Creating a Supportive Culture for Online Teaching: A Case Study of a Faculty Learning Community

This case study describes the creation of a supportive culture for online teaching at a western university that was transitioning to a new learning management system. The case study highlighted the creation of a faculty learning community as one strategy to address the challenge of faculty working through a change process. The faculty learning community provided a space for the development of best practices in teaching, drawing from the pedagogical experiences of teachers from diverse disciplines. The learning community also provided a venue for expanding the technical knowledge level of faculty members with a range of comfort levels with varied technologies

From the Chalkboard to the Bank: Teaching Educational Leaders to be Effective Fundraisers

The effective use of financial resources is critical for all educational institutions, especially those K-12 schools that rely on public funding for their main operating revenue. As public entities and state governments increasingly struggle to find the revenue necessary to operate prisons, fund Medicaid/Medicare, improve an aging infrastructure, support social welfare programs, and recover from the Great Recession, educational institutions are finding themselves directly competing with other public agencies for scarce resources. These factors resulted in 29 states reducing funding for public education (Evans, Schwab & Wagner, 2019; Leachman, Masterson, & Figueroa, 2017). In the face of fierce competition, educational leaders must learn how to effectively compete for scarce funds in order to provide the necessary resources that will allow their schools to flouris

Pilot testing a couples-focused intervention for mild cognitive impairment

The purpose of this pilot was to evaluate the acceptability, feasibility, and potential benefits of the multicomponent, Daily Enhancement of Meaningful Activity (DEMA) intervention, which was tailored to help couples facing mild cognitive impairment (MCI) work together to meet goals, remain engaged in meaningful activities, and adapt to changes over time. Using a single-group design, 10 individuals with MCI and their family caregivers were recruited to participate in the DEMA intervention over 6 biweekly sessions. Data were collected pre-and at 1 week and 3 months postintervention completion rates indicated the program and study procedures were well accepted. Qualitative and quantitative finding indicated positive trends in meaningful activity performance and maintenance of health-related outcomes, as well as high program satisfaction. The DEMA intervention is potentially promising but needs further testing in a randomized clinical trial

Creating a supportive culture for online teaching: A case study of a faculty learning community

This case study describes the creation of a supportive culture for online teaching at a western university that was transitioning to a new learning management system. The case study highlighted the creation of a faculty learning community as one strategy to address the challenge of faculty working through a change process. The faculty learning community provided a space for the development of best practices in teaching, drawing from the pedagogical experiences of teachers from diverse disciplines. The learning community also provided a venue for expanding the technical knowledge level of faculty members with a range of comfort levels with varied technologies

Prediction and Simulator Verification of Roll/Lateral Adverse Aeroservoelastic Rotorcraft–Pilot Couplings

The involuntary interaction of a pilot with an aircraft can be described as pilot-assisted oscillations. Such phenomena are usually only addressed late in the design process when they manifest themselves during ground/flight testing. Methods to be able to predict such phenomena as early as possible are therefore useful. This work describes a technique to predict the adverse aeroservoelastic rotorcraft–pilot couplings, specifically between a rotorcraft’s roll motion and the resultant involuntary pilot lateral cyclic motion. By coupling linear vehicle aeroservoelastic models and experimentally identified pilot biodynamic models, pilot-assisted oscillations and no-pilot-assisted oscillation conditions have been numerically predicted for a soft-in-plane hingeless helicopter with a lightly damped regressive lead–lag mode that strongly interacts with the roll modeat a frequency within the biodynamic band of the pilots. These predictions have then been verified using real-time flight-simulation experiments. The absence of any similar adverse couplings experienced while using only rigid-body models in the flight simulator verified that the observed phenomena were indeed aeroelastic in nature. The excellent agreement between the numerical predictions and the observed experimental results indicates that the techniques developed in this paper can be used to highlight the proneness of new or existing designs to pilot-assisted oscillation

Fe(I)-Mediated Reductive Cleavage and Coupling of CO_2: An Fe^(II)(μ-O,μ-CO)Fe^(II) Core

THF solutions of a new iron(I) source, [PhBP^(CH2_Cy_3)]Fe ([PhBP^(CH_2Cy_3)] = [PhBP(CH_2P(CH_2Cy)_2)_3]-), effect the reductive cleavage of CO_2 via O-atom transfer at ambient temperature. The dominant reaction pathway is bimetallic and leads to the formation of a structurally unprecedented diiron Fe^(II)(μ-O)(μ-CO)Fe^(II) core. X-ray data are also available to suggest that bimetallic reductive CO_2 coupling to generate oxalate occurs as a minor reaction pathway. These initial observations forecast a diverse reaction landscape between CO_2 and iron(I) synthons

CO_2 reduction by Fe(I): solvent control of C-O cleavage versus C-C coupling

This manuscript explores the product distribution of the reaction of carbon dioxide with reactive iron(I) complexes supported by tris(phosphino)borate ligands, [PhBP^R_3]- ([PhBP^R_3]- =[PhB(CH_2PR_2)_3]-; R = CH_2Cy,Ph, ^iPr, mter; mter = 3,5-meta-terphenyl). Our studies reveal an interesting and unexpected role for the solvent medium with respect to the course of the CO_2 activation reaction. For instance, exposure of methylcyclohexane (MeCy) solutions of [PhBP^(CH_2Cy)_3 ]Fe(PR’_3) to CO_2 yields the partial decarbonylation product {[PhBP^(CH_2Cy)_3 ]Fe}_2(µ-O)(µ-CO). When the reaction is instead carried out in benzene or THF, reductive coupling of CO_2 occurs to give the bridging oxalate species {[PhBP^(CH_2Cy_3 ]Fe}_2(µ- κOO’: κOO’-oxalato). Reaction studies aimed at understanding this solvent effect are presented, and suggest that the product profile is ultimately determined by the ability of the solvent to coordinate the iron center. When more sterically encumbering auxiliary ligands are employed to support the iron(I) center (i.e., [PhBP^(Ph)_3]- and [PhBP^(iPr)_3 ]-), complete decarbonylation is observed to afford structurally unusual diiron(II) products of the type {[PhBP^R_3]Fe}_2(µ-O). A mechanistic hypothesis that is consistent with the collection of results described is offered, and suggests that reductive coupling of CO_2 likely occurs from an electronically saturated “Fe^(II)–CO_2-” species

Folding Langmuir Monolayers

The maximum pressure a two-dimensional surfactant monolayer is able to withstand is limited by the collapse instability towards formation of three-dimensional material. We propose a new description for reversible collapse based on a mathematical analogy between the formation of folds in surfactant monolayers and the formation of Griffith Cracks in solid plates under stress. The description, which is tested in a combined microscopy and rheology study of the collapse of a single-phase Langmuir monolayer of 2-hydroxy-tetracosanoic acid (2-OH TCA), provides a connection between the in-plane rheology of LM's and reversible folding