Teacher Evaluations in the Special Education Setting: Voices from the Field

National policy mandates have placed greater accountability on districts and schools to improve the outcomes of every student, including students with disabilities. Teacher evaluation systems that accurately identify effective teachers and their impact on student learning have resulted in the widespread design and implementation of new teacher evaluation systems. Nevertheless, limited exploration related to the evaluation of special education teachers exists. Using a qualitative, multi-case study research design, we sought to gain insight into the perceptions and experiences of special education teachers and administrators to better understand (a) the relationship between teacher evaluation and teacher effectiveness; (b) the ways in which educators approach the challenges of applying teacher evaluation systems for special education teachers; and (c) the ways in which teacher evaluation processes support the professional growth and development of special education teachers. The challenges involved in evaluating special education teachers with a uniform teacher evaluation protocol instrument are presented. The need to be able to accurately appraise special education teachers within an inclusive classroom setting, apply criteria from the observation protocol to special education students, and lack of appraisers� knowledge of the roles and expertise of special education teachers were identified. Recommendations for improvement are provided.Educatio

Partitioning Relational Matrices of Similarities or Dissimilarities using the Value of Information

In this paper, we provide an approach to clustering relational matrices whose entries correspond to either similarities or dissimilarities between objects. Our approach is based on the value of information, a parameterized, information-theoretic criterion that measures the change in costs associated with changes in information. Optimizing the value of information yields a deterministic annealing style of clustering with many benefits. For instance, investigators avoid needing to a priori specify the number of clusters, as the partitions naturally undergo phase changes, during the annealing process, whereby the number of clusters changes in a data-driven fashion. The global-best partition can also often be identified.Comment: Submitted to the IEEE International Conference on Acoustics, Speech, and Signal Processing (ICASSP

An Analysis of the Value of Information when Exploring Stochastic, Discrete Multi-Armed Bandits

In this paper, we propose an information-theoretic exploration strategy for stochastic, discrete multi-armed bandits that achieves optimal regret. Our strategy is based on the value of information criterion. This criterion measures the trade-off between policy information and obtainable rewards. High amounts of policy information are associated with exploration-dominant searches of the space and yield high rewards. Low amounts of policy information favor the exploitation of existing knowledge. Information, in this criterion, is quantified by a parameter that can be varied during search. We demonstrate that a simulated-annealing-like update of this parameter, with a sufficiently fast cooling schedule, leads to an optimal regret that is logarithmic with respect to the number of episodes.Comment: Entrop

Reduction of Markov Chains using a Value-of-Information-Based Approach

In this paper, we propose an approach to obtain reduced-order models of Markov chains. Our approach is composed of two information-theoretic processes. The first is a means of comparing pairs of stationary chains on different state spaces, which is done via the negative Kullback-Leibler divergence defined on a model joint space. Model reduction is achieved by solving a value-of-information criterion with respect to this divergence. Optimizing the criterion leads to a probabilistic partitioning of the states in the high-order Markov chain. A single free parameter that emerges through the optimization process dictates both the partition uncertainty and the number of state groups. We provide a data-driven means of choosing the `optimal' value of this free parameter, which sidesteps needing to a priori know the number of state groups in an arbitrary chain.Comment: Submitted to Entrop

An Automated Build System for Articulated Characters

Rigging is the process of designing and implementing the manipulation architecture for an animated three-dimensional character. Rigs that give the animator the most control tend to be the most difficult to set up and maintain. Due to the linear nature of some elements of rigging, the more complicated a rig, the more time-intensive--and therefore more expensive--to achieve a high quality rig. A solution to complex rig iterability is to automate as much of the process as possible. The topic of this thesis is a framework for modular rigging automation, with a focus on quick and efficient rig iteration. A rigger is able to design a rig from predefined module elements (rig blocks) or quickly script new blocks. A rig is deconstructed into these elemental blocks and merged into a single rig script to regenerate the rig and attach a character\u27s geometry

The GOD in HIV: How the Perceived Influence of Christianity on Sex Education Impacts Black Men Who Have Sex with Men’s Knowledge of HIV

Black men who have sex with men (BMSM) are disproportionately affected by HIV in Atlanta, GA. The purpose of this study is to explore BMSM’s experience with how they have perceived Christianity’s influence on sex education curriculum in Atlanta, GA and how that has possibly impacted their knowledge of HIV. This study is conducted through participant interviews of BMSM between the ages of 18-30 in Atlanta, GA. This study is significant to Africana Studies because it interrogates how Anglo-Christian doctrine and its hegemony over the American South has impacted a city where sexuality, race, and religion have historically intersected. Also, as Africana Studies programs have historically failed to highlight Black LGBTQ+ history in the curriculum, this study is a significant exploration into a phenomenon specific to the Black LGBTQ+ community that helps to fill in gaps in the ongoing HIV research that has impacted generations of the Black LGBTQ+ community