Influence Of Starter Fertilizer And Hard Red Winter Wheat Seeding Practices On Interference From Jointed Goatgrass And Cheat

Field experiments were conducted at three sites in north central Oklahoma to determine the effects of wheat row spacing and starter fertilizer treatment on the interference of jointed goatgrass with hard red winter wheat. At two of three sites, bandi.ng fertilizer with the wheat seed decreased juvenile wheat plant density. Mean sunlight interception by the vegetative canopy in April varied from 87 to 93% at all sites. At two sites, fertilizer treatment and weed presence did not affect sunlight interception, but sunlight interception increased as row spacing decreased from 30 to 20 cm. Jointed goatgrass mean spikelet production was affected by fertilizer treatment at two sites. Wheat spike density was increased by decreasing wheat row spacing. At two sites, banding 10-34-0 fertilizer at 168 kg/ha reduced wheat yield. Averaged over other factors, reducing row spacing increased wheat yield. Field experiments were conducted at two sites for two years in north central Oklahoma to determine the effects of row spacing and starter fertilizer treatment on the interference of cheat with hard red winter wheat. Mean sunlight interception by the vegetative canopy was not increased by starter fertilizer treatments either year at one site. Averaged over cheat presence, banded fertilizer treatments increased sunlight interception at a second site one year. In 1997-98 fertHizer treatment effects on sunlight interception occurred only in the absence of cheat. Sunlight interception was less in wheat seeded in 30- than in 10- or 20-cm rows both years at one site and neither year at the other. Cheat consistently reduced wheat yield but interactions with fertilizer treatment and row spacing were abs.ent. In one of four experiments, reducing row spacing reduced dockage

AN ONLINE MATHEMATICS AND STATISTICS REFRESHER PROGRAM FOR THE COVID-19 ERA AND BEYOND

In February 2021, the Mathematics Education Support Hub at Western Sydney University delivered, for the first time, its long-established mathematics and statistics refresher program for commencing students wholly online. The process of completely replacing its face-to-face program with a series of online self-directed learning modules was complex, not least due to the constraints imposed by COVID-19. Planning and development started in October 2020, with a staged rebuilding of existing content in basic algebra, trigonometry, calculus and statistics. The aim was to achieve more than the mere construction of a digital ‘text book’ consisting of modularised sets of static files. The development was guided by design choices such as content chunking, use of video and interactive learning visualisations, and facilitation of self-checking via mastery quizzes (created using the mathematical e-assessment system Numbas). In this presentation, we shall discuss the pedagogical, curricular, and technical challenges that arose during the development of the online refresher program, and the steps taken to ensure the new learning modules were accessible and effective, together with an analysis of data collected during and after the running of the program (survey responses, learning resource interaction, quiz attempts and Zoom attendance)

Development and Initial Findings of an Implementation Process Measure for Child Welfare System Change

This article describes a new measure designed to examine the process of implementation of child welfare systems change. The measure was developed to document the status of the interventions and strategies that are being implemented and the drivers that are being installed to achieve sustainable changes in systems. The measure was used in a Children’s Bureau-supported national effort to assess the ongoing implementation of 24 systems-change projects in child welfare jurisdictions across the country. The article describes the process for measure development, method of administration and data collection, and quantitative and qualitative findings

I don’t get it – just in time support for confused students

The times when students want help with mathematics and statistics and the times when help sessions are available through consultations and workshops are often not the same. Rather than bringing issues to consultation and workshop times to be resolved, many students go away with the idea that maths is “hard” and they “just don’t get it”. The Mathematics Education Support Hub (MESH) is developing a just in time help system utilising both asynchronous (through discussion boards) and synchronous (through Collaborate virtual meetings) components to allow students to pose problems at the time they arise through the asynchronous component, receive a response to the problem within a 24 hour period and, if necessary, continue the help via an online collaborative space

Just for Me Engagement

BACKGROUND The Mathematics Education Support Hub (MESH) at UWS is a unit within the learning and teaching portfolio with a remit to provide mathematical and statistical help to all students within the university. One method of enabling this support has been a mathematics library roving program, introduced in 2013 to complement literacy support which was already operating in the library. AIMS The program aims to provide “just in time” support for students experiencing difficulty with the mathematical and statistical components of their subjects in a non-confrontational environment. A secondary aim is to increase student confidence in their own mathematical abilities. DESCRIPTION OF INTERVENTION The MESH library roving program began in the Autumn session 2013 and has continued during Spring 2013 and Autumn 2014. Support is provided by MESH staff who ‘rove’ the various campus libraries for two hour sessions at well-advertised times throughout the teaching and study vacation periods of the semester. These library rovers assist individual students and groups by encouraging students to engage with the mathematical and statistical content of their subject through a process of guided discovery of the material as well as direct responses to enquiries. The time taken for such interventions range from a few minutes to approximately half an hour, with students with problems requiring longer discussion usually referred back to subject teaching teams for further clarification. Students availing themselves of the service range from first year to post graduate with problems coming from subjects as diverse as business, finance, biomechanics, law and engineering as well as mathematics and statistics subjects. DESIGN AND METHODS Each library consultation is recorded on an electronic form and features of the consultation are noted. The data collected includes the campus, number of students in a group, student year of study, length of time spent with the group, unit or discipline area in which assistance is provided as well as if a group or student has been seen previously. At the end of 2013 a research project conducted in conjunction with the academic literacy library roving program collected survey responses from students, library staff and rovers. Analysis of this data along with surveys of students, library staff and rovers will show the patterns of use and responses of various stakeholders to the program. RESULTS The data collected for this project are still being processed and it is anticipated features of the analysis will be presented. It is envisaged that models of student behaviour gleaned from this analysis will form the basis of the results. The nature of requests from students and how these are dealt with by the rovers will also be presented. Responses from student, librarian and rover surveys will also provide an indication of student engagement with the service. CONCLUSIONS The intention of this project is to use the results to fine tune the impact and delivery of the library roving program

Tertiary students’ engagement in a mathematics support program

Background Mathematics is often perceived to be a difficult subject and students struggle with it. A combination of factors including a compromise with tertiary admission requirements, such as prerequisites, a link between Federal funding and student number at an institution, relaxed mathematics requirement to complete secondary education, ATAR based admission to programs, and, admission of mature age and international students with diverse backgrounds elevates the number of tertiary students struggling with mathematics. At UWS, to support these students with their mathematics, various services including lecturer consultation time, tutorials, pre- and within-semester workshops, library roving, online tutoring, peer-assisted student support and free internet sites are made available to them. This study deals with students’ engagement in pre-semester workshops. Aims The aim of this study was to evaluate (i) age and gender based influences on students’ engagement in the workshops, (ii) perceived reasons to participate in the workshops and (iii) post-workshops perceptions of their mathematical competency. Methodology The workshops were advertised on the UWS web and emails were sent to the prospective students to encourage them to register for these voluntary workshops. The workshops aimed to revise basics of algebra, trigonometry, calculus and statistics to prepare students for their first year mathematics units. The students attended 1 – 3 days workshops in these areas before starting degree programs at UWS. The students were asked to complete two surveys one each on their first- and last-day of the program, and, pre- and post-achievement tests. The first- and last-day survey targeted students’ reasons to participate in and satisfaction from attending the workshops respectively. Only 57.3% of those who completed first day survey (616) from 2011 to 2014 completed the last-day survey. The data were analysed to evaluate areas of interest specified under aims. Results The results of the study revealed that students’ intention to engage and actual engagement in the workshops were significantly different. The participation was significantly higher of male (62.1%) than female (37.9%) students and 33.5% of them were older than 20 years indicating a high percentage of matured age students. The major reason for participation in the workshops was their perceived weak or very weak background in these areas. The number of weak or very weak students in calculus and statistics was higher than algebra and trigonometry. Analysis of post-workshops survey revealed a significant improvement in their perceived knowledge of these mathematics areas. This claim was partly supported by significantly improved post-test scores in 2014. Gender, age and year to year based trends in these findings will also be discussed. Conclusions and Future Directions Students perceived their engagement in pre-semester workshops was helpful in improving their desired mathematics content knowledge. Further research to investigate students’ performance in their required mathematics subjects and programs is warranted

Gestural and symbolic development among apes and humans: support for a multimodal theory of language evolution

What are the implications of similarities and differences in the gestural and symbolic development of apes and humans?This focused review uses as a starting point our recent study that provided evidence that gesture supported the symbolic development of a chimpanzee, a bonobo, and a human child reared in language-enriched environments at comparable stages of communicative development. These three species constitute a complete clade, species possessing a common immediate ancestor. Communicative behaviors observed among all species in a clade are likely to have been present in the common ancestor. Similarities in the form and function of many gestures produced by the chimpanzee, bonobo, and human child suggest that shared non-verbal skills may underlie shared symbolic capacities. Indeed, an ontogenetic sequence from gesture to symbol was present across the clade but more pronounced in child than ape. Multimodal expressions of communicative intent (e.g., vocalization plus persistence or eye-contact) were normative for the child, but less common for the apes. These findings suggest that increasing multimodal expression of communicative intent may have supported the emergence of language among the ancestors of humans. Therefore, this focused review includes new studies, since our 2013 article, that support a multimodal theory of language evolution

Screening ethnically diverse human embryonic stem cells identifies a chromosome 20 minimal amplicon conferring growth advantage

The International Stem Cell Initiative analyzed 125 human embryonic stem (ES) cell lines and 11 induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cell lines, from 38 laboratories worldwide, for genetic changes occurring during culture. Most lines were analyzed at an early and late passage. Single-nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) analysis revealed that they included representatives of most major ethnic groups. Most lines remained karyotypically normal, but there was a progressive tendency to acquire changes on prolonged culture, commonly affecting chromosomes 1, 12, 17 and 20. DNA methylation patterns changed haphazardly with no link to time in culture. Structural variants, determined from the SNP arrays, also appeared sporadically. No common variants related to culture were observed on chromosomes 1, 12 and 17, but a minimal amplicon in chromosome 20q11.21, including three genes expressed in human ES cells, ID1, BCL2L1 and HM13, occurred in >20% of the lines. Of these genes, BCL2L1 is a strong candidate for driving culture adaptation of ES cells