial disease", namely dementia brought on by heading the ball.

Nobody can be sure if there is a connection but, as Shirley acknowledges, it is something she and her family have to consider when there are so many stories of other former pros from bygone eras - in particular, players who were renowned for their heading ability - who have suffered the same way. Astle's family have led the campaign for greater research, first featured in this column in March 2014, and maybe we are finally getting somewhere now the Football Association and the Professional Footballers' Association are planning to commission a study to examine the risks and see what can be done.

Yet it has been a bewilderingly slow process, to say the least, bearing in mind it was actually 2002 when the two organisations announced there would be a joint 10-year research programme and I wonder how Kevin Doyle feels about that now football has a story of a modern player who has been forced to retire, on medical advice, because heading the ball was causing persistent headaches. Doyle's announcement follows what he describes as "numerous" concussions, including two this season, as a player who was always renowned for his aerial ability, scoring a high percentage of his goals that way at Reading, Wolverhampton Wanderers and Colorado Rapids. He is 34 and says his doctors have advised him to end a career that also features 64 caps for the Republic of Ireland to "avoid the possibility of these symptoms becoming more serious and permanent". The risks are simply too great.

At least he has got out now, rather than subjecting himself to any more punishment, and hopefully that will mean no further problems, whereas there once would have been a time when a footballer in that position would have been encouraged to carry on regardless. Yet it always comes as a jolt when a professional sportsman is advised to quit on medical grounds and particularly in Doyle's case when many of us, I imagine, might presume there is not a great deal to worry about from heading the ball in today's game.

It is an easy assumption to make and I must confess I was one of those who thought the dangers had largely been removed once football phased out those heavy, leather balls, often saturated in water, that have been blamed for the issues relating to previous generations. That, however, might be a common mistake because if you listen to some of the experts who have been studying these cases it is a complete red herring.

The balls might be lighter these days but that just means they travel much faster. The game is getting quicker all the time and that means more crosses are being made and more headers are necessary. There might not be the same kind of physicality compared to the days, to quote Harrison, when "trying to break opponents in half" was part of your average Saturday afternoon. But the greater speed also means there is a higher risk of players taking accidental bangs to the head.

Willie Stewart, the neuropathologist who examined Astle and likened what he found to the brain of an old boxer, calls it a "lazy characterisation" to think of it as merely a problem of the past. Many people still do, however, and maybe that explains why the authorities in England have chosen to look the other way for so long, never taking the trouble to confront the evidence properly.

It is certainly worth recounting what happened after the FA promised the Astle family in 2002 that it would treat the issue as a high-level priority. Instead the family received two letters and did not hear from the governing body for 12 years until Greg Dyke, the then chairman, had the decency to apologise on behalf of a previous regime. The first letter was from the FA's solicitors to advise against legal action. The next could easily be described as a sweetener - a tactic the FA used many years later with various sexual-abuse victims - by offering free tickets for the next England friendly, albeit with the rider that it would be difficult to squeeze them all in. Two seats was the limit.

Thankfully, there are other countries where they have devoted time to these studies without leaving the impression they had to be pushed into seeking answers. One study in New York found that players in their 30s who headed the ball 885 to 1,550 times a year had significantly lower water movement in three areas of their brains and those who did so more than 1,800 times tended to do notably worse in memory tests. American sports have been much quicker to recognise the dangers of concussion and when it comes to chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE), the brain disease caused by repeated blows, Boston University announced last week there had been a significant breakthrough diagnosing it in living humans rather than having to identify it posthumously, as was previously the case.

The United States feels so far ahead in terms of its research, its response (heading has been outlawed for under‑10s since 2015) and its understanding that the people playing sport have a right to know the risks. It might not change the way they play, or what their coaches demand, but at least they would be in possession of the facts. Doyle moved to Major League Soccer in 2015. It doesn't reflect well on English football that he might still be going up for headers every Saturday, come what may, if he had stayed put.

Burden of proof on Ox to show worth

Who did Gareth Southgate mean when he admitted being dissatisfied with his latest England squad and volunteered the information that "one or two players" did not warrant their places judging by their club performances so far this season?

Southgate was too gentlemanly to say but nobody should be surprised if Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain featured prominently in the thoughts of the England manager after a run of form that has merely confirmed the view here that Arsenal did extraordinarily well to coax a transfer fee of £40m out of Liverpool.

Oxlade-Chamberlain is a curious player because he certainly does not lack admirers. Arsène Wenger wanted to keep him at Arsenal and, as well as Jürgen Klopp at Liverpool, Antonio Conte had him on his wish-list for Chelsea. Roy Hodgson spoke highly of him during his time as England manager and Southgate keeps selecting him.

At the same time, it is not always easy to understand the attraction and the difficult truth, looking back over his Arsenal years, is that it is trickier even still to recall a key fixture when Oxlade-Chamberlain has played the leading role. He has started only one game for Liverpool, a Carabao Cup tie, and if there are hidden layers it is time he found a way to bring them out. Oxlade-Chamberlain is 24 now and at that age no footballer should want to be talked about for mere potential.

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Football is heading for trouble over brain injuries caused by the ball

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In happier times, there was a story Eric Harrison used to tell his players at Manchester United, as the coach who helped bring through the Class of '92, about a piece of advice he once received from the centre-half he regarded as the hardest man he had ever seen on a football pitch.

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Sean's article

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Sal Khan: Let's use video to reinvent education

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Salman Khan talks about how and why he created the remarkable Khan Academy, a carefully structured series of educational videos offering complete curricula in math and, now, other subjects. He shows the power of interactive exercises, and calls for teachers to consider flipping the traditional classroom script -- give students video lectures to watch at home, and do "homework" in the classroom with the teacher available to help.

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Marwa

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Marwa

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Abi's Hot Topic

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http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1365-2923.2008.03030.x/full#b25

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To fail is human remediating remediation in medical education

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CTE- Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy- are we doing enough to prevent it

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CTE- Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy- are we doing enough to prevent it

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http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/41975305

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Leon - Opinions of the ePortfolio and workplace-based assessments; a survey of core medical trainees and their supervisors

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One from me - on ecological systems and complexity. Jim

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A bit like a journal club – come prepared to present an  educational paper or idea or theory -  anything that interests you and is related to medical education. You might wish to look at the medical education literature:  Medical Education,  Medical Teacher,  Academic Medicine  are the main three but there is also  Clinical Teacher, BMJ, Lancet, NEJM  et cetera which have educational articles.  however you could choose a newspaper article,  something from mainstream  educational literature (ERIC is the database),  or anything else that interests you.
you have 5 to 10 minutes to present and then will discuss the paper idea or concept as a group.
Please load your paper or summary of your idea onto this Padlet so we have a shared resource.