Switching middle school teachers onto STEM using a pedagogical framework for technology integration: The case for High Possibility Classrooms in Australia

Education in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) is a significant issue for governments and organizations across the world as concerns are expressed about students’ lack of progress in these areas. In Australia, middle school teachers’ capacity and confidence in teaching the STEM disciplines has been identified as wanting. The paper draws on findings from a study that used a pedagogical framework for technology enhanced learning to develop integrated STEM units of work. Analysis of the findings illustrates that the High Possibility Classrooms framework builds teacher agency in STEM and that being involved in professional development conducted, as a research experience is beneficial. The paper argues for greater teacher professional development resourcing in schools to make STEM an education priority, and it concludes by recommending that more middle school teachers consider pedagogical scaffolds to integrate curriculum and enhance their professional knowledge in STEM

High Possibility Classrooms as a pedagogical framework for technology integration in classrooms: an inquiry in two Australian secondary schools^*

© 2017 Association for Information Technology in Teacher Education. Understanding how well teachers integrate digital technology in learning is the subject of considerable debate in education. High Possibility Classrooms (HPC) is a pedagogical framework drawn from research on exemplary teachers’ knowledge of technology integration in Australian school classrooms. The framework is being used to support teachers who teach various stages of schooling to take ‘pedagogical steps’ in their practice with technology. This article focuses on the use of the HPC conceptual framework in a study of seven teachers and their students at two secondary schools in New South Wales, Australia. Analysis confirms the practicality of this conceptual framework for technology integration in secondary school classrooms. This inquiry has implications for addressing the reluctance of teachers to integrate technology in curriculum. The article concludes by suggesting that more schools might consider using conceptual frameworks like HPC to support secondary school teachers to enhance student learning with technology

Analysis of a Health Occupations Education Model of Integrated Academics

The integration of academics and occupational education is a concept supported by the business community, vocational educators and state and federal policy makers. The 1990 Carl Perkins Amendments required federal moneys to be spent on progmms that integrate academic and vocational education course sequencing, so that students achieve both academic and occupational competencies (Section 235). This study analyzed the process and product of courses developed within a secondary Health Professions Center magnet program in Indiana against the elements of success as outlined by Statz and Gmbb (1991) and Pritz (1989)

Whalesong

Faiks: reevaluate UAJ -- Alternative student loan proposals formulated by UA student leaders -- Editorial -- Letters -- Bigfoot sighting a possibility, according to UAJ prof -- Is large scale mining still a possibility in the Capital City? Only time will tell. -- Nine picked to serve on board of UAAA-SE -- Whales drop two to top-seeded Lewis and Clark -- "We Won't Pay" scores a hit at Perseverance Theatre -- New Directions: an exhibit of contrasts, exotic images -- Delta Steamers begin statewide Alaska tour -- Campus daycare: the debate continu

High-performance computing enables simulations to transform education

This paper presents the case that education in the 21st Century can only measure up to national needs if technologies developed in the simulation community, further enhanced by the power of high performance computing, are harnessed to supplant traditional didactic instruction. The authors cite their professional experiences in simulation, high performance computing and pedagogical studies to support their thesis that this implementation is not only required, it is feasible, supportable and affordable. Surveying and reporting on work in computer-aided education, this paper will discuss the pedagogical imperatives for group learning, risk management and “hero teacher” surrogates, all being optimally delivered with entity level simulations of varying types. Further, experience and research is adduced to support the thesis that effective implementation of this level of simulation is enabled only by, and is largely dependent upon, high performance computing, especially by the ready utility and acceptable costs of Linux clusters

Integrating supercomputing clusters into education: a case study in biotechnology

The integration of a Supercomputer in the educational process improves student’s technological skills. The aim of the paper is to study the interaction between sci-ence, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) and non-STEM subjects for developing a course of study related to Supercomputing training. We propose a flowchart of the process to improve the performance of students attending courses related to Supercomputing. As a final result, this study highlights the analysis of the information obtained by the use of HPC infrastructures in courses implemented in higher education through a questionnaire that provides useful information about their attitudes, beliefs and evaluations. The results help us to understand how the collaboration between institutions enhances outcomes in the education context. The conclusion provides a description of the resources needed for the improvement of Supercomputing Education (SE), proposing future research directions. 2018-1-ES01-KA201-05093SIComisión EuropeaMinisterio de Ciencia e InnovaciónMinisterio de Economía y CompetitividadFundación Centro de Supercomputación de Castilla y Leó

Educating and engaging new communities of practice with high performance computing through the integration of teaching and research

The identification of strategies by which to increase the representation of women and increase diversity in STEM fields (science, technology, engineering and mathematics), including medicine, has been a pressing matter for global agencies including the European Commission, UNESCO and numerous international scientific societies. In my role as UCL training lead for CompBioMed, a European Commission Horizon 2020-funded Centre of Excellence in Computational Biomedicine (compbiomed.eu), and as Head of Teaching for Molecular Biosciences at UCL from 2010 to 2019, I have integrated research and teaching to lead the development of high-performance computing (HPC)-based education targeting medical students and undergraduate students studying biosciences in a way that is explicitly integrated into the existing university curriculum as a credit-bearing module. One version of the credit-bearing module has been specifically designed for medical students in their pre-clinical years of study and one of the unique features of the course is the integration of clinical and computational aspects, with students obtaining and processing clinical samples and then interrogating the results computationally using code that was ported to HPC at CompBioMed's HPC Facility core partners (EPCC (UK), SURFsara (The Netherlands) and the Barcelona Supercomputing Centre (Spain)). Another version of the credit-bearing module has, over the course of this project, evolved into a replacement for the third year research project course for undergraduate biochemistry, biotechnology and molecular biology students, providing students with the opportunity to design and complete an entire specialist research project from the formulation of experimental hypotheses to the investigation of these hypotheses in a way that involves the integration of experimental and HPC-based computational methodologies. Since 2017–2018, these UCL modules have been successfully delivered to over 350 students—a cohort with a demographic of greater than 50% female. CompBioMed's experience with these two university modules has enabled us to distil our methodology into an educational template that can be delivered at other universities in Europe and worldwide. This educational approach to training enables new communities of practice to effectively engage with HPC and reveals a means by which to improve the underrepresentation of women in supercomputing

Volume 2 - Buffalo Harbor Center Themed Visitor Attraction Study-Feasibility and Economic Impact Analysis

The city of Buffalo, New York is situated at the heart of the nation\u27s largest tract of undeveloped urban waterfront, some 90 miles of shoreline, extending along Lake Erie, the Niagara River, and the Buffalo River in Erie County. This invaluable natural resource, much of which had been abandoned for several decades and virtually cut off from public access and enjoyment for more than 160 years, had become the focus of a comprehensive planning program designed to restore its deserved prominence in the economic and recreational life of the city. Charged with implementing waterfront rejuvenation is Horizons Waterfront Commission, established as a subsidiary of the New York State Urban Development Corporation under legislation sponsored by veteran Congressman Henry J. Nowak of New York\u27s 33rd Congressional District. Representative Nowak, Chairman of the House Subcommittee on Water Resources, had long been an advocate of water management, pollution abatement, and environmentally responsible waterfront development efforts in the Great Lakes region. Under the auspices of the Commission, a draft Action Plan encompassing goals, a generalized land use scheme, and an implementation strategy for the 90-mile zone was approved in May 1991; various elements of this overall plan were undergoing more detailed study. A key component of the Action Plan was a major recreational complex proposed by Representative Nowak for Buffalo\u27s downtown harbor at the hub of the larger waterfront study zone. To include an aquarium, a hands-on industry and technology center, a large-format film theater and planetarium, and an environmental education and research center as focal attractions, this complex--known as Buffalo Harbor Center--would serve as a catalyst for tourism and economic development on the waterfront while simultaneously providing Buffalo with a highly visible symbol of its historic importance as a gateway to the Great Lakes. The umbrella theme of the complex would be the Great Lakes ecosystem, a multidisciplinary presentation of the interrelationships of water, land, animals, and man. Horizons Waterfront Commission retained Cambridge Seven Associates, Inc. to develop a concept and illustrative facilities program for the attraction, which in turn engaged Harrison Price Company (HPC) to conduct a feasibility analysis and economic impact assessment of the project based on the envisioned concept. This report contains the findings of HPC\u27s analysis. Following this introduction, Section 2 presents a brief summary of major conclusions and recommendations. The attraction concept and its site environment are the subject of Section 3, while Section 4 addresses resident and tourist market support available to the project. Section 5 then develops attendance forecasts and translates these estimates into physical sizing guidelines for major project components. The financial performance of the project is analyzed in Section 6, and the report concludes with an economic impact assessment in Section 7

Teaching with Data in the Social Sciences at the University of Richmond

From Spring 2020 through Fall 2021, a team from UR participated in a multi-site study called “Teaching with Data in the Social Sciences” led by Ithaka S+R, a research and strategy organization that focuses on scholarly communication and libraries in higher education. Samantha Guss (Boatwright Library) and Ryan Brazell (Faculty Hub) interviewed 14 UR faculty, all of whom teach in social sciences disciplines or use social data, to learn more about faculty needs as they help their students build data literacy skills. The primary objective for participating in this study was to better understand UR faculty needs so that the Library and Faculty Hub can better support faculty who teach with data across the curriculum. Findings are presented in four themes

A hybrid algorithm for Bayesian network structure learning with application to multi-label learning

We present a novel hybrid algorithm for Bayesian network structure learning, called H2PC. It first reconstructs the skeleton of a Bayesian network and then performs a Bayesian-scoring greedy hill-climbing search to orient the edges. The algorithm is based on divide-and-conquer constraint-based subroutines to learn the local structure around a target variable. We conduct two series of experimental comparisons of H2PC against Max-Min Hill-Climbing (MMHC), which is currently the most powerful state-of-the-art algorithm for Bayesian network structure learning. First, we use eight well-known Bayesian network benchmarks with various data sizes to assess the quality of the learned structure returned by the algorithms. Our extensive experiments show that H2PC outperforms MMHC in terms of goodness of fit to new data and quality of the network structure with respect to the true dependence structure of the data. Second, we investigate H2PC's ability to solve the multi-label learning problem. We provide theoretical results to characterize and identify graphically the so-called minimal label powersets that appear as irreducible factors in the joint distribution under the faithfulness condition. The multi-label learning problem is then decomposed into a series of multi-class classification problems, where each multi-class variable encodes a label powerset. H2PC is shown to compare favorably to MMHC in terms of global classification accuracy over ten multi-label data sets covering different application domains. Overall, our experiments support the conclusions that local structural learning with H2PC in the form of local neighborhood induction is a theoretically well-motivated and empirically effective learning framework that is well suited to multi-label learning. The source code (in R) of H2PC as well as all data sets used for the empirical tests are publicly available.Comment: arXiv admin note: text overlap with arXiv:1101.5184 by other author