The Need to Belong: Interweaving State History in Adult ESL to Support Culturally Responsive Teaching

As an increasing variety of cultures is represented in our adult ESL classrooms, and there is a growing need for instructors to employ culturally responsive teaching methods to bridge the gap between students’ cultural backgrounds and the current curriculum and instructional practices being used in our community college noncredit classrooms. The existing cultural dissonance between the mainstream culture and their own may cause learners to internalize negative individual and group identities resulting in low expectations for life changes. Without understanding the relationship between your home and your host country, the history of the new place, or a sense of connection to it, it is difficult to feel a sense of belonging to the larger community – especially when your culture is not regarded equally by members of the dominant culture. In order for immigrants to be invested in the democracy of their new home they need to see themselves and their families as part of their new community’s history. To address this issue, “We Belong Here Together: A Handbook for Teachers of Adult Intermediate ESL,” intended to be used as a supplementary curriculum, provides opportunities for students to better understand the diverse groups of immigrants which have influenced California. The handbook is based on the theories of Culturally Relevant Teaching and Sense of Belonging. The focus is on immigration stories of people from diverse cultures and from different periods in California’s past, with the goal of encouraging students to make personal connections to the stories, thereby creating a sense of belonging to their host community. The handbook provides adult ESL educators with a tool that is designed to help students make cultural connections in the classroom by exploring some of the major themes that dominated California’s past with the hope of fostering a sense of global citizenship and social inclusion while building an understanding of complex social problems

Pseudo-nonstationarity in the scaling exponents of finite-interval time series

The accurate estimation of scaling exponents is central in the observational study of scale-invariant phenomena. Natural systems unavoidably provide observations over restricted intervals; consequently, a stationary stochastic process (time series) can yield anomalous time variation in the scaling exponents, suggestive of nonstationarity. The variance in the estimates of scaling exponents computed from an interval of N observations is known for finite variance processes to vary as ~1/N as N for certain statistical estimators; however, the convergence to this behavior will depend on the details of the process, and may be slow. We study the variation in the scaling of second-order moments of the time-series increments with N for a variety of synthetic and “real world” time series, and we find that in particular for heavy tailed processes, for realizable N, one is far from this ~1/N limiting behavior. We propose a semiempirical estimate for the minimum N needed to make a meaningful estimate of the scaling exponents for model stochastic processes and compare these with some “real world” time series

Signatures of dual scaling regimes in a simple avalanche model for magnetospheric activity

Recently, the paradigm that the dynamic magnetosphere displays sandpile-type phenomenology has been advanced, in which energy dissipation is by means of avalanches which do not have an intrinsic scale. This may in turn imply that the system is in a self-organised critical (SOC) state. Indicators of internal processes are consistent with this, examples are the power-law dependence of the power spectrum of auroral indices, and in situ magnetic field observations in the earth's geotail. However substorm statistics exhibit probability distributions with characteristic scales. In this paper we discuss a simple sandpile model which yields for energy discharges due to internal reorganisation a probability distribution that is a power-law, whereas systemwide discharges (flow of “sand” out of the system) form a distinct group whose probability distribution has a well defined mean. When the model is analysed over its full dynamic range, two regimes having different inverse power-law statistics emerge. These correspond to reconfigurations on two distinct length scales: short length scales sensitive to the discrete nature of the sandpile model, and long length scales up to the system size which correspond to the continuous limit of the model. The latter are anticipated to correspond to large-scale systems such as the magnetosphere. Since the energy inflow may be highly variable, the response of the sandpile model is examined under strong or variable loading and it is established that the power-law signature of the large-scale internal events persists. The interval distribution of these events is also discussed

Extremum statistics: a framework for data analysis

Recent work has suggested that in highly correlated systems, such as sandpiles, turbulent fluids, ignited trees in forest fires and magnetization in a ferromagnet close to a critical point, the probability distribution of a global quantity (i.e. total energy dissipation, magnetization and so forth) that has been normalized to the first two moments follows a specific non-Gaussian curve. This curve follows a form suggested by extremum statistics, which is specified by a single parameter a (a = 1 corresponds to the Fisher-Tippett Type I (“Gumbel”) distribution). Here we present a framework for testing for extremal statistics in a global observable. In any given system, we wish to obtain a, in order to distinguish between the different Fisher-Tippett asymptotes, and to compare with the above work. The normalizations of the extremal curves are obtained as a function of a. We find that for realistic ranges of data, the various extremal distributions, when normalized to the first two moments, are difficult to distinguish. In addition, the convergence to the limiting extremal distributions for finite data sets is both slow and varies with the asymptote. However, when the third moment is expressed as a function of a, this is found to be a more sensitive method

Scaling collapse and structure functions: identifying self-affinity in finite length time series

Empirical determination of the scaling properties and exponents of time series presents a formidable challenge in testing, and developing, a theoretical understanding of turbulence and other out-of-equilibrium phenomena. We discuss the special case of self affine time series in the context of a stochastic process. We highlight two complementary approaches to the differenced variable of the data: i) attempting a scaling collapse of the Probability Density Functions which should then be well described by the solution of the corresponding Fokker-Planck equation and ii) using structure functions to determine the scaling properties of the higher order moments. We consider a method of conditioning that recovers the underlying self affine scaling in a finite length time series, and illustrate it using a Lévy flight

Avalanching and Self Organised Criticality, a paradigm for geomagnetic activity?

The characterization of global energy storage and release in the coupled solar wind-magnetosphere system remains one of the fundamental problems of space physics.Recently, it has been realised that a new paradigm in physics, that of Self Organised Criticality (SOC) may encapsulate the mixing and merging of flux on many scales in the magnetotail prompting bursty energy release and reconfiguration. SOC is consistent with qualitative measures such as power law power spectra and bursty bulk flows and with more quantitative tests such as power law burst distributions in auroral indices and auroral optical activity. Here, we present a careful classification of the broad range of systems that fall under the general description of "SOC". We argue that some, but not all, of these are consistent with our current understanding of the magnetosphere. We discuss the observed low dimensionality of the dynamic magnetosphere in terms of both SOC model properties, and observables. Observations of burst statistics are highlighted; we show that these are currently suggestive but not sufficient to confirm SOC and in particular we find that auroral indices are not effective at distinguishing the internal dynamics of the magnetosphere from that of the intermittent solar wind driver. This may also elucidate the paradox of predictability and complexity of the coupled solar wind-magnetosphere system.Comment: 15 pages, 5 .ps/.eps figures, in press, Space Science Reviews. 2nd version includes correct figure 4, a note in proof, and updated refs. Figure 2 on server is scanned version of publication origina

United States Organization Working to Strengthen School Leadership Preparation

We have come into a time where there is of scarcity of resources, where colleges and universities are being pulled in different directions by many of its constituents, and state politicians are jockeying for which policies that they want to implement with limited or no resources to support them, which makes the support for higher education even more scant. If there was not a more urgent time to have a different mindset to transform a college or university this decade, then there likely will not be one. Knowing the obstacles in which higher education institutions need to overcome, the leadership of a college or university needs to be transformational in how it operates, thinks, and maneuvers

The Effect of Constructivist Mathematics on Achievement in Rural Schools

International assessment data indicate American students are not competing with their counterparts in other countries. The mathematics curriculum and pedagogy are not preparing students to compete in a global economy. This study compared student achievement using sixth grade mathematics results from the Illinois Standards Achievement Test. Specifically, the study compared the results of students in three different rural school districts, all of whom were receiving instruction in three different mathematics curricula. In one district, students received seven years of the K-6 Everyday Mathematics curriculum which was compared with students who received seven years of instruction using a traditional mathematics curriculum in the second district and in the third district scores were compared with students who were taught using a traditional mathematics curriculum supplemented with Mountain Math. The results of this study indicate the constructivist K-6 elementary mathematics curriculum did not lead to higher levels in math achievement when compared with the traditional methods of instruction

Women Superintendents In Illinois: Gender Barriers and Challenges

Women face unique challenges as superintendents. This study determined barri- ers women face as superintendents and elicited reasons why these women would consider leaving the superintendent\u27s position. Thirty-nine PreK-12 women su- perintendents in Illinois participated in a web-based survey in January 2008. Survey items included information regarding characteristics, pathways to the superintendency, personal barriers, professional barriers, and factors that would cause women to consider leaving the superintendency. Respondents identified familial responsibilities, gender discrimination, employment opportunities, and self-confidence as major barriers. Factors that would cause women superinten- dents to leave their position included employment opportunities, familial re- sponsibilities, and peer support. Six women were also personally interviewed to clarify survey responses and to gain greater insights regarding the barriers. The women indicated that they had experienced barriers related to gender discrimi- nation and familial responsibilities. These barriers did not contribute to the su- perintendents leaving their current positions. Their reasons for seeking new positions would be to pursue opportunities that would enhance their profes- sional experiences or improve their compensation