An Interview with Miriam Schcolnik: Reading, E-Reading and Writing and Their Assessment

Dr. Miriam Schcolnik (emerita) is the former Director of the Language Learning Center of the Division of Foreign Languages at Tel Aviv University. For three decades she coordinated and taught EAP (English for Academic Purposes) courses as well as a course in Technology in Language Teaching. She has developed many online learning environments, multimedia courseware packages, EFL textbooks, and teachers' resource books. Her research interests are e-reading and writing, and the use of digital tools to facilitate language learning and communication

Singlet Higgs Phenomenology and the Electroweak Phase Transition

We study the phenomenology of gauge singlet extensions of the Standard Model scalar sector and their implications for the electroweak phase transition. We determine the conditions on the scalar potential parameters that lead to a strong first order phase transition as needed to produce the observed baryon asymmetry of the universe. We analyze the constraints on the potential parameters derived from Higgs boson searches at LEP and electroweak precision observables. For models that satisfy these constraints and that produce a strong first order phase transition, we discuss the prospective signatures in future Higgs studies at the Large Hadron Collider and a Linear Collider. We argue that such studies will provide powerful probes of phase transition dynamics in models with an extended scalar sector.Comment: 36 pages, 13 figures, matches published version; Version with higher resolution figures available at http://www.its.caltech.edu/~profumo/higgs/EWPT.pd

An Interview with Marcia Tate: Formative Assessment and Brain Based Learning

In this interview, Dr. Marcia Tate discusses her work and focuses on critical issues in brain based learning, and the need for both formative and summative assessment. Tangential issues such as grade retention, and response to intervention are also discussed. It is hope that this interview will assist teachers in the instructional and learning process and aid in both formative and summative assessment

An Interview with Ajay Singh: The Ages and Stages Questionnaire (ASQ)

The Ages and Stages Questionnaire is one of the most well researched and utilized instruments in use today in developmental centers, Head Start Facilities and kindergarten and first grade schools. In this interview Dr. Ajay Singh discusses the main components of the test and responds to questions as to its utilization

Improving Instructional Pedagogy: What are the Issues?

This brief review paper examines some of the issues and concerns relative to the improvement of teacher instruction and discusses some of the inter-personal as well as the intrapersonal concerns and reviews some of the most salient constructs

Student Reactions to Announcements-Auditory and Visual (Email)

For some instructors in some classes, it is difficult to engage students, prompt students to participate in Discussion Board and submit work on time. The present study utilized a counterbalanced study to explore the issue of announcements, prompts and supportive reminders with undergraduates and graduate students. Results of this preliminary study are provided and discussed

Recommendations about the Big Ideas in Statistics Education: A Retrospective from Curriculum and Research

Five decades of research and curriculum development on the teaching and learning of statistics have produced many recommendations from both researchers and national organizations on the statistical education of our students. Within the last ten years work by both statisticians and statistics educators has focused on a collection of big ideas that are the most important concepts and processes to develop the statistical thinking of our students, our work force, and the lifelong statistical literacy of our citizens. In this paper I look back at the roots of big ideas in statistics education and identify what I believe are the two most important overarching ideas for the statistical education of our students as they progress from the elementary years into tertiary. The paper discusses research on student thinking about big ideas in statistics and presents recommendations for the future of teaching and research in statistics education