Framework for Understanding the Legal Structure of Texas Public Schools

Texas public school stakeholders consist primarily of students, parents, faculty and staff, administrators, school board members, business leaders, community members, and taxpayers. While each of these stakeholders has a vested interest in the local school district, many fail to understand how public schools came into existence and the legal rationale upon which they operate. The problem lies in the structural complexity of schools, which is prohibitive to a complete understanding by its entire constituency. While the multiple layers of politics and numerous laws and policies that define the Texas public school structure may be necessary for proper operation, the intricacy further exacerbates the ability of many to fully comprehend it. The purpose of this study was to create a framework for understanding the legal structure of Texas public schools to facilitate a more complete understanding by all constituents

Design Factory New Zealand: A co-creation space where students work in multidisciplinary teams with industry partners to solve complex problems

This workshop provided an opportunity for participants to work with Design Factory New Zealand (DFNZ) principles to experience learning as a multidisciplinary team, working on a complex problem. Participants had a chance to see how DFNZ acts as a transformation agent within students, staff, institution and the wider community. DFNZ as a curriculum allows students to explore new themes that challenge the usual paradigms. We encourage students to take ownership of their learning, to be open minded, and to have the freedom to respond to solutions without the shackles of a traditional design process driven by cost. By partnering with industry and exposing students to create solutions for real world problems, DFNZ has the aim of producing global citizens who have a better chance of succeeding in the workplaces of the future. Currently DFNZ has facilitated learning to students from Civil and Mechanical Engineering, Communication, Information Technology, Business, Design and Sports Science. Industry partners working with the DFNZ team tap into a pool of carefully selected and motivated students who are supported to come up with innovative and holistic solutions to their problems. Industry can use DFNZ as an opportunity to solve specific and existing needs of the company, or utilise fresh thinking to approach complex and wider issues. Involvement with the Design Factory can provide industry with critical strategic insight

Impacts on Teacher Evaluations: The Importance of Building Capacity through Excellence in the Application of the Teacher Evaluation Process

Significant student learning and school improvement are dependent upon the teacher being the centerpiece (Tucker, Stronge, Gareis, & Beers, 2003; National Council of Teacher Quality, 2011). In maintaining the high standards associated with teaching responsibilities, educators are held accountable through performance evaluations. In the United States, teacher evaluations have long been a standard of practice largely determined by individual states and school districts. Additionally, teacher effectiveness has been guided by at least three pieces of national legislation, including the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA, 1965), the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB, 2001) and the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA, 2009), also referred to as the Stimulus or Recovery Act. With the expectation that the nation\u27s universities produce higher quality teachers and school districts hire highly qualified teachers, the profession finds itself under constant, critical scrutiny, most recently concerning the evaluation of teachers

Combining independent modules to solve multiple-choice synonym and analogy problems

Existing statistical approaches to natural language problems are very coarse approximations to the true complexity of language processing. As such, no single technique will be best for all problem instances. Many researchers are examining ensemble methods that combine the output of successful, separately developed modules to create more accurate solutions. This paper examines three merging rules for combining probability distributions: the well known mixture rule, the logarithmic rule, and a novel product rule. These rules were applied with state-of-the-art results to two problems commonly used to assess human mastery of lexical semantics -- synonym questions and analogy questions. All three merging rules result in ensembles that are more accurate than any of their component modules. The differences among the three rules are not statistically significant, but it is suggestive that the popular mixture rule is not the best rule for either of the two problems

Tuning the Diversity of Open-Ended Responses from the Crowd

Crowdsourcing can solve problems that current fully automated systems cannot. Its effectiveness depends on the reliability, accuracy, and speed of the crowd workers that drive it. These objectives are frequently at odds with one another. For instance, how much time should workers be given to discover and propose new solutions versus deliberate over those currently proposed? How do we determine if discovering a new answer is appropriate at all? And how do we manage workers who lack the expertise or attention needed to provide useful input to a given task? We present a mechanism that uses distinct payoffs for three possible worker actions---propose,vote, or abstain---to provide workers with the necessary incentives to guarantee an effective (or even optimal) balance between searching for new answers, assessing those currently available, and, when they have insufficient expertise or insight for the task at hand, abstaining. We provide a novel game theoretic analysis for this mechanism and test it experimentally on an image---labeling problem and show that it allows a system to reliably control the balance betweendiscovering new answers and converging to existing ones

Virtual tour of DFNZ

This session is for anyone interested in our DFNZ space. This session will introduce DFNZ staff and students to the global network. It will show our space, our values, our key areas within our (small) space and introduce the staff that work within there. There will be a short intro, followed by the tour and finish up with a Q & A. DFNZ looks forward to hosting you so see you there

How a web conference classroom evolved into a distance learning classroom with live support

BACKGROUND Hydrology and Erosion Management, part of the Bachelor of Engineering Technology (BEngTech) Degree, is taught flexibly within New Zealand. Flexible, by the BEngTech definition, refers to flexible space but fixed time; hence web conferencing is used to provide real time contact with students based at other tertiary institutes. Delivering a traditional lecture via web link exaggerates the weaknesses of the lecture format. Limited personal interaction with the tutor and with fellow students makes it challenging for students to stay engaged. Shifting the class focus to online activities, and requiring the students to do these within “web conferencing class time”, created a virtual classroom where all students could be treated equally. The web conferencing tool therefore became secondary and was used to support the online activities through short periods of information and clarification. PURPOSE The purpose of this study is to produce a model of a successful flexible classroom that actively engages students with the learning outcomes, the tutor and each other and produces a positive learning experience for the students. DESIGN A questionnaire was developed in 2012 to ascertain how the teaching model suited the students and what improvements could be made. This small sample produced quantitative data on the students’ perceptions of the web conferencing class. In 2013 the modified questionnaire was more qualitative and targeted, asking how the balance of activities, web conferencing and online work each aided the student to learn the course material. Feedback from questionnaires was analysed in conjunction with student participation with the learning management system activities and the student results. The quality of students’ answers to tutor-directed online activities reflected the depth of their learning. Initial conclusions were drawn between traditional styled lectures, traditionally styled web conference classes and this flexible classroom model based on the multiple data sets described above. RESULTS In 2012, anecdotal evidence showed students were positive about this model of learning experience, reducing common fears of how challenging learning in this type of environment might be. The feedback from 2013’s cohort showed an improvement in engagement levels. This is likely to be as a result of increased tutor confidence and competence in using web conferencing and learning management software in conjunction with each other. Further, with experience, learning activity instructions have been improved to clarify expectations to suit the changed teaching environment. The learning environment has now transformed from a web conference direct transmission classroom into a virtual classroom through a learning management system with live support. SUMMARY With the removal of many of the barriers found in traditional web conferencing classrooms the students have expressed their appreciation of learning in this type of environment. As the online environment was a base for all sessions, the web conferencing aspect became of secondary focus allowing students the freedom to more easily interact online with the content, their peers and with the tutor