Does Observational Learning Influence Spatial Pattern Learning?

Previous studies have indicated both human and non-human animals come under control of a hidden spatial pattern when engaged in an open field search task, and rats appear to exhibit social learning in such tasks through the influence of a conspecific on their search behavior. Although human participants appear to perform similarly in both real-world and virtual environment versions of a spatial pattern search task, evidence from human participants for social learning in such a task remains lacking. The current experiments tested the influence of social learning (observational learning) on human performance in a spatial pattern learning task within a virtual environment. In Experiment 1, participants watched a video of a demonstrator performing a spatial pattern learning task using either a random search strategy (Random Observation Group) or an optimal search strategy (Optimal Observation Group). Experiment 2 tested if the obtained differences in Experiment 1 resulted from facilitation of learning in the Optimal Observation Group or inhibition of learning in the Random Observation Group by adding a third Control No Observation group. Collectively, results provide evidence for social (observational) learning by humans in a spatial pattern learning task and suggest facilitation of learning in the optimal observation group drove group differences in performance

Shakespeare’s Pauses, Authorship, and Early Chronology

This paper explores the implications of Ants Oras’s Pause Patterns in Elizabethan and Jacobean Drama: An Experiment in Prosody (Oras 1960) for the chronology and authorship of plays in early modern England. Oras’s brief monograph has been noticed by a relatively few scholars, mainly those interested in changes to Shakespeare’s pentameter line. Recent developments in the field, however, have rendered his data newly attractive. Compiled by hand, Oras’s figures on the punctuated pauses in pentameter verse offer computational approaches a wealth of information by which writers’ stylistic profiles and changes can be measured. Oras’s data for a large number of playwrights and poets, as well as his methodology generally, may prove instrumental in constructing a portrait of the aesthetic environment for writers of pentameter verse during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries in England. In particular, pause percentages may lend context to our attributions of texts of uncertain authorship. A hypothetical chronology is offered for Shakespeare’s earliest writing, including his contributions to Arden of Faversham, 1 Henry VI, and Edward III

Desperate Times Call for Desperate Measures: Anti-Semitism, Hopelessness, and the Rise of the Nazi Party

This paper explores the rise the Nazi Party (NSDAP) as a function of compounded poverty, unemployment, economic stagnation, and long-tenured anti-Semitism. In doing so, I aim to understand the Nazis and their supporters not as demons, but as products of their unique historical situation. This perspective offers a greater understanding of Nazism\u27s rise, and it also offers helpful means of thinking about possible fascist regimes in the future

Making a German-American Place: Davenport, Iowa, 1836-1918

This study examines the impact of German-Americans in the creation of Davenport and Scott County, Iowa from 1836 through 1918. Like cities many other 19th century places in the American interior, Davenport and Scott County direly needed people to settle it, build its infrastructure, develop its economy, and contribute to growing social and political life. Conveniently, Davenport and Scott County boosters’ desires occurred simultaneously with rampant pauperism, political, ideological, and religious revolutions, economic redundancy, and widespread dreams of rebirth in Germany. These conditions produced an unprecedented migration from Germany to Davenport and Scott County in the second-half of the 19th century. As Germans settled in Davenport and Scott County, they shaped their places to reflect aspects of their homelands, local geographic characteristics, national trends of industrialization and urbanization, and their evolving German-American identities. During the Germans’ first two decades, they largely lived and acted apart from their American counterparts. Though, with time, German-Americans progressively were incorporated into larger, more inclusive political, educational, economic, and social systems. They fought and earned their stars and stripes on Civil War battlefields, as well as in shoe factories, law offices, and classrooms. Due to their hard work and public spirit, Davenport and Scott County’s Germans quickly became revered for their heavy contributions on this evolving place. Nevertheless, the story of German-American Davenport—and German-America, for that matter—concluded in tragedy. Amidst struggles for statewide prohibition, assimilative processes, and WWI-era anti-German hysteria, the German-American legacy was marred, erased, and ultimately all but forgotten

Comparing the Perceptions of Inclusion between General Education and Special Education Teachers

This causal-comparative, quantitative study compared the perceptions of inclusion of students with disabilities in the mainstream classroom that are held by high school general education teachers and high school special education teachers that teach in inclusive settings. The study determined there is a difference between the perceptions of inclusive education between teachers with different teaching assignments. Special education teachers were clearly more positive than general education teachers about the inclusion of students with disabilities, the influence of students with disabilities on the general education classroom and its students, and the management of behavior in the inclusive classroom. There was no difference in teacher self-efficacy between the two groups. The study involved teachers at six rural high schools located in Northeast Georgia. The Opinions Relative to the Integration of Students with Disabilities developed by Antonak and Larrivee (1995) was used to measure the perceptions of the participants. The results were analyzed with t-tests to identify differences in perceptions of the two groups

Growing Your Own Educational Leaders: Implications for Rural School Districts and Institutions of Higher Education

The purpose of this article is to examine a ‘grow your own’ model of leadership preparation and placement of educational administrators in the state of Tennessee. The growing need for school and district administrators in the rural counties of Tennessee mirrors a nationwide issue, and state policymakers and practitioners must respond appropriately to sustain adequate K-12 educational leadership that is representative of state demographics. Recommendations for policy and practice are provided for state and local education agencies as well as principal preparation programs in higher education