Historia Naturalis

In this paper, I will detail the process of making the graduate thesis film Historia Naturalis. I will begin with how the idea came into being in the first part. Next, I will outline the methodology from screenwriting to completion- examining all the major creative and production related elements. Finally, I will attempt to personally analyze the success of the final project

A Study to Determine what Difference, If Any, Exist when Comparing the Achievement Scores of Two Groups of Second Grade Students, One Grouped Homogeneously and One Grouped Heterogeneously, in Three Skill Areas--Reading, Math and Spelling--As Measured by the Standford Achievement Tests

The purpose of this study is to determine what differences, if any, exist in reading, math and spelling achievement scores as measured by the Stanford Achievement Tests of the second grade students who were grouped homogeneously (i.e., were assumed to have similar academic abilities) and the second grade students who were heterogeneously grouped (i.e., were grouped according to no particular criteria) when compared to their first grade scores. These two groups of second graders, each consisting of four classes with approximately twenty-five students in each class, provide an excellent opportunity for research study for the purpose stated above because they were all exposed to the same four teachers, similar methods and materials. All of these students involved in this experiment attended the same school in the first grade and most of them attended the same school in kindergarten

School Leadership: Narratives of Title I Distinguished Middle School Principals

I began thinking about the topic of this dissertation in 2006 when I entered the world of educational leadership. I found myself struggling as I transitioned from middle school teacher to middle school administrator. I knew other novice administrators must be experiencing the same transition growth pains and that they too must be longing for information/stories from other leaders that have successfully made the transition to successful educational leader. Educational leaders are under close surveillance as the bar for accountability continues to increase each year due to measures put forth in the No Child Left Behind Act of 2002. Everyone is looking to them to provide and promote effective educational experiences for everyone within their school community. What I hope to accomplish with this dissertation is to provide valuable insight into the everyday life experiences of successful middle level leaders. Through the sharing of life experiences this study will provide a broad spectrum of administrative experience. It is my desire that this study serve as a springboard for similar studies that promote the sharing of life experiences of educational administrators. It is my hope that this study will serve as a valuable resource for administrators working within counties that do not offer mentorship programs and/or additional leadership resources for new or ineffective leaders. Through this study and similar studies middle level leaders can relate to and learn from the experiences of their peers

The influence of time-of-day consumption and training status on the ergogenic properties of caffeine

Purpose: The objectives were to determine the effects of time-of-day consumption and training status on the benefits of caffeine supplementation for cycling performance and peak muscle strength. METHODS: Twenty untrained and trained subjects completed four trials consisting of isokinetic peak torque testing and 3-km time trials (TT). Subjects ingested either 6 mg/kg of caffeine or a placebo one hour prior to each trial. Treatments were: morning + placebo, morning + caffeine, evening + placebo, evening + caffeine. Magnitude based inferences were used to evaluate treatment differences. RESULTS: Caffeine (‘very likely’ and ‘likely’) improved 3-km TT performance in the morning and evening. 3-km TT performance was ‘likely’ improved more in the morning than evening for total subject pool and trained subjects. Untrained subjects ‘likely’ benefited more during the 3-km TT from supplementation than trained in both the morning and evening. Caffeine supplementation was ‘likely’ trivial and ‘unclear’ for the majority of peak muscle strength conditions. CONCLUSIONS: Caffeine supplementation improved 3-km TT performance in the morning for trained and untrained, with lesser benefits in the evening, while untrained benefited more than trained. Peak muscle strength was largely unaffected by caffeine supplementation, regardless of time-of-day consumption or training status

Design a Research Study Assignment

This assignment sheet was designed for an English 102 course

Acting on what we hear: the impact of a listening methodology in a community literacy program.

Calls for better listening, especially to racially and linguistically marginalized populations, are popular and necessary in community literacy studies. However, while scholarship has clarified the need for attending to a range of voices across the life of a community program and demonstrated clear results of good listening, it has not sufficiently outlined a methodology for listening, especially as it applies to community-engaged action. Even less scholarship has focused on attending to current listening practices, so that scholars and community partners hoping to practice active listening interpret participants’ input through a soundtrack of other, unnoticed, “voices,” and have no way of working through misaligned goals and consequences. This dissertation begins by arguing that we cannot outline engaged listening practices until we understand how we currently listen, and what “voices” we attend to as we interpret participant input. I use a community program for refugee and immigrant mothers that I helped pilot as my central case study, tracing how organizers’ listening processes led to program implementation. Demonstrating a methodology I term “listening back,” I argue that the gap between our goals and consequences often stemmed from past programmatic practices and ever-circulating deficit discourses that “spoke into” planning meetings and program sessions. Using a community wealth model to interpret core participants’ literate histories, I outline a set of new narratives that organizers might use as they shift away from deficit discourse, highlighting the rich literate repetoires that women bring into community literacy contexts. Finally, because grassroots community literacy programs are often small and short-lived, but in relationship with sustainable funders and partners, I argue that organizers must look for ways to amplify our listening work. End of program documents, which are used in grant narratives and program proposals, are both a relationship-building tool and a place for gentle critique. In establishing the effectiveness of a program and detailing practices that attend to women’s cultural and literate wealth, rather than their lack, we can shift the narrative about immigrant and refugee families on a larger scale than merely in a single program