Turning Teachers into Action Researchers in their Classrooms

Action research is often called the teacher’s research and often feels like a common sense approach to solving problems, but not all pre-service teachers begin careers knowing how to use this methodology to improve their own practice. This article offers a rationale for teaching pre-service teachers the skills and action research methodology as a tool for professional improvement based on the experiences of the authors engaging in a reflective process for teaching. While not generalizable, it is hoped that lessons learned may be applied by other faculty in teacher education programs

Complementary use of TEM and APT for the investigation of steels nanostructured by severe plastic deformation

The properties of bulk nanostructured materials are often controlled by atomic scale features like segregation along defects or composition gradients. Here we discuss about the complimentary use of TEM and APT to obtain a full description of nanostructures. The advantages and limitations of both techniques are highlighted on the basis of experimental data collected in severely deformed steels with a special emphasis on carbon spatial distribution

Becoming Mindful Teachers: A Pilot Study

In this pilot action research study, one university professor, two public schooladministrators, and one classroom teacher worked together to teach mindfulness to teachers andpre-service teachers (university students studying to become teachers). The researchers used anaction and reflection process to design and deploy an online, asynchronous mindfulness courseover six weeks to meet the needs of participants. This paper discusses the pilot\u27s progress,challenges, results, and lessons learned

Turning Teachers into Action Researchers in their Classrooms

Action research is often called the teacher’s research and often feels like a common sense approach to solving problems, but not all pre-service teachers begin careers knowing how to use this methodology to improve their own practice. This article offers a rationale for teaching pre-service teachers the skills and action research methodology as a tool for professional improvement based on the experiences of the authors engaging in a reflective process for teaching. While not generalizable, it is hoped that lessons learned may be applied by other faculty in teacher education programs

Flipping the Classroom as Inclusive Practice

Educators often rely on the familiar I do, we do, you do pattern of explicit instruction. This pattern involves teachersdemonstrating a task or concept (“I do”), explaining itthoroughly and working it through with the class (“we do”),followed by having the students practice independently (the you do phase). Why? Because it works. It also reduces taskanxiety and boosts learners\u27 self-efficacy. However, the youdo phase, where students practice independently, often needsmore time and guidance – especially for students withdisabilities. This is where flipping the classroom comes inhandy

Co-teaching in Inclusive Classrooms Using Structured Collaborative Planning

A pair of co-teachers in a U.S., mid-western, suburban school district participated in a co-teacher training and subsequent research study, in an effort to encourage role changes that would increase the engagement of students with disabilities in the classroom, This case study presents the experiences of two co-teachers teaching in an inclusive, seventh grade science class. The teacher participants were first trained through voluntary participation in countywide, three-day in-service on co-teaching and brain-based learning and then interviewed. Over the course of the ten-week study, the co-teachers used a structured collaborative planning protocol to prepare for weekly co-teaching. Teachers and students were observed in the classroom and data was collected regarding teacher behavior and student engagement. At the conclusion of the ten weeks, teachers participated in a collaborative interview. A grounded theory approach to analysis of the pre- and post-interviews and the structured planning protocols illustrated that when the teachers met consistently and used a structured planning protocol to prepare for co-teaching in their inclusive classroom, they were able to make changes to their classroom teaching behaviors and traditional roles. These changes modified their professional relationships with one another, their roles in the classrooms, and their perceptions of their own roles as co-teachers. Implications for practice are discussed

Randomized controlled ferret study to assess the direct impact of 2008-09 trivalent inactivated influenza vaccine on A(H1N1)pdm09 disease risk

During spring-summer 2009, several observational studies from Canada showed increased risk of medically-attended, laboratory-confirmed A(H1N1)pdm09 illness among prior recipients of 2008-09 trivalent inactivated influenza vaccine (TIV). Explanatory hypotheses included direct and indirect vaccine effects. In a randomized placebo-controlled ferret study, we tested whether prior receipt of 2008-09 TIV may have directly influenced A(H1N1)pdm09 illness. Thirty-two ferrets (16/group) received 0.5 mL intra-muscular injections of the Canadian-manufactured, commercially-available, non-adjuvanted, split 2008-09 Fluviral or PBS placebo on days 0 and 28. On day 49 all animals were challenged (Ch0) with A(H1N1)pdm09. Four ferrets per group were randomly selected for sacrifice at day 5 post-challenge (Ch+5) and the rest followed until Ch+14. Sera were tested for antibody to vaccine antigens and A(H1N1)pdm09 by hemagglutination inhibition (HI), microneutralization (MN), nucleoprotein-based ELISA and HA1-based microarray assays. Clinical characteristics and nasal virus titers were recorded pre-challenge then post-challenge until sacrifice when lung virus titers, cytokines and inflammatory scores were determined. Baseline characteristics were similar between the two groups of influenza-naïve animals. Antibody rise to vaccine antigens was evident by ELISA and HA1-based microarray but not by HI or MN assays; virus challenge raised antibody to A(H1N1)pdm09 by all assays in both groups. Beginning at Ch+2, vaccinated animals experienced greater loss of appetite and weight than placebo animals, reaching the greatest between-group difference in weight loss relative to baseline at Ch+5 (7.4% vs. 5.2%; p = 0.01). At Ch+ 5 vaccinated animals had higher lung virus titers (log-mean 4.96 vs. 4.23pfu/mL, respectively; p = 0.01), lung inflammatory scores (5.8 vs. 2.1, respectively; p = 0.051) and cytokine levels (p.0.05). At Ch+14, both groups had recovered. Findings in influenza-naïve, systematically-infected ferrets may not replicate the human experience. While they cannot be considered conclusive to explain human observations, these ferret findings are consistent with direct, adverse effect of prior 2008-09 TIV receipt on A(H1N1)pdm09 illness. As such, they warrant further in-depth investigation and search for possible mechanistic explanations

The ESA climate change initiative: Satellite data records for essential climate variables

The ESA’s Climate Change Initiative is reprocessing and reassessing over 40 years of multi-sensor satellite records to generate consistent, traceable, long-term datasets of “essential climate variables” for the climate modeling and research communities

Pre - Service Teachers’ Perceptions of Disability as Represented in Children’s Television Programs--RESEARCH

As colleges and universities prepare pre-service teachers to teach in inclusive classrooms, it is important to understand college students’ schema of diversity. Part of creating an inclusive classroom culture is to understand how children view similarities and differences in others, and how to create a culture of acceptance. One way to create a culture of understanding is to use media representations and popular children’s television shows as a springboard for conversation and acceptance, but before pre-service teachers can use media, they have to first understand the characteristics and qualification criteria for students with disabilities, and also how the community at large perceives children with disabilities. This research investigated pre-service teachers’ understanding of proportionality and equality in children’s television programming. University undergraduate students applying to or already admitted into teacher education programs watched several hours of children’s television programs and answered questions about the number of characters they observed with disabilities, as well as the way these characters and their disabilities were presented in the show. The research showed that pre-service teachers disproportionately identified more television characters as having disabilities. Implications for practice include increasing early knowledge of IDEA categories and focusing on positive inclusive models in children’s programming and media

Placement of Workloads from Advanced RDBMS Architectures into Complex Cloud Infrastructure

Capacity planning is an essential activity in the procurement and daily running of any multi-server computer system. Workload placement is a well known problem and there are several solutions to help address capacity planning problems of knowing where, when and how much resource is needed to place workloads of varying shapes (resources consumed). Bin-packing algorithms are used extensively in addressing workload placement problems, however, we propose that extensions to existing bin-packing algorithms are required when dealing with workloads from advanced computational architectures such as clusteringand consolidation (pluggable), or workloads that exhibit complex data patterns in their signals, such as seasonality, trend and/or shocks (exogenous or otherwise). These extentions are especially needed when consolidating workloads together, for example, consolidation of multiple databases into one (pluggable databases) to reduce database server sprawl on estates. In this paper we address bin-packing for singular or clustered environments and propose new algorithms that introduce a time element, giving a richer understanding of the resources requested when workloads are consolidated together, ensuring High Availability (HA) for workloads obtained from advanced database configurations. An experimental evaluation shows that the approach we propose reduces the risk of provisioning wastage in pay-as-you-go cloud architectures