Planetary Exploration in Extremis

JPL's robot explorers are the pride of NASA, but the lab nearly got shut down in the budget-cutting early '80s. Here's the hair-raising story

A Life-Changing GIFT: The Impact of Classroom Climate and Community Building

The study of classroom climate and community has been a hallmark of communication education research for several decades (Dwyer et al., 2004). This wealth of meaningful research has provided scholars and instructors an abundance of practical strategies and knowledge to help develop and strengthen classroom climate and community. Moreover, this research has illustrated the relevance and need for a positive classroom climate and community within our educational institutions. The impact of creating a community-oriented classroom climate was documented by Dwyer et al. (2004), who found that, “Fostering a positive climate and sense of community for students in educational settings has been linked with retention and academic success” (p. 265). Considering the notable educational value of this initiative, the importance of developing a supportive classroom climate becomes apparent. Recognizing the necessity of community development to student success, this essay describes the key elements of classroom climate and community, presents a unique activity to begin building community in the classroom, and concludes by discussing an extraordinary student bond forged through community development in one of our courses

A Life-Changing GIFT: The Impact of Classroom Climate and Community Building

The study of classroom climate and community has been a hallmark of communication education research for several decades (Dwyer et al., 2004). This wealth of meaningful research has provided scholars and instructors an abundance of practical strategies and knowledge to help develop and strengthen classroom climate and community. Moreover, this research has illustrated the relevance and need for a positive classroom climate and community within our educational institutions. The impact of creating a community-oriented classroom climate was documented by Dwyer et al. (2004), who found that, “Fostering a positive climate and sense of community for students in educational settings has been linked with retention and academic success” (p. 265). Considering the notable educational value of this initiative, the importance of developing a supportive classroom climate becomes apparent. Recognizing the necessity of community development to student success, this essay describes the key elements of classroom climate and community, presents a unique activity to begin building community in the classroom, and concludes by discussing an extraordinary student bond forged through community development in one of our courses

Exploring the Canons of Rhetoric through Phil Davison’s Campaign Stump Speech

A common learning objective of many communication courses centers on speech criticism and evaluation, and the classic canons of rhetoric (invention, arrangement, style, memory and delivery of the speaker) have been used to help communication students achieve these learning outcomes. This teaching activity provides a creative and meaningful way to explore the canons of rhetoric—through assigning students to perform critical evaluation of a popularized YouTube video, the campaign stump speech of Stark County, Ohio, treasurer candidate Phil Davison. Students have responded favorably to the activity and demonstrated an increased awareness and understanding of the rhetorical canons and their use in speech criticism/evaluation

Exploring the Canons of Rhetoric through Phil Davison’s Campaign Stump Speech

A common learning objective of many communication courses centers on speech criticism and evaluation, and the classic canons of rhetoric (invention, arrangement, style, memory and delivery of the speaker) have been used to help communication students achieve these learning outcomes. This teaching activity provides a creative and meaningful way to explore the canons of rhetoric—through assigning students to perform critical evaluation of a popularized YouTube video, the campaign stump speech of Stark County, Ohio, treasurer candidate Phil Davison. Students have responded favorably to the activity and demonstrated an increased awareness and understanding of the rhetorical canons and their use in speech criticism/evaluation

Geometry of lines and degeneracy loci of morphisms of vector bundles

Corrado Segre played a leading role in the foundation of line geometry. We survey some recent results on degeneracy loci of morphisms of vector bundles where he still is of profound inspiration.Comment: 10 pages. To appear in the proceedings of the conference "Homage to Corrado Segre

Assessing Markers of Student Development for Dually and Non-Dually Enrolled Students in an Online Basic Public Speaking Course

Critics of college dual enrollment programs suggest that online courses could pose significant challenges for dually enrolled students due to the online learning environment structure, concerns of academic achievement, and limited access to academic support. These concerns call into question the merits of online instruction for institutions who offer the basic public speaking course online to provide access to a broader base of students (e.g., in inner cities and rural areas). Dual enrollment continues to increase in popularity, especially within the general education curriculum, which includes the basic public speaking course at many institutions. Research shows these students excel academically, but a student development perspective is lacking. For these reasons, this study assessed dually enrolled and non-dually enrolled students in an online basic public speaking course by measuring and comparing pretest and posttest findings on a communication-related marker of student development, public speaking anxiety, and a correlated marker of student development, imposter phenomenon. Findings show that, with regard to these markers, dually enrolled students within an online basic public speaking course have some similar outcomes to those of non-dually enrolled students. This study hopes to lay the groundwork for additional scholarship and dialogue regarding the best practices for dual credit courses in the communication discipline

On the dimension of subspaces with bounded Schmidt rank

We consider the question of how large a subspace of a given bipartite quantum system can be when the subspace contains only highly entangled states. This is motivated in part by results of Hayden et al., which show that in large d x d--dimensional systems there exist random subspaces of dimension almost d^2, all of whose states have entropy of entanglement at least log d - O(1). It is also related to results due to Parthasarathy on the dimension of completely entangled subspaces, which have connections with the construction of unextendible product bases. Here we take as entanglement measure the Schmidt rank, and determine, for every pair of local dimensions dA and dB, and every r, the largest dimension of a subspace consisting only of entangled states of Schmidt rank r or larger. This exact answer is a significant improvement on the best bounds that can be obtained using random subspace techniques. We also determine the converse: the largest dimension of a subspace with an upper bound on the Schmidt rank. Finally, we discuss the question of subspaces containing only states with Schmidt equal to r.Comment: 4 pages, REVTeX4 forma

The Shakedown of Warm-Ups: An Assessment of Pre-Speech Exercises\u27 Impact on Public Speaking Anxiety

Academics have suggested that the use of warm-up exercises like those used by forensics competitors before a competition may reduce students’ public speaking anxiety (PSA). However, little empirical work has assessed these anecdotal claims. Thus, to assess the impact of using warm-up exercises in the foundational course, we developed and tested a uniform warm-up protocol for students enrolled in our standardized, multi-section public speaking course. This study sought to discover whether students who engaged in physical and vocal function exercises prior to speech delivery would have lower speaking anxiety over the course of the semester than students in the control group. Although this assessment found no significant difference in PSA reduction for students enrolled in designated warm-up sections compared to students within the control group, these findings can guide the next steps toward optimal, evidence-based best practices for warm-ups in the introductory speech course. In light of past research and robust instructor perceptions regarding the anxiety-reducing benefits of warm-up exercises, this assessment reveals the need to test alternative warm-up protocols to help mitigate PSA, to measure for changes in state as well as trait apprehension, and to determine the treatments’ effects on individuals with differing degrees of PSA