Never Going Back: Lessons To Carry Forward In Online Instruction

Research has long demonstrated that students thrive best in an online learning community when some basic tenants are followed. These tenants include establishing a peer community, module supports, studying while balancing life commitments, confidence, and the approach to learning (Farrell & Brunton, 2020; Kahn, Egbue, Palkie, & Madden, 2017; Dixson, 2010). Cultivating active engagement in online communities is a purposeful and deliberate practice that requires educators to bring together an assortment of innovative instructional techniques to foster the establishment of Communities of Practice (COP). Wenger, Trayner, and de Laat (2011) define a CoP as a “learning partnership among people who find it useful to learn from and with each other about a particular domain” (p.9). At the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, the unexpected shift to online learning in schools at all levels caused schools of education to engage in “stop-gap” measures as they worked to move quality face-to-face instruction to online learning platforms so to allow students to continue their educational pathways. By contrast, the graduate programs in Curriculum & Instruction and Educational Administration at a small Midwestern University have been fully online for nearly two decades. While course delivery has naturally evolved during that time, past experiences allowed faculty to maneuver the pandemic and online learning seamlessly. This paper will explore what works well and should be carried forward in online teaching and learning

Forgotten and Overlooked: A Personal Reflection of Foster Parenting and School

The number of children in foster care has risen markedly in recent years, namely because of the opioid crisis currently plaguing the United States. Students placed in foster care experience higher dropout and lower graduation rates compared to their peers. School mobility has caused many foster care students to fall through the cracks. However, despite these concerns, teachers and school administrators have received little training regarding this population of students. Schools are ill-prepared for the unique emotional and social needs of children in foster care, often labeling them under the larger umbrella term of at-risk—which focuses primarily on their academic performance. This manuscript serves as a personal reflection by two former middle school teachers as they chronical their experiences with the foster system and schooling. The article posits students in foster care are a unique subgroup of students and identifies four potential areas schools can promote for the exceptional needs of students in foster care

The Age at Which Children Improve the Most in the 50 yard Freestyle

As of late there are no studies looking at what age swimmers have the greatest improvements. The early teenage years do see a significant increase in aerobic performances when exercise is introduced properly. The purpose of this study is to determine at what age swimmers improve the most. The USA Swimming website was accessed using http://www.usaswimming.org and the section of the website titled “Swimmers,” was selected, then “Times/Time Standards” was selected on the left hand side of the screen to search through swimmer results for any time period and any age. Data was copied into an Excel file, the ordered first by name, then by age, and then by time. The fastest time for each year was selected and all other times deleted. Improvements were then calculated by subtracting the times from the older year from the younger year, resulting in positive scores that indicate improvements. Five categories were created: 13-14 years, 14-15, 15-16, 16-17, and 17-18 years. Swimmers were selected if they had time results for two or more consecutive years. The result showed that the greatest improvements were in the 13-14 years old age group, however, this group had a significantly lower number of cases compared to the other groups. The 15-16 year-old group had the next greatest improvements, and there was a steady decline in improvements for every consecutive age group after that (Figure 1). Although it is not exactly clear what is causing greater improvements in specific age-groups, there were greater improvements at a younger age followed by a slight decline as the years went on

The Influence of Language Choice in Acceptable Use Polices On Students’ Locus of Control

One of the goals of education is for students to develop critical thinking skills. In order to build those skills, students must become critical and engaged users of information. Students become engaged and critical users of information when they have opportunities to explore and immerse themselves in information from different viewpoints and perspectives. Much of the information accessed by students today is located online. In many school districts, an Acceptable Use Policy (AUP) details what type of access students have to information found online. Using Rotter’s Locus of Control Theory, this study seeks to answer the question of how language choice in AUPs influences students’ Locus of Control. Previous studies on Locus of Control have demonstrated that students who identify with an external Locus of Control believe that powerful others control their lives. To answer the question, Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) was utilized to analyze AUPs from eighteen public school districts in the Midwest. CDA is a methodology used to study social inequality through the assertion of power in written communication. The AUPs were analyzed for word choice, frequency, presupposition, and nominalization. Results of the analysis demonstrated that language choices have the potential to influence students’ Locus of iii Control through the assertion of power. Thus, language in AUPs, which asserts power over students, has the potential to create a restrictive information environment for students. A more restrictive information environment will limit opportunities for students to access diverse information whereas a more open information environment will allow students to question and develop their critical thinking skills

Semi-algebraic complexity-additive complexity of diagonalization of quadratic forms

Sin resume

The Relationships between School Personnel Attitudes about At Risk Students, the At Riskness of the Student Population, and Effort Expended for At Risk Students

This study was conducted to address: (1) the identification of at risk students; (2) the provision of help appropriate to their needs; and (3) discovery of ways to increase those students\u27 probability of succeeding in school and in life. The study analyzed data generated through the Phi Delta Kappa Study of Students at Risk that involved 22,018 students enrolled in 276 elementary, middle and high schools nationwide. Surveys were gathered from 276 principals and 9,652 teachers. A literature review examines general efforts including ability grouping, promotion/retention, reduction in class size, and pull-out programs, as well as specific elementary, secondary, and successful individual programs. Data were collected through survey and interview techniques, and variables (school description, and school personnel attitudes) were compared. Results show that the perceptions of educators dealing with at risk students varied, and the variation was not necessarily associated with the particular school situation in which they worked. Preferred strategies such as removing at risk students to another class are no longer supported as effective tools for increasing the achievement. Thirteen appendices consisting mainly of statistical results of the study

Using storybooks to acquaint children with the continent of Africa

I learned so much about Africa. I learned countries, cities, villages, mountains, deserts, rivers, languages. Have you ever been to Africa? I wish I could go. This comment, by a third-grade student, was typical of the responses from students who participated in a project designed to help children learn about Africa by offering them books with African settings. In this article, we share the methods we used to acquaint students with the continent of Africa. We have also included students\u27 responses to a questionnaire, information gathered by an observer, and quotes from students\u27 letters

Use children\u27s books to link the cultures of the world

Global education is a timely and important emphasis in schools today. In this article, we consider the goals of global education, present a rationale for providing global education experiences at the age children are most responsive to instruction, explore the ways that children\u27s trade books can provide links among cultures, and consider goals of geography and ways trade books can be used to meet these goals

RECIPROCATING COMPRESSOR CONDITION MONITORING

TutorialTechnology for reciprocating compressor condition monitoring has been around since the 1950’s, however until the last 20 years or so it seemed that only the pipeline companies spent much effort on this activity. Technology has advanced, and there are very effective approaches to monitoring and protecting reciprocating compressors on the market today. While pipeline operations are pulling out their reciprocating compressors, this machine is still the workhorse of refineries, chemical plants, and oil production facilities. As a result a new generation of interest has developed in effective condition monitoring of reciprocating compressors. This paper will discuss risk based decision making in regard to measurements and protective functions, online versus periodic monitoring, proven and effective measurement techniques, along with a review of both mechanical and performance based measurements for assessing machine condition. Case histories will also be presented to demonstrate some of the concepts

An asymptotic bound for secant varieties of Segre varieties

This paper studies the defectivity of secant varieties of Segre varieties. We prove that there exists an asymptotic lower estimate for the greater non-defective secant variety (without filling the ambient space) of any given Segre variety. In particular, we prove that the ratio between the greater non-defective secant variety of a Segre variety and its expected rank is lower bounded by a value depending just on the number of factors of the Segre variety. Moreover, in the final section, we present some results obtained by explicit computation, proving the non-defectivity of all the secant varieties of Segre varieties of the shape (P^n)^4, with 1 < n < 11, except at most \sigma_199((P^8)^4) and \sigma_357((P^10)^4).Comment: 14 page