U.S. Virtual School Trial Period and Course Completion Policy Study

Variation in policies virtual schools use to calculate course completion and retention rates impacts the comparability of these quality metrics. This study surveyed 159 U.S. virtual schools examining the variability in trial period and course completion policies--two policies that affect course completion rates. Of the 86 respondents, almost 70% had trial periods that varied from 1 day to 185 days. Course completion definitions varied from remaining in the course irrespective of the final grade to receiving an A- in the course. Such wide variation renders the completion and retention rate metrics useless. We recommend virtual schools adopt consistent measures for calculating student retention to allow meaningful comparisons among virtual schools and between virtual and brick-and-mortar schools

Whipping up the “Why Paper”: Inquiry into diverse perspectives

Students are introduced to various databases that provide access to alternative perspectives and to an advanced organizer designed to foster critical evaluation of sources. In a Valuing Cultural Diversity course, required for all undergraduate education majors, students are asked to write a Why paper to investigate and understand alternative perspectives, looking particularly at the perspectives of a cultural group different from their own

Cooking up concept maps

Concept maps allow students to visually work through an idea for potentially useful search terms. A common roadblock students experience in the research process is identifying central concepts in their research questions and devising useful ways to reframe search terms. Concept mapping is one instructional strategy that can be used to help students better identify the central concepts in their research questions and expand on other ways these concepts are articulated in the literature

Strictly Business: Teacher Perceptions of Interaction in Virtual Schooling

This study explored the nature of teacher-student interaction from the perspective of eight virtual school teachers in an asynchronous, self-paced, statewide, supplemental virtual high school. Teacher interviews revealed the majority of interactions were student-initiated and instructional in nature. The main procedural interactions focused on notifications sent to inactive students. Social interactions were minimal and viewed as having little pedagogical value. Institutional barriers such as class size and an absence of effective tracking mechanisms limited the amount and types of interaction teachers engaged in. Study implications and future research are discussed

New avenues for integrating information literacy into the curriculum

A generally understood mission of library instruction programs is to promote information literacy (IL) and critical thinking across the curriculum. The majority of programmatic IL collaborations with higher education core curricula are found in introductory composition or communication courses. Other more unconventional avenues offer potentially more effective ways to teach students the basic IL concepts and skills. At the University of Nevada, Las Vegas (UNLV), conversations with College of Education faculty helped librarians identify a strategic and unique point of entry for IL instruction. Using the ADDIE model as a conceptual framework, librarians and an instructional designer met with the course coordinators for the Valuing Cultural Diversity course to collaboratively develop tools and assignments that deconstruct and scaffold the research process for students. The systematic approach for identifying this course, developing the partnership, creating the assessment tools, and refining instruction and assignments based on our findings will be discussed

Academic Performance, Course Completion Rates, and Student Perception of the Quality and Frequency of Interaction in a Virtual High School

This study examined the relationship between students’ perceptions of teacher–student interaction and academic performance at an asynchronous, self-paced, statewide virtual high school. Academic performance was measured by grade awarded and course completion. There were 2269 students who responded to an 18-item survey designed to measure student perceptions on the quality and frequency of teacher–student interaction. Quality of interaction was subdivided into three constructs representing feedback, procedural, and social interaction. A confirmatory factor analysis helped to establish the fit of the statistical model for teacher–student interaction. Hierarchical logistical regression indicates that an increase in the quality and frequency of interaction resulted in an increased likelihood of course completion but had minimal influence on grade awarded. The estimated effect for quality and frequency composite items on completion was .83 and .56 respectively. Low practical significance of student–teacher interaction on grade awarded may be the result of mastery-based teaching approaches that skew grades for the completers toward the high end

The targeted SMAC mimetic SW IV-134 augments platinum-based chemotherapy in pre-clinical models of ovarian cancer

BACKGROUND: Ovarian cancer is initially responsive to frontline chemotherapy. Unfortunately, it often recurs and becomes resistant to available therapies and the survival rate for advanced and recurrent ovarian cancer is unacceptably low. We thus hypothesized that it would be possible to achieve more durable treatment responses by combining cisplatin chemotherapy with SW IV-134, a cancer-targeted peptide mimetic and inducer of cell death. SW IV-134 is a recently developed small molecule conjugate linking a sigma-2 ligand with a peptide analog (mimetic) of the intrinsic death pathway activator SMAC (second-mitochondria activator of caspases). The sigma-2 receptor is overexpressed in ovarian cancer and the sigma-2 ligand portion of the conjugate facilitates cancer selectivity. The effector portion of the conjugate is expected to synergize with cisplatin chemotherapy and the cancer selectivity is expected to reduce putative off-target toxicities. METHODS: Ovarian cancer cell lines were treated with cisplatin alone, SW IV-134 alone and a combination of the two drugs. Treatment efficacy was determined using luminescent cell viability assays. Caspase-3/7, - 8 and - 9 activities were measured as complementary indicators of death pathway activation. Syngeneic mouse models and patient-derived xenograft (PDX) models of human ovarian cancer were studied for response to SW IV-134 and cisplatin monotherapy as well as combination therapy. Efficacy of the therapy was measured by tumor growth rate and survival as the primary readouts. Potential drug related toxicities were assessed at necropsy. RESULTS: The combination treatment was consistently superior in multiple cell lines when compared to the single agents in vitro. The expected mechanism of tumor cell death, such as caspase activation, was confirmed using luminescent and flow cytometry-based assay systems. Combination therapy proved to be superior in both syngeneic and PDX-based murine models of ovarian cancer. Most notably, combination therapy resulted in a complete resolution of established tumors in all study animals in a patient-derived xenograft model of ovarian cancer. CONCLUSIONS: The addition of SW IV-134 in combination with cisplatin chemotherapy represents a promising treatment option that warrants further pre-clinical development and evaluation as a therapy for women with advanced ovarian cancer

ICAT: a novel algorithm to robustly identify cell states following perturbations in single-cell transcriptomes

MOTIVATION: The detection of distinct cellular identities is central to the analysis of single-cell RNA sequencing (scRNA-seq) experiments. However, in perturbation experiments, current methods typically fail to correctly match cell states between conditions or erroneously remove population substructure. Here, we present the novel, unsupervised algorithm Identify Cell states Across Treatments (ICAT) that employs self-supervised feature weighting and control-guided clustering to accurately resolve cell states across heterogeneous conditions. RESULTS: Using simulated and real datasets, we show ICAT is superior in identifying and resolving cell states compared with current integration workflows. While requiring no a priori knowledge of extant cell states or discriminatory marker genes, ICAT is robust to low signal strength, high perturbation severity, and disparate cell type proportions. We empirically validate ICAT in a developmental model and find that only ICAT identifies a perturbation-unique cellular response. Taken together, our results demonstrate that ICAT offers a significant improvement in defining cellular responses to perturbation in scRNA-seq data. AVAILABILITY AND IMPLEMENTATION: https://github.com/BradhamLab/icat.1656752 - National Science Foundation Integrative Organismal SystemsPublished versio

ICAT: a novel algorithm to robustly identify cell states following perturbations in single cell transcriptomes

IOS-1656752 - National Science FoundationFirst author draf

Managing for RADical ecosystem change: applying the Resist-Accept- Direct (RAD) framework

Ecosystem transformation involves the emergence of persistent ecological or social–ecological systems that diverge, dramatically and irreversibly, from prior ecosystem structure and function. Such transformations are occurring at increasing rates across the planet in response to changes in climate, land use, and other factors. Consequently, a dynamic view of ecosystem processes that accommodates rapid, irreversible change will be critical for effectively conserving fish, wildlife, and other natural resources, and maintaining ecosystem services. However, managing ecosystems toward states with novel structure and function is an inherently unpredictable and difficult task. Managers navigating ecosystem transformation can benefit from considering broader objectives, beyond a traditional focus on resisting ecosystem change, by also considering whether accepting inevitable change or directing it along some desirable pathway is more feasible (that is, practical and appropriate) under some circumstances (the RAD framework). By explicitly acknowledging transformation and implementing an iterative RAD approach, natural resource managers can be deliberate and strategic in addressing profound ecosystem change