Bridging students: successful transition from high school to college

38 | P a g e BRIDGING STUDENTS – SUCCESSFUL TRANSITION FROM HIGH SCHOOL TO COLLEGE Tang Yee Voon and Wong Shae Lynn Sunway College Johor Bahru (MALAYSIA) [email protected], [email protected] +607-3596880 Abstract Transitioning from secondary school to college is an important developmental milestone that holds the potential for personal growth and behavioral change (Fromme, 2008). It involves changes in roles, additional challenges and responsibilities, be it academic or social (Conley et al., 2014). However, secondary school students often enter college unprepared for what is expected of them because their high school experiences often fail to prepare them for postsecondary education (Bangser, 2008). Key stressors for college students include personal freedom, college instructors and instructions, programme structures as well as testing and grades (Johnston, 2010). In addition to the stressors, students are not equipped with the skills required for successful college transition. These skills include academic skills, self-understanding (metacognition), selfadvocacy, executive function, motivation and confidence, key cognitive strategies and key knowledge about post-secondary education (Johnston, 2010; Landmark College, 2009). This paper embarks on a study specifically sought to identify transitional barriers faced by postsecondary students who are enrolled in the Pre-University programmes at Sunway College Johor Bahru. The outcome would also highlight the inadequacies of their pre-college preparation years and their lack of crucial skills to survive the college years. It is our hope that through this effort, we are able to establish approaches to support students in making a successful transition from high school to college. Successful transition is imperative because the benefits of postsecondary education are compelling. For an individual, this means getting jobs with higher wages and career advancement opportunities. For the country, this means a productive workforce and international competitiveness. Hence, successful transition to college should be a challenge shouldered by all parties, including policy makers, teachers and parents

Effective teaching practices redefined.

The education sector in Malaysia is becoming increasingly competitive and in order for the college to emerge at the top, effective teaching that promotes student learning must be emphasized. However, the extent to which lecturers understand the meaning of effective teaching is debatable. Following the framework of Berliner (1988) and Sandholtz (2011), both studies agree that student learning can only occur if teachers deal with classroom management concerns first before focusing on teaching instruction. The latter study even pointed out that teachers are often engaged in instructive methodologies instead of reviewing classroom management as a means of effective teaching. This has triggered us to examine our college lecturers’ perspectives of this issue: to query and inspect the extent of our college lecturers’ understanding of effective teaching and we hope to clarify and redefine the prerequisites of being an effective lecturer. This study is conducted by means of a survey to investigate the responses and views of Sunway College lecturers towards the strategies and approaches they have undertaken in classrooms and will aim to understand the subjective meaning of their experience. In addition, the effectiveness of the strategies and approaches employed by lecturers in class would be evaluated from the students’ viewpoints, in lieu of seeking parallelism in views. The outcome of this investigation is intended to provide our college lecturers a more accurate direction towards an effective teaching practice. In addition, students’ perspectives in productive learning can be reestablished, which would allow us to reflect and improvise on our current teaching skills and ultimately achieve a more successful breakthrough at both ends

THEMIS Observations of the Magnetopause Electron Diffusion Region: Large Amplitude Waves and Heated Electrons

We present the first observations of large amplitude waves in a well-defined electron diffusion region at the sub-solar magnetopause using data from one THEMIS satellite. These waves identified as whistler mode waves, electrostatic solitary waves, lower hybrid waves and electrostatic electron cyclotron waves, are observed in the same 12-sec waveform capture and in association with signatures of active magnetic reconnection. The large amplitude waves in the electron diffusion region are coincident with abrupt increases in electron parallel temperature suggesting strong wave heating. The whistler mode waves which are at the electron scale and enable us to probe electron dynamics in the diffusion region were analyzed in detail. The energetic electrons (~30 keV) within the electron diffusion region have anisotropic distributions with T_{e\perp}/T_{e\parallel}>1 that may provide the free energy for the whistler mode waves. The energetic anisotropic electrons may be produced during the reconnection process. The whistler mode waves propagate away from the center of the 'X-line' along magnetic field lines, suggesting that the electron diffusion region is a possible source region of the whistler mode waves

Proton incorporations and superconductivity in a cobalt oxyhydrate

We report the evidence of proton incorporations in a newly-discovered cobalt oxyhydrate superconductor. During the hydration process for Na$_{0.32}$CoO$_{2}$ by the direct reaction with water liquid, it was shown that substantial NaOH was gradually liberated, indicating that H$^{+}$ is incorporated into the hydrated compound. Combined with the thermogravimetric analysis, the chemical composition of the typical sample is Na$_{0.22}$H$_{0.1}$CoO$_{2}\cdot 0.85$H$_{2}$O, which shows bulk superconductivity at 4.4 K.Comment: 9 pages, 4 figure

Positronium reflection and positronium beams

Specular reflection of positronium, Ps was observed and that there is adequate intensity at higher energies to make further study worthwhile was established. The scattering appears to be restricted to the outermost surface with a mean free path of (0.75 + or - 0.15)A for Ps in LiF(100). With a greater intensity Ps beam one should see higher order diffraction beams as the result of the periodicity of the surface. Ps diffraction thus offers the possibility of being a novel and valuable probe to study the outermost surface and to study adsorbants on it. Two methods for producing Ps beams are described

Structures of minute virus of mice replication initiator protein N-terminal domain: insights into DNA nicking and origin binding

This is the author's accepted manuscript. The original is available at http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0042682214005236Members of the Parvoviridae family all encode a non-structural protein 1 (NS1) that directs replication of single-stranded viral DNA, packages viral DNA into capsid, and serves as a potent transcriptional activator. Here we report the X-ray structure of the minute virus of mice (MVM) NS1 N-terminal domain at 1.45 Å resolution, showing that sites for dsDNA binding, ssDNA binding and cleavage, nuclear localization, and other functions are integrated on a canonical fold of the histidine-hydrophobic-histidine superfamily of nucleases, including elements specific for this Protoparvovirus but distinct from its Bocaparvovirus or Dependoparvovirus orthologs. High resolution structural analysis reveals a nickase active site with an architecture that allows highly versatile metal ligand binding. The structures support a unified mechanism of replication origin recognition for homotelomeric and heterotelomeric parvoviruses, mediated by a basic-residue-rich hairpin and an adjacent helix in the initiator proteins and by tandem tetranucleotide motifs in the replication origins

Rainwater availability assessment for tourism development: a case study of Turtle Islands Park, Sabah

This study mainly focused on the rainwater availability assessment in Turtle Islands Park, Sabah, Malaysia. Consisting of three small islands, this marine park is home to two endangered turtle species – Green and Hawkbills turtles. This special feature of the islands attracts tourist around the world, thus increasing the demand of freshwater supply for tourism development in the marine park. However, due to the shortage of freshwater from the ground due to salinity intrusion, rainwater is seen to be an alternative in fulfilling the freshwater demand. To evaluate the source of freshwater in these islands, information is obtained from the main users of the water source, which are the Sabah Park officers, the approved tour operator on the islands and the security forces. The rainwater tanks available on the islands are calculated to assess the storing capacity of rainwater. The water demand was estimated by multiplying the number of visitors with the average water usage per visitor. With the existing water tanks, this study found that the Turtle Islands Park has the ability to store 414 m3 of rainwater in Selingaan island, 3.2 m3 in Gulisaan island, and 102.1 m3 in Bakkungan Kechil island. However, the monthly water demand of each island exceeds the existing storage tanks, hence it is proposed that the number of rainwater tanks be increased to harvest as much rainfall as possible for the use of the islands’ inhabitants

Two distinct modes of metal ion binding in the nuclease active site of a viral DNA-packaging terminase: insight into the two-metal-ion catalytic mechanism

Many dsDNA viruses encode DNA-packaging terminases, each containing a nuclease domain that resolves concatemeric DNA into genome-length units. Terminase nucleases resemble the RNase H-superfamily nucleotidyltransferases in folds, and share a two-metal-ion catalytic mechanism. Here we show that residue K428 of a bacteriophage terminase gp2 nuclease domain mediates binding of the metal cofactor Mg2+. A K428A mutation allows visualization, at high resolution, of a metal ion binding mode with a coupled-octahedral configuration at the active site, exhibiting an unusually short metal-metal distance of 2.42 A° . Such proximity of the two metal ions may play an essential role in catalysis by generating a highly positive electrostatic niche to enable formation of the negatively charged pentacovalent phosphate transition state, and provides the structural basis for distinguishing Mg2+ from Ca2+. Using a metal ion chelator -thujaplicinol as a molecular probe, we observed a second mode of metal ion binding at the active site, mimicking the DNA binding state. Arrangement of the active site residues differs drastically from those in RNase H-like nucleases, suggesting a drifting of the active site configuration during evolution. The two distinct metal ion binding modes unveiledmechanistic details of the two-metalion catalysis at atomic resolution

Utilizing repeated gps surveys from field operations for development of agricultural field dems.

Topographic data collected using RTK-DGPS-equipped farm vehicles during field operations could addadditional benefits to the original capital investment in the equipment through the development of high-accuracy field DEMs. Repeated surveys of elevation data from field operations may improve DEM accuracy over time. However, minimizing the amount of data to be processed and stored is also an important goal for practical implementation. A method was developed to utilize repeated GPS surveys acquired during field operations for generating field-level DEMs. Elevation measurement error was corrected through a continuity analysis. Fuzzy logic (FL) and weighted averaging (WA) methods were used to combine new surveys with past elevation estimates without requiring storage and reprocessing of past survey data. After 20 surveys were included, the DEM of the study area generated with FL and WA methods had an average root mean squared error (RMSE) of 0.08 m, which was substantially lower than the RMSE of 0.16 m associated with the DEM developed by averaging all data points in each grid. With minimum control of errors in elevation measurements, the effect of these errors can be reduced with appropriate data processing, including continuity analysis, fuzzy logic, and weighted averaging. Two years of GPS surveys of elevation data from field operations could reduce elevation error by 50% in field DEMs