Enacting a Pragmatist Educational Metaphysic through Civic Engagement in the Basic Media Studies Course

We argue that in order to help forward John Dewey’s vision of a pragmatist educational metaphysic, civic engagement through service learning in the basic media studies communication course is a possible plan of action. Specifically, we focus on basic media studies communication courses (e.g., introduction to media criticism, media and society, media and culture) and discuss ways to implement civic-oriented service learning activities for the purposes of fostering greater civic engagement. We draw on literature concerning media literacy and service learning that lead to a case study featuring application of Dewey’s philosophy to a media literacy project. This essay is ontologically and epistemologically important as it adds to our scholarly perspective of the service learning experience for teacher, student, and community, while also contributing knowledge about the inquiry process of basic communication course scholarship

Special Forum on the Philosophy of Teaching Education as Communication: The Pragmatist Tradition

We take the basic course in communication to be a site where associated living is experienced, and where individuals practice the democratic art of referencing and articulating their own behaviors and beliefs to those of others. This democratic practice is associated living is, as American pragmatist and educational philosopher John Dewey insisted, communication itself -- conjoint communicated experience. In this essay, we provide an overview of this pragmatist educational metaphysic and discuss a few consequences of metaphysical beliefs about education

Life is a Lab: Developing a Communication Research Lab for Undergraduate and Graduate Education

Tips offered center on classroom discourse, curriculum choices, and potential assignments. In this article, we present tips for creating a thriving undergraduate and graduate communication research lab. Based on our experiences developing and co-directing the Communication and Social Robotics Labs (CSRLs), we offer 10 best practices for acquiring resources and recognition, building a strong lab community, and attaining faculty and student goals for scholarship and beyond. Our overarching approach is framed by Dewey’s (1916) pragmatist educational metaphysic, which stresses student- and subject-centered learning, enlarging experiences, and the co-construction of meaning and knowledge. Although our labs are focused on human-machine communication (HMC), the strategies we present can be applied to any number of research contexts for both undergraduate and graduate education

Economics of corn stover

In the midst of rising energy prices, Congress sought to incentivize the development of alternative fuel systems. One major component of that incentive was the passage of the 2007 Energy Act. The 2007 Energy Act established the current Renewable Fuels Standard (known as RFS2) and categorized renewable fuels into four basic areas: conventional biofuels, cellulosic biofuels, biodiesel, and additional advanced biofuels

Sharing financial risk through flexible farm lease agreements

A simulation model representing a north central U.S. corn and soybean farm was used to estimate the degree of financial risk borne by the tenant and the landlord under 10 different types of flexible cash leases. Probability distributions for yields, prices and production costs were incorporated. Measures of risk included standard deviation of profits, probability of loss, and 10th percentile value at risk. A profit sharing lease that included rent adjustments for all three variables shifted the most risk from the tenant to the landowner, and reduced the tenant\u27s probability of incurring an economic loss from 51 percent to 37 percent

Plagiarism Deterrence in CS1 Through Keystroke Data

Recent work in computing education has explored the idea of analyzing and grading using the process of writing a computer program rather than just the final submitted code. We build on this idea by investigating the effect on plagiarism when the process of coding, in the form of keystroke logs, is submitted for grading in addition to the final code. We report results from two terms of a university CS1 course in which students submitted keystroke logs. We find that when students are required to submit a log of keystrokes together with their written code they are less likely to plagiarize. In this paper we explore issues of implementation, adoption, deterrence, anxiety, and privacy. Our keystroke logging software is available in the form of an IDE plugin in a public plugin repository

Human-Robot Teaming Configurations: A Study of Interpersonal Communication Perceptions and Affective Learning in Higher Education

Technology encourages collaboration in creative ways in the classroom. Specifically, social robots may offer new opportunities for greater innovation in teaching. In this study, we combined the established literature on co-teaching teams with the developing field of machine actors used in education to investigate the impressions students had of different team configurations that included both a human and a robot. Participants saw one of three teams composed of a human and a social robot with different responsibilities present a short, prerecorded lecture (i.e., human as lead teacher-robot as teaching assistant, robot as lead teacher-human as teaching assistant, human and robot as co-teachers). Overall, students rated the human-led team as more appealing and having more credibility than the robot-led team. The data suggest that participants would be more likely to take a course led by a human instructor than a social robot. Previous studies have investigated machine actors in the classroom, but the current findings are unique in that they compare the individual roles and power structures of human-robot teams leading a course

General Anomaly Detection of Underwater Gliders Validated by Large-scale Deployment Datasets

Underwater gliders have been widely used in oceanography for a range of applications. However, unpredictable events like shark strikes or remora attachments can lead to abnormal glider behavior or even loss of the instrument. This paper employs an anomaly detection algorithm to assess operational conditions of underwater gliders in the real-world ocean environment. Prompt alerts are provided to glider pilots upon detecting any anomaly, so that they can take control of the glider to prevent further harm. The detection algorithm is applied to multiple datasets collected in real glider deployments led by the University of Georgia's Skidaway Institute of Oceanography (SkIO) and the University of South Florida (USF). In order to demonstrate the algorithm generality, the experimental evaluation is applied to four glider deployment datasets, each highlighting various anomalies happening in different scenes. Specifically, we utilize high resolution datasets only available post-recovery to perform detailed analysis of the anomaly and compare it with pilot logs. Additionally, we simulate the online detection based on the real-time subsets of data transmitted from the glider at the surfacing events. While the real-time data may not contain as much rich information as the post-recovery one, the online detection is of great importance as it allows glider pilots to monitor potential abnormal conditions in real time.Comment: Accepted in IEEE/MTS OCEANS Gulf Coast 202

Human-Machine Communication Scholarship Trends: An Examination of Research From 2011 to 2021 in Communication Journals

Despite a relatively short history, the modern-day study of communication has grown into multiple subfields. To better understand the relationship between Human-Machine Communication (HMC) research and traditional communication science, this study examines the published scholarship in 28 communication-specific journals from 2011–2021 focused on human-machine communication (HMC). Findings suggest limited prior emphasis of HMC research within the 28 reviewed journals; however, more recent trends show a promising future for HMC scholarship. Additionally, HMC appears to be diverse in the specific context areas of research in the communication context. Finally, we offer future directions of research and suggestions for the development of HMC