Collaborative learning among high school students in a chamber music setting

This study is a qualitative case study of collaborative learning in two chamber music ensembles in a public high school orchestra program. Collaborative learning, as applied to chamber music education, is a setting in which musicians engage in a common musical task and are accountable to the other members of the group. Using social constructivism as a conceptual framework, I sought to explore student collaboration within chamber music ensembles through social interaction and the development of creative rehearsal strategies. Attention was directed to the way in which students identified problems and developed rehearsal strategies to solve them. The following research questions guided this study: (1) How do students in the selected chamber music ensembles engage in collaborative learning? (2) What are the learning structures that enable collaboration within each group? (3) How do the students interact with each other in the selected chamber music ensembles? (4) What are the social structures that enable collaborative learning within each group? Using Mediated Discourse Analysis (MDA) I analyzed and interpreted the collaborative learning that occurred in the musical development of these high school chamber musicians. Data collection occurred during one semester of instruction (five months) and included individual interviews, focus group interviews, and observations, which included field-notes and digital video of rehearsals. The research methodology used in this study comprised the “interpretive–descriptive” method and focused on turning the participants’ words and actions into the development of potential themes and implications. My approach used a three-step process to analyze data in which concepts were coded relating to the phenomenon of collaborative and mutual learning as well as sociocultural mediation. In this study, I examined the collaborative learning process among the student participants. My study was further informed by the participants’ perceptions of their own collaborative learning processes. Themes found were learning structures that allowed for collaboration in interpretation and problem solving, and social structures that enabled peer pressure, socialization and a work ethic. Results indicated that when given the opportunity to work in small groups toward pre-determined musical goals, the participants in this study: (1) worked with internal group leaders to identify musical problems and develop creative rehearsal strategies to solve them, (2) used positive and negative peer pressure that created an organic social structure which contributed to team efficacy, and (3) showed a willingness to work harder toward group goals when empowered with the responsibility for their own learning. The results of this study suggest that a collaborative learning environment that includes small groups of heterogeneously mixed students can advance student learning in multiple ways. The traditional teacher centered learning environment may not be the most effective learning environment because it may limit student development in one or more capacities, including decision making and social development. Recognition of the active, purposeful character of human development and respect for the shared understanding (socially distributed knowledge) that enables peers to teach one another ought to shape the music educator’s role and function; to serve as a musical guide, facilitator, and source of social support. Based on the results of this study, it appears that it may be possible to adapt collaborative learning to diverse instructional situations regardless of the heterogeneous makeup of the learning group

Smart farming

Australia has always been a world leader in agricultural innovation. Our farmers, supported by researchers, industry groups and other stakeholders, remain at the global forefront of the invention and adoption of technologies. This enthusiasm for change and innovation has helped Australian agriculture to retain its competitive edge over other producers. Technological advances will be even more important to the future of Australian agriculture. The sector is a part of the broader boom in innovation across the Australian economy. Meanwhile, new technologies will support farm businesses to tackle heightened regional competition, growing resource scarcity, and other challenges. The agriculture sector must be able to make the most of the innovation boom in order to support productivity growth and to maintain its competitiveness. At the core of the agricultural innovation boom are individual farm businesses that make decisions to adopt new technologies. If the Government wishes to support innovation and growth, it must support these businesses in technology adoption

Performance analysis of organizations as complex systems.

This dissertation provides a method for evaluating the difference in performance after an organization makes a change while considering the stochastic nature in which it operates. A procedure that uses simulation to estimate outcomes by adjusting controllable parameters and leaving uncontrolled parameters unadjusted is proposed. As healthcare organizations are considered as highly complex systems, a case study involving a scheduling tactic change in the mother-baby service line of a hospital is used to demonstrate application of this procedure. The goal in the case study was to reduce delays in transitioning care of mother patients from the labor and delivery unit to the postpartum care unit. The Holds Rate metric measured delays as the number of mothers deemed to be unintentionally delayed from transferring to the postpartum care unit to the total number of deliveries. While the scheduling tactic change did not yield the anticipated result, the proposed procedure was used to show that performance would have been worse had the change not been made. Hospital leadership chose to keep the solution and target performance was later surpassed. Ultimately, hospital leaders heralded the project as a great success. The proposed procedure was applied with two different simulation methods. A Monte Carlo simulation model was used to measure Holds Rate and a discrete-event simulation model to measure the average delay time experienced by patients waiting to be placed in a postpartum bed following delivery. The results of the procedure with both models led to the same conclusion that the scheduling tactic change indeed reduced delays in the transitions of care between the two hospital units. The case study demonstrated the validity and applicability of the proposed procedure and organizations may benefit from its use as leaders may be more prone to act since analysis with the procedure isolates the effects of uncontrolled parameters. Isolating these effects to better understand those of controlled parameters can promote an organization’s sustainability by advancing knowledge of cause-and-effect relationships. Future research with this topic can include application with other simulation methods, investigating the impacts of technology advancements, and considering a method of analysis using Bayesian inference

Technology Adoption and Aggregate Energy Efficiency

Improved technology is often cited as a means to alter the otherwise difficult trade-off between the economic burden of regulation and environmental damage. Focusing on energy-saving technologies that mitigate the threat of climate change, we find that both energy prices and financial health influence technology adoption among a sample of industrial plants in four heavily polluting sectors. Based on a model linking technology adoption to growth in aggregate efficiency, we estimate that a doubling of energy prices, after raising the growth rate to 2.1%, would require slightly more than 50 years to generate a 50% improvement in aggregate efficiency relative to the baseline forecast.energy efficiency, endogenous technological change, technology adoption

AIDS and Associated Malignancies

AIDS associated malignancies (ARL) is a major complication associated with AIDS patients upon immunosuppression. Chronically immunocompromised patients have a markedly increased risk of developing lymphoproliferative disease. In the era of potent antiretrovirals therapy (ARV), the malignant complications due to HIV-I infection have decreased in developed nations where ARV is administered, but still poses a major problem in developing countries where HIV-l incidence is high and ARV is still not yet widely available. Even in ARV treated individuals there is a concern that the prolonged survival of many HIV-l carriers is likely to eventually result in an increased number of malignancies diagnosed. Malignancies that were found to have high incidence in HIV-infected individuals are Kaposi\u27s sarcoma (KS), Hodgkin\u27s disease (HD) and non-Hodgkin\u27s lymphoma (NHL). The incidence of NHL has increased nearly 200 fold in HIV-positive patients, and accounts for a greater percentage of AIDS defining illness in the US and Europe since the advent of HAART therapy. These AIDS related lymphomas are distinct from their counterparts seen in HIV-l seronegative patients. For example nearly half of all cases of ARL are associated with the presence of a gamma herpesvirus, Epstein Barr virus (EBV) or human herpesvirus-8 (HHV-8)/ Kaposi\u27s sarcoma associated herpesvirus (KSHV). The pathogenesis of ARLs is complex. B-cell proliferation driven by chronic antigenemia resulting in the induction of polyclonal and ultimately monoclonal lymphoproliferation may occur in the setting of severe immunosuppression

William Harrington Beard correspondence to Phi Sigma

William Harrington Beard, a founding member of Phi Sigma, wrote this letter as a reply to an invitation for the twenty-fifth anniversary banquet of the group. Although Beard was unable to attend the event, he shared his memories of the group\u27s history in addition to well wishes for its future.https://digitalcommons.colum.edu/phisigma_letters/1008/thumbnail.jp