Creating and navigating social and classroom spaces with gravity

Gravity is one the principle forces in the universe, its power always apparent, giving us three-dimensional creatures a constant sense of “up” and “down”. We propose the use of a metric for applying gravity, or similar “pulling” forces, to social environments by weighting and reordering set network structures where links cannot be added, but nodes may be rearranged. We begin by introducing gravity in social networks, describe previous web applications and uses, and then briefly experiment with the metric within a classroom setting. To that point, we describe and design requirements to effectively apply our metric to classrooms, as well as other social spaces. Finally, we assert that by flavoring network structures with our so-called “gravity”, we make those structures inherently more navigable in terms of personality similarity, and perhaps indirectly, communication and learning

Complete 2017 Program

Program and schedule of events for the 28th Annual John Wesley Powell Student Research Conference

HSLIC Annual Report FY2007-08

https://digitalrepository.unm.edu/hslic-annual-reports/1002/thumbnail.jp

Lander University 2019-2020 graduate catalog

Lander University annually publishes a catalog with information about the university, student life, graduate academic programs, and faculty and staff listings

A COMPARISON OF FIRST-SEMESTER ORGANIC CHEMISTRY STUDENTS’ EXPERIENCES AND MASTERY OF CURVED-ARROW FORMALISM IN FACE-TO-FACE AND CYBER PEER-LED TEAM LEARNING

The cyber Peer-Led Team Learning (cPLTL) workshops are a synchronous online adaptation of the educational intervention PLTL, in which students, under the guidance of undergraduate peer facilitators, collaboratively solve problems in small groups. The purpose of this parallel convergent mixed methods study was to assess the impact of implementing cPLTL in an organic chemistry course on students’ workshop experiences, performance, and development of curved arrow formalism skills. Statistical analyses revealed comparable attendance rates, distribution of course grades, and achievement on American Chemical Society First-semester Organic Chemistry Exams. However, plotting workshop grades by AB, C, and DFW grade groupings revealed that PLTL students earned more successful grades than their cPLTL counterparts. Utilization of a new curved arrow formalism analytic framework for coding student interview artifacts revealed that cPLTL students were statistically less likely to successfully draw the product suggested by the curved arrows than their PLTL classmates. Both PLTL and cPLTL students exhibited a comparable incidence of relational to instrumental learning approaches. Similarly, both PLTL and cPLTL students were more likely to exhibit a common Scheme for Problem-Solving in Organic Chemistry (SPOC) than having dialogue that could be characterized by Toulmin’s Argumentation scheme. Lastly, implications for faculty are suggested, including: developing more explicit connections concept, mode, and reasoning components of understanding curved arrow formalism for organic chemistry students; optimizing graphical collaborative learning activities for online learners; and developing online students’ sense of community