EFFECTS OF THE SELF- DETERMINED LEARNING MODEL OF INSTRUCTION ON GOAL ATTAINMENT AND SELF-DETERMINATION FOR STUDENTS WITH AUTISM SPECTRUM DISORDER.

Even with current transition practice and service delivery requirements mandated for students with disabilities by the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA, 2004) participation in postsecondary education and employment for individuals with autism remains low (Shattuck et al., 2012; Newman, Wagner, Cameto, & Knokey, 2011). The purpose of this study was to determine the effects of the Self-Determined Learning Model of Instruction (SDLMI; Wehmeyer, Palmer, Agran, Mithaug, & Martin, 2000). The intervention was designed to facilitate student development, and participation in community college course settings, increase academic and vocational goal attainment and self-determined behavior while decreasing support needs. The SDLMI has been shown to be effective for teaching students with disabilities how to access the general education curriculum and increase self-determination skills to achieve academic and vocational goals. A multiple probe design across participants with four college-aged students with autism evaluated the effects of the intervention for three different postsecondary education goals. Study findings show the extent to which the intervention affects participants’ ability to be more self-determined in their decision-making regarding the management of postsecondary educational goals and course requirements using self-directed learning. The SDLMI Teacher’s Guide for Model Implementation (Shogren, Wehmeyer, Burke, & Palmer, 2017) and teacher-facilitated procedures (National Technical Assistance Center on Transition, 2017) were used to ensure intervention implementation fidelity. The researcher and trained research assistant compared real time data in point-by-point agreement ratios to quantify the number of times the observers agreed about what they saw in each observation to determine differences during data collection. The baseline, intervention, and maintenance sessions lasted 13 weeks, and data were collected during all sessions. Results from the intervention effects showed a functional relationship (cause-effect) between the intervention and goal attainment. Participants increased their ability to use self-determined behaviors to attain goals through student questions, teacher objectives, and educational supports. Self-determined behaviors increased while support needs greatly decreased. Social validity data were collected through student self-monitoring using goal attainment scaling and parent perspectives to inform support intensity results. Factors related to self-determination, motivation, and expectations for future goals contribute to a better understanding of goal attainment through this research

Between the hedges: stories music cooperating teachers tell of their identities as teacher educators

A plethora of literature on cooperating teachers exists, but it is written from university researchers’ perspectives, leaving cooperating teachers’ voices silenced. Most researchers discuss what cooperating teachers do rather than who cooperating teachers say they are, particularly when they speak of themselves as teacher educators. The focus of this study was specifically on music cooperating teachers, and its purpose was to investigate their identities as narrative constructions. I employed Connelly and Clandinin’s (1999) stories to live by, Bruner’s (1987; 1991; 2002) self-making, and Ricoeur’s ipse-identity and idem-identity to suggest that identity stories were multiple, mobile, and contingent. Still, human beings sought continuity in their identity stories over time, and such stories were shaped in social and institutional contexts. Using touchstones of narrative inquiry (see Clandinin & Caine, 2013), I held six planned conversations with two other music cooperating teachers, which first generated field texts, and then, led to many follow-up conversations. The participants and I engaged in an eight-month process of co-constructing interim research texts. Clandinin acknowledged that, because identity stories were works in progress, standard research texts often were ineffective vehicles used to convey narrative identity. Therefore, I implemented a novella, an emotional story relying on character development, to present the final research text, and I entitled it “Between the Hedges.” Within my interpretations and reflections on “Between the Hedges,” I discussed how, when considering ourselves as music teacher educators, we told public and private stories of family and school, further situated as children, students, and parents. Parents and music teachers were highly influential figures, and not always in positive ways. Although the situated identity stories were multiple, each cooperating teacher wove a thread of sameness between his or her stories as they were retold and relived. I concluded that the sameness in each story was key to understanding rationales for cooperating teachers’ practices of mentoring student teachers

Perspective taking and transformational leadership: Working paper series--08-07

This exploratory study examined potential relationships between a supervisor's perspective taking within a given supervisor/subordinate dyad and assessments of that supervisor's leadership style. Specifically, the notion is put forth that elements of leadership style relating to the quality of the interpersonal relationship between a supervisor and subordinate should be related to the degree to which a supervisor takes the perspective of their subordinate. Two subscales of the Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire were found to correlate with supervisor dyad-specific perspective taking, namely intellectual stimulation and individual consideration

Implications of Co-Residential Status for Parenting Programs Targeting Adolescent Mothers

When a teenager becomes a parent, what type of family living arrangements best support her parenting competence? Conventional wisdom suggests that the mother\u27s family of origin would be the best arrangement, but contemporary adolescents do their parenting in a variety of situations. Results from the study reported here, examining mothers living in three different types of arrangements, suggest that living with a parenting partner of the same generational age as the mother supports more positive parenting attitudes. A strengths-based, youth development approach to parenting education for adolescents is discussed in which the interpersonal context of adolescent parenting is explicitly addressed

EASE/ACCESS ground processing at Kennedy Space Center

The Kennedy Space Center (KSC) Payload Management and Operations Directorate is responsible for the processing of Space Shuttle payloads. The KSC responsibilities begin prior to hardware arrival at the launch site and extend until the experiments are returned to the investigators after the flight. The KSC involvement with the integration and checkout of payloads begins with participation in experiment, Mission Peculiar Equipment (MPE), and integrated payload design reviews. This involvement also includes participation in assembly and testing of flight hardware at the appropriate design center, university, or private corporation. Once the hardware arrives at the launch site, KSC personnel install the experiments and MPE onto a carrier in the Operations and Checkout (O & C) building. Following integration, the payload is functionally tested and then installed into the orbiter. After the mission, the payload is removed from the orbiter, deintegrated in the O & C building, and the experiments are turned over to the mission manager. One of the many payloads process at KSC consisted of two space construction experiments: the Experimental Assembly of Structures in Extravehicular Activity (EASE) and the Assembly Concept for Construction of Erectable Space Structures (ACCESS). The details of EASE/ACCESS integration, testing, and deintegration are addressed and how this mission can serve as a guide for future space construction payloads is discussed

The Effect of Union Protest Behavior on Attitudes Toward Unions: An Experimental Analysis

Student attitudes toward unions were measured at the beginning of a semester. Approximately 90 days later, students were shown a video of union protestors shouting down teachers who had called a press conference to announce they had filed a lawsuit against the union. Following the video, student attitudes toward unions were measured again. The results suggest that union behavior perceived as negative does have a deleterious effect on observer attitudes toward unions. This effect occurs even for observers whose parents were union members

Connection between Tutoring Format Type and Reading Scores of Elementary Aged Children

Extant research shows that response to intervention (RTI) individual and small group interventions increase children’s reading skills; however, little information is available that investigates whether the type of intervention format makes a difference in learning to read. The Early Childhood Longitudinal Study, Kindergarten class (ECLS-K) database was used to identify third-grade children who received individual, small group, or combined individual and small group tutoring, to increase their reading skills. The current study compared reading scores associated with each intervention type to determine which reading intervention format was most beneficial. The results from this study showed that children receiving small group intervention had higher reading scores than those receiving individual or combined interventions. In addition, a significant difference was found between the small group and combined formats. These results show the benefits of small group tutoring for elementary-aged children that could be beneficial in early prevention and identification of children who are struggling in reading

Troup Factory: Archaeological Investigations of a Nineteenth Century Mill Site in LaGrange, Georgia.

Troup Factory, the first cotton mill in Troup County, and the second such plant in Georgia, was established in 1846 on Flat Shoal\u27s Creek. The mill was in operation throughout the latter half of the 19th century before being relocated to the city of LaGrange. Troup Factory sheetings and homespun were standards of excellence across a widespread area of Georgia. The purpose of this paper is to document the history of the mill site through archival research and archaeological survey. Through these means a better understanding of a once prestigious mill site was obtained in order to illuminate an important period of Georgia history

Food waste drivers in Europe, from identification to possible interventions

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