A Statistical Analysis of Valparaiso University\u27s Math Placement Process

All incoming students at Valparaiso University participate in a math placement process, which begins with a questionnaire that asks students to self-report their high school GPA, ACT/SAT scores, and previous math classes taken. Based upon the questionnaire, students are assigned a math pre-placement score of 0, 1, 2, or 3, with 0 corresponding to placement into MATH 110: Intermediate Algebra and 3 corresponding to placement into MATH 131: Calculus I. However, since the questionnaire is based upon self-reported data, the data is sometimes inaccurate, which may place students into math courses for which they are not prepared to succeed. Using actual admissions data for the Fall 2022 freshmen cohort, I analyze the accuracy of the self-reported data and the math pre-placement scores. This research serves as the basis for a new process of calculating math pre-placement scores directly from admissions data. This new process is not only beneficial for ensuring students are placed into the appropriate math courses, but also for simplifying the process and increasing retention. Although all students receive a math pre-placement score, students also have the opportunity to take a math placement assessment through the ALEKS software in order to try to raise their placement level. I investigate the correspondence between the pre-placement scores and the ALEKS assessment scores in order to determine if the cut-off values should be re-calibrated. I also analyze what percentage of students are able to complete math review modules through the ALEKS software and successfully raise their placement level. Furthermore, I calculate the average time that successful students spend in the ALEKS software system so that the University can more effectively advertise this opportunity to incoming students

The Evolving Role of Antifungal Susceptibility Testing

Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/98278/1/phar1233.pd

Vocabulary Theatre: A Peer-teaching Approach for Academic Vocabulary Acquisition

This mixed methods counterbalanced study compared the gain score means of two different approaches to vocabulary acquisition – Vocabulary Theater (VT) and Teacher Directed Instruction (TDI) for 8th grade students from three schools in New York. The purpose of the study was to explore the effects of a peer teaching approach on students’ vocabulary development. Students in the VT condition were instructed to take ownership of their words by teaching them to their peers. They received both linguistic and non-linguistic representations of 30 Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT) words over a three-week period, while the TDI condition students were instructed over the same three-week period to define the same 30 SAT words through the use of a dictionary and then use the words in sentences. The study’s counterbalanced design ensured that all students received each vocabulary condition. Students were given a pre- and posttest to examine their level of vocabulary acquisition in each condition. A survey given to the students in the VT condition revealed that on average 43% of the students were totally unfamiliar with the words presented, 14% had an associative connection with the words presented and 13 % were very familiar with the words. Qualitative data were collected from all three schools in the form of group discussions, VT presentations, individual interviews, teacher interviews, and classroom observations. The quantitative analysis revealed that the gain scores of students in the Vocabulary Theatre were significantly greater than the gain scores of students in the TDI condition regardless of the presentation order

Mass Protests and the Military

In nonviolent mass protests against dictators, the military is the ultimate arbiter of regime survival. Drawing on a global survey of forty "dictator's endgames" from 1946 to 2014, this essay examines how dictators and their militaries respond to popular protests, and what the consequences are in terms of the survival of authoritarianism or the emergence of democracy. The authors argue that the type of the authoritarian regime and the military's legacy of human rights violations go a long way in explaining whether a military will employ violence against the protesters or defect from the ruling coalition

Delphi-Expertenbefragung zu Smart Cities 2035

Smart City wird in der Schweiz als ein integratives Zukunftskonzept für fortschrittliche (Energie-)Städte verstanden. Bisher gibt es nur eine allgemeine Definition, eine Vielzahl von persönlichen Vorstellungen und einige Pilotprojekte. Im Rahmen einer Delphi-Befragung unter Fachexperten wurde der Begriff Smart City konkretisiert und erweitert. Die Studie zeigt u.a. die ersten Schritte auf dem Weg zu einer Smart City vom Konzept hin zur Umsetzung, die wichtigsten Akteure sowie die dabei auftretenden Treiber & Barrieren auf

Le corps translangageant médiateur de sens

A la question centrale de ce numéro « comment le corps co-construit les discours et le sens ? », nous répondrons par un regard sur le discours ancré dans le vivant (Trocmé-Fabre, 2012). Dans cet article en effet, les Langues Vivantes Etrangères (LVE) seront présentées dans leur nature corporelle complexe (Aden, 2008 ; Eschenauer, 2014), en lien avec le français, langue de scolarisation, et les langues familiales des élèves. Nous en verrons les implications pour la didactique des langues. Les théories de l’embodiment et plus précisément, le paradigme de l’énaction proposé par Varela (1988, 1989), à la croisée de la phénoménologie (Husserl, 1913 ; Merleau-Ponty, 1945) et des neurosciences cognitives, nous permettront de poser le cadre de l’enjeu d’un engagement corporel en situation didactique. La multimodalité sera ainsi définie dans le cadre énactif. Il s’agira dans un premier temps de présenter la co-construction des discours et du sens à l’interface de l’émergence des langues, de l’empathie (Davis, 1980) et de l’expérience esthétique (Baumgarten, 1750 ; Dewey, 1934 ; Schaeffer, 2015). Nous illustrerons nos propos par quelques résultats de l’étude longitudinale et qualitative translangues AiLES (Arts in Language Education for an Empathic Society).Talking about the body means at the same time questioning the boundaries that exist between oneself and others and the ambiguity of the oscillations between being and appearing, the visible and the invisible, being and having; taking an overall look at practices and techniques of the body.(Marzano, 2017, p. X)The translanguaging body as mediator of meaning: an enactive-performative approach to modern language learning at school The practices and techniques of the body, as emphasised by a growing number of educational researchers, have their rightful place in the language course(s) taught and experienced at school (Aden, 2008, 2013; Azaoui, 2014; Eschenauer, 2014, 2018; Lapaire, 2011; Soulaine, 2010; Tellier, 2010, 2014; Trocmé-Fabre, 1999, 2012). To the central question of this issue "how does the body of speakers co-construct discourse and meaning in didactic speech?", I will respond with a look at the discourse rooted in the living. As Hélène Trocmé-Fabre (2012) reminds us, the living emerges from its history, adapts to its environment and transforms itself in time and space. The same is true of living languages (langues vivantes) and, at their heart, speeches. In fact, productions and language interactions manifest themselves in the "in-between" (inter), in the individual and joint action that creates meaning. It is a question of entering into reciprocity (p.115), of constructing a common space-time (p.116). Sensoriality, emotions, movements of the gaze, of the face or of the whole body, positioning in space are intrinsically linked to non-verbal and verbal language. In this article, Foreign Modern Languages (FSL) are presented in their complex physical nature (Aden, 2008; Eschenauer, 2014), in relation to French, the language of schooling, and to the family languages of the pupils. This paper shows the implications for language didactics.The theories of embodiment and, more precisely, the enaction paradigm proposed by Varela (1988, 1989), at the crossroads of phenomenology (Husserl, 1913; Merleau-Ponty, 1942) and cognitive neuroscience, will allow us to set the framework for the challenge of physical engagement in a didactic situation. Multimodality will thus be defined in the enactive paradigma.The question of particular interest to us in this article is the impact of the use of the mediating function of the body language by artists, teachers and students in the classroom on the understanding of meaning and the production of speech in a foreign modern language. Two sub-questions guide our reflection: what multimodal strategies enable learners to access meaning? How does learning to perceive/interpret the different modalities of access to meaning enable pupils to produce/interact/create by diversifying the use of these modalities? I first present the co-construction of discourse and meaning at the interface of the emergence of languages, empathy (Davis, 1980) and aesthetic experience (Baumgarten, 1750; Dewey, 1934; Schaeffer, 2015). Finally, I illustrate my comments with some results from the longitudinal and qualitative study AiLES (Arts in Language Education for an Empathic Society), in which I followed for four years a cohort of students from a middle school in an underprivileged area, where the languages German and English were taught together in an enactive-performative approach (Eschenauer, 2017; Aden & Eschenauer, 2020). This approach, as its name suggests, is based on two epistemologies of the relationship. Enaction, a paradigm of the ecology of embedded cognition, is implemented through performativity, in its dimension which is both linguistic (Austin, 1970) and artistic (Fischer-Lichte, 2004), as we detail in the article.Varela (1989,1992), a neurophenomenologist researcher, has proposed the paradigm of enaction to designate the emergent, complex and situated nature of cognition. For him, the human being is made up of language in the phenomenal sense. The act of languaging (Maturana & Varela, 1994: 204) is a situated, social and reflexive act, a joint action involving the whole body, itself inextricably linked to self-awareness and intellect (Varela et al., 1992). Every social act is an act of language and every act of language is the basis of learning processes. Varela does not use the term 'multimodality', but he refers to the different modalities of language, both verbal and non-verbal, and emphasises their intertwining. His understanding of language as a complex phenomenon rooted in our bodies allows me to evoke a multimodality of language extended in an enactive sense. For me, sensoriality, emotions and empathy constitute means of relationship, therefore modalities of language. Multimodality is sometimes invisible, inaudible, but it is always perceptible. Language thus has a function of mediating meaning between oneself and others, but also between oneself and oneself through perceptions, imagination, the generation of ideas, silent thoughts; and between oneself and the environment (the environment takes on meaning and is constructed in the relationship with the subject).This assertion of uncommon language in the context of language didactics implies the creation of new models which are always adapted to the environment, taking into account and soliciting the emergent and multimodal nature of language as we have defined it above. To facilitate it, we have for our part proposed an enactive-performative approach to languages (Eschenauer, 2018; Aden & Eschenauer, 2020), i.e. in which artistic performance becomes a means of implementing enactive language didactics.Performance, like enaction, is rooted in Husserl's phenomenology. It relies precisely on the acting body (the Körper body that one has) and the perceiving body (the Leib body that one is), space and relationship, to bring out the meaning of discourse (Fischer-Lichte, 2004). The performative arts that we offer in our modern language teaching systems require a variety of teaching postures. They allow the teacher to leave a transmission posture to become a co-creator of meaning with his or her students. The pupils create stories with the communicative means at their disposal, using gestures, mimics, emotions, movement in space, proxemics, but also verbalized languages. When they do not have the language skills, they use mediation strategies in the enactive sense (Aden, 2013, Eschenauer, 2017), including codemeshing and codemixing if necessary, or sometimes even translation. They therefore sometimes use their first languages, which are valued and linked to the languages of the school (i.e. German, English or French). In this way, they develop translingualism (translangageance) skills (Eschenauer, 2014, 2017). Translangageance is a concept that I proposed in my thesis in line with the work of Cen Williams (1997) and Ophelia Garcia (2009) on translanguaging, as an ability to draw on all its linguistic registers. Joëlle Aden introduces the bodily dimension into this capacity to act by translangager. I myself use the suffix "ance" to underline the fluid process of languaging that emerges during performative activities. The prefix "trans" underlines the transversal character of a discourse benefiting from a plural identity, but also the transcendental aspect of the metacogintion phases during which pupils become aware of the richness and nature of languages. Formal learning accompanied by teachers is born from a need to speak in languages, aroused by the imagination of the pupils on stage and shared between them through scripted situations. Pupils use corporality to understand an utterance in foreign languages and to react/interact appropriately; to fluidify a discourse; to support a discourse. These four strategies will be illustrated in the article.Performing theatre practice, because of its aesthetic nature (Baumgarten, 1750; Dewey, 1934) and the (inter)subjective involvement of the student actors in the space, also develops their psychosocial skills (Rittelmeyer, 2017) - especially social and emotional skills and empathy competencies (Aden, 2008, 2010; Sambanis, 2013) - as well as their intercultural (Hoffmann et al., 2008; Sting et al., 2010) and linguistic (Hoffmann et al., 2008; Sting et al., 2010) skills. The objective of this didactic approach is not a task that would have been formalised in detail in advance by the teacher, but an event, a situation that occurs and evolves in a teacher-pupil co-creation.The results of the studies I have conducted, including the AiLES (Arts in Language Education for an Empathic Society) longitudinal study, show that a balance of physical (sensory-motor and emotional), intellectual (linguistic, metacognitive) and social (empathy) involvement in their learning leads pupils to language autonomy. The AiLES study also shows that awareness of the effects of multimodality - in the enactive sense - on discourse leads to superior language skills. The excerpts of corpus analyses in the article help to illustrate these results and to specify the modalities of the translanguaging enactive-performative approach

Créativité et empathie dans les apprentissages performatifs: vivre et encorporer ses langues

International audienceThis article examines the connections between creativity and empathy in the context of teaching-learning modern languages at school. Creativity is defined here in the field of enaction (Varela, 1989, 1993) whereby languages are emerging, and thus creative processes. How does developing creativity through a sensitive, embodied approach in translanguaging teaching, foster language learning (Eschenauer, 2014) ? This is the question tackled in this study, which analyzes pupils’ language creativity through enactive teaching in line with learners’ biological nature. The results of a micro-analysis revealing the connection between creativity-empathy and language learning support these remarks.Cet article interroge les liens entre créativité et empathie dans un contexte scolaire d’enseignement-apprentissage des langues vivantes. La créativité est définie ici dans le champ de l’énaction (Varela, 1989, 1993) dans lequel les langues sont des processus émergents, donc créatifs. En quoi la développer par une approche sensible et « encorporée » (Eschenauer, 2014), dans les enseignements translangues, favorise-t-il les apprentissages langagiers ? C’est la question posée dans l’étude présentée dans cet article qui étudie la créativité langagière des élèves au travers d’une pédagogie énactive en phase avec la nature biologique de l’apprenant. Quelques résultats d’une micro-analyse révélant le lien créativité-empathie et apprentissages de langues étaieront ces propos

On Trust Establishment in Mobile Ad-Hoc Networks

We present some properties of trust establishment in mobile, ad-hocnetworks and illustrate how they differ from those of trustestablishment in the Internet. We motivate these differences byproviding an example of ad-hoc network use in battlefield scenarios,yet equally practical examples can be found in non-militaryenvironments. We present a framework for trust establishment inmobile ad-hoc networks and argue that peer-to-peer networks areespecially suitable to solve the problems of generation, distribution,and discovery of trust evidence in mobile ad-hoc networks. We evaluateour approach through simulation with NS-2