Big-Data-Driven Materials Science and its FAIR Data Infrastructure

This chapter addresses the forth paradigm of materials research -- big-data driven materials science. Its concepts and state-of-the-art are described, and its challenges and chances are discussed. For furthering the field, Open Data and an all-embracing sharing, an efficient data infrastructure, and the rich ecosystem of computer codes used in the community are of critical importance. For shaping this forth paradigm and contributing to the development or discovery of improved and novel materials, data must be what is now called FAIR -- Findable, Accessible, Interoperable and Re-purposable/Re-usable. This sets the stage for advances of methods from artificial intelligence that operate on large data sets to find trends and patterns that cannot be obtained from individual calculations and not even directly from high-throughput studies. Recent progress is reviewed and demonstrated, and the chapter is concluded by a forward-looking perspective, addressing important not yet solved challenges.Comment: submitted to the Handbook of Materials Modeling (eds. S. Yip and W. Andreoni), Springer 2018/201

On Cognitive Preferences and the Plausibility of Rule-based Models

It is conventional wisdom in machine learning and data mining that logical models such as rule sets are more interpretable than other models, and that among such rule-based models, simpler models are more interpretable than more complex ones. In this position paper, we question this latter assumption by focusing on one particular aspect of interpretability, namely the plausibility of models. Roughly speaking, we equate the plausibility of a model with the likeliness that a user accepts it as an explanation for a prediction. In particular, we argue that, all other things being equal, longer explanations may be more convincing than shorter ones, and that the predominant bias for shorter models, which is typically necessary for learning powerful discriminative models, may not be suitable when it comes to user acceptance of the learned models. To that end, we first recapitulate evidence for and against this postulate, and then report the results of an evaluation in a crowd-sourcing study based on about 3.000 judgments. The results do not reveal a strong preference for simple rules, whereas we can observe a weak preference for longer rules in some domains. We then relate these results to well-known cognitive biases such as the conjunction fallacy, the representative heuristic, or the recogition heuristic, and investigate their relation to rule length and plausibility.Comment: V4: Another rewrite of section on interpretability to clarify focus on plausibility and relation to interpretability, comprehensibility, and justifiabilit

RTI Implementation: Identifying the Barriers and Best Practices

Although the Individuals with Disabilities Improvement Act (IDEIA) was re-authorized in 2004 and permitted the use of RTI as part of the eligibility process, few states and districts have begun to implement it appropriately, let alone assess and ameliorate RTI processes effectively. RTI is basically a problem-solving process. As students move higher up the tiers, instruction and behavioral management techniques are tailored to suit their needs. The effective educator seeks appropriate instruction for all students. Effective RTI practices could remediate at-risk students\u27 difficulties, increase student scores on accountability tests, and improve identification of student with disabilities (SWD) Educators are responsible for ensuring that students are prepared for their lives within society. RTI could be one piece of the puzzle that helps students realize these goals. The purpose of this qualitative study is to examine educator\u27s perceptions of the barriers to and best practices of the implementation of RTI in one urban Georgia school district

Priorities for School Safety: The Alignment between Federal and State School Safety Legislation and Safety Needs as Perceived by Education Stakeholders in Florida Private Schools for Exceptional Students

This study investigates the apparent threat assessment priorities of potential risks to safety in the school environment in the United States and whether stakeholders in Florida private schools that serve exceptional students agree with the priority given to specific identified potential threats. Faculty and staff, high school students, and the students’ parents and guardians at four Florida private schools for exceptional students rated their perceptions of the severity and likelihood of occurrence of nine potential threats identified in a review of federal and Florida state school safety laws and national and state government surveys of incident occurrences. Results showed that although violent potential threats such as an armed intruder, students bringing weapons to school, and physical assaults received priority attention in federal and state school safety laws, stakeholders in Florida private schools for exceptional students indicated that threats of a more personal nature—such as bullying, sexual harassment, and cyberbullying—were the most significant risks to the safety of their school environment. All three respondent subgroups, however, reported high ratings of their overall feelings of safety at their schools

Curriculum Developers’ Experiences Adopting Assistive Technology In An Educator Preparation Program

Assistive technology competencies are not always included within the curriculum for teacher candidates. The lack of assistive technology content can result in teachers being unprepared to support the academic and social needs of students with significant disabilities in a general education classroom. Required courses in educator preparation programs for assistive technology have declined over the last decade. The problem addressed in this study was the absence of data about how teacher educators perceive their roles and responsibilities in learning about assistive technology and integrating the necessary competencies into the standard educator preparation curriculum. This interpretive phenomenological analysis study explored the experiences of higher education leaders when providing training to preservice teachers about assistive technology (AT). Two research questions guided this study. One of the questions asked curriculum developers about their lived experiences and beliefs of including assistive technology content into teacher preparation curriculum. The second research question pertained to curriculum developers’ lived experiences and beliefs about preparing teachers with the knowledge, skills, and dispositions for collaboration within inclusive schools. The participants for this study included higher education leaders charged with influence over curriculum development for an educator preparation program. Data were collected using a phenomenological interview protocol to gain an understanding of the meaning participants attribute to experiences with curriculum development for teacher candidates. Five themes transpired from the data analysis, including: 1) lack of knowledge, 2) lack of AT adoption, 3) willingness to innovate, 4) need for collaboration, and 5) established norms/mental models. Several recommendations for the development and improvement of educator preparation curriculum emerged from the findings. Embedding assistive technology into the coursework for teacher candidates is warranted to ensure adequate preparation is acquired for supporting students with significant disabilities in a general education classroom