Mediators of Inequity: Online Literate Activity in Two Eighth Grade English Language Arts Classes

This comparative case study, framed by Cultural Historical Activity Theory and sociocultural understandings of literacy, investigated students’ online literate activity in two eighth grade English Language Arts classes taught by the same teacher - one with a scripted literacy curriculum and the other without. During a year-long research project, we used ethnographic methods to explore the nature of middle school students’ literate activity in each of these classes, with particular attention to the mediators evident as students engaged in online literate activity. Specifically, this article addresses the following research question: What mediators were evident within and across each of the classes and how did these mediators influence students’ online literate activity? In addressing this question, we illustrate how particular configurations of mediators – even those operating within the context of the same school and same teacher – significantly influenced the nature of students’ online literate activity and the literate identities available to students. This study reinforces the importance of attending to the influence of offline mediators in school settings. Without such attention, students’ formal education is likely to be transferred online rather than transformed online

Enhancing assertive community treatment with cognitive behavioral social skills training for schizophrenia: study protocol for a randomized controlled trial.

BackgroundSchizophrenia leads to profound disability in everyday functioning (e.g., difficulty finding and maintaining employment, housing, and personal relationships). Medications can effectively reduce positive symptoms (e.g., hallucinations and delusions), but they do not meaningfully improve daily life functioning. Psychosocial evidence-based practices (EBPs) improve functioning, but these EBPs are not available to most people with schizophrenia. The field must close the research and service delivery gap by adapting EBPs for schizophrenia to facilitate widespread implementation in community settings. Our hybrid effectiveness and implementation study represents an initiative to bridge this divide. In this study we will test whether an existing EBP (i.e., Cognitive Behavioral Social Skills Training (CBSST)) modified to work in practice settings (i.e., Assertive Community Treatment (ACT) teams) commonly available to persons with schizophrenia results in better consumer outcomes. We will also identify key factors relevant to developing future CBSST implementation strategies.Methods/designFor the effectiveness study component, persons with schizophrenia will be recruited from existing publicly funded ACT teams operating in community settings. Participants will be randomized to one of the 2 treatments (ACT alone or ACT + Adapted CBSST) and followed longitudinally for 18 months with assessments every 18 weeks after baseline (5 in total). The primary outcome domain is psychosocial functioning (e.g., everyday living skills and activities related to employment, education, and housing) as measured by self-report, testing, and observation. Additional outcome domains of interest include mediators of change in functioning, symptoms, and quality of services. Primary analyses will be conducted using linear mixed-effects models for continuous data. The implementation study component consists of a structured, mixed qualitative-quantitative methodology (i.e., Concept Mapping) to characterize and assess the implementation experience from multiple stakeholder perspectives in order to inform future implementation initiatives.DiscussionAdapting CBSST to fit into the ACT service delivery context found throughout the United States creates an opportunity to substantially increase the number of persons with schizophrenia who could have access to and benefit from EBPs. As part of the implementation learning process training materials and treatment workbooks have been revised to promote easier use of CBSST in the context of brief community-based ACT visits.Trial registrationClinicalTrials.gov NCT02254733 . Date of registration: 25 April 2014

Towards adaptive multi-robot systems: self-organization and self-adaptation

Dieser Beitrag ist mit Zustimmung des Rechteinhabers aufgrund einer (DFG geförderten) Allianz- bzw. Nationallizenz frei zugänglich.This publication is with permission of the rights owner freely accessible due to an Alliance licence and a national licence (funded by the DFG, German Research Foundation) respectively.The development of complex systems ensembles that operate in uncertain environments is a major challenge. The reason for this is that system designers are not able to fully specify the system during specification and development and before it is being deployed. Natural swarm systems enjoy similar characteristics, yet, being self-adaptive and being able to self-organize, these systems show beneficial emergent behaviour. Similar concepts can be extremely helpful for artificial systems, especially when it comes to multi-robot scenarios, which require such solution in order to be applicable to highly uncertain real world application. In this article, we present a comprehensive overview over state-of-the-art solutions in emergent systems, self-organization, self-adaptation, and robotics. We discuss these approaches in the light of a framework for multi-robot systems and identify similarities, differences missing links and open gaps that have to be addressed in order to make this framework possible

Nutrition-sensitive value chains from a smallholder perspective: A framework for project design

"The Alliance of Bioversity International and the International Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT) gratefully acknowledges permission from IFAD to re-publish that work as an Alliance Working Paper, with updated acknowledgements, author information and information on additional resources.

Comprehensive Positive School Discipline Resource Guide

This document provides a guide to assist schools and districts by providing information, resources, and tools to further the development of Positive School Discipline practices

Defining Early Positive Response to Psychotherapy: An Empirical Comparison Between Clinically Significant Change Criteria and Growth Mixture Modeling

Several different approaches have been applied to identify early positive change in response to psychotherapy so as to predict later treatment outcome and length as well as use this information for outcome monitoring and treatment planning. In this study, simple methods based on clinically significant change criteria and computationally demanding growth mixture modeling (GMM) are compared with regard to their overlap and uniqueness as well as their characteristics in terms of initial impairment, therapy outcome, and treatment length. The GMM approach identified a highly specific subgroup of early improving patients. These patients were characterized by higher average intake impairments and higher pre- to-posttreatment score differences. Although being more specific for the prediction of treatment success, GMM was much less sensitive than clinically significant and reliable change criteria. There were no differences between the groups with regard to treatment length. Because each of the approaches had specific advantages, results suggest a combination of both methods for practical use in routine outcome monitoring and treatment planning