This article describes an innovative approach to professional development designed to challenge teachers' pedagogic practice and assumptions about educational technologies such as social media. Developing effective technology-related professional development for teachers can be a challenge for institutions and facilitators who provide this support. To contend with this challenge, we drew on Bain's (2004) "baker's dozen" questions to guide the design of an online postgraduate course for teachers. This article discusses the design of the online course and what teachers came to understand about the relationship between social media and teaching as a result of completing the course activities. This small-scale case study utilised qualitative data from three cohorts of participating teachers and found that teachers do change their pedagogical practice and assumptions about social media for their own teaching contexts when they engage in course activities that challenge their existing mental models and encourage critical reasoning and reflection on learning.

This article is premised on research that suggests there is a gap between technology use for teaching and learning and the technology used in assessment. Digital technology such as blogs, Facebook, Twitter, podcasts, and news feeds are increasingly used in teaching and learning. On the other hand, assessment is often only in traditional essay form and frequently via pen and paper. This article examines the complex nature of multimodal design and argues for assessment that has constructive alignment, which sets out the interdependence of learning outcomes, teaching, and assessment where all three are aligned as equal partners. The aim of the research described was to investigate whether teacher–learners believed there was alignment between learning outcomes, activities, and assessment that utilized digital media technology. This article presents findings from a small-scale case study that drew on qualitative data from Student Evaluations of the Paper and from online surveys from four cohorts of participating teachers in a postgraduate adult literacy, language, and numeracy professional development program. There were three important findings from the data that indicated the importance of firstly having alignment of digital technology and course design outcomes, activities, and assessments and that this was clearly visible to the participants. The second finding indicated the content was relevant to the teacher–learners and involved them in constructing their own learning through authentic and practical activities and assessment. The third finding indicated that course outcomes, activities, and assessment tasks were aligned with multi-literacy skills. It is argued that academics design courses that are constructively aligned connecting learners with outcomes, activities, and assessment, which include an explicit focus on teaching the multi-literacy skills required in a world that is becoming increasingly digital.

Current treatments for Sjögren’s syndrome (SS) are limited. Pharmacological treatments tend to focus on topical treatments for dryness or oral muscarinic agonists which increase tear production and salivary flow. National treatment guidelines for primary SS incorporating available published evidence and expert opinion include recommendations for specific pharmacological topical and systemic treatments. However, despite the availability of such treatments, SS patients still experience symptoms, difficulties performing their daily activities, and reduced quality of life. This chapter explores specific ways nonpharmacological support for patients with primary SS might be delivered. These include the provision of information and patient education, as well as specific symptom management support for anxiety, sleep disturbances, pain, discomfort, low mood, and anxiety. Possible modes of delivering interventions and consideration of the differing levels of support which are required for different patients are also discussed.

When we listen to human discourse, we do this in a context which may include the words themselves, tone of voice, stress on words, as well as gestures, visual context, facial expressions and interpersonal distance, which work to produce a multimodal message. The development of listening skills then implies focussing not only on audio input but also on all types of non-verbal input. This article describes a case study of a university listening paper where 12 predominantly English as a second language participants filled out a widely recognised pre and post Metacognitive Awareness Listening Questionnaire consisting of 21 questions. Seven additional questions were added to the questionnaires that related to multimodal aspects of listening. Four of the research participants were also involved in in-depth interviews. Findings indicate the following three main themes relating to student perceptions: that metacognitive listening strategies help their listening; that the teacher has an important role in teaching strategies and selecting listening material; and that overall, video material is more useful than audio material alone for the development of listening comprehension.

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