Perceptions and Experiences of Diverse Architectural Technology Students Learning through Formative Feedback & Formative Assessment: a Multiple-case Study

Technological leaps along with increased numbers and greater student diversity is altering the higher education teaching landscape constantly. The academic\u27s workload is escalating all the time, arising from resource constraints in a time of economic stringency. This places even more pressure on dealing with assessment rather than on enhancing learning. Despite evidence that supports formative assessment as being vitally important to students\u27 learning, it is not widely appreciated among lecturers in higher education. As a result, lecturers under pressure, understandably, will maintain existing assessment and teaching systems rather than attempt to apply new techniques. Immeasurable hours, days or even weeks, spent providing detailed written feedback on students\u27 work that was never read or acted upon (and was too late anyway for some students), was the motivation for this research which commenced in 2008. Replicating that initial inquiry over two further years, with two additional first year cohorts, then followed. This paper will argue that the application of the feedback technique applied throughout this research, including analysis of the students\u27 perceptions of learning, has contributed towards understanding the first-year student\u27s learning experience. It will be demonstrated that an effective formative assessment and formative feedback method that enhances learning can support the different educational needs of a diverse student population, without compromising standards. Published research underpinning formative assessment and feedback to improve learning for a more diverse tertiary student population, including some pragmatic stratagems, were examined and appraised within this study. Key words: Formative assessment, student diversity, enhancing learning, perceptions of learning, Studio environment

Developmental coordination disorder: a focus on handwriting

Background. Developmental coordination disorder (DCD), is the term used to refer to children who present with motor coordination difficulties, unexplained by a general-medical condition, intellectual disability or known neurological impairment. Difficulties with handwriting are often included in descriptions of DCD, including that provided in DSM-5 (APA, 2013). However, surprisingly few studies have examined handwriting in DCD in a systematic way. Those that are available, have been conducted outside of the UK, in alphabets other than the Latin based alphabet. In order to gain a better understanding of the nature of 'slowness' so commonly reported in children with DCD, this thesis aimed to examine the handwriting of children with DCD in detail by considering the handwriting product, the process, the child's perspective, the teacher's perspective and some popular clinical measures including strength, visual perception and force variability. Compositional quality was also evaluated to examine the impact of poor handwriting on the wider task of writing. Method. Twenty-eight 8-14 year-old children with a diagnosis of DCD participated in the study, with 28 typically developing age and gender matched controls. Participants completed the four handwriting tasks from the Detailed Assessment of Speed of Handwriting (DASH) and wrote their own name; all on a digitising writing tablet. The number of words written, speed of pen movements and the time spent pausing during the tasks were calculated. Participants were also assessed in spelling, reading, receptive vocabulary, visual perception, visual motor integration, grip strength and the quality of their composition. Results. The findings confirmed what many professionals report, that children with DCD produce less text than their peers. However, this was not due to slow movement execution, but rather a higher percentage of time spent pausing, in particular, pauses over 10 seconds. The location of the pauses within words indicated a lack of automaticity in the handwriting of children with DCD. The DCD group scored below their peers on legibility, grip strength, measures of visual perception and had poorer compositional quality. Individual data highlighted heterogeneous performance profiles in children with DCD and there was little agreement/no significant association between teacher and therapist's measures of handwriting. Conclusions. A new model incorporating handwriting within the broader context of writing was proposed as a lens through which therapists can consider handwriting in children with DCD. The model incorporates the findings from this thesis and discusses avenues for future research in this area

An investigation into the effectiveness of hedonic features in regression models for domestic rental prices

Housing is a fundamental human right. Increasing rents and rising unemployment contribute to increased rates of homelessness. Traditionally housing prices are determined by supply and demand. This project will investigate the relationship between hedonic features and domestic rental prices in California and New York, using multivariate regression models. The literature outlines a number of approaches taken to model real estate pricing using hedonic regression. Two models were created to analyse the difference between California and New York. Features were selected using correlation analysis. Some features were derived using logarithmic and dummy feature transformations. The models themselves were evaluated by assessing the root mean square error (RMSE) and by visually inspecting the residual plots. Despite the models not providing a high degree of accuracy in predicting rental prices, a number of valuable insights were gathered by analysing the difference between the regional models. Also, a Tableau dashboard was created to show how such models could be visualised for a data analytics novice. Areas for future work have also been identified for those interested in expanding upon the work within this project

The Contributions of Harmon W. Caldwell to Higher Education in Georgia

Remarks of Merle C. Prunty, October 18, 1980, at the presentation of the Harmon W. Caldwell portrait, School of Law, University of Georgia