The Journey to Improving Student Connectedness: Exploring Teacher Self-efficacy, Use, and Perceptions of Culturally Sustaining Pedagogy

This Dissertation in Practice investigated to what extent professional learning impacted teacher perceptions, instruction, and self-efficacy of Culturally Sustaining Pedagogy (CSP) at a Catholic high school. The dissertation followed an Improvement Science framework to address a specific problem of practice: a lack of universal student connectedness at the high school level. As students begin ninth grade, the connectedness to school many experienced on the elementary level often wanes, with academic, social, and emotional impacts. To build connectedness, the researcher selected a specific change idea focused upon CSP. The intervention consisted of two professional development (PD) sessions and several opportunities for meetings with and individual coaching by a consultant. This explanatory sequential mixed methods study gathered quantitative data assessing teacher self-efficacy pre- and post-intervention. It also tracked teacher use of CSP over a four-week period. The researcher gathered qualitative data from participants during semi-structured interviews following the completion of the intervention. Data showed statistically significant growth in teacher self-efficacy scores and teacher use of nearly 2,300 culturally sustaining practices. Results also indicated largely favorable teacher feedback to CSP and the study’s intervention. Key findings of this study indicated a successful multi-faceted intervention model. The approach allowed teachers’ confidence in the use of CSP to increase and their self-efficacy to grow. Teachers also reported that culturally sustaining practices had a positive impact upon classroom culture and student learning. Teachers described improved classroom climate, growth in student engagement, and opportunities to learn more about students while strengthening student/teacher relationships. Teachers requested additional PD opportunities to implement specific CSP strategies and to ensure CSP use is authentic and addresses best practices. This study can serve as a model for other schools – both public and private – seeking to improve teacher use of culturally sustaining practices to build student connectedness

Stochastic Solution of a KPP-Type Nonlinear Fractional Differential Equation

Mathematics Subject Classification: 26A33, 76M35, 82B31A stochastic solution is constructed for a fractional generalization of the KPP (Kolmogorov, Petrovskii, Piskunov) equation. The solution uses a fractional generalization of the branching exponential process and propagation processes which are spectral integrals of Levy processes

Patient-Reported Outcomes Measurement Information System physical function correlates with Toronto Extremity Salvage Score in an orthopaedic oncology population

Background: The National Institute of Health\u27s Patient-Reported Outcomes Measurement Information System (PROMIS) uses computerised-adaptive testing to reduce survey burden and improve sensitivity. PROMIS is being used across medical and surgical disciplines but has not been studied in orthopaedic oncology. Questions/purposes: The aim of the study was to compare PROMIS measures with upper extremity (UE) and lower extremity (LE) Toronto Extremity Salvage Score (TESS) by assessing the following: (1) responder burden, (2) correlation between scores and (3) floor/ceiling effects. Patients and methods: This cross-sectional trial analysed all 97 adult patients treated surgically for a bone or soft tissue tumour at a tertiary institution between November 2015 and March 2016. TESS (UE or LE) and PROMIS (Physical Function, Pain Interference and Depression) surveys were administered preoperatively. Pearson correlations between each PROMIS domain and TESS were calculated, as were floor/ceiling effects of each outcome measure. Results: (1) Completion of three PROMIS questionnaires required a mean total of 16.8 (+/- 5.8 standard deviation) questions, compared with 31 and 32 questions for the LE and UE TESS questionnaires, respectively. (2) The PROMIS Physical Function scores demonstrated a strong positive correlation with the LE TESS (r = 0.84; 95% confidence interval [CI], 0.72-0.91; p \u3c 0.001) and moderate positive correlation with the UE TESS (r = 0.64; 95% CI, 0.34-0.83; p = 0.055). The PROMIS Depression scores demonstrated a weak negative correlation with both the LE TESS (r = -0.38; 95% CI, -0.61 to -0.10; p = 0.010) and with UE TESS (r = -0.38; 95% CI, -0.67 to -0.01; p = 0.055). The PROMIS Pain Interference scores demonstrated a strong negative correlation with the LE TESS (r = -0.71; 95% CI, -0.83 to -0.52; p \u3c 0.001) and a moderate negative correlation with the UE TESS (r = -0.62; 95% CI, -0.81 to -0.30; p = 0.001). (3) The UE TESS had a range of scores from 16 to 100 with a 27% ceiling effect and no floor effect, and the LE TESS had a range from 10 to 98 with no floor or ceiling effect. There was no floor or ceiling effect for any PROMIS measures. Conclusions: In an orthopaedic oncology population, the PROMIS Physical Function and Pain Interference scores correlate with the TESS and have the benefit of reduced survey burden and ceiling effect. The PROMIS Depression scores may provide additional information regarding patient outcomes not captured by the TESS. Level of Evidence: Level III. The translational potential of this article: Patient reported outcome measures asses patients\u27 symptoms, function and health-related quality of life and are designed to capture more clinical information than can be gathered by objective medial testing alone. As reimbursements and the understanding of patient outcomes are becoming tied to performance on PROMIS measures, it is an important step to establish how PROMIS measures correlate and compare to traditional legacy measures

Autonomía y orientación en el Espacio Europeo de Educación Superior mediante el portafolio y la tutoría

En el nuevo rol del profesor y del estudiante universitario, según el cual el primero asume funciones de guía, orientador, asesor y facilitador de recursos para el aprendizaje activo del segundo, se le da más importancia al aprendizaje que a la enseñanza. En este trabajo mostramos la percepción que tienen 290 estudiantes de distintas especialidades de Magisterio y Fisioterapia sobre el uso del portafolios y de la tutoría como elementos de interés para los procesos de innovación docente (Espacio Europeo de Educación Superior). Para tal fin se ha pasado un cuestionario, efectuándose un análisis descriptivo y comparativo, obteniendo evidencias de interés

Carbon and oxygen in HII regions of the Magellanic Clouds: abundance discrepancy and chemical evolution

We present C and O abundances in the Magellanic Clouds derived from deep spectra of HII regions. The data have been taken with the Ultraviolet-Visual Echelle Spectrograph at the 8.2-m VLT. The sample comprises 5 HII regions in the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC) and 4 in the Small Magellanic Cloud (SMC). We measure pure recombination lines (RLs) of CII and OII in all the objects, permitting to derive the abundance discrepancy factors (ADFs) for O^2+, as well as their O/H, C/H and C/O ratios. We compare the ADFs with those of other HII regions in different galaxies. The results suggest a possible metallicity dependence of the ADF for the low-metallicity objects, but more uncertain for high-metallicity objects. We compare nebular and B-type stellar abundances and we find that the stellar abundances agree better with the nebular ones derived from collisionally excited lines (CELs). Comparing these results with other galaxies we observe that stellar abundances seem to agree better with the nebular ones derived from CELs in low-metallicity environments and from RLs in high-metallicity environments. The C/H, O/H and C/O ratios show almost flat radial gradients, in contrast with the spiral galaxies where such gradients are negative. We explore the chemical evolution analysing C/O vs. O/H and comparing with the results of HII regions in other galaxies. The LMC seems to show a similar chemical evolution to the external zones of small spiral galaxies and the SMC behaves as a typical star-forming dwarf galaxy.Comment: Accepted for publication in MNRAS, 17 pages, 11 figures, 8 table