Enhancing Culturally Responsive Practice in a District: How Teachers Make Sense of Their Cultural Proficiency

Thesis advisor: Martin ScanlanWhile the U.S. student body is increasingly racially, ethnically, culturally, and linguistically diverse, the teaching population itself, however, does not mirror this same diversity. As such, there is an urgent need for teachers who can adequately meet the needs of an increasingly diverse student population (Sleeter, 2001). Some teachers are undeniably more successful at the task of educating diverse student populations than others. How then - are these teachers in particular - successfully able to effectively teach students across various lines of difference? The purpose of this qualitative individual study is to explore teachers’ views on how they have developed their cultural proficiency. How do teachers who have been identified by school leaders as particularly effective at teaching diverse student populations develop their culturally responsive practice, and more pointedly - their capacity to effectively teach students from historically marginalized groups (i.e. students from racially minoritized groups or socio-economically disadvantaged groups)? Utilizing a sense-making framework, and gathering information using methods including semi-structured interviews, teacher questionnaires, and reflective journaling, this study uncovers emergent themes and trends in how individual teachers within a diverse Massachusetts school district make sense of the process by which they developed their culturally responsive teaching capacities and practice. If educational leaders form a better understanding of how teachers effectively develop their cultural competencies, then principals and district leaders will be able to use this information to more effectively design professional development programs that sustain teachers’ cultural proficiency and better equip them to successfully serve the increasingly diverse student population.Thesis (EdD) — Boston College, 2020.Submitted to: Boston College. Lynch School of Education.Discipline: Educational Leadership and Higher Education

Lemierre’s Syndrome, A Case Report and Review of Literature

Lemierre’s syndrome is a suppurative thrombophlebitis of the internal jugular vein. In this paper we describe a case of severe Lemierre’s syndrome in a healthy 18 year-old woman. She initially presented with sore throat, and failed outpatient antibiotic therapy. She quickly progressed to septic shock, internal jugular vein septic thrombophlebitis, septic pulmonary emboli, empyema and respiratory failure. Successful treatment included intravenous antibiotics and thoracotomy. It is a rare disease that has been kept at bay with the widespread use of antibiotics for upper respiratory infections. However in recent years there seems to be an increase in number of cases being reported which some have attributed to increased adherence to antimicrobial stewardship

The Role of the Environmental Manager in Advancing Environmental Sustainability and Social Responsibility in the Organization

A changing business climate has led many organizations to embrace environmental sustainability and social responsibility; however, organizational roles and responsibilities in sustainability initiatives have not been clearly defined. This paper specifically examines the role of environmental managers in advancing environmental sustainability and social responsibility. It is part of a broader study to identify the extent to which various departments or functional units within an organization are prepared to play a role in these initiatives based on a survey of various professionals in relation to activities and action items derived from the ISO 26000 standard on social responsibility. As expected, the findings indicate that environmental managers are positioned to play a critical role in advancing environmental sustainability and social responsibility in their organizations. However, there appears to be disparity between the role that environmental managers indicated they are prepared to play and the perceptions of their role held by others in the organization. While environmental managers indicated that they would support or play a major role in 18 of the 35 action items on which they were surveyed, professionals from other functional units indicated that environmental managers would be involved in only a few key areas focused on traditional environmental issues associated with pollution prevention and waste management. This suggests that environmental managers are prepared to play a much broader role in the organization’s sustainability and social responsibility efforts but may not be fully utilized in this capacity

An Integrative Review of Youth Development Research in Selected United States Recreation Journals

Youth have been a focus of recreation and leisure programmers for over a century. During that time, assumptions have been made about the value of recreation for young people. More recently, a resurgence of interest has occurred related to positive youth development. The purpose of this paper is to describe the results of an integrative review done to examine research conducted with youth as a focal point in four prominent U.S. based recreation journals over the past 21 years (1985-2005). We sought to discern thematic patterns in topical areas and to review the approaches and methods used. Systematic content and thematic analyses of the Journal of Park and Recreation Administration, Therapeutic Recreation Journal, Leisure Sciences, and the Journal of Leisure Research were used. Findings showed that the research done about youth related to some aspect of recreation or leisure in the past ten years eclipsed what was done from 1985-1996. A variety of research methods were used with an equitable distribution of survey, literature reviews, experimental designs, and qualitative methods. The youth examined were primarily mixed gender groups, but boys were twice as likely to be studied as girls when single sex studies were undertaken. Most of the research was done with adolescent (ages 10-18 years) youth. Almost no research has been done in the recreation field related to early childhood (ages 1-4 years). The 11 major themes or topics that were studied in the past 21 years included: youth culture and leisure; leisure programming, treatment, and intervention; research, measurement, and evaluation; demographic factors; management, administration, and policy of youth programs; benefits of leisure for youth; youth and family leisure; recreation settings and leisure spaces; risk behaviors and delinquency; human development and developmental issues; and social behavior. In the integrative review, the focus on benefits and accountability relative to youth programs was obvious. The parallels between social change and youth development were also evident in the review. Recommendations for future research include more evidence-based work that links the program or intervention directly to youth development outcomes, as well as a focus on emerging topics such as physical inactivity and obesity in children, the influence of television and technology in general, youth sport, and the relationships youth have with nature and the outdoors

Detection limits of organic compounds achievable with intense, short-pulse lasers

Many organic molecules have strong absorption bands which can be accessed by ultraviolet short pulse lasers to produce efficient ionization. This resonant multiphoton ionization scheme has already been exploited as an ionization source in time-of-flight mass spectrometers used for environmental trace analysis. In the present work we quantify the ultimate potential of this technique by measuring absolute ion yields produced from the interaction of 267 nm femtosecond laser pulses with the organic molecules indole and toluene, and gases Xe, N2 and O2. Using multiphoton ionization cross sections extracted from these results, we show that the laser pulse parameters required for real-time detection of aromatic molecules at concentrations of one part per trillion in air and a limit of detection of a few attomoles are achievable with presently available commercial laser systems. The potential applications for the analysis of human breath, blood and tissue samples are discussed

Ultraviolet relaxation dynamics in uracil: Time-resolved photoion yield studies using a laser-based thermal desorption source

Wavelength-dependent measurements of the RNA base uracil, undertaken with nanosecond ultraviolet laser pulses, have previously identified a fragment at m/z = 84 (corresponding to the C3H4N2O+ ion) at excitation wavelengths ≤232 nm. This has been interpreted as a possible signature of a theoretically predicted ultrafast ring-opening occurring on a neutral excited state potential energy surface. To further investigate the dynamics of this mechanism, and also the non-adiabatic dynamics operating more generally in uracil, we have used a newly built ultra-high vacuum spectrometer incorporating a laser-based thermal desorption source to perform time-resolved ion-yield measurements at pump wavelengths of 267 nm, 220 nm, and 200 nm. We also report complementary data obtained for the related species 2-thiouracil following 267 nm excitation. Where direct comparisons can be made (267 nm), our findings are in good agreement with the previously reported measurements conducted on these systems using cold molecular beams, demonstrating that the role of initial internal energy on the excited state dynamics is negligible. Our 220 nm and 200 nm data also represent the first reported ultrafast study of uracil at pump wavelengths 3(1ππ*) state. These measurements do not, however, provide any evidence for the appearance of the m/z = 84 fragment within the first few hundred picoseconds following excitation. This key finding indicates that the detection of this specific species in previous nanosecond work is not directly related to an ultrafast ring-opening process. An alternative excited state process, operating on a more extended time scale, remains an open possibility

Proton irradiation of DNA nucleosides in the gas phase

International audienceThe four DNA nucleosides guanosine, adenosine, cytidine and thymidine have been produced in the gas phase by a laser thermal desorption source, and irradiated by a beam of protons with 5 keV kinetic energy. The molecular ions as well as energetic neutrals formed have been analyzed by mass spectrometry in order to shed light on the ionization and fragmentation processes triggered by proton collision. A range of 8-20 eV has been estimated for the binding energy of the electron captured by the proton. Glycosidic bond cleavage between the base and sugar has been observed with a high probability for all nucleosides, resulting in predominantly intact base ions for guanosine, adenosine, and cytidine but not for thymidine where intact sugar ions are dominant. This behavior is influenced by the ionization energies of the nucleobases (G < A < C < T), which seems to determine the localization of the charge following the initial ionization. This charge transfer process can also be inferred from the production of protonated base ions, which have a similar dependence on the base ionization potential. Other dissociation pathways have also been identified, including further fragmentation of the base and sugar moieties for thymidine and guanosine, respectively, and partial breakup of the sugar ring without glycosidic bond cleavage mainly for adenosine and cytidine. These results show that charge localization following ionization by proton irradiation is important in determining dissociation pathways of isolated nucleosides, which could in turn influence direct radiation damage in DNA

Youth Sport Market Segmentation with the Theory of Planned Behavior

Approximately half (54%) of all American youth between the ages of 6 -17 play in at least one organized sport (SGMA: Sporting Goods Manufacturers Association, 2004). By adulthood; however, only 15.4% of American adults report that they participate in the same organized sport (SGMA, 2004). While this deficit can be explained by an expansion of alternate activities available to adults or a lack of continued opportunities, there is evidence that adult participation in sports and other leisure activities is significantly influenced by the repertoire of activities they participated in as children (Scott & Willits, 1989; 1998). Sport managers wound benefit from a more thorough understanding of the reasons for initial involvement and the intentions to continue participation in guiding future retention efforts

On the redundancy in large material datasets: efficient and robust learning with less data

Extensive efforts to gather materials data have largely overlooked potential data redundancy. In this study, we present evidence of a significant degree of redundancy across multiple large datasets for various material properties, by revealing that up to 95 % of data can be safely removed from machine learning training with little impact on in-distribution prediction performance. The redundant data is related to over-represented material types and does not mitigate the severe performance degradation on out-of-distribution samples. In addition, we show that uncertainty-based active learning algorithms can construct much smaller but equally informative datasets. We discuss the effectiveness of informative data in improving prediction performance and robustness and provide insights into efficient data acquisition and machine learning training. This work challenges the "bigger is better" mentality and calls for attention to the information richness of materials data rather than a narrow emphasis on data volume.Comment: Main text: 10 pages, 2 tables, 5 figures. Supplemental information: 29 pages, 1 table, 23 figure