Digital Badges, Bringing About Changes to STEM Credentialing and Instruction

Over the past year, faculty of the College of Education at Georgia Southern University in partnership with the First District RESA, several South Georgia school systems and eCOM of Scotland, have initiated a digital badging project that targets the professional development needs of Georgia teachers. The intent of the project is to provide opportunities for teacher learning across the 10 Teacher Assessment on Performance Standards (TAPS) of the Georgia Teacher Keys Effectiveness System (TKES). The project features credentialing and instructional innovations linked to the collection and use of “metadata”. Metadata provide details about learner accomplishments and learning pathways at a level of specificity not possibly revealed through diplomas, course grades, certificates or professional learning units (PLUs). The objective of the session is to provide participants will information about the Georgia Southern digital badging project and highlight the potential for badging to change STEM credentialing and instruction in both K-12 and higher education

The Biologics Price Competition and Innovation Act: Is a Generic Market for Biologics Attainable?

The Biologics Price Competition and Innovation Act of 2009 (BPCIA) provides an abbreviated approval pathway for biological therapeutic products shown to be biosimilar to an FDA-approved biological reference product. The BPCIA purported to reduce the price of biologics while promoting innovation. In two recent cases, the Federal Circuit interpreted a key provision of the BPCIA requiring an applicant to provide the reference product sponsor with notice 180 days before marketing the product. The Federal Circuit’s interpretation extends the exclusivity period already provided for the reference product sponsor, deterring innovation and price reduction. Thus, the Supreme Court granted certiorari in one of the cases. This Note will examine provisions of the BPCIA, discuss the two recent Federal Circuit decisions, offer an interpretation of the relevant BPCIA provisions and a proposed stance on the issues before the Supreme Court, and explain how the current interpretation impairs the potential for a generic market for biologics

The Waltzing Dead : The Merit of Pride and Prejudice and Zombies

When Seth Grahame-Smith's Pride and Prejudice and Zombies was published in 2009, the parody of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice that now takes place in the midst of a zombie apocalypse, few expected the novel to be more than a joke. However, it instead inspired a phenomenon that wholly consumed popular culture. The monster mashup fuses well-known classical literature with traditional horror monsters. In PPZ, the nineteenth-century novel of manners is introduced to the twentieth century monster of the Americas, the zombie. Through this combination, new interpretations of feminism, otherness, epidemics, and Gothic horror can be gleaned, providing a richer reading of both Austen's original text and Grahame-Smith's new text. The unusual combination of remix studies, zombie studies, and Austen studies has effectively created a monster.  M.A

An Inservice Model to Impact Life Science Classroom Practice: Part One

A model inservice program built on a theoretical foundation for changing behavior incorporates both teachers\u27 knowledge, their attitudes as well as what they do. What teachers do in the classroom depends on both what they know and how they feel about what they know, Changing what teachers know and do is accomplished in a three phase sequence, awareness, arousal and action. In the awareness phase, teachers are confronted with their knowledge needs. In the arousal phase, teacher generate interest in using what they know. Action is reflected in what teachers do and is reinforced when they have time to reflect on that action, its effect, its value and acceptance

Designing a Program to Develop Computer Science Master Teachers for an Underserved Rural Area

Due to a shortage of rural computer science teachers, researchers used a three-phase method to design a computer science endorsement, which will be coupled with an instructional coaching endorsement within an Educational Specialist degree program. The team conducted interviews of teachers as well as school and district level administrators in rural areas to determine needs and resources available to develop computer science master teachers. Interviewers also investigated recruitment, preparation and support processes pertinent to the program. Findings included that, although infrastructure for wireless access is lacking, school and district administrators are very interested in supporting teachers to become computer science master teachers. STEM teachers are especially interested in computer science content related to their teaching field. Partners indicated an interest in developing teacher leaders, in order to encourage a sustainable computer science program in the school and district. Information gathered was used to design a program that intends to meet the needs of potential rural computer science master teachers

An Inservice Model to Impact Life-Science Classroom Practice: Part Two

This model for an inservice program describes why teachers change the nature of their students\u27 experiences in science. In the evaluation study with 7th grade Life Science teachers in Southeast, evidence showed that as teachers\u27 knowledge in specific topics in biology was enhanced, their classroom use of this knowledge also changed. As their knowledge of science and alternative teaching practices was expanded, their attitudes toward teaching showed that they were more aware that there was more to learn but were also more confident that they could acquire the new knowledge they needed. In their classroom, their concerns for students showed significant shifts toward involving students more in their learning rather than being most concerned about managing or controlling them. This was especially true if there was an institutional willingness for them to use different teaching strategies. Thus based on this evaluation study, teachers are more likely to change if the changes are consistent with the external demands of their schooling context; and their internal belief systems

Inter-relations among motivation, self-perceived use of strategies and academic achievement in science: a study with spanish secondary school students

The relationship between motivation and the use of learning strategies is a focus of research in order to improve students' learning. Meaningful learning requires a learner's personal commitment to put forth the required effort needed to acquire new knowledge. This commitment involves emotional as well as cognitive and metacognitive factors, and requires the ability to manage different resources at hand, in order to achieve the proposed learning goals. The main objectives in the present study were to analyse: (a) Spanish secondary school students' motivation and self-perception of using strategies when learning science; (b) the nature of the relationship between motivation and perceived use of learning strategies; (c) the influence of different motivational, cognitive, metacognitive and management strategies on students' science achievement. The Motivated Strategies for Learning Questionnaire (MSLQ) was administered to 364 middle and high-school students in grades 7-11. For each participant, the academic achievement was provided by the respective science teacher. The results obtained from the Pearson product-moment correlations between the study variables and a stepwise regression analysis suggested that: (1) motivation, cognitive and metacognitive, and resource management strategies, have a significant influence on students' science achievement; (2) students' motivation acts as a kind of enabling factor for the intellectual effort, which is assessed by the self-perceived use of learning strategies in science; and, (3) motivational components have a greater impact on students' performance in science than cognitive and metacognitive strategies, with self-efficacy being the variable with the trongest influence. These results suggest a reflexion about the limited impact on science achievement of the self-perceived use of cognitive and metacognitive strategies, and highlight the importance of students' self-efficacy in science, in line with previous studies

An exploratory case study of Olympiad students’ attitudes towards and passion for science

Much is known about high school students’ attitudes towards science but there is almost no research on what passion for science might look like and how it might be manifested. This exploratory case study took advantage of a unique group of highly gifted science students participating in the Australian Science Olympiad (n=69) to explore their attitudes towards school science and science as presented in the Olympiad summer camp. In particular the role the summer camp might play in igniting the students’ passion for science was a focus of the research. Data were collected through a two tiered survey of students’ attitudes towards school science, an evaluative survey of the Olympiad summer camp and in-depth interviews with six participants. Findings indicated that Olympiad students generally had positive attitudes towards school science with most selecting science as one of their favourite subjects. However, an underlying ambivalence about school science was noted in the data. In contrast, the Olympiad summer camp transformed students’ positive attitudes into passion for science. Seven themes emerged from the data providing a foundation for a model of what academic passion for science looks like