Educational Games Increase Learning Effectiveness: A Case Study

Educators of all age groups-whether they be elementary, secondary, or postsecondary- have long recognized and known that there is a strong connection between student engagement in the learning process and student success. Given the environment in which we teach in today, with its growing diversity, larger class sizes, increased focus on high-stakes testing, and ever- expanding poverty levels, it is essential that teachers incorporate new teaching techniques into their classrooms as a tool for better engaging students in their own learning. To that end, this paper reviews the purported benefits of educational games in the classroom setting as a tool for increasing student interest and motivation in the learning process. It also discusses the process and results of creating an original game designed to test the idea that games can increase learning effectiveness. Through the use of that game, Knighthood: A Quest, I discovered that a well designed game can be utilized to motivate students to actively participate in the learning process, and that such games are valid replacement options for traditional skill and drill exercises used for review of information

Implications of Privacy Needs and Interpersonal Distancing Mechanisms for Space Station Design

The literature on privacy needs, personal space, interpersonal distancing, and crowding is reveiwed with special reference to spaceflight and spaceflight analogous conditions. A quantitative model is proposed for understanding privacy, interpersonal distancing, and performance. The implications for space station design is described

Implications of privacy needs and interpersonal distancing mechanisms for space station design

Privacy needs, or the need of people to regulate their degree of contact with one another, and interpersonal distancing mechanisms, which serve to satisfy these needs, are common in all cultures. Isolation, confinement, and other conditions accociated with space flight may at once accentuate privacy needs and limit the availability of certain common interpersonal contact. Loneliness occurs when people have less contact with one another than they desire. Crowding occurs when people have more contact with one another than they desire. Crowding, which is considered the greater threat to members of isolated and confined groups, can contribute to stress, a low quality of life, and poor performance. Drawing on the general literature on privacy, personal space, and interpersonal distancing, and on specialized literature on life aboard spacecraft and in spacecraft-analogous environments, a quantitative model for understanding privacy, interpersonal distancing, loneliness, and crowding was developed and the practical implications of this model for space station design were traced

The Hundredth Time

https://digitalcommons.library.umaine.edu/mmb-me/1568/thumbnail.jp

The equilibrium intrinsic crystal-liquid interface of colloids

We use confocal microscopy to study an equilibrated crystal-liquid interface in a colloidal suspension. Capillary waves roughen the surface, but locally the intrinsic interface is sharply defined. We use local measurements of the structure and dynamics to characterize the intrinsic interface, and different measurements find slightly different widths of this interface. In terms of the particle diameter $d$, this width is either $1.5d$ (based on structural information) or $2.4d$ (based on dynamics), both not much larger than the particle size. This work is the first direct experimental visualization of an equilibrated crystal-liquid interface.Comment: 6 pages; revised version, submitted to PNA

What Makes Leadership Necessary, Possible and Effective: The Psychological Dimensions

In this chapter we explore leadership from a psychological perspective. We consider the three questions raised by the examples discussed above. What about the human condition makes leadership necessary, what makes leadership possible, and what makes leadership effective? Considering leadership from these vantage points will allow us to organize a wealth of psychological knowledge about leading and following, and about doing them both well or not well