Using gaming paratexts in the literacy classroom

This paper illustrates how digital game paratexts may effectively be used in the high school English to meet a variety of traditional and multimodal literacy outcomes. Paratexts are texts that refer to digital gaming and game cultures, and using them in the classroom enables practitioners to focus on and valorise the considerable literacies and skills that young people develop and deploy in their engagement with digital gaming and game cultures. The effectiveness of valorizing paratexts in this manner is demonstrated through two examples of assessment by students in classes where teachers had designed curriculum and assessment activities using paratexts

Triggering trigeminal neuralgia

Introduction: Although it is widely accepted that facial pain paroxysms triggered by innocuous stimuli constitute a hallmark sign of trigeminal neuralgia, very few studies to date have systematically investigated the role of the triggers involved. In the recently published diagnostic classification, triggered pain is an essential criterion for the diagnosis of trigeminal neuralgia but no study to date has been designed to address this issue directly. In this study, we set out to determine, in patients with trigeminal neuralgia, how frequently triggers are present, which manoeuvres activate them and where cutaneous and mucosal trigger zones are located. Methods: Clinical characteristics focusing on trigger factors were collected from 140 patients with trigeminal neuralgia, in a cross-sectional study design. Results: Provocation of paroxysmal pain by various trigger manoeuvres was reported by 136 of the 140 patients. The most frequent manoeuvres were gentle touching of the face (79%) and talking (54%). Trigger zones were predominantly reported in the perioral and nasal region. Conclusion: This study confirms that in trigeminal neuralgia, paroxysmal pain is associated with triggers in virtually all patients and supports the use of triggers as an essential diagnostic feature of trigeminal neuralgia

Automatic Evaluation for Engineering Drawing

Engineering Drawing is the way engineers visualize, describe and communicate their design of an object in form of drawings. Engineers use Engineering Drawing technique in order to illustrate the requirement of their engineered items. Usually engineers use the drawings to give a clear information and specification of the object to the people who will make the object. Consider as one of the most important knowledge for engineers, many university which offer engineering course put Engineering Drawing as one of their main course. Usually most of universities offer this course in the beginning of engineering student’s study year because Engineering Drawing is the foundation knowledge for engineering student and students have to complete it as well in order to get the basic knowledge of engineering-related field. So there will be many numbers of students from any engineering programs enrolling this course per semester. As an overview the number of lecturer and tutor who taught Engineering Drawing in universities is not enough to accommodate such a big number of students

A Sketch-Based Educational System for Learning Chinese Handwriting

Learning Chinese as a Second Language (CSL) is a difficult task for students in English-speaking countries due to the large symbol set and complicated writing techniques. Traditional classroom methods of teaching Chinese handwriting have major drawbacks due to human experts’ bias and the lack of assessment on writing techniques. In this work, we propose a sketch-based educational system to help CSL students learn Chinese handwriting faster and better in a novel way. Our system allows students to draw freehand symbols to answer questions, and uses sketch recognition and AI techniques to recognize, assess, and provide feedback in real time. Results have shown that the system reaches a recognition accuracy of 86% on novice learners’ inputs, higher than 95% detection rate for mistakes in writing techniques, and 80.3% F-measure on the classification between expert and novice handwriting inputs

The use of innovation and practice profiles in the evaluation of curriculum implementation

Most generic curriculum reform efforts have to deal with a gap between the innovative aspirations of the initial designers and the daily reality of the intended audience of teachers. That tension is not alarming in itself. One might even say that without it no compelling reason for starting development work would exist. Unfortunately, many evaluation studies on the implementation and impact of curriculum development projects show that this discrepancy does not decrease over time. Apparently, not much improvement is made in detecting and reducing potential implementation problems.\ud This article presents some conceptual and instrumental guidelines for dealing with these problems, focusing on the use of `profiles¿ during evaluation of curriculum materials.\ud The paper starts with an introduction on the functions of exemplary curriculum materials and their possible representations, on the long road from original designers¿ ideas to effects of student learning. Next, we will explain the concepts of innovation and practice profiles. We will then provide guidelines for the development and use of such profiles, based on previous research experiences, and illustrated with some specific examples. Finally, we will reflect on the advantages and limitations of working with profiles

THE IMPACT OF THE USE OF PROFICIENCY-BASED RUBRICS ON STUDENT GRADING

The purpose of this study is to determine impact of the proficiency-based rubric on student learning, the teacher’s ability to provide consistency in student grading, and communication to parents regarding the child’s academic achievement in kindergarten, first and second grade in one Local Education Agency (LEA) in eastern North Carolina. Based on literature review, proficiency-based rubrics are an effective tool for teachers to use to help promote clarity and consistency in grading. Marzano (2000), Brookhart (2009), Guskey and Bailey (2001), and O’Connor (2002) are just a few of the researchers that provided examples of how rubrics assist teachers in effectively measuring student achievement. Therefore, this research study examined whether proficiency-based rubrics were effective in: (1) producing consistency in grading, (2) equipping teachers with a tool to convey to parents their child’s proficiency and (3) producing a positive impact on student achievement. The data used for this research study were collected from one LEA in eastern North Carolina. Teacher and principal perception as to the impact of the use of the proficiency-based rubric was collected through survey and focus group interviews. To answer the research questions, data were analyzed from surveys and focus group interviews given to both principals and teachers within the Pitt County School District. In order to provide findings regarding the research questions, survey and interview questions were categorized under the classifications of impact, consistency or communication. The data from the surveys and focus group interviews were triangulated in order to effectively summarize the data that were collected. The data from K-2 principals and teachers revealed that both participant groups perceived the proficiency-based rubrics had a positive impact on student grading. However, the data revealed a higher percentage of principals believed the use of the rubrics a more positive effect on student grading as compared to teachers’ beliefs. Based on the findings, consistent grading policies and procedures need to be established by the district as well as continuous professional development for principals and teachers. Additionally, teacher and principal preparation programs need to ensure pre-service candidates are exposed to, and know the value of proficiency-based rubrics on student learning

Computational Approaches to Measuring the Similarity of Short Contexts : A Review of Applications and Methods

Measuring the similarity of short written contexts is a fundamental problem in Natural Language Processing. This article provides a unifying framework by which short context problems can be categorized both by their intended application and proposed solution. The goal is to show that various problems and methodologies that appear quite different on the surface are in fact very closely related. The axes by which these categorizations are made include the format of the contexts (headed versus headless), the way in which the contexts are to be measured (first-order versus second-order similarity), and the information used to represent the features in the contexts (micro versus macro views). The unifying thread that binds together many short context applications and methods is the fact that similarity decisions must be made between contexts that share few (if any) words in common.Comment: 23 page