Explore the vast range of titles available.

Following the establishment of Nepal’s first medical college in 1972, forensic medicine was introduced in 1978. To date, 25 medical colleges in the country have included forensic medicine as a compulsory subject in the undergraduate medical curriculum. Although this subject has been introduced into the medical curriculum, the outcome is unsatisfactory, as reflected by the poor medico-legal reports prepared by newly graduated medical students. Forensic medicine education is therefore at a critical juncture with challenges while paving the way for opportunities to improve. In this analysis, we examined the current state of forensic medicine education for the undergraduate medical programme in the country. For this purpose, we used Schwab’s five commonplaces in the curriculum. We then evaluated the curriculum from the perspective of Schubert’s curricular image frameworks. We noted significant differences in the curriculum content, teaching methods, and practical training across the curriculum. An acute shortage of qualified teachers, limited resources, and inconsistent curriculum updates have further complicated the situation. The current curriculum does not address cultural sensitivity, which should not be overlooked during medico-legal practices. Following the curriculum evaluation, we find room for improvement and propose recommendations. First, the forensic medicine curriculum should be standardized and uniform to address national needs. There should be uniformity and improvement in practical hands-on training. The manpower should be trained to work in rural settings with limited resources so that the overall justice system of the country can improve. Recent technological advances should be incorporated into the curriculum and interdisciplinary collaboration encouraged. Allocating more scholarship/sponsorship seats for postgraduate programmes and recruiting skilled graduates to be evenly distributed regionally would be important steps toward strengthening the country’s medico-legal proceedings and justice system.

Use of human excreta as fertilizer is not a new concept. However, with the use of the modern water-flush toilet, human excreta becomes mixed with water and causes environmental pollution. To reemphasize the nutritional value of human urine in the field, a urine diversion toilet was constructed in a community school situated in Kavre, Nepal. The purpose of establishing the urine diversion toilet is to improve hygiene outcomes through promoting proper sanitation and transforming the school community’s regular practice and attitudes towards urine as a resource. To ensure effective implementation of the urine diversion toilets, intervention mapping was used as a guiding framework. The aim of this paper is to document how the urine diversion toilet was planned and implemented in the school and how the urine diversion toilet was connected with the curriculum to address concerns regarding water, sanitation, and hygiene with a focus on sustainability through intervention mapping. This study highlights the benefits of intervention mapping as a systematic and step-by-step process for the planning and implementation of the urine diversion toilet. This study also highlights the benefits of connecting urine diversion toilets with school gardening, and engaging with local government and other stakeholders about the value of the approach.

Needs assessment is a method to find out the current needs of the school that can be considered for providing quality education to the students. This paper presents the needs of five community schools intending to bring changes in the school community. Thus, this paper aims to identify the needs of the five community schools of Kavre, Nepal, and recommend possible interventions. In-depth interviews, observations, and focus group discussions with different stakeholders provided rich data for this study. School-specific needs were identified from the data based on which recommendations are made for intervention, which are: Teacher professional development, contextualized curriculum, use of technology, and development of school gardening and urine diverting toilet, which would ultimately help to improve education fulfilling the fourth goal of sustainable development.

STEM Outreach Center is a non-profit educational center in southern New Mexico that supports K-12 STEM teachers and students by providing professional development, after school programs, summer camps, and field visits. This center has been organizing the Summer Institute Professional Development (SIPD) for more than ten years. The purpose of this research is to understand the effect of SIPD on teachers’ pedagogy to excite and engage students in STEM learning. This study contributes to the program evaluation by analyzing the experiences of teachers who participated in SIPD. This qualitative study uses the open-ended questionnaire as a method of data collection. The findings of this study show that teachers who attended the SIPD are eager to (i) integrate readings and arts in STEM teaching practices, (ii) improve their teaching pedagogies, and (iii) look for additional resources to support STEM teaching. Therefore, the authors recommend further research on how teachers transfer skills into their classrooms after attending SIPD.

With access to technology and expectation by the mainstream, the use of technology in the classroom has become essential these days. However, the problem in science education is that with classrooms filled with technological equipment, the teaching style is didactic, and teachers employ traditional teacher-centered methods in the classroom. In addition, results of international assessments indicate that students' science learning needs to be improved. The purpose of this study is to analyze and document the lived experience of middle-school science teachers and their use of technology in personal, professional lives as well as in their classroom and to describe the phenomenon of middle-school science teachers' technological beliefs for integration of digital devices or technology as an instructional delivery tool, knowledge construction tool and learning tool. For this study, technology is defined as digital devices such as computer, laptops, digital camera, iPad that are used in the science classroom as an instructional delivery tool, as a learning tool, and as a knowledge construction tool. Constructivism is the lens, the theoretical framework that guides this qualitative phenomenological research. Observation, interview, personal journal, photo elicitation, and journal reflection are used as methods of data collection. Data was analyzed based on a constructivist theoretical framework to construct knowledge and draw conclusion. MAXQDA, a qualitative analysis software, was also used to analyze the data. The findings indicate that middle-school science teachers use technology in various ways to engage and motivate students in science learning; however, there are multiple factors that influence teachers' technology use in the class. In conclusion, teacher, students, and technology are the three sides of the triangle where technology acts as the third side or the bridge to connect teachers' content knowledge to students through the tool with which students are familiar. Keywords: Teachers' belief, science and technology, knowledge construction

A learning management system (LMS) is a digital learning platform for developing, delivering, and managing courses, learning resources, activities, assessments, etc. Traditional classroom-based, online, blended, and distance learning are all possible learning methods that could be executed in LMSs. The use of learning management systems and their associated tools brought significant benefits to higher education institutions worldwide, including improvements in content deliverability, accessibility, and retrievability. This is also valid in the case of Kathmandu University School of Education (KUSOED), Nepal. In 2011, KUSOED launched LMS and continued online and blended learning practices. The LMS follows a social constructivist approach to education, which allows educational stakeholders (parents, students, leaders, facilitators, etc.) to engage in learning activities to scaffold the learning experiences. However, some studies criticized LMS as a teacher-centric platform, which limits opportunities for social and informal learning. So, this paper aims to discuss the success and failure aspects of LMS in the context of the KUSOED. The discussion will cover various perspectives on LMS as an emerging technology for learning and will draw conclusions based on our experiences at KUSOED. For the success aspects of LMS, we discovered four factors: sign-in, resources and learning management, content management, and integration. But, for the failure aspects, we found content creation and sharing, communicative features, course structures, learning engagement, and assessment. Overall, this research has implications for educational institutions, instructors, developers, and system providers. These stakeholders can make more informed decisions about implementing and using these systems to their fullest potential in learning.