The Development of the Natural Method (Ivrit Be-Ivrit) in the Teaching of Hebrew in Jewish Schools in Modern Times

This dissertation traces the course of the Natural Method known as Ivrit Be-Ivrit to the renewed interest in Hebrew on the part of the Haskalah. It likewise points to the process of adaptation of ideas from the field of general progressive education to the Jewish school system with special reference to the methodology of teaching Hebrew. It also seeks to establish the organic relationship between the Zionist vision and the dream of transforming Hebrew once again into the Jewish verancular with the classroom as the most important medium. Special attention is given to the arguments put forth by the exponents of the Natural Method as well as to the views expounded by the opponents of Ivrit Be-Ivrit

Teacher Empowerment Through Instructional Coaching: A Qualitative Study on the Theory and Application of Partnership Principles

The purpose of this research was to understand how instructional coaching in schools affects teachers and, specifically, whether increased teacher empowerment was associated with instructional coaching based on the framework of the Partnership Principles (Knight, 2007). A goal of the research was to find out whether, and to what extent, teachers identified themselves as empowered. Using Critical Theory (Freire, 2012) as the theoretical framework for this analysis, the study also sought to develop an understanding of how teacher empowerment may develop as a result of working with instructional coaches who utilize the Partnership Principles. Six teachers in a rural district in the U.S. Southeast participated in a semi-structured interview in order to understand more about how coaching that uses Partnership Principles affects teachers in ways that support or increase empowerment. The survey findings indicate that instructional coaching can contribute to empowerment, but that it can also lead to teachers feeling disempowered. Analysis of the interviews revealed important themes about teacher-coach relationships, teacher engagement with the coaching process, how coaching improves instruction, and how addressing teachers’ professional learning needs supports their empowerment, all of which can inform the work of instructional coaches

Application of Optimal Control to CPMG Refocusing Pulse Design

We apply optimal control theory (OCT) to the design of refocusing pulses suitable for the CPMG sequence that are robust over a wide range of B0 and B1 offsets. We also introduce a model, based on recent progress in the analysis of unitary dynamics in the field of quantum information processing (QIP), that describes the multiple refocusing dynamics of the CPMG sequence as a dephasing Pauli channel. This model provides a compact characterization of the consequences and severity of residual pulse errors. We illustrate the methods by considering a specific example of designing and analyzing broadband OCT refocusing pulses of length 10 t180 that are constrained by the maximum instantaneous pulse power. We show that with this refocusing pulse, the CPMG sequence can refocus over 98% of magnetization for resonance offsets up to 3.2 times the maximum RF amplitude, even in the presence of +/- 10% RF inhomogeneity.Comment: 23 pages, 10 figures; Revised and reformatted version with new title and significant changes to Introduction and Conclusions section

Shelter from the Storm: Using Jurisdictional Statutes to Protect Victims of Domestic Violence after the Violence against Women Act of 2000

Domestic violence fuels many of the nation’s bitterly contested interstate custody cases. It is an underlying issue in most parental abduction cases, which occur at an estimated rate of 203,900 per year. Despite the role of domestic abuse in interstate custody cases, in the past, legislators enacted jurisdictional laws to prevent forum-shopping and parental abduction without considering their impact on domestic violence survivors. In recent years, jurisdictional laws such as the Parental Kidnapping Prevention Act and the Uniform Child Custody Jurisdiction and Enforcement Act have begun to incorporate safety provisions for victims of domestic violence. Full faith and credit laws, including provisions in the Violence Against Women Act and the Violence Against Women Act of 2000, have been drafted for the primary purpose of protecting victims who flee across state or tribal lines. This article will review the relevant state and federal laws and demonstrate that courts and family law attorneys may apply these jurisdictional statutes with a view to protecting domestic violence survivors and children embroiled in interstate custody cases. The article begins with an examination of how the United States legal system has historically addressed domestic violence and then discusses the current responses of the criminal and civil justice systems. Part I also provides readers with a contemporary overview of issues related to domestic violence survivors’ flight across state lines. These include the dangers of separation violence when victims leave their abusers, the impact of domestic violence on children, and the potential protection that relocation offers many victims

Creating and Sustaining a Positive Learning Environment for Students At Risk

This fast-paced session will help participants uncover the often-overlooked structures of the classroom environment that can negatively affect the achievement of students placed at risk. Teachers will take away multiple strategies that can increase the engagement and cooperation of students who are at the greatest risk for school failure. With concrete examples and evidence-based strategies, this session will support educators who want their classrooms to become learning communities that are inclusive of all students

Telework that Works: Teleradiology and the Emergence of Nighthawk Radiology Groups

Information technology enabled remote work is typically seen as an imperfect substitute for spatial proximity (Armstrong and Cole 2002, Gaspar and Glaeser 1998, Olson et. al. 2002). For night radiology, however, the use of teleradiology applications to create a new type of radiology group appears to have facilitated improvements in productivity, lifestyle, and quality of interpretations. This paper describes the diffusion of teleradiology applications in the United States and the "nighthawk" radiology groups that have consequently emerged. The emergence of nighthawk radiology groups - a new type of radiology group which specializes in doing night reads - has had important ramifications for the delivery of radiological services in the United States. Based on interviews, site visits and direct observation of radiologists, the introduction of nighthawk radiology offered a series of benefits without threatening the quality of radiology services rendered remotely. This research found that nighthawk radiology groups emerged, not out of a deliberate program of reengineering, but out of a reaction to a particular set of historical circumstances. The lessons that can be learned from the study of nighthawk radiology, however, are relevant to a host of industries with work tasks that can be easily relocated, but where relocation is seen as conflicting with quality concerns. The professional nature of radiology work, as well as the updating of quality assurance programs, played a crucial role in assuring quality, while shaping the outcomes of the use of teleradiology to outsource and offshore American radiology services

The Poverty Simulation: Increasing Teacher Sensitivity for Students Living in Poverty

Studies of children growing up in poverty describe increasingly devastating effects on many areas of development (e.g., cognitive, linguistic, socio-emotional, affective, psychomotor). Teachers need to be aware of these findings; they also need to develop empathy for their students living in poverty. One way to do this is to experience a poverty simulation wherein participants (i.e., teachers) learn what it is like to “walk in their students’ shoes.” This report describes the history of a poverty simulation in southeast Georgia. Analysis of quantitative data, collected via surveys administered before and after recent poverty simulations, revealed the following findings: increased teacher understanding of poverty, increased teacher recognition of their own biases toward their students and their families who live in poverty, and increased teacher empathy toward their students and their families who live in poverty. Findings also showed that teachers plan to apply their new understandings regarding poverty in their classrooms. Implications for practice, especially for teachers working in urban settings with poor children, are offered

Entity-relationship modeling re-revisited

Paper presented at the 23rd International Conference on Conceptual Modeling (ER 2004), Shanghai, China, November 2004. Lecture Notes in Computer Science 3288, pp. 43-52 (http://springerlink.metapress.com/link.asp?id=xt88y6nmtyabjdlv). Retrieved 6/26/2006 from http://www.cis.drexel.edu/faculty/song/publications/p_ER_Revisited_ER2004-Final.pdf.Since its introduction, the Entity-Relationship (ER) model has been the vehicle of choice in communicating the structure of a database schema in an implementation-independent fashion. Part of its popularity has no doubt been due to the clarity and simplicity of the associated pictorial Entity-Relationship Diagrams (“ERD’s”) and to the dependable mapping it affords to a relational database schema. Although the model has been extended in different ways over the years, its basic properties have been remarkably stable. Even though the ER model has been seen as pretty well “settled,” some recent papers, notably [4] and [2 (from whose paper our title is derived)], have enumerated what their authors consider serious shortcomings of the ER model. They illustrate these by some interesting examples. We believe, however, that those examples are themselves flawed. In fact, while not claiming that the ER model is perfect, we do believe that the overhauls hinted at are probably not necessary and possibly counterproductive

Hole-Burning Diffusion Measurements in High Magnetic Field Gradients

We describe methods for the measurement of translational diffusion in very large static magnetic field gradients by NMR. The techniques use a "hole-burning" sequence that, with the use of fringe field gradients of 42 T/m, can image diffusion along one dimension on a submicron scale. Two varieties of this method are demonstrated, including a particularly efficient mode called the "hole-comb," in which multiple diffusion times comprising an entire diffusive evolution can be measured within the span of a single detected slice. The advantages and disadvantages of these methods are discussed, as well as their potential for addressing non-Fickian diffusion, diffusion in restricted media, and spatially inhomogeneous diffusion.Comment: 8 pages, 6 figure