Trans*literacies: Designing for Gender Fluency and Transmedia Literacy in the Elementary Classroom

Thesis (Ph.D.) - Indiana University, School of Education, 2015This dissertation is about transforming the social in order to achieve increased support for those who identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer/questioning, intersex, and asexual (LGBTQIA), but it is equally about dismantling misogyny, homophobia, and transphobia so that all people, regardless of their sexual or gender identity, can be free. Cultural expectations about gender are folded into, for example, the spoken and tacit rules for how women and men, girls and boys, should dress and carry their bodies and engage with others and make decisions about relationships, family, and careers. These expectations are also implicit in larger symptoms of cultural dysfunction, as in ongoing efforts to silence, bully, intimidate, and threaten women who speak up against sexism in video games and other popular media, as well as in cultural messages about masculinity that lead male-identified people to distance themselves from their emotional experiences and to engage, often unreflectively, in aggressive and sometimes violent behavior toward others. Despite overwhelming evidence that binaristic views of gender are insufficient for describing the spectrum of identities and range of gendered experiences that constitute daily life, the fiction of the gender binary persists. In America, all children are assigned one of two genders at birth and they are surrounded by and begin to internalize binaristic assumptions about gender, gender norms, and gender appropriate behavior within the first few years of their lives. These binaristic assumptions not only work against the best interests of those children and adults who identify as transgender or gender variant, but they also constrain all individuals' opportunities to explore and develop their intellectual, emotional, vocational, and social identities. At the core of this dissertation is an intervention designed to support late elementary (4th and 5th grade) students in challenging the fiction of the gender binary. Working with performance-based activities, projects that called for students to critique, appropriate and remix gender-focused transmedia narratives, and written and oral reflections on personal experiences with gender, the study aimed to support the development of trans*literacies: the skills, practices, and beliefs needed to negotiate and challenge gender norms across multiple media platforms. Drawing on queer and transgender theory, transmedia theory, and sociocultural and poststructuralist theories of literacy, learning, and identity, this study aims at contributing to a growing body of research on teaching about gender diversity in the formal classroom and at offering insights into how to support learners in developing more reflective forms of gender expression as they move toward adolescence

Improvements in Physical Functional Performance Test 10 (PFP-10) in an Amputee Following Contralateral Total Knee Arthroplasty

Introduction: Due to abnormal gait patterns in patients with lower extremity amputation (LEA), it has been hypothesized that this population experiences early onset of osteoarthritis (OA) of sound side limb causing pain and impaired function which may lead to surgical intervention. Purpose: The purpose of this case report is to present a transfemoral LEA who received sound limb total knee arthroplasty (TKA). Just prior to and immediately following surgery, there is a time period where a person with LEA can experience a decrease in physical functional performance and become dependent on assistance for daily activities. Case Description: The patient was a 56-year-old male who contracted necrotizing fasciitis in the right knee that resulted in a transfemoral LEA three years later. The onset of OA of the sound side knee was due to abnormal gait patterns and increased stresses. A TKA was performed to improve function and decrease pain. The Continuous Scale-Physical Functional Performance-10 (CS-PFP-10) test consists of 10 standardized daily living tasks that evaluate overall physical functional performance and performance in five individual functional domains: upper body strength (UBS), upper body flexibility (UBF), lower body strength (LBS), balance and coordination (BAL), and endurance (END). Physical Functional Performance (PFP) Total and individual domain scores of 0-47 indicates: Increased likelihood of functional dependence. Scores of 48-56 indicates: Likely at risk of losing independence, while scores of 57-100 indicate: Independent function likely. Outcomes: CS-PFP-10 test was administered one week preoperative as well as one, three, six and twelve-month post-operative TKA. The patient received skilled physical therapy and progressed to a supervised wellness program focusing on strength, balance, coordination and endurance. The skilled physical therapy lasted six months and supervised wellness up to one-year post surgery. One week preoperatively, three of five domains were at Increased likelihood of functional dependence, while two domains and PFP total were scored at the low end of at risk of losing independence. Following the one year of skilled physical therapy and supervised wellness program, all five domain scores as well as the total score were at the 70-95 range. Discussion: Due to the abnormal stresses placed on the sound limb during gait activities, a patient with a transfemoral amputation may develop early onset sound side OA. There is a dearth of evidence on unilateral LEA confounded by sound side TKA. There is a need for research in this population due to an increase in unilateral LEA and the need to develop a standard of care for optimal outcomes. A motivated patient with a LEA and sound side TKA can benefit from skilled physical therapy in terms of potentially attaining maximal functional independence with ADLs. Physical therapy should focus on rehabilitation for the TKA, but also must incorporate core strengthening, balance, coordination and endurance in order to improve physical functional performance to maintain independence. Introduction In the United States (U.S.), there are approximately 185,000 lower extremity amputations (LEA) per year, and in 2009 associated healthcare costs were over $8.3 billion.1,2 Amputations occur in patients with diabetes, vascular disease, trauma, cancer, congenital disorders, and infections.3 Angoules et al.4 reviewed 10 studies encompassing 451 patients, they examined the incidence of amputation following necrotizing fasciitis. The authors found that 22.3% of patients underwent limb amputation after failed attempts to control infection and avoid limb loss.4 Patients with LEA experience secondary impairments of osteoarthritis (OA) of the sound side limb.5,6 In unilateral LEA,7 it is important to recognize early onset OA and how function could improve with surgical intervention. OA is a chronic and degenerative synovial joint condition, primarily affecting articular cartilage. Late stage OA presents with persistent pain, which can be immobilizing.8 Abnormal gait patterns and joint mechanics, and lack of prosthetic confidence increases risk for knee OA in LEA patients.5,6 Dynamic analysis of transfemoral amputation (TFA) gait demonstrated decreased gait speed, cadence, and stride length, and increased stance phase on sound limb.9 New prosthetic technology has been developed to address unequal weight bearing through extremities in LEA to help prevent contralateral knee OA.10 However, not all patients have access to this technology. Similarly, rehabilitation access may also be disparate leading to highly individualized courses of prosthetic care, rehabilitation and outcomes. This case presents increased scores in Continuous Scale Physical Functional Performance Test (CS-PFP 10 Test) in a TFA patient with contralateral TKA following standard physical therapy (PT) interventions supplemented by high intensity, whole body strength training

A low-investment, high-impact approach for training stronger and more confident graduate student science writers

Scientists in applied fields, including conservation biology, face increasing expectations to communicate their research across multiple audiences. As environmental issues become more complex, the need for scientists to clearly communicate with other scientists, managers, stakeholders, tribes, the public, and policy makers becomes ever critical. Despite this need, students in graduate science programs receive limited direct instruction in writing and little training in writing for audiences outside of academia or in different genres. To that end, we developed an interdisciplinary program that incorporates rhetorical theory and writing intensive pedagogy to train graduate science students to write more effectively across genres. During the pilot testing in the first year of this broader, multiyear program, we evaluated changes in the writing practices and confidence of participants as writers and scientists who completed a low-investment, two-workshop sequence that highlighted habitual writing, peer review, and writing for multiple audiences and multiple genres. In just six contact hours, we documented significant increases in students\u27 reporting maintaining a more consistent writing routine and writing environment, revising multiple drafts for writing projects, and being willing to have work reviewed by peers or mentors. Upon completion of both workshops, students reported an increase in their confidence as writers. The development of comprehensive graduate writing programs can be costly and time intensive, but our evaluation demonstrates that significant gains in writing capacity and confidence as writers were made by graduate science students with even a low level of investment. We urge graduate science faculty in all Science Technology Engineering Math disciplines to consider how they might offer this two-workshop sequence or similar low-investment interventions that will build writing capacity and confidence as writers and scientists in graduate students

Our Space: Being a Responsible Citizen of the Digital World

Our Space is a set of curricular materials designed to encourage high school students to reflect on the ethical dimensions of their participation in new media environments. Through role-playing activities and reflective exercises, students are asked to consider the ethical responsibilities of other people, and whether and how they behave ethically themselves online. These issues are raised in relation to five core themes that are highly relevant online: identity, privacy, authorship and ownership, credibility, and participation.Our Space was co-developed by The Good Play Project and Project New Media Literacies (established at MIT and now housed at University of Southern California's Annenberg School for Communications and Journalism). The Our Space collaboration grew out of a shared interest in fostering ethical thinking and conduct among young people when exercising new media skills

Defining a Flexible Notion of “Good” STEM Writing Across Contexts: Lessons Learned From a Cross-Institutional Conversation

We respond to a surging interest in science communication training for graduate scientists by advocating for a focus on rhetorically informed approaches to STEM writing and its assessment. We argue that STEM communication initiatives would benefit by shifting from a strategic focus on products to a flexible understanding of writing as a practice worthy of attention and study. To do that, we use our experience across two universities and two distinct programmatic contexts to train STEM graduate students in writing and communication. We draw from cross-disciplinary conversations to identify four facets of “good” STEM writing: (1) connecting to the big picture; (2) explaining science; (3) adhering to genre conventions; and (4) choosing context-appropriate language. We then describe our ongoing conversations across contexts to develop and implement flexible rubrics that capture and foster conversations around “good” writing. In doing so, we argue for a notion of writing rubrics as boundary objects, capable of fostering cross-disciplinary, integrative conversations and collaborations that strengthen student writing, shift STEM students toward a rhetorically informed sense of “good” writing, and offer that kinds of assessment data that make for persuasive evidence of the power of writing-centric approaches for STEM administrators and funders

Finishing the euchromatic sequence of the human genome

The sequence of the human genome encodes the genetic instructions for human physiology, as well as rich information about human evolution. In 2001, the International Human Genome Sequencing Consortium reported a draft sequence of the euchromatic portion of the human genome. Since then, the international collaboration has worked to convert this draft into a genome sequence with high accuracy and nearly complete coverage. Here, we report the result of this finishing process. The current genome sequence (Build 35) contains 2.85 billion nucleotides interrupted by only 341 gaps. It covers ∼99% of the euchromatic genome and is accurate to an error rate of ∼1 event per 100,000 bases. Many of the remaining euchromatic gaps are associated with segmental duplications and will require focused work with new methods. The near-complete sequence, the first for a vertebrate, greatly improves the precision of biological analyses of the human genome including studies of gene number, birth and death. Notably, the human enome seems to encode only 20,000-25,000 protein-coding genes. The genome sequence reported here should serve as a firm foundation for biomedical research in the decades ahead

The evaluation of the Transformers programme : an emotion regulation programme for people who have an intellectual disability : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Clinical Psychology at Massey University, Wellington, New Zealand

It is widely accepted that emotion regulation difficulties are common in people who have an intellectual disability. Not being able to manage their distressing emotions can lead to challenging behaviour such as verbal and physical violence and property destruction and can lead to injury, alienation, poor-self-esteem, and legal problems. Growing research suggests that people who have an intellectual disability have the ability to engage in and benefit from interventions that address their emotion regulation problems. The current thesis consists of four papers—a systematic literature review, programme description, a study regarding emotional identification, and a study about emotion regulation. The main aim of the research was to evaluate an emotion regulation programme known as Transformers that is being implemented at an intellectual disability service. Transformers is a group-based treatment programme that is run over a six-month period. Five participants with mild to moderate intellectual disability (aged 17-42 years) attended the Transformers programme and took part in the studies along with their caregivers. A single-case design was chosen to evaluate the effectiveness of the programme. Participants completed emotion recognition tasks and self-report measures of emotion regulation before, during, and after their involvement in the programme. Caregivers also rated the frequency of participants’ use of emotion regulation skills and incident reports provided insight into their ongoing behaviour. While the results showed that the Transformers programme was not effective in improving participants’ abilities to recognise emotion nonetheless participants did increase in their ability to use appropriate emotion regulation strategies and reduced the number of incidents of challenging behaviour. Overall, these preliminary findings suggest that the Transformers programme is a viable treatment option for people who have an intellectual disability who have difficulty managing their own emotions. While the findings are encouraging, it is recommended that further research be carried out using larger sample sizes and longer follow up periods to establish the effectiveness of the programme