Secondary and Postsecondary Teachers\u27 Perceptions of ESL Students\u27 Barriers to College Graduation

Majority of English as second language (ESL) students attending primary and secondary schools in the United States are not considered college ready despite mandated educational strategies aimed at improving language acquisition and academic performance. ESL students are more likely to drop out within the first 2 years of college than their English-speaking peers. The purpose of this qualitative study was to explore educators\u27 perspectives regarding high postsecondary attrition rates of ESL students in Middle Tennessee. Tinto\u27s retention theory provided the framework for the study. Data collection included semistructured interviews with 6 Middle Tennessee public high school teachers and 6 Middle Tennessee college professors from 2- and 4-year public colleges. Interview data were coded and analyzed using the thematic analysis method. Findings revealed 4 major themes: language acquisition, barriers to college graduation, adverse circumstances, and academic achievement. Participants reported a desire for alignment between primary, secondary, and postsecondary education. Findings were used to develop a professional development training curriculum for secondary and postsecondary educators. The project included effective strategies to use in the classroom to increase ESL students\u27 college readiness and college graduation rates. If implemented correctly, this project will positively impact ESL students\u27 language acquisition and academic achievement, but it will also develop a significant professional partnership between K-12 public schools and colleges

Professional Learning Community (PLC): Technology Integration at a Title I Elementary School

Calls for educational technology integration over more than thirty years have taken on new urgency in an era of computerized assessments for accountability. As Internet Communication Technology (ICT) becomes more widely available, the digital divide is evolving into a digital use divide, characterized by differences between students’ productive uses of technology to create and communicate compared with passive uses for entertainment or skills practice. A growing body of research points to the important interplay among teachers’ frames of reference, school-level context, and alignment of supports in creating conditions for technology innovation. Meanwhile Professional Learning Communities (PLCs) hold potential as leverage points for affecting teacher beliefs and practices regarding technology use. This study analyzes interactions among a group of teacher leaders participating in a tech PLC at a school on the verge of becoming a technology-focused school. Analysis of the group’s natural discourse points to important elements of teacher talk and shared resources that contribute to aligning the group’s goals and practices when innovating with technology. It also illustrates how alignment between meso-level and micro-level context factors help to facilitate teachers’ ability to innovate in ways that have the potential to address the digital use divide

The Relationship between Secondary Schools\u27 PLC Characteristics and Literacy Achievement

This quantitative, non-experimental, correlational study examined the relationship between secondary school staff perceptions of their school’s effectiveness and the change in student literacy over a one year period. The staff perception data was elicited through an anonymous, electronically administered survey, the SEDL’s School Professional Staff as Learning Community Questionnaire (SPSLCQ) (Hord, 1996). Perceptions were gathered and measured based on the responses to descriptors in the five PLC domains of shared and supportive leadership; shared vision and values; collective learning and application of learning; supportive conditions; and shared personal practice. The populations whose perceptions were measured were the staffs of middle and high schools in a large, urban school district in the south- central region of the United States. The staff perceptions of each responding school were correlated with that school’s change in student literacy data, as measured by normalized gain score representative of the difference in the percentage of the first-time tester student cohort who achieved the 2016 passing standard on the Grade 8 Reading exam (sixth-eighth grade schools) and the 2016 passing standard on the English 2 EOC exam (sixth-12th grade schools and ninth- 12th grade schools) in spring 2015 and in spring 2016. This study was grounded conceptually in the five components of a school operating as a PLC, as defined by Hord (1996, 2004) and expounded upon by Hipp and Huffman (2003). The angle of this research was based theoretically in the principal-agent theory (Bannock, Baxter, & Davis, 1992; Barney & Hesterly, 1996) and distributive leadership theory (McLaughlin & Talbert, 2007). The purpose of the study was to determine how the relationships between the perception data of the staff as a whole and of the distinct groups of administrators and teachers within a secondary school were correlated with changes in student literacy, and how differences in the perception data between the two distinct groups were correlated with changes in student literacy. This study contributes to the existing body of research by providing correlational data on which components of a PLC are the most highly correlated with changes in adolescent literacy in an urban school district in America

A Business Model Bridging Knowledge Gaps

Starting with a case-study we illustrate an emerging business model for the Industrial Internet of Things that applies to other ITC-based industries as well. We formalize this business model by importing the concept of structural holes into semantic networks and suggest that a similar logic applies to conceptual maps of consumers’ behaviour, too

Manufacturing Technology Today

Manufacturing Technology Today, Manufacturing Technology Abstracts, Vol. 14, No. 4, September 2015, Bangalore, India

A Business Model Bridging Knowledge Gaps

Starting with a case-study we illustrate an emerging business model for the Industrial Internet of Things that applies to other ITC-based industries as well. We formalize this business model by importing the concept of structural holes into semantic networks and suggest that a similar logic applies to conceptual maps of consumers’ behaviour, too

Do innovation projects with ICT enhance learning? Experiences from case studies in Galician schools

We present a study which analyzes the factors that influence the processes of change in innovation projects with ICT in schools. In the current socio-political and economic context, the demand for innovation is felt across all fields. The educational system is no exception, and schools are expected to hop on board the innovation wagon. Our research involved four cases including a pre-school, two primary schools and a secondary school in Galicia (Spain). A collaborative action research methodology was used in the usual stages: action, observation, and reflection. The factors affecting change in schools are complex and intertwined. The present study focuses on the following three research questions: How do education administration policies affect the development of school innovation processes with ICT? What training and professional development processes are mobilized for the management and evaluation of school innovation projects? And which aspects of school organizational culture change when there are innovation processes with ICT? The findings reveal a strong interconnection among the dimensions analyzed (socio-political context, school organization, teachers, their professional culture and their training and professional development). The difficulties and possibilities associated with each dimension as well as the way they interconnect also come to light. (DIPF/Orig.)Diese Studie dient der Untersuchung von Faktoren, die Veränderungsprozesse in informations- und kommunikationstechnologisch gestützten Schulinnovationsprojekten beeinflussen. In gegenwärtigen gesellschaftspolitischen und ökonomischen Zusammenhängen ist die Forderung nach Innovationen auf allen Feldern spürbar. Das Bildungssystem ist dabei keine Ausnahme und von Schulen wird erwartet, dass sie auf den Innovationszug aufspringen. Die Untersuchung umfasst vier Fälle in Galicien (Spanien): eine Vorschule, zwei Primarschulen sowie eine Sekundarschule. Dem methodische Ansatz der kollaborativen Handlungsforschung gemäß erfolgte die Untersuchung in den Stufen Handlung, Beobachtung und Reflexion. Faktoren, die Veränderungen in Schulen betreffen, sind komplex und miteinander verwoben. Der Studie liegen die drei folgenden Forschungsfragen zugrunde: Wie beeinflussen Strategien der Bildungsadministration die Entwicklung von Schulinnovationsprozessen mit IKT? Welche Aus- und Weiterbildung und welche professionellen Entwicklungsprozesse werden für die Durchführung und Evaluation von Schulinnovationsprojekten bereitgestellt? Und welche Aspekte der schulischen Organisationskultur verändern sich im Zuge informations- und kommunikationstechnologisch gestützter Innovationsprozesse? Die Befunde zeigen starke Querverbindungen zwischen den untersuchten Dimensionen auf (gesellschaftspolitischer Kontext, Schulorganisation, Lehrkräfte sowie deren Berufskultur, Aus- und Weiterbildung). Außerdem erhellen die Ergebnisse die Schwierigkeiten und Möglichkeiten, die mit den einzelnen Dimensionen verbunden sind, sowie die Art und Weisen ihrer Verknüpfung. (DIPF/Orig.

Structural Mechanism of Orthopoxvirus Sabotage of MHCI Antigen Presentation

Immunomodulatory proteins that subvert major histocompatibility complex class I: MHCI) antigen presentation can help viruses to evade cytotoxic T-lymphocyte: CTL) detection and clearance. Cowpox virus, like other orthopoxvirus family members, is a large DNA virus, whose genomic termini encode numerous immunomodulatory genes, including two ER-resident MHCI saboteurs: CPXV012 and CPXV203). CPXV012 inhibits peptide loading of MHCI within the peptide-loading complex: PLC), while CPXV203 inhibits surface expression of both murine and human MHCI through the use of a C-terminal ER-retention sequence: KTEL). An association: direct or indirect) between CPXV203 and MHCI was first demonstrated in pull-down experiments. This doctoral work explores and dissects the molecular details of this interaction. In order to elucidate the nature of CPXV203/MHCI association, biophysical studies were pursued using recombinant CPXV203 and MHCI. Binding studies demonstrated that CPXV203 directly binds mature MHCI heterodimers, thus bridging MHCI to the KDEL receptor: KDELR) rescue pathway. Unlike other ER-resident immune evasion proteins, CPXV203 did not display distinct allelic preferences, but instead proved to be an extremely promiscuous MHCI-binder: murine and primate, Ia and Ib). Similar to KDELR/KDEL binding, CPXV203/MHCI binding was found to be pH-dependent, insuring high-affinity association of KDELR/CPXV203/MHCI in the Golgi and rapid dissociation within the ER. Molecular characterization of the pH-dependent nature of CPXV203/MHCI binding required knowledge of the interface contacts. X-ray crystallography was used to examine the CPXV203/MHCI complex at low pH revealing that CPXV203 interacts with MHCI by binding conserved surfaces required for tapasin association/function. CPXV203 is an 11-stranded β-sandwich consisting of two β-sheets stabilized by five disulfide bonds. CPXV203 topology is reminiscent of the poxvirus chemokine-binding family of proteins, though MHCI contacts largely originate from structural regions unique to CPXV203. Structure-based mutations introduced into CPXV203 and MHCI validated the crystallographically-defined binding geometry and identified several binding and functional hotspots. These studies support that CPXV203 binds mature MHCI in the Golgi and releases it in the ER where it accumulates and is eventually degraded via non-viral mechanisms. These results suggest that CPXV203 could be used as a viral tool to probe natural ERAD pathways that dispose of properly folded proteins that accumulate in the ER