At Odds With Assessment: Being a Critical Educator in the Academy

Are critical assessment practices possible? Is the role of assessment fundamentally at odds with critical library pedagogy? Assessment can be applied in multiple ways as a part of classroom pedagogy, but it is also a term that can be applied to larger institutional concerns such as program effectiveness, budget priorities, and accreditation. Assessing both instructor performance and student learning can justify academic programs or services, help refine learning outcomes, measure teacher performance accountability,or provide feedback on the efficacy of instruction. In this chapter, we are focusing on assessment as a classroom practice, in tandem with a discussion of institutional concerns that embody the more commodified aspects of higher education. We offer a summary of assessment criticism and an analysis of common classroom-based assessment practices that can be critically focused

At Odds With Assessment: Being a Critical Educator in the Academy

Are critical assessment practices possible? Is the role of assessment fundamentally at odds with critical library pedagogy? Assessment can be applied in multiple ways as a part of classroom pedagogy, but it is also a term that can be applied to larger institutional concerns such as program effectiveness, budget priorities, and accreditation. Assessing both instructor performance and student learning can justify academic programs or services, help refine learning outcomes, measure teacher performance accountability,or provide feedback on the efficacy of instruction. In this chapter, we are focusing on assessment as a classroom practice, in tandem with a discussion of institutional concerns that embody the more commodified aspects of higher education. We offer a summary of assessment criticism and an analysis of common classroom-based assessment practices that can be critically focused

Cumulative Human Impacts on Mediterranean and Black Sea Marine Ecosystems: Assessing Current Pressures and Opportunities

Management of marine ecosystems requires spatial information on current impacts. In several marine regions, including the Mediterranean and Black Sea, legal mandates and agreements to implement ecosystem-based management and spatial plans provide new opportunities to balance uses and protection of marine ecosystems. Analyses of the intensity and distribution of cumulative impacts of human activities directly connected to the ecological goals of these policy efforts are critically needed. Quantification and mapping of the cumulative impact of 22 drivers to 17 marine ecosystems reveals that 20% of the entire basin and 60-99% of the territorial waters of EU member states are heavily impacted, with high human impact occurring in all ecoregions and territorial waters. Less than 1% of these regions are relatively unaffected. This high impact results from multiple drivers, rather than one individual use or stressor, with climatic drivers (increasing temperature and UV, and acidification), demersal fishing, ship traffic, and, in coastal areas, pollution from land, accounting for a majority of cumulative impacts. These results show that coordinated management of key areas and activities could significantly improve the condition of these marine ecosystems.JRC.H.1-Water Resource

Helping education undergraduates to use appropriate criteria for evaluating accounts of motivation

The aim of the study was to compare students in a control group with those in a treatment group with respect to evaluative comments on psychological accounts of motivation. The treatment group systematically scrutinized the nature and interpretation of evidence that supported different accounts, and the assumptions, logic, coherence and clarity of accounts. Content analysis of 74 scripts (using three categories) showed that the control group students made more assertions than either evidential or evaluative points, whereas the treatment group used evaluative statements as often as they used assertion. The findings provide support for privileging activities that develop understanding of how knowledge might be contested, and suggest a need for further research on pedagogies to serve this end. The idea is considered that such understanding has a pivotal role in the development of critical thinking

Sexual function in 16- to 21-year-olds in Britain

Purpose: Concern about young people's sexuality is focused on the need to prevent harmful outcomes such as sexually transmitted infections and unplanned pregnancy. Although the benefit of a broader perspective is recognized, data on other aspects of sexuality, particularly sexual function, are scant. We sought to address this gap by measuring the population prevalence of sexual function problems, help seeking, and avoidance of sex in young people. Methods: A cross-sectional stratified probability sample survey (Natsal-3) of 15,162 women and men in Britain (response rate: 57.7%), using computer-assisted self-interviews. Data come from 1875 (71.9%) sexually active, and 517 sexually inactive (18.7%), participants aged 16–21 years. Measures were single items from a validated measure of sexual function (the Natsal-SF). Results: Among sexually active 16- to 21-year-old participants, 9.1% of men and 13.4% of women reported a distressing sexual problem lasting 3 months or more in the last year. Most common among men was reaching a climax too quickly (4.5%), and among women was difficulty in reaching climax (6.3%). Just over a third (35.5%) of men and 42.3% of women reporting a problem had sought help, but rarely from professional sources. Among those who had not had sex in the last year, just >10% of young men and women said they had avoided sex because of sexual difficulties. Conclusions: Distressing sexual function problems are reported by a sizeable minority of sexually active young people. Education is required, and counseling should be available, to prevent lack of knowledge, anxiety, and shame progressing into lifelong sexual difficulties

A cryogenic rotation stage with a large clear aperture for the half-wave plates in the Spider instrument

We describe the cryogenic half-wave plate rotation mechanisms built for and used in Spider, a polarization-sensitive balloon-borne telescope array that observed the Cosmic Microwave Background at 95 GHz and 150 GHz during a stratospheric balloon flight from Antarctica in January 2015. The mechanisms operate at liquid helium temperature in flight. A three-point contact design keeps the mechanical bearings relatively small but allows for a large (305 mm) diameter clear aperture. A worm gear driven by a cryogenic stepper motor allows for precise positioning and prevents undesired rotation when the motors are depowered. A custom-built optical encoder system monitors the bearing angle to an absolute accuracy of +/- 0.1 degrees. The system performed well in Spider during its successful 16 day flight.Comment: 11 pages, 7 figures, Published in Review of Scientific Instruments. v2 includes reviewer changes and longer literature revie

Modeling and characterization of the SPIDER half-wave plate

Spider is a balloon-borne array of six telescopes that will observe the Cosmic Microwave Background. The 2624 antenna-coupled bolometers in the instrument will make a polarization map of the CMB with approximately one-half degree resolution at 145 GHz. Polarization modulation is achieved via a cryogenic sapphire half-wave plate (HWP) skyward of the primary optic. We have measured millimeter-wave transmission spectra of the sapphire at room and cryogenic temperatures. The spectra are consistent with our physical optics model, and the data gives excellent measurements of the indices of A-cut sapphire. We have also taken preliminary spectra of the integrated HWP, optical system, and detectors in the prototype Spider receiver. We calculate the variation in response of the HWP between observing the CMB and foreground spectra, and estimate that it should not limit the Spider constraints on inflation