Know Your Customer: Driving Calculus Course Design through Data

Research suggests that students struggle with calculus on various levels. Student and instructor feedback is a necessary cycle to restructure and improve course curriculum. The aim of this paper is to discuss and illustrate how solicited feedback and administrative data can be coupled together to drive decisions about course design

Technology-Intensive Exports, R&D, Human Capital, and Economic Growth in the Twenty-First Century

This thesis investigates twenty-first century economic growth through a distanceto- frontier (technology-gap) lens where growth in a country’s knowledge stock is determined by knowledge creation and knowledge imitation. The creation term is assumed to be a function of research and development, technology-intensive export performance, and human capital, while the imitation term is a function of the technology gap, technology-intensive export performance, and human capital. Over the period 1997-2018, two samples of countries are analyzed in a panel setting, and two growth models are estimated in total—one for each sample. While research and development has been extensively analyzed in the economic growth context, many studies are limited to small samples of countries. In this paper, the growth model pertaining the large sample of countries (n = 57) utilizes total R&D expenditure data. The smaller sample (n = 41) considers a growth model wherein government-funded and business-enterprise-funded R&D expenditure are considered as separate knowledge determinants. Until recently, technology-intensive export data were sparse, making variable construction difficult for large-sample analysis. While a traditional approach might utilize information and communications technology measures in the growth model, I take advantage of modern data availability and introduce a measure of technologyintensive export performance to the conceptual and empirical models. To investigate the factors shaping knowledge over time, unconditional β-convergence tests are conducted on the proposed determinants of knowledge. The results of these tests indicate convergence in technology-intensive export performance, human capital, and government-funded research and development expenditure across nations—suggesting that less-developed nations are “catching up” to the leaders in terms of knowledge (technology). The growth models are estimated utilizing various generalized method of moments estimators. Of the three research and development variables, results indicate that only government-funded research and development expenditure has a positive effect on growth. Technology-intensive export performance, and human capital are shown to have positive and significant growth effects for all models and samples considered. Overall, these results suggest that policymakers should give great consideration to technology-intensive export performance and human capital when drafting growth policies

Summer Camp as a Force for 21st Century Learning: Exploring Divergent Thinking and Activity Selection in a Residential Camp Setting

This study investigated change in divergent thinking (DT), an indicator of creative potential, at two gender-specific residential summer camps. Additionally, this study examined whether the change in DT varied by gender and by the type of activities campers self-select. Quantitative methods, using a quasi-experimental design was used in order to understand differences in camper scores. A total of 189 youth, 100 girls, 89 boys, between the ages of 9 and 14 years participated in the current study. Participants were administered a modified version of Guilford\u27s (1967) alternate uses task, a measure of DT, in which respondents were asked questions such as name all of the uses for a brick or name all of the uses for a plate before the camp session started, and then again at the end of the two-week session. Results indicate overall mean significant increases in DT across all scoring methods of fluency, flexibility, and originality. Participants who self-selected one or more artistic activities (e.g., drama, arts and crafts, dance) had significant increases on the tasks as opposed to participants who did not select any artistic activities (e.g., basketball, baseball, archery). Finally, girls significantly increased across all scoring methods, whereas boys slightly increased in fluency and flexibility but not in originality. These results indicate residential summer camp may provide a creativity benefit for youth in attendance, especially those who participate in certain activities. Practitioners should use this study to understand their own programming in terms of creativity, activity offerings, and camp cultur

Tyranny of the Many

In this age of government distrust, the voter referendum appears to be the ultimate democratic fantasy come true: Government by the people, for the people, without any interference by politicians, special interests, or other denizens of the American political system. But referenda in the past couple of years call into question the wisdom of placing legislation directly before the voting public for approval

Defeating Ambiguity: Modeling Problems with Calculus

Many first year calculus students struggle to see the value in learning single variable calculus. They often focus their efforts on learning the rules of differentiation and integration, losing sight of the broader picture for how calculus is leveraged to solve problems. While rudimentary calculus problems are necessary for the sake of understanding basic rules and concepts, larger and more complex problems are critical to opening the doors for students to gain a practical understanding of the applications. Through a series of Problem Solving Labs and written reports, the single variable calculus program at West Point not only focuses on learning calculus, but also how the core concepts can be used to conduct quantitative analysis that can be communicated to decision makers. Throughout the semester-long course, single variable calculus students complete 4 to 5 different Problem Solving Labs where they leverage technological tools such as excel and mathematica to develop mathematical models to formulate overall recommendations. Each lab report prompt is designed to present an ambiguous problem that requires critical assumptions to enable mathematical modeling.https://digitalcommons.usmalibrary.org/presentations/1006/thumbnail.jp