Teachers Transform: Developing New Understandings And Competencies Following The Implementation Of The Common Core Writing Standards

The purpose of this qualitative case study was to understand how elementary teachers have transformed and developed new writing understandings and competencies following the implementation of the English Language Arts (ELA) Common Core State Standards (CCSS). This was done by understanding teachers’ perceptions and experiences, as well as how they have developed their understandings, with classroom writing. Participants were four elementary teachers from two public school districts in North Dakota—one single-school district and one multi-school district. Data were collected with interviews, observations, and artifacts throughout the school year. The data analysis was completed using the qualitative research program ATLAS.ti and included within-case and cross-case analyses. The theoretical framework underpinning this study was Mezirow’s transformative learning theory. This theory supported understanding how teachers have transformed following the ten phases from transformative learning theory. Four themes emerged from the analysis: Teachers Name Impacts with Implementing the Writing Standards, Systemic and Isolated Learning about Writing Practices, Personalized Learning to Pave the Way to Implement Classroom Writing, and Taking Risks and Transforming Perspectives. These themes led to three assertions. The first assertion was “Left in isolation, teacher’s ability to transform is hindered.” Teachers from districts that did not offer systemic and collaborative writing professional development opportunities had to locate external sources for information. The second assertion was “Teachers work through challenges when they value the change.” Although findings described impacts as obstacles for teachers to overcome, they were willing to work through these obstacles because they recognized that writing was important for their students. The third assertion was “Experience as an integral factor with transformative learning.” In order to fully transform and develop new writing understandings and competencies, teachers needed to have experience teaching writing both prior to and following the implementation of the ELA CCSS. Recommendations for teachers, teacher educators, and administrators included (a) using innovative solutions to overcome obstacles to developing writing understandings and competencies; (b) ensuring research on writing is based on best practices while developing teachers’ understandings and competencies; (c) training teachers on both procedural and declarative writing knowledge in teacher education programs or professional development opportunities; and (d) transforming teachers’ beliefs, attitudes, and behaviors regarding the importance of writing in today’s society. Keywords: transformative learning, writing standards, ELA Common Core State Standards, classroom implementation, writing curriculum, writing instruction, writing assessment, North Dakot

Ecology – Energy Flow, Environments, and Habitats [7th grade]

By the end of this unit students will understand that life depends on energy flow through systems. They will recognize the many energy transformations that take place, and focus especially on the transformation of radiant energy to chemical energy in the process of photosynthesis. Students will also understand that as energy is transferred throughout an ecosystem and is used or transformed along the way. They will be able to diagram the flow of energy in a number of manners including: food chains, food webs, and energy pyramids. Lastly, students will leave this unit understanding that organisms and their environments; both living and non-living are interconnected. They will be able to describe various environments and the biodiversity created in those ecosystems. In addition they will be able to describe how an environment and the organisms in it attempt to maintain balance when disrupted. In the end students will be able to take a plot of land and describe the different ecological features of it from biodiversity to energy flow and predict its response to various internal and external factors

Genetics: Heredity and Adaptations

By the end of this unit students will able to distinguish the difference between offspring from asexual reproduction and sexual reproduction. Students will be able to describe how traits are passed from parent to offspring and the role that DNA and chromosomes play in the passage of inherited traits. This unit will also lead students to predict genetic outcomes using Punnett Squares. Using their knowledge of heredity students will then be engaged in exploring how the passage of genetic traits can change over time based on an organism’s environment, through natural selection. Students will also be able compare the difference between natural selection and artificial selection. Lastly, students will be able describe common adaptations and the roles that they play in an organisms survival

Shaping Community - Teamwork and Critical Thinking

By the end of this unit students should be able to effectively work with any number of people as members of a team. Students will be able to recognize the consequences of their own actions and how those affect a larger group. Additionally, students will be able to develop the skills need to navigate conflict that arises in group settings. Along with that, students will develop their critical thinking skills to effective engage in problem solving. All of this is leading up to students being able to, as a group, identify an issue in their community and work towards addressing that issue together. This unit is based on the experiential education model. It is designed to get students active and learn through doing. This unit is designed to be used in an advisory type class and can be implemented over a series of weeks and doesn\u27t need to happen in a quick succession of days

Plate Tectonic: Plates and Their Consequences [8th grade]

By the end of this unit students will able to identify the various layers of the earth and their characteristics. Students will be able to describe the relationship between the lithosphere and the mantle. Using their knowledge of this relationship, students will then be engaged in exploring how tectonic plates work and their interactions along plate boundaries. Students will also be able to predict the resulting geologic activity given a specific plate boundary type. Lastly, students will be able describe the formation and consequences of three common geologic events: earthquakes, volcanoes, and mountain building

Salmonella Infection After Craniotomy.

Salmonella is an uncommon cause of meningitis, especially after neurosurgery. Here, we present a case of Salmonella meningitis after craniotomy, likely due to physical contact with a snake after surgery, with contiguous spread from the patient's hand to her wound. The purpose of this report is to serve as a reminder that patients undergoing neurosurgery should avoid contact with pets, including snakes and other reptiles, in the postoperative period and practice good hand hygiene

A Detailed Hydro-Economic Model for Assessing the Effects of Surface Water and Groundwater Policies: A Demonstration Model from Brazil

Policymakers, managers of water use associations, and many others in developing countries are considering policy actions that will directly or indirectly change the costs and availability of groundwater and surface water for agricultural users. While in many cases such actions may bring about welcomed increases in water use efficiency, little is known about the likely effects of changes in irrigation costs or water access on farmer behavior, or on farmer incomes in the short or long runs, and virtually nothing is known about the detailed immediate or knock-on effects on water resources that such policy actions might cause. This paper reports the preliminary results of research aiming to fill these large scientific gaps by developing a detailed hydrologic model and a detailed economic model of agriculture in the context of the Buriti Vermelho (BV) sub-catchment area of the São Francisco River Basin in Brazil. A spatially explicit, farm-level, positive mathematical programming model capable of accommodating a broad array of farm sizes and farm/farmer characteristics is being developed to predict the effects of alternative water policies and neighbors water use patterns on agricultural production. Special attention is given to precisely defining and estimating the distinct variable costs (including labor and electrical energy costs) and capital costs of surface water and groundwater, which are considered perfect substitutes for irrigation. Shadow values for non-marketed inputs (land, family labor, and water) are estimated in the first step of the modeling process. A high-resolution, spatially distributed hydrologic model (MOD-HMS) is being developed to simulate three-dimensional, variably-saturated subsurface flow and solute transport. Subsurface flow is simulated using the three-dimensional Richards equation while accounting for a) application of water at the surface, b) precipitation, c) soil evaporation and crop transpiration, and d) agricultural pumping. Demonstration versions of both models are presented and tested: the economic model assesses the effects of increasing water scarcity on cultivated area, crop mix, input mix and farm profits; the hydrologic model uses two irrigation water use scenarios to demonstrate the effects of each on surface water flows and storage, and on groundwater storage and well depth. The models are not currently linked, but a detailed plan to do so is presented and discussed. The paper concludes by discussing next steps in research and policy simulations.Resource /Energy Economics and Policy,

Streamflow disaggregation: a nonlinear deterministic approach

International audienceThis study introduces a nonlinear deterministic approach for streamflow disaggregation. According to this approach, the streamflow transformation process from one scale to another is treated as a nonlinear deterministic process, rather than a stochastic process as generally assumed. The approach follows two important steps: (1) reconstruction of the scalar (streamflow) series in a multi-dimensional phase-space for representing the transformation dynamics; and (2) use of a local approximation (nearest neighbor) method for disaggregation. The approach is employed for streamflow disaggregation in the Mississippi River basin, USA. Data of successively doubled resolutions between daily and 16 days (i.e. daily, 2-day, 4-day, 8-day, and 16-day) are studied, and disaggregations are attempted only between successive resolutions (i.e. 2-day to daily, 4-day to 2-day, 8-day to 4-day, and 16-day to 8-day). Comparisons between the disaggregated values and the actual values reveal excellent agreements for all the cases studied, indicating the suitability of the approach for streamflow disaggregation. A further insight into the results reveals that the best results are, in general, achieved for low embedding dimensions (2 or 3) and small number of neighbors (less than 50), suggesting possible presence of nonlinear determinism in the underlying transformation process. A decrease in accuracy with increasing disaggregation scale is also observed, a possible implication of the existence of a scaling regime in streamflow

Economic impacts of regional water scarcity in the São Francisco River Basin, Brazil: an application of a linked hydro-economic model.

This paper presents a linked hydro-economic model and uses it to examine the regional effects of water use regulations and product price changes on the agriculture of the São Francisco River Basin, Brazil. The effects of weather on surface water availability are explicitly addressed using the hydrological model MIKE-Basin. Farmers? adjustments to changes in precipitation, surface water availability, and other factors are quantified using an economic model based on non-linear programming techniques. The models are externally linked. Results show that regional impacts, at the sub-basin level, vary depending on the location of each sub-basin relative to river flows. The effects of water use regulations and of exogenous price shocks on agriculture depend on weather, location, productmix and production technology. Implications of these results for policies designed to manage agriculture and water use are discussed

A spatially distributed hydroeconomic model to assess the effects of drought on land use, farm profits, and agricultural employment.

In this paper a high-resolution linked hydroeconomic model is demonstrated for drought conditions in a Brazilian river basin.Doi: 10.1029/2008WR00753