A Comparison of the Effectiveness of a Spreadsheet Matrix vs. a Digital Concept Map in Improving Student Annotated Bibliography Entries and Literature Reviews in AP Research

AP Research students often find writing the literature review for their thesis papers challenging due to struggling to see connections between sources, leading to difficulty in establishing a gap in the literature. However, incorporating the use of an organizational tool can help students with these challenges and lead to a more thorough and interconnected annotated bibliography entries. With limited research into how well spreadsheet matrices and concept maps help AP Research students improve their writing of these entries, this action research project aimed to further the conversation of how best to help AP Research students approach writing a literature review. In a pre/post-intervention quasi-experimental design, one section of 20 AP Research students were asked to utilize a spreadsheet matrix and one section of 19 AP Research students were asked to utilize a digital concept map. Student annotations were evaluated before and after the intervention using a rubric. A chi-square test for association revealed a significant increase in proficient scores after interventions were implemented, but no significant difference in post-intervention scores between the two test groups. These findings suggest that the use of either a spreadsheet matrix or a digital concept map can lead to better proficiency in writing their annotated bibliography entries, both overall and specifically for interconnecting sources. The implication is that AP Research teachers should train students to use either a spreadsheet matrix or a digital concept map to help improve their ability to write an annotated bibliography, see connections between sources, and ultimately write their literature review

Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, Education and Abolition

Some thirty years before Harriet Ann Jacobs opened the Jacobs Free School in Alexandria, Virginia in January 1864, one of her first students was her fifty-threeyear-old uncle, Fred. The seventeen-year-old Harriet appreciated her uncle\u27s most earnest desire to learn to read and promised to teach him.1 As slaves, both teacher and student risked the punishment of thirtynine lashes on [the] bare back as well as imprisonment for violating North Carolina\u27s anti-literacy laws targeting African Americans.2 Nevertheless they agreed to meet three times a week in a quiet nook where she instructed him in secret.3 While the primary goal for him was to read the Bible, this moment in Jacobs\u27 slave narrative Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl revealed her early commitment to African American literacy and education as well as her rejection of the laws of American slavery. In that moment, the vocations of education and abolition took root for Harriet Jacobs

Independent writing in grades one and two

Thesis (Ed.M.)--Boston University Page misnomered no 14

First-year composition and transfer: a quantitative study

The present study investigated the effect of writing pedagogy on transfer by examining the effect of pedagogical orientation (WAC/WID or ‘traditional’) on content-area grades. Participants were 1,052 undergraduates from 17 schools throughout the United States. Hypothesis was that the WAC/WID orientation would lead to higher transfer levels as measured by participants’ higher content-area performance. Composition grades were collected in year one; content-area grades where collected in year two. Propensity scores were calculated to stratify the groups and minimize selection bias of writing-class assignment, thereby allowing quasi-causal inference. An ANOVA was performed on the resulting 2-by-5 stratified data. Results indicated that students who completed the WAC/WID composition classes received significantly higher content grades than those in the ‘traditional’ writing classes. The results confirmed the hypothesis

Exploring the Referral and Usage of Science Fiction in HCI Literature

Research on science fiction (sci-fi) in scientific publications has indicated the usage of sci-fi stories, movies or shows to inspire novel Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) research. Yet no studies have analysed sci-fi in a top-ranked computer science conference at present. For that reason, we examine the CHI main track for the presence and nature of sci-fi referrals in relationship to HCI research. We search for six sci-fi terms in a dataset of 5812 CHI main proceedings and code the context of 175 sci-fi referrals in 83 papers indexed in the CHI main track. In our results, we categorize these papers into five contemporary HCI research themes wherein sci-fi and HCI interconnect: 1) Theoretical Design Research; 2) New Interactions; 3) Human-Body Modification or Extension; 4) Human-Robot Interaction and Artificial Intelligence; and 5) Visions of Computing and HCI. In conclusion, we discuss results and implications located in the promising arena of sci-fi and HCI research.Comment: v1: 20 pages, 4 figures, 3 tables, HCI International 2018 accepted submission v2: 20 pages, 4 figures, 3 tables, added link/doi for Springer proceedin

Provision for differing abilities through use of class, group, and paired activities

Thesis (Ed.M.)--Boston Universit