Connecting teaching practice to student efficacy in undergraduate mathematics

Academic efficacy plays a critical role in student success in math learning at all levels due to its impact on persistence, motivation, and academic performance. This research aimed to connect student efficacy with key aspects of the instructional environment in six undergraduate math classes. Student surveys indicated significant differences in mean efficacy between classes, as well as significant differences in student perceptions of teacher behavior between the efficacy groups. Findings from observations of the classes revealed that key aspects of the instructional discourse varied by efficacy group. Instructors in higher efficacy classes tended to have more personal connections with students and used more positive and encouraging language, particularly in response to student errors. These findings mirror the results of similar studies at the K-12 level and have important implications for teaching practice in higher education

Fathers of the nation:U.S. gender history, racial capitalism and white fatherhood in contemporary American TV series (2001-2016)

From ‘Founding Fathers’ to ‘Homeland Security’ and ‘Daddy Trump’ – U.S. political discourses have a long tradition of patriarchal family rhetoric.Quality TV drama series – the ‘pre-eminent narrative medium of our time’ (Dean J. DeFino) – have likewise been dominated by portrayals of families and their white patriarchs, whether they be meth-cooking teachers (Breaking Bad), zombie apocalypse survivors (The Walking Dead), or callboys (Hung).Drawing upon Raymond Williams’ concept of the ‘structure of feeling’, I contend in my dissertation that these series operate and reflect on a similar affectively experienced cultural zeitgeist in the United States – which is at once characteristic of this troubled period marked by the gendered twin crises of 9/11 and the Great Recession, but also forms part of a continuing, cyclic nostalgic desire in times of change and uncertainty.My project combines approaches from cultural studies, gender studies, and American cultural history with research and methodologies from film and television studies. By analyzing how heterosexual, white fathers play central roles in contemporary American television drama series, I identify values and idea(l)s mobilized in the portrayals of white fatherhood in the individual shows and read these against the longer cultural history of the United States. I thereby argue that earlier ideals of U.S. masculinity such as the ‘self-made man’ (Michael Kimmel) have been substituted over the course of the twentieth century by the white, heterosexual breadwinner, who becomes the center for addressing socio-cultural changes and struggles in neoliberal capitalism at the beginning of the twenty-first century

Übergang KiTa - Grundschule: Flexible Eingangsphase an der Salzbödetal-Schule - das Konzept eines am Kind orientierten Übergangs

Die Salzbödetal-Schule ist eine Einrichtung des Landkreises Gießen. Sie ist eine der beiden Grundschulen der Stadt Lollar bei Gießen (Mittelhessen) und wird von etwa 140 Schülern besucht, die in den Ortsteilen Salzböden und Odenhausen wohnen. Von 1993 bis 1998 nahm die Salzbödetal-Schule unter ihrem damaligen Namen Grundschule Salzböden als eine von fünf Grundschulen an dem Modellversuch zur pädagogischen und strukturellen Neukonzeption des Schulanfangs der Bund-Länder-Kommission für Bildungsplanung und Forschungsförderung teil. [...] Die Modellversuchsschulen wurden verpflichtet, alle schulpflichtigen Kinder ohne Überprüfung der Schulfähigkeit in das erste Schuljahr aufzunehmen. Der Modellversuch in Hessen steht in Zusammenhang mit ähnlichen Versuchen in anderen Bundesländern. (DIPF/Orig.

The Evolution of experimental environmental programs in the printing industry

In the 1990s, there was an explosion of experimental technical assistance programs at the national, state and local levels. These programs were designed to promote pollution prevention and compliance with environmental regulations. Encouraging the adoption of environmentally friendly technologies in small firms, however, has been difficult. The goals of this paper are to examine how environmental programs for small businesses in the U.S. have evolved over the past two decades and to begin to explore the effectiveness of these programs from the perspective of small companies. The authors would like to thank the participants in this research project, as well as the Printing Industry Center (CIAS) at the Rochester Institute of Technology for supporting this work

The Evolution of experimental programs in the printing industry

In the 1990s there was an explosion of experimental technical assistance programs at the national, state and local levels. These programs were designed to promote compliance (for these firms that need to comply) and pollution prevention. Promoting the adoption of environmentally friendly technologies in small businesses have evolved over the past two decades to begin to explore the effectiveness of these programs from the perspective of small companies

Operationalizing resilience planning, theory, and practice: Insights from U.S. seaports

Academics and practitioners advocate climate change resilience planning to guide seaport management, business continuity planning, capital improvements, and so forth. Yet, questions of whether resilience planning interventions influence seaports\u27 planning cultures and result in better prepared organizations remain underexplored. Through 10 cases of U.S. seaport resilience planning, this research explored the benefits and challenges of resilience planning and whether such efforts can enhance the adaptive capacity of a complex, multi-layered system such as a seaport. Results suggested that resilience planning interventions enhanced, inter alia, seaports\u27 social capital with their internal and external stakeholders, and that seaports frequently identified and pursued infrastructure-related resilience enhancement strategies after completing resilience planning. Even when the sponsors of such studies intended an operational and business resilience purpose, they stated benefits consistent with adaptive management and resilience planning theories. Further, while key informants emphasized the strengthened relationships with stakeholders as benefits, they also frequently cited them as key challenges that require deliberative guidance and resources to help stakeholders effectively use products from resilience planning. Additional takeaways captured in this research provide valuable insights that can inform guidance materials designed to help seaports undertake their climate resilience-building endeavors

A tale of two scholars: Developing transculturally through dialogue and writing

Short term international exchanges have been developed worldwide to offer collaborative research and cultural training opportunities for graduate students. However, the ability to develop transcultural competencies in these exchanges is often hampered by time constraints. This inquiry uses a collaborative, multi-sited autoethnographic approach to explore the potential of pursuing a transcultural relationship through the act of writing an academic article for publication post-seminar. Two doctoral scholars, one originally from China, but pursuing a doctorate at the Queensland University of Technology, Australia, and one from the University of Calgary, Canada, use multiple connected sites (face-to-face, WeChat, Google docs, email) to further their transcultural development through professional and personal collaboration. The authors used Slimbach’s (2005) transcultural competencies as a framework to guide this work. Based on insights developed through the process, the authors present recommendations for future international doctoral seminar participants.

Sex-specific pathways of parental age effects on offspring lifetime reproductive success in a long-lived seabird

The conditions under which individuals are reared vary and sensitivity of offspring to such variation is often sex-dependent. Parental age is one important natal condition with consequences for aspects of offspring fitness, but reports are mostly limited to short-term fitness consequences and do not take into account offspring sex. Here we used individual-based data from a large colony of a long-lived seabird, the common tern Sterna hirundo, to investigate longitudinal long-term fitness consequences of parental age in relation to both offspring and parental sex. We found that recruited daughters from older mothers suffered from reduced annual reproductive success. Recruited sons from older fathers were found to suffer from reduced life span. Both effects translated to reductions in offspring lifetime reproductive success. Besides revealing novel sex-specific pathways of transgenerational parental age effects on offspring fitness, which inspire studies of potential underlying mechanisms, our analyses show that reproductive senescence is only observed in the common tern when including transgenerational age effects. In general, our study shows that estimates of selective pressures underlying the evolution of senescence, as well as processes such as age-dependent mate choice and sex allocation, will depend on whether causal transgenerational effects exist and are taken into account