Reading and Math Interventions at the Secondary Level: A Research Brief

Starting in the early 2000’s with the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) act, federal and state education authorities promoted the use of accountability policies that require schools to meet certain measures of academic progress overtime. Annual Yearly Progress (AYP) and Annual Measurable Objectives (AMOs) have become the new measure of school success. These policies rely heavily on students’ Math and Reading achievement at particular benchmark grades, leading local educational agencies (i.e. school divisions) to place increased emphasis on the reading and math results of state-mandated testing. In Virginia, pressures to meet AYP and AMOs by improving school performance on the Standards of Learning assessments – especially in academically underperforming schools – has to led to the adoption of various reading and math interventions designed to support student learning. While there is some broadening of school success criteria in the newly authorized Every Student Succeeds Education Act, it is likely that achievement in math and reading will still be a top priority in our education system. Therefore, even amidst changing policy, the importance of identifying and implementing effective interventions still exists. At the secondary level, reading and math interventions play a unique role in student achievement. While there may be students that struggle with math and reading at the secondary level, in most cases secondary course work has moved beyond these basic skills. For example, high school English classes are literature-based, and the teachers at this level are not trained to teach reading skills. For this reason, many local school divisions have had to develop interventions that restructure the form and the content of the curriculum, and draw on new resources for addressing these needs. Strategies include increasing instructional time in math and reading, integrating math and reading skills across the curriculum, and purchasing off the shelf curriculums, many of which are computer based. However, while the implementation of interventions has been widely accepted, some ambiguity still exists around which programs are most effective for school divisions to implement with their students1 . With hundreds of reading and math interventions available to school divisions, it can be challenging to select the most appropriate intervention for local schools. As a result, divisions often adopt multiple interventions that can sometimes appear to be fragmented. In accordance with the Regulations Establishing Accrediting Standards for Public Schools in Virginia (SOA), the Virginia Board of Education has published a list of recommended instructional interventions. While this list is beneficial, it still provides school divisions with a potentially overwhelming number of intervention options and provides little evidence that demonstrate their efficacy.1 As a result, school divisions are left to do their own research to decide which option is most appropriate to implement with their students

The Effects of the Great Recession on the Enrollment Yield at Private Liberal Arts Colleges

This paper analyzes the effects of the Great Recession on enrollment yields at not-for-profit private baccalaureate arts and sciences colleges. We developed a demand function that relates the admissions yield of these schools to cost and quality explanatory variables and a macroeconomic term to account for the recession. The study utilized three metrics to account for the recession: per capita GDP, percentage change in GDP, and a dummy variable. It was determined that the use of the dummy variable was the most statistically significant measure of the recession. The results show that while controlling for changes in admissions rate, aid, and net tuition and fees, the recession had a negative effect on enrollment yield of about 3%

Unilateral hyperhidrosis secondary to brainstem meningioma producing mass effect

Unilateral hyperhidrosis of neurological origin has been associated with head trauma, cerebral palsy, spinal cord injury, peripheral neuropathy, lesions of the hypothalamus, and cerebral or brainstem strokes. In this report, we describe a 61-year-old man with isolated sweating on the left side of his entire body. A right-sided brainstem meningioma producing mass effect is suspected as the underlying etiology

An Assessment of Health Disparities among a Community Sample of LGBQ College Students

Lesbian, gay, bisexual, and queer (LGBQ) individuals are a marginalized population in the United States, and this status places them at a greater risk for adverse health outcomes, such as tobacco and substance use, obesity, cancer, sexually-transmitted infections, violence, mental health issues, and suicide. The present study used individual- and microsystem-level data from the American College Health Association (ACHA)-National College Health Assessment (NCHA) to compose a risk assessment for LGBQ students at a mid-Atlantic university. The study incorporated various levels of the ecological social model in an analysis of potentially influential factors on the development of LGBQ health disparities. 856 participants completed a self-administered anonymous survey that included questions assessing a broad variety of health indicators, such as alcohol, tobacco, and other substance use, sexual health, mental health, nutrition, and personal safety and violence. A significant minority of the sample identified with a sexual orientation other than heterosexual (n=184, 21.6%). Sexual minority students reported significantly higher rates of various types of substance use [e.g., sedatives x2 (1,N=856)=3.543,

Implementing a Type II Diabetes Support Group in a Primary Care Practice

Type two diabetes has become one of the leading chronic diseases in the United States. Identifying individuals’ barriers to managing their type two diabetes or even preventing Type two diabetes is essential for the management and prevention of the disease. It is critical for individuals to prevent complications (i.e. cardiovascular disease, neuropathy, eye damage) of diabetes by having good glycemic control. Having a strong support system in place at home, at work, and with their health care provider(s) is important in the management of glycemic control. An A1C level, which is the average of the individual’s blood glucose over the past three months helps in diagnosing pre-diabetes or diabetes mellitus type two. A diagnosis of diabetes is not something easy to accept and may require the patient to make significant lifestyle changes to control their diabetes mellitus type two. An APRN, physician, or educator will be at the center of the patient’s care and helps the individual to manage their diabetes diagnosis by setting goals, recommending lifestyle changes, and medication management. Having a strong support system at home and with the provider is very important and has been shown to help improve the patient’s A1C

Effects of Electronic Reminders for Promoting Exercise Motivation and Adherence in University Students

tLess than half of all adults meet the federal exercise recommendations (CDC, 2010) and college-aged adults may be more vulnerable to the consequences of physical inactivity with about two-thirds of college students leading sedentary lifestyles (Harvey-Berino, Pope, Gold, et al., 2012; Tully & Cupples, 2011). Mobile apps provide an efficient way to track physical activity and electronic prompts can enhance mobile apps by reminding individuals to participate. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to examine the effectiveness of a mobile app and electronic prompts sent via Twitter for promoting exercise motivation and adherence in sedentary university students. The hypotheses tested were: (a) a significantly greater percentage of participants in the treatment group would progress through the stages-of-change (SOC) from pre- to post-program compared to the control group, and (b) the treatment group would demonstrate significantly greater exercise adherence than the control group. Thirteen participants followed an 8-week running program on a mobile app. The control group (n = 8) followed the running program while the treatment group (n = 5) also received electronic prompts sent via Twitter to remind participants to exercise. The SOC modified four stage algorithm was used pre- and post-program to assess exercise motivation. Exercise adherence was measured by total number of completed workouts out of the 24 prescribed. A significantly greater number of participants in the control group progressed at least one stage from pre- to post-program compared to participants in the treatment group, χ2 = 6.9, p = 0.008. Additionally, participants in the control group reported a greater number of completed workouts (M = 12.5, SD = 7.6) compared to the participants in the treatment group (M = 3.6, SD = 4.0). These findings suggest that while the mobile app may be beneficial for promoting exercise motivation and adherence, the electronic prompts sent via Twitter appeared to have no effect. Further studies are needed to determine the most effective way to use Twitter to increase exercise motivation and adherence of sedentary university students