A High School Mini-Course Program

Most schools are designed for adults, for the comfort and convenience of faculty and administration. The faculty is divided by the administration into specified areas of the facility and given tasks for which they are specifically trained. This has been the traditional method of educational instruction. One of the major responsibilities of the principal is that of educational leader in instruction. The effective principal must be constantly in search of methods of improving instruction. An important program has been implemented at Windsor High School. This program is designed to enrich the traditional curricular offerings. The program is called the mini-course program. The mini-course program expands on the traditional approach to learning by incorporating the faculty, facilities, and area resources into a program of learning instruction. The idea is to provide a learning situation for the student that incorporates the idea that learning is a life long process. The program attempts to illustrate, by the use of hands on activities, that the entire world is a learning station. The program is designed to demonstrate that hobbies, careers, or individual activities of a personal nature are part of the life-long educational process. The program points out that the school is not the only place to learn and learning does not end with the completion of a formal educational program. The most important aspect in the work of developing a mini-course program is promotion of the concept to the superintendent, the board of education, the community and the students. The main thrust must be directed at receiving student support. If the student is not interested in the final product, the enrichment program will be a failure. In order to gain acceptance, the mini-course program director must be aware that there are problems in program development. The main problems are developing good public acceptance, faculty acceptance, transportation difficulties, and many administrative procedures. Regardless of the problems of program implementation, the program administrator must constantly focus his attentions and efforts on the positive aspects of the program. These include: a better understanding of the school by people of the community a better understanding of the teacher/student relationship the development of carry-over value for the student actual on the job contact in career areas the development of better administrative faculty interaction the use of the course as a public relations tool. The mini-course program has been used twice at Windsor High School. The students, faculty, and community have an extremely positive attitude toward the program and look forward to its implementation

Dimensions and Characteristics of the Retail Market for the City of Brookings, South Dakota

This study was designed to examine the 1978 retailing environment in the City of Brookings, South Dakota. A survey of over 1,000 consuming households within the Brookings area was conducted in 1978 in establishing a data base from which this analysis proceeded. The basic purpose of this consumer survey study was to help establish the extent and trends in the Brookings retail and service market. It is the purpose of this report to provide the merchants of Brookings with infonnation which will assist them in improving their operations and to help the~ to be better able to serve and meet the needs of the residents of this immediate area. The study itself was divided up into four basic parts. The first part is devoted to a discussion of the research methodology utilized in preparing the consumer survey study. The second division is devoted to the overall retail market within the City of Brookings. This section deals with the composition and extent of the retail market, the socioeconomic characteristics making up the market, and the overall effectiveness of the media in the market area. The third section deals with each of the nine major retailing markets and their submarkets. Concerns addressed within this section include the extent of the geographic market, the relative strength of the market, the impact of media advertising on the decision making process of consumers in this market and the reasons customers choose to shop in competing regional retail markets. The final section presents the data base upon which the study is founded. This data base (found in the appendix section of this report) covers such areas as the consumer response rates as to the extent of their shopping in the Brookings retail market, the frequency response rate for reasons given for shopping outside of the Brookings retail market, and the effect of media advertising on consuming households. Caution must be expressed however in the use of this study. Since the initial collection of the data base, much has changed within the retail market area as evidenced by such trends as the development of retail malls and the rapidly changing economic forces in our economy. This constantly changing business and economic environment stresses the need for developing, maintaining, updating, and evaluating a good business/economic base information system for the merchants of Brookings. Such a system is an essential and useful tool for not only the retail merchants but for others interested in developing a better Brookings corrmunity in which to live and work

Bifurcated polarization rotation in bismuth-based piezoelectrics

ABO3 perovskite-type solid solutions display a large variety of structural and physical properties, which can be tuned by chemical composition or external parameters such as temperature, pressure, strain, electric, or magnetic fields. Some solid solutions show remarkably enhanced physical properties including colossal magnetoresistance or giant piezoelectricity. It has been recognized that structural distortions, competing on the local level, are key to understanding and tuning these remarkable properties, yet, it remains a challenge to experimentally observe such local structural details. Here, from neutron pair-distribution analysis, a temperature-dependent 3D atomic-level model of the lead-free piezoelectric perovskite Na0.5Bi0.5TiO3 (NBT) is reported. The statistical analysis of this model shows how local distortions compete, how this competition develops with temperature, and, in particular, how different polar displacements of Bi3+ cations coexist as a bifurcated polarization, highlighting the interest of Bi-based materials in the search for new lead-free piezoelectrics