The Relationship of Classroom Variables and Academic Achievement Across the Preschool Year

Preschool education is designed to foster school readiness among three to five-year-old children before entering kindergarten. Past research suggests that elements of the classroom, such as quality of teacher-child interactions, can influence the development of academic and social skills during the preschool year. Utilizing data from a longitudinal correlational study, the current study investigates the relationship between classroom variables and academic achievement throughout the preschool year. The findings suggest that there is a significant relationship between classroom variables and student outcomes, which calls for further research investigating the importance of high-quality preschool programs for young children. Research Questions: What is the relationship between quality teacher-child interactions and academic achievement? How are classroom variables related to students’ development of academic skills and school readiness?https://ecommons.udayton.edu/roesch_symposium_content/1043/thumbnail.jp

Sustainability Education at the University of Dayton

To prepare for this Researched Argument writing assignment, I completed a research proposal that involved drafting a research question and creating a general timeline for conducting reseach leading up to this project\u27s final submission. I then analyzed ten different sources through creating an annotated bibliography that examined the credibility, content, and relevance of each resource in relation to my paper\u27s topic. In addition to collecting resouces, I personally attended SAP events and interviewed the SAP student leader in order to understand the innerworkings of sustainability education at the University of Dayton. I then composed a draft that was analyzed by my professor and reviewed by my peers before the project\u27s final submission. Editor\u27s note: For this paper, the author received the English 200 Excellence in Writing Award ($100 prize)

The Relationship between Classroom Variables and Academic Achievement across the Preschool Year

Preschool education is designed to foster social, cognitive, and academic gains for three- to five-year-old children before they enter kindergarten. Preschool education provides three- to five-year-old children with opportunities to participate in structured educational activities and to interact with groups of peers. The current study aimed to investigate the relationship between specific elements of successful preschool classrooms and student outcomes across the preschool year utilizing data from 125 preschool classrooms in the Midwest. Controlling for demographic information, it was found that the implementation of social-emotional learning was significantly positively correlated with the development of self-regulation and literacy abilities, and increased focus on direct instruction was significantly negatively correlated to physical development

The mobility of experiential learning pedagogy: transferring ideas and practices from a large- to a small-campus setting

In this article, we examine the development of a new, experiential learning human geography and planning course at a smaller campus in Newfoundland, Canada. Our interest is twofold: to consider how pedagogical approaches can be transferred between a large urban campus and a small-town location; and to examine the benefits and complications of such transfers through a reflective examination of the resulting experiential learning program. The article captures the experiences of students, faculty, and university engagement staff in the deployment of the course. From these perspectives, we situate the decision to transfer an existing program across universities, the nuances of adapting such programs to the local context, and the challenge of meeting student desires for experiential learning amidst experimental pedagogical approaches. The paper concludes by suggesting that transferring pedagogical models across locations requires flexibility in terms of ensuring that new modules fit existing program constraints, and that such transfers have the potential to both challenge and positively transform experiential learning processes

OATP1B2 deficiency protects against paclitaxel-induced neurotoxicity

Paclitaxel is among the most widely used anticancer drugs and is known to cause a dose-limiting peripheral neurotoxicity, the initiating mechanisms of which remain unknown. Here, we identified the murine solute carrier organic anion–transporting polypeptide B2 (OATP1B2) as a mediator of paclitaxel-induced neurotoxicity. Additionally, using established tests to assess acute and chronic paclitaxel-induced neurotoxicity, we found that genetic or pharmacologic knockout of OATP1B2 protected mice from mechanically induced allodynia, thermal hyperalgesia, and changes in digital maximal action potential amplitudes. The function of this transport system was inhibited by the tyrosine kinase inhibitor nilotinib through a noncompetitive mechanism, without compromising the anticancer properties of paclitaxel. Collectively, our findings reveal a pathway that explains the fundamental basis of paclitaxel-induced neurotoxicity, with potential implications for its therapeutic management

Genetic Sharing with Cardiovascular Disease Risk Factors and Diabetes Reveals Novel Bone Mineral Density Loci.

Bone Mineral Density (BMD) is a highly heritable trait, but genome-wide association studies have identified few genetic risk factors. Epidemiological studies suggest associations between BMD and several traits and diseases, but the nature of the suggestive comorbidity is still unknown. We used a novel genetic pleiotropy-informed conditional False Discovery Rate (FDR) method to identify single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) associated with BMD by leveraging cardiovascular disease (CVD) associated disorders and metabolic traits. By conditioning on SNPs associated with the CVD-related phenotypes, type 1 diabetes, type 2 diabetes, systolic blood pressure, diastolic blood pressure, high density lipoprotein, low density lipoprotein, triglycerides and waist hip ratio, we identified 65 novel independent BMD loci (26 with femoral neck BMD and 47 with lumbar spine BMD) at conditional FDR < 0.01. Many of the loci were confirmed in genetic expression studies. Genes validated at the mRNA levels were characteristic for the osteoblast/osteocyte lineage, Wnt signaling pathway and bone metabolism. The results provide new insight into genetic mechanisms of variability in BMD, and a better understanding of the genetic underpinnings of clinical comorbidity

Potential of Core-Collapse Supernova Neutrino Detection at JUNO

JUNO is an underground neutrino observatory under construction in Jiangmen, China. It uses 20kton liquid scintillator as target, which enables it to detect supernova burst neutrinos of a large statistics for the next galactic core-collapse supernova (CCSN) and also pre-supernova neutrinos from the nearby CCSN progenitors. All flavors of supernova burst neutrinos can be detected by JUNO via several interaction channels, including inverse beta decay, elastic scattering on electron and proton, interactions on C12 nuclei, etc. This retains the possibility for JUNO to reconstruct the energy spectra of supernova burst neutrinos of all flavors. The real time monitoring systems based on FPGA and DAQ are under development in JUNO, which allow prompt alert and trigger-less data acquisition of CCSN events. The alert performances of both monitoring systems have been thoroughly studied using simulations. Moreover, once a CCSN is tagged, the system can give fast characterizations, such as directionality and light curve

Detection of the Diffuse Supernova Neutrino Background with JUNO

As an underground multi-purpose neutrino detector with 20 kton liquid scintillator, Jiangmen Underground Neutrino Observatory (JUNO) is competitive with and complementary to the water-Cherenkov detectors on the search for the diffuse supernova neutrino background (DSNB). Typical supernova models predict 2-4 events per year within the optimal observation window in the JUNO detector. The dominant background is from the neutral-current (NC) interaction of atmospheric neutrinos with 12C nuclei, which surpasses the DSNB by more than one order of magnitude. We evaluated the systematic uncertainty of NC background from the spread of a variety of data-driven models and further developed a method to determine NC background within 15\% with {\it{in}} {\it{situ}} measurements after ten years of running. Besides, the NC-like backgrounds can be effectively suppressed by the intrinsic pulse-shape discrimination (PSD) capabilities of liquid scintillators. In this talk, I will present in detail the improvements on NC background uncertainty evaluation, PSD discriminator development, and finally, the potential of DSNB sensitivity in JUNO

Real-time Monitoring for the Next Core-Collapse Supernova in JUNO

Core-collapse supernova (CCSN) is one of the most energetic astrophysical events in the Universe. The early and prompt detection of neutrinos before (pre-SN) and during the SN burst is a unique opportunity to realize the multi-messenger observation of the CCSN events. In this work, we describe the monitoring concept and present the sensitivity of the system to the pre-SN and SN neutrinos at the Jiangmen Underground Neutrino Observatory (JUNO), which is a 20 kton liquid scintillator detector under construction in South China. The real-time monitoring system is designed with both the prompt monitors on the electronic board and online monitors at the data acquisition stage, in order to ensure both the alert speed and alert coverage of progenitor stars. By assuming a false alert rate of 1 per year, this monitoring system can be sensitive to the pre-SN neutrinos up to the distance of about 1.6 (0.9) kpc and SN neutrinos up to about 370 (360) kpc for a progenitor mass of 30$M_{\odot}$ for the case of normal (inverted) mass ordering. The pointing ability of the CCSN is evaluated by using the accumulated event anisotropy of the inverse beta decay interactions from pre-SN or SN neutrinos, which, along with the early alert, can play important roles for the followup multi-messenger observations of the next Galactic or nearby extragalactic CCSN.Comment: 24 pages, 9 figure

Nat Genet

The function of the majority of genes in the mouse and human genomes remains unknown. The mouse embryonic stem cell knockout resource provides a basis for the characterization of relationships between genes and phenotypes. The EUMODIC consortium developed and validated robust methodologies for the broad-based phenotyping of knockouts through a pipeline comprising 20 disease-oriented platforms. We developed new statistical methods for pipeline design and data analysis aimed at detecting reproducible phenotypes with high power. We acquired phenotype data from 449 mutant alleles, representing 320 unique genes, of which half had no previous functional annotation. We captured data from over 27,000 mice, finding that 83% of the mutant lines are phenodeviant, with 65% demonstrating pleiotropy. Surprisingly, we found significant differences in phenotype annotation according to zygosity. New phenotypes were uncovered for many genes with previously unknown function, providing a powerful basis for hypothesis generation and further investigation in diverse systems.Comment in : Genetic differential calculus. [Nat Genet. 2015] Comment in : Scaling up phenotyping studies. [Nat Biotechnol. 2015