Hybrid Learning and Standards Based Grading: Fostering Writing Instruction During a Pandemic

Hybrid learning is steadily growing in popularity and showing to be an effective learning modality to accommodate diverse student populations. The pandemic is an unexpected outlier in the overall picture of hybrid learning, and it is helpful to reflect upon best academic practices, including grading methods, to help mitigate loss of learning and to continue to make improvements in pedagogical practices. This thesis explores the relationship between the hybrid learning model and evaluation, specifically Standards Based Grading, and how this combination of methods influences best writing practices. Using reflections gathered from teacher surveys via a case study, it appears the hybrid learning model has increased the amount of real-time feedback given to students. Additionally, hybrid learning, paired with smaller class sizes, appears to have positively influenced student motivation and confidence in writing. Potential concerns are that students are not adapting to the remote aspects of hybrid learning that require self-paced learning. Teachers have found modeling writing processes to be a challenge when instruction is not in-person. The results find that hybrid learning and SBG can be an advantageous pairing. This study does not conclude that each one necessarily influences the other. However, SBG does influence digital writing instruction and can be a powerful blend. This study suggests that restructuring seat time and evaluating the frequency of evaluation are practices to better support the implementation of hybrid learning. Additionally, this study suggests that when allotted smaller class sizes, students receive more differentiated writing tasks and individualized feedback through the hybrid model

How Race Impacts Voter Participation: A Study

What does race have to do with it? A study of racial conflict theory. Looking back at the 2012 Presidential election, it is important to re-evaluate who participates in a democratic process. It is necessary to observe voter participation by people of color in order to gain a more robust understanding of our democratic process. It is also essential to study how voting trends affect policies put in place by racially dominant elites, in order to better to serve these dominant elites. This begs the question; who typically votes? The research will use racial conflict theory to explore a possible correlation between race and voter participation for elections. In particular, this study will demonstrate how racially dominant groups, Caucasians, typically participate in the voting process more often than historically disenfranchised groups, like African Americans. The research will use the National Election Survey and compile data across all states for multiple elections

Reforming Informed Consent: On Disability and Genetic Counseling

[Forthcoming Fall 2022] Informed consent is a central concept for empirical and theoretical research concerning pregnancy management decisions and is often taken to be one of the more fundamental goals of the profession of genetic counseling. Tellingly, this concept has been seen by disability communities as salutary, despite longstanding critiques made by disability activists, advocates, and scholars concerning practices involved in genetic counseling more generally. In this chapter, we show that the widespread faith in informed consent is misleading and can be detrimental to the practice of genetic counseling as guided by concerns of justice and equity. We proceed in two steps. First, we explain how informed consent is flawed as a practical concept. Second, we show how the inadequacy of informed consent illuminates the animating core of disability critiques of genetic counseling: the issue of ableism. We argue that the problem of ableism cannot be solved with informed consent because it is not merely a problem of information, but also of epistemic frameworks. We suggest that what we call critically informed consent is better suited to move genetic counseling from being aware of the problem of ableism to becoming actively anti-ableist

Weight‐Related Differences in Salience, Default Mode, and Executive Function Network Connectivity in Adolescents

Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/156135/2/oby22853.pdfhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/156135/1/oby22853_am.pd

Supporting Information: Influence of Carbon and Lipid Sources on Variation of Mercury and Other Trace Elements in Polar Bears (\u3ci\u3eUrsus maritimus\u3c/i\u3e)

MATERIALS AND METHODS Stable Carbon Isotope Analysis and Quality Control Fatty Acids Analysis and Quality Control Mercury and Other Trace Metal and Element Analysis and Quality Control REFERENCE SECTIO

Locomotor adaptability in persons with unilateral transtibial amputation

Background Locomotor adaptation enables walkers to modify strategies when faced with challenging walking conditions. While a variety of neurological injuries can impair locomotor adaptability, the effect of a lower extremity amputation on adaptability is poorly understood. Objective Determine if locomotor adaptability is impaired in persons with unilateral transtibial amputation (TTA). Methods The locomotor adaptability of 10 persons with a TTA and 8 persons without an amputation was tested while walking on a split-belt treadmill with the parallel belts running at the same (tied) or different (split) speeds. In the split condition, participants walked for 15 minutes with the respective belts moving at 0.5 m/s and 1.5 m/s. Temporal spatial symmetry measures were used to evaluate reactive accommodations to the perturbation, and the adaptive/de-adaptive response. Results Persons with TTA and the reference group of persons without amputation both demonstrated highly symmetric walking at baseline. During the split adaptation and tied post-adaptation walking both groups responded with the expected reactive accommodations. Likewise, adaptive and de-adaptive responses were observed. The magnitude and rate of change in the adaptive and de-adaptive responses were similar for persons with TTA and those without an amputation. Furthermore, adaptability was no different based on belt assignment for the prosthetic limb during split adaptation walking. Conclusions Reactive changes and locomotor adaptation in response to a challenging and novel walking condition were similar in persons with TTA to those without an amputation. Results suggest persons with TTA have the capacity to modify locomotor strategies to meet the demands of most walking conditions despite challenges imposed by an amputation and use of a prosthetic limb

Review: The Newsletter of the Literary Managers and Dramaturgs of the Americas, volume 16, issue 1

Contents include: Editors\u27 Note; Kirk Watson\u27s List for Making a Cool City; Remembering the Collaboration Project: Texts for an Untitled Bird Play; Mix Tape: A Collaboration; An Untitled Piece; Untitled Baseball Play; Elliott Hayes Remarks 2005; A Newbie at LMDA Conference \u2705, reconstructed journal entries with mostly unforced bildungsroman narrative structure; What\u27s So Great About New Plays? A position paper on the focus on new plays in the field of dramaturgy with three responses; New Plays in Canada, What\u27s So Great About New Plays--A Thought or Seven; Thoughts on New Plays from an Elliott Hayes Award Acceptance Speech. Issue editors: D.J. Hopkins, Shelley Orr, Madeleine Oldhamhttps://soundideas.pugetsound.edu/lmdareview/1032/thumbnail.jp

Psilocybin prevents symptoms of hyperarousal and enhances novel object recognition in rats exposed to the single prolonged stress paradigm

Pharmacotherapy for stress-related psychological disorders remains inadequate. Patients who are treated with conventional pharmacological agents frequently report negligeable symptom reduction, and, in most cases, less than 50% experience full remission. Clearly, there is a need for additional pharmaceutical research into both established and novel approaches to alleviate these conditions. Over the past several years, there has been a renewed interest in the use of psychedelics to aid in the treatment of psychological disorders. Several studies have reported promising results in patients with major depression, anxiety disorders, and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) following treatment with psychedelic agents such as lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD), 3,4-methylenedioxymethamphetamine (MDMA), ayahuasca, ketamine, and psilocybin. However, the precise behavioral and neurobiological mechanisms for these effects remain unclear. Thus, we aimed to develop an animal model of PTSD that involved prophylactic treatment with psilocybin, a 5-HT2A agonist, that could be used to further understand the mechanisms underlying the benefit of psychedelic substances in treating these disorders. Adult male and female Sprague-Dawley rats were subjected to the single prolonged stress (SPS) paradigm, including 2 hours of physical restraint, 15 minutes of forced swim, and ether vapor exposure until loss of consciousness. Five minutes following ether-induced loss of consciousness, the rats were intraperitoneally injected with vehicle (0.9% saline) or psilocybin (1 mg/kg). One week later, the rats underwent a battery of behavioral tests, including the elevated plus maze (EPM), startle response assessment, open field testing, and novel object recognition (NOR) testing. No effects of SPS or psilocybin were observed for EPM behavior. SPS led to enhanced startle responses in males, but not females, which was prevented by psilocybin. SPS also increased locomotor activity in the open field in males, but not females, and this effect was not prevented by psilocybin. SPS had no impact on NOR memory in males, but enhanced memory in females. Interestingly, psilocybin administration, alone or in combination with SPS, enhanced NOR memory in males only. These findings support a complex interaction between the administration of psilocybin and the prevention of stress-induced behavioral sequelae that depends on both sex and the type of behavioral task

Low-dose psilocybin enhances novel object recognition but not inhibitory avoidance in adult rats

Given the recently renewed interest in using psychedelics to aid in the treatment of psychological disorders, we aimed to examine the impact of psilocybin, a 5-HT2A agonist, on learning and memory in rodents. Previous work has demonstrated that psilocybin and other 5-HT2A agonists can enhance fear conditioning, fear extinction, and novel object recognition (NOR). Thus, we predicted that low doses of psilocybin would enhance inhibitory avoidance (IA) and NOR memory. In the first experiment, adult male and female Sprague-Dawley rats underwent step-through IA training (involving 0.45, 0.65, or 1 mA scrambled footshock) and were injected intraperitoneally (i.p.) with vehicle (0.9% saline) or psilocybin (1 mg/kg) immediately afterward. Rats were tested for their IA memory two days later. In the second experiment, adult male and female Sprague-Dawley rats were acclimated to an open field apparatus for 5 minutes on Day 1. The next day, the rats were given i.p. injections of vehicle or psilocybin (0.1 mg/kg) 10 minutes before undergoing NOR training, during which they were exposed to two replicas of an identical object for 3 minutes. On Day 3, one of the objects from NOR training was exchanged for a novel object; rats were exposed to this novel object and a new replica of the object from Day 2 (i.e., familiar object) for 5 minutes. The results showed that psilocybin had no significant impact on IA memory but enhanced novel object recognition memory in both males and females. The differential impact of psilocybin on IA memory and novel object recognition could be explained by the different doses of psilocybin or the different times of drug administration used for each task. Alternatively, they may suggest that psilocybin exerts distinct effects on different types of learning