The Effects of Explicit Instruction of Expository Text Structure Incorporating Graphic Organizers on the Comprehension of Third-Grade Students

An important goal of education is to assist students to read and write expository text. Success in school, work, and society depends largely upon the ability to comprehend this type of text. However, there is ample research to suggest that many children are not learning to read and write expository text competently. Researchers noted that establishing effective instructional frameworks for teaching students how to read and write this material remains elusive. Therefore, developing effective expository reading comprehension instruction should be a research priority. Using a mixed qualitative and quantitative design, this study examined the effects of explicit instruction of expository text structure incorporating graphic organizers on the comprehension of three intervention classrooms of third-grade students in comparison to one control classroom. Within the three intervention classrooms, the students received the designed intervention presented by their classroom teacher or teaching assistant during their small-group instruction. The students in the control classroom received regular Guided Reading instruction presented by their classroom teacher or teaching assistant. The instructional framework for the designed intervention included explicit and scaffolded instruction embedded in an interactive learning environment. This framework also relied on multiple instructional strategies that appear to positively affect reading comprehension: modeling, thinking aloud, and graphic organizers. When compared with the control group, at post-testing, students receiving the intervention showed a statistically significant difference in their ability to comprehend expository text. The third-grade students who received explicit instruction incorporating graphic organizers scored significantly better on representing text structure graphically, using graphic organizers to compose a written summary, and accurately summarizing expository text. In addition, the intervention teachers and assistant were able to deliver the designed intervention effectively. Findings from this study revealed third-grade students can improve their expository text comprehension when given explicit instruction incorporating graphic organizers. Further, this study suggested the importance of creating a collaborative environment with appropriate scaffolded instruction. Outcomes in rhetorical pattern knowledge, graphic organizers, and scaffolded instruction, all support future research concerning pedagogically sound instructional methods for providing expository text instruction to students of all ages

Empirical analyses of an urban early college high school in the southeastern United States.

Research shows that too many students are graduating high school ill-prepared for post-secondary success. The purpose of this capstone was to explore early college in relation to student success. We conducted three independent but related studies that incorporated the perspectives of current students, graduates, and quantitative data. The first study investigated how ECHS graduates described their high school experiences, as well as how those experiences contributed to their college readiness and transition to college. The second study, a narrative analysis, sought to understand the lived academic and social experiences of students currently enrolled in an ECHS. The final study took a quantitative approach to determine if students who earned a higher number of dual credit hours were graduating from high school on time and meeting their college and career ready (CCR) benchmarks before graduating. Our collective research objective was to inform policy and practice efforts to improve high school level achievement, college readiness, persistence in college, and degree completion for students traditionally under-represented in higher education. Findings from these studies pointed to several implications for policy and practice at the local, state, and national levels. While there were multiple implications found within the individual studies, three themes emerged across all of them: alignment of secondary and postsecondary expectations, facilitation of caring relationships among all stakeholders, and inclusion of social and emotional support coupled with non-cognitive skill development. With the implications and policy recommendations provided in this capstone, stakeholders can begin to design and implement school-based plans supported by sound policy to increase educational outcomes. Future research may consider refining and further clarifying the needed processes for full implementation of the early college model across all high schools of varying demographics

Trajectory Mapping and Applications to Data from the Upper Atmosphere Research Satellite

The problem of creating synoptic maps from asynoptically gathered trace gas data has prompted the development of a number of schemes. Most notable among these schemes are the Kalman filter, the Salby-Fourier technique, and constituent reconstruction. This paper explores a new technique called trajectory mapping. Trajectory mapping creates synoptic maps from asynoptically gathered data by advecting measurements backward or forward in time using analyzed wind fields. A significant portion of this work is devoted to an analysis of errors in synoptic trajectory maps associated with the calculation of individual parcel trajectories. In particular, we have considered (1) calculational errors; (2) uncertainties in the values and locations of constituent measurements, (3) errors incurred by neglecting diabatic effects, and (4) sensitivity to differences in wind field analyses. These studies reveal that the global fields derived from the advection of large numbers of measurements are relatively insensitive to the errors in the individual trajectories. The trajectory mapping technique has been successfully applied to a variety of problems. In this paper, the following two applications demonstrate the usefulness of the technique: an analysis of dynamical wave-breaking events and an examination of Upper Atmosphere Research Satellite data accuracy

Designing a Platform for Ethical Citizen Science: A Case Study of CitSci.org

Involving the public in scientific discovery offers opportunities for engagement, learning, participation, and action. Since its launch in 2007, the CitSci.org platform has supported hundreds of community-driven citizen science projects involving thousands of participants who have generated close to a million scientific measurements around the world. Members using CitSci.org follow their curiosities and concerns to develop, lead, or simply participate in research projects. While professional scientists are trained to make ethical determinations related to the collection of, access to, and use of information, citizen scientists and practitioners may be less aware of such issues and more likely to become involved in ethical dilemmas. In this era of big and open data, where data sharing is encouraged and open science is promoted, privacy and openness considerations can often be overlooked. Platforms that support the collection, use, and sharing of data and personal information need to consider their responsibility to protect the rights to and ownership of data, the provision of protection options for data and members, and at the same time provide options for openness. This requires critically considering both intended and unintended consequences of the use of platforms, data, and volunteer information. Here, we use our journey developing CitSci.org to argue that incorporating customization into platforms through flexible design options for project managers shifts the decision-making from top-down to bottom-up and allows project design to be more responsive to goals. To protect both people and data, we developed—and continue to improve—options that support various levels of “open” and “closed” access permissions for data and membership participation. These options support diverse governance styles that are responsive to data uses, traditional and indigenous knowledge sensitivities, intellectual property rights, personally identifiable information concerns, volunteer preferences, and sensitive data protections. We present a typology for citizen science openness choices, their ethical considerations, and strategies that we are actively putting into practice to expand privacy options and governance models based on the unique needs of individual projects using our platform

An eHealth Intervention for Patients in Rural Areas: Preliminary Findings From a Pilot Feasibility Study

This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work, first published in JMIR Research Protocols, is properly cited. The complete bibliographic information, a link to the original publication on http://www.researchprotocols.org, as well as this copyright and license information must be included.Background: eHealth facilitation of chronic disease management has potential to increase engagement and effectiveness and extend access to care in rural areas. Objective: The objective of this study was to demonstrate the feasibility and acceptability of an eHealth system for the management of chronic conditions in a rural setting. Methods: We developed an online management program which incorporated content from the Flinders Chronic Condition Management Program (Flinders Program) and used an existing software platform (goACT), which is accessible by patients and health care workers using either Web-enabled mobile phone or Internet, enabling communication between patients and clinicians. We analyzed the impact of this eHealth system using qualitative and simple quantitative methods. Results: The eHealth system was piloted with 8 recently hospitalized patients from rural areas, average age 63 (SD 9) years, each with an average of 5 chronic conditions and high level of psychological distress with an average K10 score of 32.20 (SD 5.81). Study participants interacted with the eHealth system. The average number of logins to the eHealth system by the study participants was 26.4 (SD 23.5) over 29 weeks. The login activity was higher early in the week. Conclusions: The pilot demonstrated the feasibility of implementing and delivering a chronic disease management program using a Web-based patient-clinician application. A qualitative analysis revealed burden of illness and low levels of information technology literacy as barriers to patient engagement