How Can Play-based Learning with Authentic Assessment Practices Support Healthy Development in Preschool Classrooms?

Early childhood educators need to recognize the importance of implementing play-based learning as a developmentally appropriate practice to support young children’s development. Play provides children opportunities to demonstrate knowledge and understandings through materials in the environment, expand on prior experiences and learn alongside peers. Teachers can authentically gain valuable information from children’s play to plan appropriate lessons to foster development (NAEYC, 2009). Instead of using natural routines to assess and gather information about a child’s knowledge and behavior, educators use standardized methods to determine a child’s capabilities. This paper synthesized available research on qualitative and quantitative studies that analyzed the effects of authentic assessment to support educators understanding of a child’s developmental domains. Research examined how naturally assessing children in the environment informed teachers to create a meaningful curriculum that was appropriate and monitored individuals progress continuously. Other studies evaluated the effects of play-based learning to promote development. Research reviewed positively supported preschool teachers to use play and authentic assessment for a more accurate understanding of an individual’s knowledge. An assessment tool that is authentic supports collection of on-going data to provide teachers feedback to make instructional changes

A Case Study in Tipping: An Economic Anomaly

When dining in a restaurant or having a drink at a bar, do you tip? If yes, what do you base the tip amount on? Is it who you are with? Do men tip more than women? Do you tip less when your actions are masked by a larger group? The answers to these questions are something that economists have struggled to explain. The most difficult question being: Why do people pay an additional amount when they have absolutely no legal obligation to do so? This case study explores the variables that lead to higher or lower tip amounts in the service industry. Past research lacks actual data from real-time collection outside of the scrupulous eyes of a lab technician or survey administrator. It is this detail which sets the research outlined in this paper apart from the rest. The case study in tipping provided 3 dominate variables that effect tip amount, the economic concept of free-riding—which is defined as a person who chooses to receive the benefits of a public good or service or a positive externality without contributing to paying the cost of producing those benefits, gender differences and generational differences

The Impact of Visual Design on Web Persuasiveness

Many commentators of web persuasion have suggested that content is the key factor responsible for creating credible (and therefore persuasive) websites. Research in a variety of fields has been devoted to identifying accurate methods of determining a website\u27s trustworthiness in order to help organizations promote credibility and teach users to critically analyze it. By focusing on the credibility of content, however, researchers are promoting an unbalanced perspective of web persuasiveness that privileges textual content over visual design. This thesis hypothesizes that visual design significantly impacts web persuasiveness. First, exploration of current theories of web persuasiveness reveals the importance of persuasion in measuring a website\u27s success and the need to expand consideration of persuasive factors beyond the credibility of content. Next, Chapter 2 demonstrates the impact of visual design through explanation of the perceptual process and the theory of halo effect. Then, design principles from theorists such as Tufte, Kress and Van Leeuwen, Mullet and Sano, and Kostelnick and Roberts are suggested as a means for determining whether or not a visual design is \u27attractive.\u27 To study the effects of these design principles (or their absence) on web persuasiveness, I conducted a pilot study where one group of participants used an \u27attractive\u27 website while another group used an \u27unattractive\u27 version of the same website. Results from this study suggest that visual design does have a positive impact on web persuasion

Effects of Dynamic Geometry Software on Secondary Students’ Understanding of Geometry Concepts

The purpose of this study was to determine the effects of dynamic geometry software (DGS) on secondary students’ understanding of geometry concepts. This paper examines how dynamic geometry software (DGS) is used in the secondary mathematics classroom and its effects on student understanding and achievement through a review of the literature. The use of technology in mathematics education is well documented and its effects are noted within this paper. The focus of the literature review in Chapter 2 includes: 1) how the computer technology is used in the classroom; 2) the use of DGS to promote student understanding of inductive and deductive reasoning; 3) creation of proof and the discovery of geometric theorems; and 4). the role of the software on student performance. In Chapter 3 I conclude by reviewing the research findings and giving recommendations

Data Management Outreach to Junior Faculty Members: A Case Study

New tenure track faculty members are generally in positions as leaders of a research laboratory or group for the first time. In addition to building up the infrastructure of a research lab (whether space, equipment, funding, or personnel), the new faculty member is also setting the research process and expectations for the first time as well. This article highlights outreach to new faculty members assisting those individuals with developing a data management protocol that effectively supports the laboratory researchers to make quality data available internally to and externally from a research laboratory. Using a self-assessment tool and reflective conversation, junior faculty were offered insight and advice into creating a data management protocol for use in their research laboratory

The Changing Values of American Evangelicals in Politics

In 2016 81% of self-identified white evangelical Christians voted for Donald Trump in the Presidential election and continued to support him after (Smith & Martinez, 2016; Peters & Dias, 2018). White evangelicals were willing to back a Republican candidate that appeared to deviate from their normal expectations of morality. The relationship between the Republican Party and white evangelical Christians has existed since the election of Ronald Reagan. This project examines the political history of white evangelicals in the United States. It analyzes recent data to compare the differences between white evangelicals and the general population and analyzes reports on white evangelicals during and after the 2016 election. This information is used to establish long-term historical trends that show why white evangelicals showed strong support both during and after the 2016 election within the broader historical context of white evangelicals’ relationship with politics. The results show that white evangelicals support for Trump is due to his alignment with their core political issues. Evangelicals as a political force are reactionary and established themselves in opposition to progressive change in the United States. Their core issues during their emergence have remained mostly consistent, and they have developed new core values in response to the United States’ changing political landscape. Donald Trump’s policies and rhetoric match the white evangelical position on all their primary issues. In combination with this, evangelicals now care less about the personal morality of candidates than any other group which shows a change in how they view candidates. White evangelicals feel as though Donald Trump is on their side and since immoral personal conduct is no longer an issue, his behavior does not pose a significant obstacle to white evangelical support. In summation white evangelicals like other voters, support candidates who will address their issues of concern which is why they supported Donald Trump during the 2016 election and continued to support him afterward. The results of this thesis confirm the findings of the majority of the scholarship on white evangelicals and Trump. Other research consistently concludes that white evangelicals support Trump because he is able to effectively address their fears about the direction that the United States is going and enacts regressive policies which suit their reactionary political agenda. Where the results diverge from previous work is on the matter of how to court evangelicals using religious rhetoric. Previous research has concluded that using religious rhetoric has been a necessary part of wooing the white evangelical voting bloc. This thesis shows that this rhetoric is no longer a requirement to gain white evangelical support. Today white evangelicals are more interested in enacting their values through policies than through a “Godly candidate”. Finally, this thesis goes beyond existing scholarship by placing the events of the 2016 election with the broader history of white evangelicals as reactionaries in American politics. It establishes that white evangelicals did not change radically as a group to accommodate Donald Trump. Their positions now are due to long term changes within the group and Trump’s populist policies addressing their long-term concerns. There is no evidence to suggest that their support will decline as he continues to accommodate their needs and further solidifies their ties to the Republican Party which is actively changing to support the president

Causes Won, Lost, and Forgotten: How Hollywood and Popular Art Shape What We Know About the Civil War

Picturing the Civil War Gary W. Gallagher has done his fair share of shaping what historians know about the Civil War. In his latest book, Causes Won, Lost and Forgotten, he investigates how modern film and artworks determine what the American public knows about the conflict. I...

Adding Data Literacy Skills to Your Toolkit

DEVELOPING SELECTED SKILLS IN DATA LITERACY AND MANAGEMENT CAN HELP LIBRARIANS MAKE A SUBSTANTIAL CONTRIBUTION TO THE STABILITY AND LONG-TERM PRESERVATION OF DATA AT THEIR ORGANIZATION

Engineering / Faculty / Sapp Nelson / Purdue University / 2015

These materials were developed to assist a cohort of early career engineering education faculty to critically consider aspects of data management that they may implement in their developing research groups. These materials were used in the context of a two hour workshop and one hour brownbag. In the brownbag, the results of the Data Information Literacy research grant were discussed as they may be relevant to the early career faculty. The faculty then completed a self-assessment to identify their weak areas of data management and their personal priorities for data management. The two hour workshop was then conducted to assist faculty members to brainstorm solutions or implementations that may allow them to better manage the data their labs will be producing