Investigations in Geometry— A Hands-On Course for Grades 6-8 Pre-Service Teachers

This paper describes a geometry course at Virginia Commonwealth University for pre-scrvicc middle school teachers that features hands-on activities, group collaboration, and technology. Details of the topics and activities covered in this course are provided. Feedback from the first group of students to complete the course was gathered throughout the semester and student responses to the class format and topics are also discussed

A Toy Model of Flying Snake's Glide

We have developed a toy model of flying snake's glide [J.J. Socha, Nature vol. 418 (2002) 603.] by modifying a model for a falling paper. We have found that asymmetric oscillation is a key about why snake can glide. Further investigation for snake's glide will provide us details about how it can glide without a wing.Comment: 6 pages, to be submitted to J. Phys. Soc. Jpn. Revised Version submitted to the abov

Transitioning a Mathematics Specialist Preparation Program into an Interactive Online Program: Insights from the Developer and Candidate Perspectives

This paper will describe how the Virginia Commonwealth University mathematics specialist preparation program transitioned from a face-to-face format to a fully online format. We will describe the technology and instructional methods that are used for course meetings, activities, and assignments. We will describe the development and implementation of a mathematics activity from instructors designing the activity, participants completing the activity, and instructors providing feedback on the activity. One mathematics activity will be shared that demonstrates the process of the program model that includes independent work, small group work, and in-class discussions. We will describe one participant’s experience as she developed and implemented a capstone externship project in the preparation program and how activities in this program inspired her classroom practice more broadly

K-5 Mathematics Specialists\u27 Teaching and Learning about Fractions

This paper describes the fraction-based mathematical activities of two teachers who are part of 3 Mathematics Specialist preparation program. Their work with fractions is traced from two perspectives: 1) their interactions with students as they struggle with fraction concepts; and, 2) their personal journeys to develop deeper understandings of fractions as participants in the Rational Numbers course that is part of their degree program. Through their stories, we gain a better understanding of the complex nature of their work with students and how their participation in the Mathematics Specialist program helps support their work in the school buildings

Engineering stochasticity in gene expression

Stochastic fluctuations (noise) in gene expression can cause members of otherwise genetically identical populations to display drastically different phenotypes. An understanding of the sources of noise and the strategies cells employ to function reliably despite noise is proving to be increasingly important in describing the behavior of natural organisms and will be essential for the engineering of synthetic biological systems. Here we describe the design of synthetic constructs, termed ribosome competing RNAs (rcRNAs), as a means to rationally perturb noise in cellular gene expression. We find that noise in gene expression increases in a manner proportional to the ability of an rcRNA to compete for the cellular ribosome pool. We then demonstrate that operons significantly buffer noise between coexpressed genes in a natural cellular background and can even reduce the level of rcRNA enhanced noise. These results demonstrate that synthetic genetic constructs can significantly affect the noise profile of a living cell and, importantly, that operons are a facile genetic strategy for buffering against noise

Supporting Middle School Mathematics Specialists’ Work: A Case for Learning and Changing Teachers’ Perspectives

In this paper, we highlight one whole‐class discussion that took place in a middle school mathematics Rational Number and Proportional Reasoning course, one of the six mathematics courses teachers take to complete our state‐wide middle school mathematics specialist program. Statistical measures indicate that teachers made gains in their understanding of concepts and substantial gains in their views of teaching and preparedness. We provide a microanalysis of one of the lessons, to explain, in part, how they might have made this progress. To develop our argument, we coordinate a social analysis with an analysis of the types of specialized mathematical knowledge that teachers might have considered as they engaged in these discussions. As we will illustrate, these types of classroom discussions provided teachers opportunities to consider new visions for mathematics learning and teaching

A Commerce Power Seesaw: Balancing National League of Cities

This Article seeks to explore the developing principles of state sovereignty limitations on Congress’ exercise of its granted powers and the potential conflicts in reconciling the enforcement of strong federal policy interests with the allowance to the states of primary control over certain governmental functions. Since both tenth and eleventh amendment questions were raised by the application of the Fair Labor Standards Act’s ever broadening coverage to state employees and its grant of federal court jurisdiction over enforcement suits, and since the Act precipitated the League of Cities decision, the Court’s treatment of the Act will serve as the primary vehicle for considering the developing theme. The authors wish to suggest that the Court will eventually turn explicitly to a balancing test which will allow an ad hoc weighing of the federal and state interests at stake, a test often employed when the constitutional rights of two individuals or entities clash—here the “right” of Congress to regulate commerce is to be balanced against the right of the States to be sovereign in the exercise of certain powers

The Prospects for Individual Freedom: Toward Greater Fairness for All

Those who won our independence believed that the final end of the State was to make men free to develop their faculties; and that in its government the deliberative forces should prevail over the arbitrary. They valued liberty both as an end and as a means. Imagine that on June 1, 2001, the latest issue of United States Law Week listed the following cases for oral argument at the next October term of the United States Supreme Court...

Storage studies of Anaphes iole Girault (Hymenoptera: Mymaridae) at different developmental stages, temperatures and light-dark regimes

A series of experiments were conducted to study the storage life of Anaphes iole Girault (Hymenoptera: Mymaridae) parasitizing eggs of lygus bug Lygus hesperus Knight at different developmental stages, temperatures and photoperiods. Lygus eggs, parasitized by Anaphes iole were held for one, three, six and nine days and were stored at 10 and 4 ºC, and two photoperiods (complete darkness and 09:15 (L:D)) for 20, 40, 60, and 80 days. The highest adult emergence resulted from parasitized lygus eggs held for six days at 29 ºC and then stored for 40, 60 and 80 days. Adult emergence was better when eggs were stored at 10 ºC than at 4 ºC. Complete darkness gave better adult emergence than 9:15 (L:D) photoperiod. When six-day old parasitized lygus eggs were stored in complete darkness at 10 ºC for 20, 40, 60 and 80 days there were 62.90, 42.50, 29.60 and 8.35% emergence respectively. Significantly lower number of adult A. iole emerged from lygus eggs parasitized by A. iole then held for one, three and nine days after parasitization at 29 ºC then stored at 4 °C, 9:15 (L:D) photoperiod, than from eggs parasitized and held for six days at 29 ºC and then stored in complete darkness at 10 ºC