The Effects of Repeated Reading Interventions on First-Grade Reading Fluency

This study aimed to investigate the effects of daily repeated reading on first-grade students\u27 oral reading fluency scores and to examine the role of parental involvement in this process. The study used fluency benchmark scores and bi-weekly progress monitoring scores to collect data over a nine-week period. Although there was an initial statistically significant increase in scores, the study\u27s results showed no overall effect on oral reading fluency scores. Variables, including outliers and limited parental involvement, may have affected the study\u27s results. Further research with larger sample sizes and more rigorous control over variables is needed to confirm these findings

What can my body do for me? Seeking to improve body-satisfaction with a guided functionality mirror exposure

Research has identified negative body image as a growing concern among college-aged women. In turn, significant research has been devoted to exploring various treatments for body- dissatisfaction. Prior research has found mirror exposure (ME) interventions to be effective in improving body-satisfaction. However, few studies to date have incorporated aspects of positive body image within an ME treatment. The current study incorporates concepts of body- functionality within a guided ME task with the intent of facilitating participants appreciation of the functional capabilities of the body as opposed to mere physical appearance. All participants completed a set of measures assessing levels of body-appreciation, state body-esteem, and body- surveillance both before and after an ME task guided by an audio recording. Participants who were made to think about the functionality of their bodies during the audio recording displayed increased body-appreciation and increased orientation toward the fitness of their bodies. However, no significant differences were found between groups in terms of self-objectification or state body-image. Thus, this research supports prior findings identifying functionality as a means to improving body-appreciation and provides support for interventions that incorporate these concepts

TEACHING LIKE A MOUNTAIN: TOWARD A POETIC PEDAGOGY OF PRESENCE IN THE MIDST OF EXPOSURE

Drawing on my climb of Mount Rainier to frame my inquiry, I meander through the circuitous and strenuous terrain of my personal history in education to clarify my identification with transformative learning and my constantly evolving pedagogical temperament. I start with the premise that each student is thrown into an elusive world of inherited stories and expectations. I presume that she embodies her own rhythms of change and metamorphosis, her own specific ways of expanding and contracting in response to what she is engaging and learning, and that this shapes and is shaped by where she comes from and her consciousness of the world in which she dwells (Abram, 2009, p. 19). Reflecting my presumption, I take my reader on a journey through a series of movements wherein I discover the cognitive topology of my inquiry into exposure and presence.Grounding this interpretive study philosophically in Somerville's (2007, 2008) postmodern emergence, I employ Krall's (1988) personal history research heuristic to guide my poetic exploration of thrownness (Heidegger, 1962) in education. Writing against the backdrop of "the mountain," I uncover and highlight significant moments with exposure and presence to explicate how I have negotiated complicated relationships with teachers, students, and my thrown self, and navigated various theoretical and concrete pathways that have presented themselves as provocative and heartening guides along the way. As my reader will discover, I believe that if we seek to avail ourselves of and transcend the inherited stories and expectations we have learned to live out in the classroom, then we are compelled to consider that our venture will require of us a great deal of curiosity, compassion, courage and creativity. With this in mind, I have become convinced while traversing the landscape of my educational past that an important aspect of my role as a teacher is to expose and be present to students in a way that supports and honors their specific ways of responding to what they are engaging and learning, and awakens them to possibilities not yet discovered regarding their being-and-becoming-whole-in-education

Livability and Smart Growth

Lessons from a Surdna Foundation Initiativ

Modeling the public health impact of malaria vaccines for developers and policymakers

Efforts to develop malaria vaccines show promise. Mathematical model-based estimates of the potential demand, public health impact, and cost and financing requirements can be used to inform investment and adoption decisions by vaccine developers and policymakers on the use of malaria vaccines as complements to existing interventions. However, the complexity of such models may make their outputs inaccessible to non-modeling specialists. This paper describes a Malaria Vaccine Model (MVM) developed to address the specific needs of developers and policymakers, who need to access sophisticated modeling results and to test various scenarios in a user-friendly interface. The model's functionality is demonstrated through a hypothetical vaccine.; The MVM has three modules: supply and demand forecast; public health impact; and implementation cost and financing requirements. These modules include pre-entered reference data and also allow for user-defined inputs. The model includes an integrated sensitivity analysis function. Model functionality was demonstrated by estimating the public health impact of a hypothetical pre-erythrocytic malaria vaccine with 85% efficacy against uncomplicated disease and a vaccine efficacy decay rate of four years, based on internationally-established targets. Demand for this hypothetical vaccine was estimated based on historical vaccine implementation rates for routine infant immunization in 40 African countries over a 10-year period. Assumed purchase price was $5 per dose and injection equipment and delivery costs were$0.40 per dose.; The model projects the number of doses needed, uncomplicated and severe cases averted, deaths and disability-adjusted life years (DALYs) averted, and cost to avert each. In the demonstration scenario, based on a projected demand of 532 million doses, the MVM estimated that 150 million uncomplicated cases of malaria and 1.1 million deaths would be averted over 10 years. This is equivalent to 943 uncomplicate cases and 7 deaths averted per 1,000 vaccinees. In discounted 2011 US dollars, this represents $11 per uncomplicated case averted and$1,482 per death averted. If vaccine efficacy were reduced to 75%, the estimated uncomplicated cases and deaths averted over 10 years would decrease by 14% and 19%, respectively.; The MVM can provide valuable information to assist decision-making by vaccine developers and policymakers, information which will be refined and strengthened as field studies progress allowing further validation of modeling assumptions

Improving instructional design consultation through the use of nonverbal communication

Communication skills play a critical role in the instructional design (ID) process. As an instructional materials developer, the instructional designer must rely heavily on verbal communication skills; as an instructional consultant, the instructional designer must rely heavily on nonverbal communication skills. The importance of nonverbal communication skills is underscored in the literature, which suggests that approximately 90% of the message in a two-way communication is based on nonverbal elements of the message (Englesman, 1974; Garrison, 1984). Thus, an effective instructional designer must develop the ability to interpret and send nonverbal messages properly

Robot Rights? Let's Talk about Human Welfare Instead

The 'robot rights' debate, and its related question of 'robot responsibility', invokes some of the most polarized positions in AI ethics. While some advocate for granting robots rights on a par with human beings, others, in a stark opposition argue that robots are not deserving of rights but are objects that should be our slaves. Grounded in post-Cartesian philosophical foundations, we argue not just to deny robots 'rights', but to deny that robots, as artifacts emerging out of and mediating human being, are the kinds of things that could be granted rights in the first place. Once we see robots as mediators of human being, we can understand how the `robots rights' debate is focused on first world problems, at the expense of urgent ethical concerns, such as machine bias, machine elicited human labour exploitation, and erosion of privacy all impacting society's least privileged individuals. We conclude that, if human being is our starting point and human welfare is the primary concern, the negative impacts emerging from machinic systems, as well as the lack of taking responsibility by people designing, selling and deploying such machines, remains the most pressing ethical discussion in AI.Comment: Accepted to the AIES 2020 conference in New York, February 2020. The final version of this paper will appear in Proceedings of the 2020 AAAI/ACM Conference on AI, Ethics, and Societ