Exploring the Assessment Aspect of Differentiated Instruction: College EFL Learners\u27 Perspectives on Tiered Performance Tasks

If human beings are believed to be individually unique, why are students evaluated with standardized tests? Differentiated instruction, honoring individual differences of each learner, provides an alternative answer to the question by employing tiered performance tasks to address personal needs in assessment situations. To explore the applicability of differentiated instruction in an English as a Foreign Language (EFL) environment, this case study explored Taiwanese college students’ perspectives on tiered performance tasks and educational implications of the perspectives with regard to EFL learning and teaching at the tertiary level. Grounded in the humanistic stance of education and sociocultural view of learning, the study’s premise is that culturally responsive learner-centered instruction will promote English learning experience in a Chinese context. Data gathering techniques employed included observations, interviews, videotaping, and artifact collection, while data analysis procedures followed a three-step process: data reduction, data display, and conclusion drawing and verification. A total of 12 participants demonstrated generally positive responses to tiered performance tasks offered in a final examination for a freshmen English listening and speaking class. An overall acceptance of the assessment strategy was generated through recognition and appreciation of choices of leveled tasks, heightened motivation, increased efforts, improved English skills, and greater confidence. Concerns caused by the challenging tasks included complexity level, time required to complete the task, partnership, and score. Affirmative results were particularly evident in low-ranking students. The acceptance of tiered performance tasks indicated that differentiated instruction is promising in supporting English language learning of college EFL learners in Taiwan. Implications pointed to the needs of an authentic assessment to link teaching and learning, as well as an equitable relationship between the educator and the learner. Suggestions for future research were offered

Exploring the Assessment Aspect of Differentiated Instruction: College EFL Learners\u27 Perspectives on Tiered Performance Tasks

If human beings are believed to be individually unique, why are students evaluated with standardized tests? Differentiated instruction, honoring individual differences of each learner, provides an alternative answer to the question by employing tiered performance tasks to address personal needs in assessment situations. To explore the applicability of differentiated instruction in an English as a Foreign Language (EFL) environment, this case study explored Taiwanese college students’ perspectives on tiered performance tasks and educational implications of the perspectives with regard to EFL learning and teaching at the tertiary level. Grounded in the humanistic stance of education and sociocultural view of learning, the study’s premise is that culturally responsive learner-centered instruction will promote English learning experience in a Chinese context. Data gathering techniques employed included observations, interviews, videotaping, and artifact collection, while data analysis procedures followed a three-step process: data reduction, data display, and conclusion drawing and verification. A total of 12 participants demonstrated generally positive responses to tiered performance tasks offered in a final examination for a freshmen English listening and speaking class. An overall acceptance of the assessment strategy was generated through recognition and appreciation of choices of leveled tasks, heightened motivation, increased efforts, improved English skills, and greater confidence. Concerns caused by the challenging tasks included complexity level, time required to complete the task, partnership, and score. Affirmative results were particularly evident in low-ranking students. The acceptance of tiered performance tasks indicated that differentiated instruction is promising in supporting English language learning of college EFL learners in Taiwan. Implications pointed to the needs of an authentic assessment to link teaching and learning, as well as an equitable relationship between the educator and the learner. Suggestions for future research were offered

Hydrogen isotope study of petroleum and related organic substance

D/H and C^(13)/C^(12) of more than 90 crude oils from all over the world and ranging from Pliocene to Cambrian and other related organic substances have been analyzed to investigate the range of the δD values of petroleum and the controlling factors. δD values of crude oils range from -85 to -181‰. Samples of non-marine origin have much narrower δD values of -142 to -163‰. Liquid petroleum distilled from Kanai gas of Alaska has a δD value of -252‰ which is the most negative δD value for petroleum samples analyzed so far. While the gas fraction can be depleted in deuterium by about 55 to 70‰ relative to the oil fraction, there is practically no detectable difference in δD values between liquid and wax fractions of crude oil. It thus appears that the variation in δD values in crude oils in general is not caused by the compositional difference. However, under unusual situations such as "oil" distilled from the Kenai gas, the effect of chemical composition can be important. Evidences also show that variation in δD values of crude oils is inherited from the source materials. There exists correlation between latitude of sampling sites and δD values of crude oils. This indicates that terrestrial organic substance is a major component of source material for most crude oils. The results also seem to support the hypothesis that the lipid fraction is the major biologic source of petroleum. It also can be concluded from the results that the hydrogen isotopic data are useful in correlation between source rocks and reservoirs of petroleum and among crude oils of common origin. There are no systematic relationships between δD and SC13 values, and between δD values and geologic ages of the crude oils analyzed so far

Respect in the Classroom: A Developmental Approach

This article examines respect through Piaget\u27s theory, recent empirical research, and exemplary practice in order to highlight a developmental approach to understanding and fostering respect in the classroom

First-principles method of propagation of tightly bound excitons: exciton band structure of LiF and verification with inelastic x-ray scattering

We propose a simple first-principles method to describe propagation of tightly bound excitons. By viewing the exciton as a composite object (an effective Frenkel exciton in Wannier orbitals), we define an exciton kinetic kernel to encapsulate the exciton propagation and decay for all binding energy. Applied to prototypical LiF, our approach produces three exciton bands, which we verified quantitatively via inelastic x-ray scattering. The proposed real-space picture is computationally inexpensive and thus enables study of the full exciton dynamics, even in the presence of surfaces and impurity scattering. It also provides intuitive understanding to facilitate practical exciton engineering in semiconductors, strongly correlated oxides, and their nanostructures.Comment: 5 pages, 4 figures. Accepted by PR

Improved branch and bound algorithm for detecting SNP-SNP interactions in breast cancer

BACKGROUND: Single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in genes derived from distinct pathways are associated with a breast cancer risk. Identifying possible SNP-SNP interactions in genome-wide case–control studies is an important task when investigating genetic factors that influence common complex traits; the effects of SNP-SNP interaction need to be characterized. Furthermore, observations of the complex interplay (interactions) between SNPs for high-dimensional combinations are still computationally and methodologically challenging. An improved branch and bound algorithm with feature selection (IBBFS) is introduced to identify SNP combinations with a maximal difference of allele frequencies between the case and control groups in breast cancer, i.e., the high/low risk combinations of SNPs. RESULTS: A total of 220 real case and 334 real control breast cancer data are used to test IBBFS and identify significant SNP combinations. We used the odds ratio (OR) as a quantitative measure to estimate the associated cancer risk of multiple SNP combinations to identify the complex biological relationships underlying the progression of breast cancer, i.e., the most likely SNP combinations. Experimental results show the estimated odds ratio of the best SNP combination with genotypes is significantly smaller than 1 (between 0.165 and 0.657) for specific SNP combinations of the tested SNPs in the low risk groups. In the high risk groups, predicted SNP combinations with genotypes are significantly greater than 1 (between 2.384 and 6.167) for specific SNP combinations of the tested SNPs. CONCLUSIONS: This study proposes an effective high-speed method to analyze SNP-SNP interactions in breast cancer association studies. A number of important SNPs are found to be significant for the high/low risk group. They can thus be considered a potential predictor for breast cancer association

SNP-RFLPing 2: an updated and integrated PCR-RFLP tool for SNP genotyping

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>PCR-restriction fragment length polymorphism (RFLP) assay is a cost-effective method for SNP genotyping and mutation detection, but the manual mining for restriction enzyme sites is challenging and cumbersome. Three years after we constructed SNP-RFLPing, a freely accessible database and analysis tool for restriction enzyme mining of SNPs, significant improvements over the 2006 version have been made and incorporated into the latest version, SNP-RFLPing 2.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>The primary aim of SNP-RFLPing 2 is to provide comprehensive PCR-RFLP information with multiple functionality about SNPs, such as SNP retrieval to multiple species, different polymorphism types (bi-allelic, tri-allelic, tetra-allelic or indels), gene-centric searching, HapMap tagSNPs, gene ontology-based searching, miRNAs, and SNP500Cancer. The RFLP restriction enzymes and the corresponding PCR primers for the natural and mutagenic types of each SNP are simultaneously analyzed. All the RFLP restriction enzyme prices are also provided to aid selection. Furthermore, the previously encountered updating problems for most SNP related databases are resolved by an on-line retrieval system.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>The user interfaces for functional SNP analyses have been substantially improved and integrated. SNP-RFLPing 2 offers a new and user-friendly interface for RFLP genotyping that can be used in association studies and is freely available at <url>http://bio.kuas.edu.tw/snp-rflping2</url>.</p