Maximizing Teacher Time: The Collaborative Leadership Role of the Principal

Using data from the 2014 North Carolina Teacher Working Conditions (NCTWC) biennial survey researchers identified a sample from over 2,500 principals. The researchers surveyed 68 principals; 24 principals participated in a 19-item survey containing 5 demographic questions, 7 Likert-scale questions, and 7 open-ended questions. The descriptive analyses revealed that the principals in the study had the highest agreement with time constructs related to “reasonable class size” and “protecting teachers from duties that interfere” and lowest levels of agreement with “efforts made to minimize routine paperwork.” The qualitative analyses shared further principal perspective regarding specific strategies with the seven time constructs. The findings are discussed in relation to the extant literature and implications for fostering a strong learning community and in designing principal preparation programs. Overall, the results from this exploratory study offer insights regarding how principals lead with time, and how they support a community of teaching and learning

Good Teaching Starts Here: Applied Learning at the Graduate Teaching Assistant Institute

Increasingly, graduate teaching assistants serve as the primary instructors in undergraduate courses, yet research has shown that training and development for these teaching assistants is often lacking in programs throughout the United States and Canada. Providing mentoring and skill development opportunities for graduate teaching assistants is vital, as many will become the next generation of faculty. This paper discusses the literature on effective training programs, which underscores the importance of consistent feedback from mentors, intrinsic motivation, and practical applications. Afterwards, we examine an existing training program at the University of North Carolina Wilmington. Specifically, we focus on an institute for teaching assistants that helps graduate students understand applied learning as an effective pedagogical modality and helps them implement applied learning lesson plans tailored to their disciplines. Suggestions for strengthening training programs are discussed.   Il est de plus en plus courant que des assistants à l’enseignement soient chargés de donner des cours de premier cycle universitaire. Cependant, des études ont démontré le manque de formation et de progrès de ces assistants à l’enseignement, aux États-Unis comme au Canada. Il est donc indispensable d’offrir des occasions de mentorat et de perfectionnement à ces assistants, puisqu’un grand nombre d’entre eux deviendront la prochaine cohorte de professeurs. Cet article traite des recherches effectuées sur les programmes de formation efficaces, ce qui souligne l’importance des commentaires des mentors, de la motivation et de la mise en pratique. Ensuite, nous étudions l’évolution d’un programme de formation à l’Université de Wilmington de la Caroline du Nord. Notre étude se concentre sur un institut pour les assistants à l’enseignement, qui leur montre que l’apprentissage appliqué est un outil pédagogique efficace. Par la suite, cet institut les aide à mettre en œuvre un plan de leçon d’apprentissage adapté à leur discipline. L’article s’achève par des suggestions d’amélioration des programmes de formation. &nbsp

B825: A Comparison of Lowbush Blueberry Harvesting Technologies: Experimental and Economic Results from the 1988 Field Tests in Washington County, Maine

The describes research that evaluated the new mechanical harvesting technologies for wild blueberries and compared them to the traditional technology of hand raking under different assumptions about prices, costs, farm size, and yield. It provides information to growers about the circumstances where mechanical harvesting will be most useful and where the hand rakers can be used to the best advantage.https://digitalcommons.library.umaine.edu/aes_bulletin/1040/thumbnail.jp

Use and Abuse of the Fisher Information Matrix in the Assessment of Gravitational-Wave Parameter-Estimation Prospects

The Fisher-matrix formalism is used routinely in the literature on gravitational-wave detection to characterize the parameter-estimation performance of gravitational-wave measurements, given parametrized models of the waveforms, and assuming detector noise of known colored Gaussian distribution. Unfortunately, the Fisher matrix can be a poor predictor of the amount of information obtained from typical observations, especially for waveforms with several parameters and relatively low expected signal-to-noise ratios (SNR), or for waveforms depending weakly on one or more parameters, when their priors are not taken into proper consideration. In this paper I discuss these pitfalls; show how they occur, even for relatively strong signals, with a commonly used template family for binary-inspiral waveforms; and describe practical recipes to recognize them and cope with them. Specifically, I answer the following questions: (i) What is the significance of (quasi-)singular Fisher matrices, and how must we deal with them? (ii) When is it necessary to take into account prior probability distributions for the source parameters? (iii) When is the signal-to-noise ratio high enough to believe the Fisher-matrix result? In addition, I provide general expressions for the higher-order, beyond--Fisher-matrix terms in the 1/SNR expansions for the expected parameter accuracies.Comment: 24 pages, 3 figures, previously known as "A User Manual for the Fisher Information Matrix"; final, corrected PRD versio

NASA's Analog Missions: Driving Exploration Through Innovative Testing

Human exploration beyond low-Earth orbit (LEO) will require a unique collection of advanced, innovative technologies and the precise execution of complex and challenging operational concepts. One tool we in the Analog Missions Project at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) utilize to validate exploration system architecture concepts and conduct technology demonstrations, while gaining a deeper understanding of system-wide technical and operational challenges, is our analog missions. Analog missions are multi-disciplinary activities that test multiple features of future spaceflight missions in an integrated fashion to gain a deeper understanding of system-level interactions and integrated operations. These missions frequently occur in remote and extreme environments that are representative in one or more ways to that of future spaceflight destinations. They allow us to test robotics, vehicle prototypes, habitats, communications systems, in-situ resource utilization, and human performance as it relates to these technologies. And they allow us to validate architectural concepts, conduct technology demonstrations, and gain a deeper understanding of system-wide technical and operational challenges needed to support crewed missions beyond LEO. As NASA develops a capability driven architecture for transporting crew to a variety of space environments, including the moon, near-Earth asteroids (NEA), Mars, and other destinations, it will use its analog missions to gather requirements and develop the technologies that are necessary to ensure successful human exploration beyond LEO. Currently, there are four analog mission platforms: Research and Technology Studies (RATS), NASA s Extreme Environment Mission Operations (NEEMO), In-Situ Resource Utilization (ISRU), and International Space Station (ISS) Test bed for Analog Research (ISTAR)