The Writing is the Wall: Expanding the Means of Communication with Multimodal Approaches to Teaching Composition

As the paradigm of communication shifts into the digital realm, it seems only logical that instructors’ pedagogical approaches to teaching writing should shift as well. Though there is still much merit to teaching tradition approaches to composition, are there more modern methods that could be employed to teach communication in a contemporary setting? This thesis shall examine the role that new media can play in a multimodal composition course, as new media seems to be the most effective way to teach rhetorical communication skills in a modern setting. By looking at new media elements, such as podcasts, wikis, and images, this thesis shall attempt to understand how these media come into rhetorical meaning, and examine how instructors can effectively integrate new media into their curriculum for their composition courses. The research of this thesis suggest that while implementing multimodal approaches can be an effective way to teach communication strategies, instructors must careful craft their pedagogies to ensure that these multimodal approaches are fully understood by students

The Perennial Quest: Working Towards Equitable Assessment With Student-Centric Learning Contracts

This dissertation examines the role of writing assessment in college composition courses, and how issues including learning aversion, access to technology, and white-language supremacy can harm our assessment practices and pedagogy. Writing assessment is one of the most important aspects of teaching and is a significant factor in shaping students’ attitudes about their abilities as writers. While writing assessment is of tremendous importance, effectively and equitably assessing student writing can be difficult, especially when teaching diverse student populations. In an effort improve the quality of writing assessment, this dissertation focused on developing Student-Centric Learning Contracts (SCLCs) as a more effective alternative to conventional forms of assessment. SCLCs are a hybrid of labor and learning contracts, that aim to provide students with increased agency in the assessment process. In SCLCs, students and instructors work collaboratively to outline what a student wants to learn, how they will learn it, and what kinds of language will help them reach their audience

Persisting correlations of a central spin coupled to large spin baths

The decohering environment of a quantum bit is often described by the coupling to a large bath of spins. The quantum bit itself can be seen as a spin $S=1/2$ which is commonly called the central spin. The resulting central spin model describes an important mechanism of decoherence. We provide mathematically rigorous bounds for a persisting magnetization of the central spin in this model with and without magnetic field. In particular, we show that there is a well defined limit of infinite number of bath spins. Only if the fraction of very weakly coupled bath spins tends to 100\% does no magnetization persist.Comment: 19 pages, 15 figures, rigorous bounds for the central spin mode

Nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy of nonequilibrium steady states in quantum dots

The optically induced polarization of localized electron spins in an ensemble of quantum dots (QDs) dephases due to the interaction with the surrounding nuclear spins. Despite this dephasing, the spins in the QDs can be controlled to respond coherently by applying periodic laser pulses, leading to a revival of the spin polarization before each pulse. This effect, known as spin mode locking, strongly depends on an emerging selection of certain polarizations of the nuclear spin bath which is driven to a steady state far from equilibrium. We investigate the influence of the nuclear composition in In$_x$Ga$_{1-x}$As QDs on this nonequilibrium behavior and demonstrate that nuclear magnetic resonances (NMR) appear as very sharp dips in the revival signal. This suggests a novel kind of NMR spectroscopy.Comment: 7 pages including 4 figures; 3 pages supplement including 3 figure