Teaching in the Middle Grades Today: Examining Teachers’ Beliefs About Middle Grades Teaching

Since the beginning of the middle school movement in the mid-1960s, middle level advocates have called for a school experience for young adolescents grounded in adolescent development that engages students in meaningful learning (Eichhorn, 1966; Alexander & Williams, 1965). The aim of this exploratory multi-case study was to understand middle level teachers’ beliefs about middle level instruction in the current educational environment. To gain this understanding, researchers asked ten current middle grades teachers with varying levels of experience to discuss their beliefs regarding their primary purpose as a middle grades teacher, the current status of middle level teaching, their best and worst instructional lessons, and their perceived barriers to teaching at the middle level. The teachers described the role of teaching in the middle grades as challenging and stressful, but of great importance. In general, they described instruction that included discovery, student engagement, and relevance in an effort to address students’ academic development. There was minimal mention of the non-academic aspects of adolescent development. Finally, teachers viewed curriculum restrictions, students’ attitudes toward learning, difficulty with differentiation, and lack of technology as significant barriers to their success in the classroom

Through the eyes of others - The social experiences of people with dementia: A systematic literature review and synthesis

Psychosocial models suggest that the lived experience of dementia is affected by interpersonal factors such as the ways in which others view, talk about, and behave toward the person with dementia. This review aimed to illuminate how informal, everyday interpersonal relationships are experienced by people with dementia within their social contexts. A systematic review of qualitative literature published between 1989 and May 2016 was conducted, utilizing the electronic databases PsycINFO, MEDLINE, and CINAHL-Complete. This was followed by a critical interpretative synthesis to understand how people with dementia perceive the attitudes, views, and reactions of other people toward them, and the subjective impact that these have. Four major themes were derived from the findings of the 23 included studies: being treated as an “other” rather than “one of us”; being treated as “lesser” rather than a full, valued member of society; the impact of others’ responses; and strategies to manage the responses of others. Thus, people with dementia can feel outcast and relegated, or indeed feel included and valued by others. These experiences impact upon emotional and psychological well-being, and are actively interpreted and managed by people with dementia. Experiences such as loss and diminishing identity have previously been understood as a direct result of dementia, with little consideration of interpersonal influences. This review notes that people with dementia actively engage with others, whose responses can foster or undermine social well-being. This dynamic relational aspect may contribute to emerging understandings of social health in dementia

Specialized Middle Level Teacher Preparation: Moving From Advocacy to Actualization

Is specialized middle level teacher preparation necessary? This essay offers the authors thoughts regarding middle level teaching and the necessity of specialized middle level teacher preparation. The reader is encouraged to further the discussion of middle level teacher preparation from advocacy to actualization

Middle Level Teacher Preparation: Principals’ Perceptions of New Teacher Preparedness--RESEARCH

Drawing on the Framework for Effective Middle Level Teaching(Faulkner, Howell, &Cook, 2012; Howell, Cook, Faulkner, 2013), this interpretive, exploratory study utilized survey methodology to analyze 38 middle level principals’ perceptions of effective teaching practices and the preparedness of newly hired middle level teachers. The findings suggest there is difference in perceptions of new teacher preparedness between principals with middle level teacher certification and principals that were prepared to teach at other grade levels. While both groups acknowledged the need for better teacher preparation, principals with middle level teacher certification reported that newly hired teachers were less prepared for effective middle level teaching. The researchers identified two primary conclusions that impact the field of middle grades teacher preparation: (a) beginning middle grades teachers need to be better prepared for effective teaching and (b) principals perceive the preparation of new teachers differently depending upon their own teaching certification, with principals holding middle grades teaching certification being more critical of the level of preparation. While both strengths and weaknesses of preparation were identified in each of the six constructs, the most relevant and important conclusion is that middle level principals perceive beginning middle grades teachers as not being adequately prepared to address the demands of effective middle grades teaching in several constructs from the Framework for Effective Middle Level Teaching

Improved image recognition via synthetic plants using 3D modelling with stochastic variations

This research extends previous plant modelling using L-systems by means of a novel arrangement comprising synthetic plants and a refined global wheat dataset in combination with a synthetic inference application. The study demonstrates an application with direct recognition of real plant stereotypes, and augmentation via a plant-wide stochastic growth variation structure. The study showed that the automatic annotation and counting of wheat heads using the Global Wheat dataset images provides a time and cost saving over traditional manual approaches and neural networks. This study introduces a novel synthetic inference application using a plant-wide stochastic variation system, resulting in improved structural dataset hierarchy. The research demonstrates a significantly improved L-system that can more effectively and more accurately define and distinguish wheat crop characteristics

A synthetic wheat l-system to accurately detect and visualise wheat head anomalies

Greater knowledge of wheat crop phenology and growth and improvements in measurement are beneficial to wheat agronomy and productivity. This is constrained by a lack of public plant datasets. Collecting plant data is expensive and time consuming and methods to augment this with synthetic data could address this issue. This paper describes a cost-effective and accurate Synthetic Wheat dataset which has been created by a novel L-system, based on technological advances in cameras and deep learning. The dataset images have been automatically created, categorised, masked and labelled, and used to successfully train a synthetic neural network. This network has been shown to accurately recognise wheat in pasture images taken from the Global Wheat dataset, which provides for the ongoing interest in the phenotyping of wheat characteristics around the world. The proven Mask R-CNN and Detectron2 frameworks have been used, and the created network is based on the public COCO format. The research question is “How can L-system knowledge be used to create an accurate synthetic wheat dataset and to make cost-effective wheat crop measurements?”

Maternal body mass index and risk of testicular cancer in male offspring a systematic review and meta analysis

OBJECTIVES: To date a number of studies have examined the association between maternal weight and testicular cancer risk although results have been largely inconsistent. This systematic review and meta-analysis investigated the nature of this association. METHODS: Search strategies were conducted in Ovid Medline (1950—2009), Embase (1980—2009), Web of Science (1970—2009), and CINAHL (1937—2009) using keywords for maternal weight (BMI) and testicular cancer. RESULTS: The literature search produced 1,689 hits from which 63 papers were extracted. Only 7 studies met the pre-defined criteria. Random effects meta-analyses were conducted. The combined unadjusted OR (95% CI) of testicular cancer in the highest reported category of maternal BMI compared with the moderate maternal BMI was 0.82 (0.65 – 1.02). The Cochran’s Q P value was 0.83 and the corresponding I(2) was 0%, both indicating very little variability among studies. The combined unadjusted OR (95% CI) for testicular cancer risk in the lowest reported category of maternal BMI compared to a moderate maternal BMI category was 0.92 (0.75 – 1.12). The Cochran’s Q P value was 0.05 and the corresponding I(2) was 54%, indicating evidence of statistical heterogeneity. No association was observed when maternal BMI was treated as a continuous variable. CONCLUSION: This meta-analysis, which included a small number of studies, showed an inverse association between high maternal BMI and testicular cancer risk of borderline statistical significance. Further primary studies with adjustment for appropriate confounders are required

Potential for tree rings to reveal spatial patterns of past drought variability across western Australia

Proxy records have provided major insights into the variability of past climates over long timescales. However, for much of the Southern Hemisphere, the ability to identify spatial patterns of past climatic variability is constrained by the sparse distribution of proxy records. This is particularly true for mainland Australia, where relatively few proxy records are located. Here, we (1) assess the potential to use existing proxy records in the Australasian region—starting with the only two multi-century tree-ring proxies from mainland Australia—to reveal spatial patterns of past hydroclimatic variability across the western third of the continent, and (2) identify strategic locations to target for the development of new proxy records. We show that the two existing tree-ring records allow robust reconstructions of past hydroclimatic variability over spatially broad areas (i.e. > 3° × 3°) in inland north- and south-western Australia. Our results reveal synchronous periods of drought and wet conditions between the inland northern and southern regions of western Australia as well as a generally anti-phase relationship with hydroclimate in eastern Australia over the last two centuries. The inclusion of 174 tree-ring proxy records from Tasmania, New Zealand and Indonesia and a coral record from Queensland did not improve the reconstruction potential over western Australia. However, our findings suggest that the addition of relatively few new proxy records from key locations in western Australia that currently have low reconstruction skill will enable the development of a comprehensive drought atlas for the region, and provide a critical link to the drought atlases of monsoonal Asia and eastern Australia and New Zealand

The mechanism of glycosphingolipid degradation revealed by a GALC-SapA complex structure.

Sphingolipids are essential components of cellular membranes and defects in their synthesis or degradation cause severe human diseases. The efficient degradation of sphingolipids in the lysosome requires lipid-binding saposin proteins and hydrolytic enzymes. The glycosphingolipid galactocerebroside is the primary lipid component of the myelin sheath and is degraded by the hydrolase β-galactocerebrosidase (GALC). This enzyme requires the saposin SapA for lipid processing and defects in either of these proteins causes a severe neurodegenerative disorder, Krabbe disease. Here we present the structure of a glycosphingolipid-processing complex, revealing how SapA and GALC form a heterotetramer with an open channel connecting the enzyme active site to the SapA hydrophobic cavity. This structure defines how a soluble hydrolase can cleave the polar glycosyl headgroups of these essential lipids from their hydrophobic ceramide tails. Furthermore, the molecular details of this interaction provide an illustration for how specificity of saposin binding to hydrolases is encoded

Tree Rings Show Recent High Summer-Autumn Precipitation in Northwest Australia Is Unprecedented within the Last Two Centuries

An understanding of past hydroclimatic variability is critical to resolving the significance of recent recorded trends in Australian precipitation and informing climate models. Our aim was to reconstruct past hydroclimatic variability in semi-arid northwest Australia to provide a longer context within which to examine a recent period of unusually high summer-autumn precipitation. We developed a 210-year ring-width chronology from Callitris columellaris, which was highly correlated with summer-autumn (Dec–May) precipitation (r = 0.81; 1910–2011; p < 0.0001) and autumn (Mar–May) self-calibrating Palmer drought severity index (scPDSI, r = 0.73; 1910–2011; p < 0.0001) across semi-arid northwest Australia. A linear regression model was used to reconstruct precipitation and explained 66% of the variance in observed summer-autumn precipitation. Our reconstruction reveals inter-annual to multi-decadal scale variation in hydroclimate of the region during the last 210 years, typically showing periods of below average precipitation extending from one to three decades and periods of above average precipitation, which were often less than a decade. Our results demonstrate that the last two decades (1995–2012) have been unusually wet (average summer-autumn precipitation of 310 mm) compared to the previous two centuries (average summer-autumn precipitation of 229 mm), coinciding with both an anomalously high frequency and intensity of tropical cyclones in northwest Australia and the dominance of the positive phase of the Southern Annular Mode