A Content Analysis of Middle School Fiction: Seeking Characters Who Write

This content analysis was undertaken to examine whether award-winning, middle school, fiction tradebooks provide depictions of characters who engage in writing. Once identified, writing episodes were analyzed to determine if the writing was implicitly or explicitly depicted. Additional questions queried who wrote, what was written, and what stage of the writing process was represented. A final question asked what additional information and aesthetic responses were recorded in the Researcher\u27s Journal. Two tools, a Content Analysis Instrument and a Researcher\u27s Journal, guided the collection of data from 43 books appearing on three awards lists. Forty-two of the books included at least one character who engaged in writing. Overall, 615 episodes of writing were recorded. Thirty-six percent of the episodes showed the characters explicitly engaged in the act of writing. Thirty-nine percent of the characters were young teens; 51.5% were female. European Americans accounted for the highest percentage (46%) of ethnicities represented. A character\u27s religion was not found to be a significant element in the books sampled, and few of the characters represented imaginary creatures. A variety of types of artifacts were penned, including letters, journals, and poems; digital literacies were not represented. Adults provided the target audience for most of the writings. Communication provided the impetus for most of the writing episodes. No particular stage of writing process could be determined for 66% of the episodes. Finally, two categories directly related to writing emerged from the Researcher\u27s Journal: teaching examples and writing process. Aesthetic responses also detailed believability issues, important messages, highly attractive books, and other creative endeavors. The results suggest research needs to be conducted in three areas: to determine middle school readers\u27 responses to character writers, to determine to what extent character writers of multiple diverse backgrounds are represented in award-winning multicultural books, and to determine middle school readers\u27 responses to character writers of indeterminate ethnicity. Separate booklists are identified for researchers and teachers. Action research conducted by teachers utilizing the identified episodes could be undertaken to study middle school students\u27 responses to characters who write.https://digitalcommons.brockport.edu/bookshelf/1174/thumbnail.jp

Imagination and Literacy Instruction: A Content Analysis of Literature within Literacy-Related Publications

Through content analysis of research conducted during the last 25 years, this paper identifies five vital uses of imagination within literacy instruction. First, readers use imagination to comprehend text. Second, readers use imagination to engage in the world depicted through the text. Third, readers use imagination to make sense of both narrative and expository texts. Fourth, readers use imagination to learn about self and others. Finally, readers benefit from instruction regarding the use of imagination to enhance reading. A compilation of instructional methods is presented. This analysis establishes the need for classroom instruction connecting imagination and literacy

Federated Learning for Mortality Prediction in Intensive Care Units

Federated learning is a method to train a machine learning model on multiple remote datasets without the need to gather the data from the remote sites to a central location. In healthcare, gathering the data from different hospitals into a central location can be a difficult and time-consuming task, due to privacy concerns and regulations regarding the use of sensitive data, making federated learning an attractive alternative to more traditional methods. This thesis adapted an existing federated gradient boosting model and developed a new federated random forest model and applied them to mortality prediction in intensive care units. The results were then compared to the centralized counterparts of the models. The results showed that while the federated models did not perform as well as the centralized models on a similar sized dataset, the federated random forest model can achieve superior performance when trained on multiple hospitals' data compared to centralized models trained on a single hospital. In scenarios where the centralized models had data from multiple hospitals the federated models could not perform as well as the centralized models. It was also found that the performance of the centralized models could not be improved with further federated training. In addition to practical advantages such as possibility of parallel or asynchronous training without modifications to the algorithm, the federated random forest performed better in all scenarios compared to the federated gradient boosting. The performance of the federated random forest was also found to be more consistent over different scenarios than the performance of federated gradient boosting, which was highly dependent on factors such as the order with the hospitals were traversed

Exploring the emotions and needs of English Language Learners: Facilitating pre-service and in-service teachers’ recognition of the tasks facing language learners

The population in the United States has become more diverse, but the number of teachers in public schools who are fluent in another language is limited. Furthermore, statistics attest that few teachers have adequate training to work with English language learners (ELLs). Teachers who lack training and have not struggled to learn another language may not realize the complexity faced daily by ELLs. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to apply instructional methods, which mirror experiences faced by real children in real classrooms, in order to allow pre-service and/or in-service teachers to be subjected to the mixed emotions experienced by English language learners in their class. In six different classes, the researchers immersed a total number of 155 undergraduate and graduate students in a 15-minute oral presentation in Dutch. Data from a post-survey indicated that teacher candidates developed empathy and extrapolated the message that ELL students in classrooms in the United States face serious but surmountable challenges that take time to overcome. As a result of the findings, we recommend teacher preparation programs include language requirements and interactions between teacher candidates and language learners

Expanding the Box: Characters Lead the Way

In our recent study, upper elementary students engaged in reading and writing outside the box when presented with novels that included character-writers. Students of varying backgrounds and ability levels revealed close connections and wide-ranging responses to authors and characters. These students accomplished three outcomes as they read, wrote, and discussed novels including characters portrayed as writers (character-writers). First, the students imitated the writing styles and genres of the authors and characters. Second, the students continued writing for themselves and others. Third, the students produced work of greater quality than they previously presented in their school journals. In this article, we illustrate one method that teachers of adolescents may initiate to engage adolescents in relevant curriculum. It is based on a study to answer the following research questions: 1. How do character-writers influence students\u27 interest in writing, the amount of writing, and the quality of writing? 2. What other characteristics of these books do students report as influential or motivating in regard to writing

A Multiethnic Panel Discusses Christianity on Campus

Community through diversity incorporates all voices of the community. In our efforts to diversify, voices perceived as traditional are often silenced. Such silencing gives rise to misconceptions and stereotypes about what it means to be Christian, the perceived traditional American religion. Many members of the community have believed the myth that Christians do not promote accessibility, inclusiveness, and understanding. This panel of diverse individuals, including people of Asian, African American, Native American, and Caucasian descent, students, graduates, and faculty, women and men, would like to suggest otherwise. Additionally, we would like to address the myth that Christians think they are perfect. In truth, Christians recognize themselves as imperfect beings in need of a Savior. Recognizing our own limitations, we are guided by two basic commands: to love God and to love our neighbors. Individually, we have shown such love through working in medical clinics, youth meetings, literacy outreaches, and with families affected by autism. In every instance, some domestic and some international, our services have been offered freely and inclusively without question. Like other groups who have been represented at earlier Diversity Conferences, we request opportunity to allow our voices to be heard. Christianity is monotheistic, but the panel will show our voices are not always monolithic. In this presentation, we will seek to present Christianity in a coherent, academic manner. We will discuss the basic tenets of Christianity, the popular misconceptions, and the core beliefs Christians share

„Being there“

Volunteer hospice teams are part of the nationwide Austrian concept of a ‘Graded Hospice and Palliative Care System’. This three-level system was commissioned by the Ministry of Health and developed by GÖG/ÖBIG, a national research and planning institute for health care, in joint cooperation with Hospice Austriain 2004.By the end of 2016, there were 3528 Hospice and Palliative Care volunteers in Austria. 2929 volunteers belonged to one of the 162 hospice teams and were involved in direct patient care, 599 volunteers were performing other tasks in their hospice teams or were working within coordinating organizations in their federal state (e.g. as board members, helping with fundraising, etc.). 86% of the volunteers were female. Volunteers contributed in total 405,204 hours. 256,325 (63%) of these were spent in direct patient care in all kinds of settings at home, in palliative care units, in day hospices, inpatient hospices and also in nursing homes.Volunteers in direct patient care are required to undergo a training based on a standard curriculum developedby Hospice Austria and are organized in teams with a (paid) coordinator. Palliat Med Pract 2018; 12, 3: 131–13

Perspectives on Educative Teacher Performance Assessment (edTPA) from Teacher Candidates and College Supervisors

As a response to the need of systematic teacher performance assessment, recently the Educative Teacher Performance Assessment (edTPA) has been developed and implemented in over 600 teacher preparation programs across nearly 40 states in the US (Stanford Center for Assessment, Learning, and Equity, 2015). However, little research has been conducted investigating ways teacher preparation programs improve the quality of their programs while helping their teacher candidates be well prepared for the edTPA. This study investigated perspectives of student teachers and their college supervisors regarding (1) the effectiveness of the teacher preparation program in a middle-sized public college in relation to edTPA completion and (2) the perceived value of the edTPA as preparation for becoming an effective teacher when New York State began to require successful completion of the edTPA for initial certification. Ninety-nine student teachers in both inclusive elementary and adolescence education programs and fourteen student teaching supervisors participated in the study. A teacher perception survey data including Likert Scale items and open-ended questions was collected as a main data source. Mixed methods were utilized to analyzed both quantitative and qualitative data during the academic year of 2014-2015. Based on the results, suggestions are discussed to better prepare teacher candidates for edTPA and the teaching profession. Lastly, implications about assessment systems of teaching practice in the context of South Korea are discussed

Internet of Things backend for embedded systems teaching

Abstract. In this work, the Internet of Things system is implemented for enabling distance learning and laboratory work for an embedded systems programming course at the University of Oulu. The system must meet the following three requirements. The system receives and visualizes sensor data from the embedded device. The system enables two-way communication with the cloud application and the embedded device. The system can be connected via the public Internet, where the system is managed through Kubernetes. The architecture of the system is described in three different layers. The perception layer contains embedded devices used to produce sensor data. The components of the network layer process and transmit data. The cloud layer includes data storage and further processing in the application, as well as data visualization. The architecture of the implemented system consists of distributed microservices that are deployed using container technology. The system was tested on the basis of feedback collected from the beta version implemented in autumn 2020, as well as use cases defined by the developers, which were constructed from previously known problem areas. As a result, modular and scalable future distance learning system for embedded systems was developed.Tiivistelmä. Tässä työssä suunnitellaan ja toteutetaan etäopiskelun sekä -laboratoriotyön mahdollistava esineiden internetin järjestelmä sulautettujen järjestelmien ohjelmoinnin kurssille Oulun yliopistossa. Järjestelmän tulee toteuttaa seuraavat kolme vaatimusta. Järjestelmä vastaanottaa ja visualisoi anturitietoa sulautetulta laitteelta. Järjestelmä mahdollistaa kaksisuuntaisen viestinnän pilvisovelluksen ja sulautetun laitteen kanssa. Järjestelmään saa yhteyden julkisen Internetin kautta, jossa järjestelmään hallinnoidaan Kubernetesin avulla. Järjestelmän arkkitehtuuri kuvataan kolmena eri kerroksena. Havaintokerros sisältää sulautettuja laitteita, joita käytetään anturitiedon tuottamiseen. Verkkokerroksen komponentit käsittelevät ja välittävät dataa. Pilvikerros sisältää tietojen tallennuksen ja jatkokäsittelyn sovelluksessa, sekä tietojen visualisoinnin. Toteutetun järjestelmän arkkitehtuuri koostuu hajautetuista mikropalveluista, jotka otetaan käyttöön konttiteknologian avulla. Järjestelmää testattiin perustuen syksyllä 2020 toteutetusta kokeiluversiosta kerättyyn palautteeseen sekä kehittäjien määrittelemiin käyttötapauksiin, jotka luotiin hyödyntäen entuudestaan tunnettuja ongelma-alueita. Työn tuloksena valmistui modulaarinen ja skaalautuva tulevaisuuden etäopetusjärjestelmä sulautettujen järjestelmien ohjelmoinnin kursseille