Perceptions and Experiences of Online Learning and Synchronous Communication

Abstract High-quality and effective online education is essential to the continuous growth of higher education. As online higher education grows in professional programs, it is especially pertinent to investigate learning designs for their effectiveness in supporting the acquisition of professional skills. Drawing upon the Community of Inquiry (CoI) and the Practice-Based Teaching (PBT) frameworks, this research investigated the effectiveness of one online graduate program designed for practicing teachers to learn new skills (i.e., diagnostic assessment and differentiated instruction) in teaching reading to elementary students. The learning design introduced a new component of virtual presence (i.e., synchronous communication) at strategic points in the online learning process during a three-course clinical sequence in which the teacher participants engaged in field learning experiences. The study used a case study approach to investigate teacher participants’ perceptions of the factors that enabled their online learning during the clinical course sequence. Findings indicated that the teacher participants perceived their online learning environment to be generally high in the CoI factor. They also appreciated that the learning environment incorporated opportunities for authentic, hands-on and practice-centered learning through the use of multiple representations of artifacts, encouraged engagement and clearly identified critical features that can be practiced and applied, with the opportunity to enact these practices learned while in the field. Teacher participants further indicated the critical importance of synchronous communication (virtual presence) component in supporting their learning of the teaching practices in field settings. Implications of these findings are discussed for the expansion of online higher education and applications to other professional learning environments. keywords: online, virtual presence, practice based learning, community of inquir

The effects of concept care maps on critical thinking in baccaalureate nursing students

The purpose of this study with first year Baccalaureate nursing students was to test the effects of care mapping strategies on critical thinking skills. In a constantly evolving field of nursing, it is important that new graduates are able to assimilate assessment data and use critical thinking to derive sound clinical judgement. Concept mapping is believed to support this endeavor

Vocal Classification of Vocalizations of a Pair of Asian Small-Clawed Otters to Determine Stress

Asian Small-Clawed Otters (Aonyx cinerea) are a small, protected but threatened species living in freshwater. They are gregarious and live in monogamous pairs for their lifetimes, communicating via scent and acoustic vocalizations. This study utilized a hidden Markov model (HMM) to classify stress versus non-stress calls from a sibling pair under professional care. Vocalizations were expertly annotated by keepers into seven contextual categories. Four of these—aggression, separation anxiety, pain, and prefeeding—were identified as stressful contexts, and three of them—feeding, training, and play—were identified as non-stressful contexts. The vocalizations were segmented, manually categorized into broad vocal type call types, and analyzed to determine signal to noise ratios. From this information, vocalizations from the most common contextual categories were used to implement HMM-based automatic classification experiments, which included individual identification, stress vs non-stress, and individual context classification. Results indicate that both individual identity and stress vs non-stress were distinguishable, with accuracies above 90%, but that individual contexts within the stress category were not easily separable

Animals who think and love : law, identification and the moral psychology of guilt

How does the human animal who thinks and loves relate to criminal justice? This essay takes up the idea of a moral psychology of guilt promoted by Bernard Williams and Herbert Morris. Against modern liberal society’s ‘peculiar’ legal morality of voluntary responsibility (Williams), it pursues Morris’s ethical account of guilt as involving atonement and identification with others. Thinking of guilt in line with Morris, and linking it with the idea of moral psychology, takes the essay to Freud’s metapsychology in Civilization and Its Discontents. Two conflicting routes to guilt are noted in Freud, one involving internalisation of external anger to suppress destructive instincts, the other loving identification with others in the process of self-formation. This second route is developed through the psychoanalytic thought of Hans Loewald and Jonathan Lear. Following Loewald, the moral psychology of self-formation makes loving identification with others the root of responsibility, guilt and atonement. Following Lear, the moral psychology of guilt developed on these lines renders psychoanalysis part of a broadly understood philosophical project following Aristotelian and Socratic principles. Underlying Morris’s account of guilt is the possibility of ‘prospective identification’, understood as the moral and psychological ground of guilt and reconciliation. This is the rational core of criminal justice, which maintains an uneasy relationship with law’s ‘peculiar’ morality

Pedagogy and Primary Sources: Outcomes of the Library of Congress\u27 Professional Development Program, Teaching with Primary Sources at Loyola

Until recently, few K-12 teachers outside of social studies have integrated primary sources in classroom instruction. Integrating primary sources in educational practice does require an uncommon pedagogical understanding. Addressing this K-12 educator need is the Library of Congress. Recently, the Library implemented a national educator professional development program, Teaching with Primary Sources (TPS). The TPS program operates at multiple universities and colleges, including Loyola University Chicago. This program aims to educate K-12 educators of all subject-areas to integrate online, digitized primary sources into classroom practices. This study addressed questions related to the outcomes of teacher participants\u27 classroom practices after completing a TPS graduate course at Loyola. Results of this study revealed changes in teachers\u27 practices. K-12 teachers of all subject areas, student age groups and ability levels, reported increases in types and frequencies of primary sources used in a given month. Reasons teachers used primary sources were wide ranging. The most common reason reported was for inferential and analytical skill increases, meanwhile, meeting learning standards was least recognized. Teachers\u27 reported classroom practices noted uses of primary sources to: illustrate concepts; provide examples; enhance secondary sources; to assist in student increases in higher order thinking skills; assess formatively and summatively, and cross-subject areas and grade levels. Results showed that hands-on, real-world connections were easily engaging for all student learners and age groups, K-12. Lastly, teachers reported increases in student engagement, motivation and deeper levels of empathic and content learning with primary sources. The TPS graduate course had an impact on teacher practices with primary sources. This study provides evidence that Loyola\u27s TPS course could serve as a national model of best-practice for the TPS program nationally. This study revealed that teachers outside of social studies and below grade four are able to successfully integrate primary sources for increased student learning

The client-binding domain of the cochaperone Sgt2 has a helical-hand structure that binds a short hydrophobic helix

The targeting and insertion of tail-anchored (TA) integral membrane proteins (IMP) into the correct membrane is critical for cellular homeostasis. The fungal protein Sgt2, and its human homolog SGTA, binds hydrophobic clients and is the entry point for targeting of ER-bound TA IMPs. Here we reveal molecular details that underlie the mechanism of Sgt2 binding to TA IMP clients. We establish that the Sgt2 C-terminal region is flexible but conserved and sufficient for client binding. A molecular model for this domain reveals a helical hand forming a hydrophobic groove, consistent with a higher affinity for TA IMP clients with hydrophobic faces and a minimal length of 11 residues. This work places Sgt2 into a broader family of TPR-containing co-chaperone proteins