Preparing Preservice Teachers for the Experimental Design and Data Analysis SOL\u27s

Many elementary teachers find teaching the science Standards of Learning (SOL) difficult [1, 2]. Some are even threatened by them. Of particular concern are the SOLs related to experimental design, handling data, and the scientific method. A possible reason for this discomfort is because many of these elementary teachers have had limited-to-no exposure to experimentation. As one of the activities included under a recent National Science Foundation Science Teachers Enhancement Project (STEP) grant awarded to Hampton University in conjunction with Virginia Union University and St. Paul\u27s College, we included a teacher science fair competition. A special workbook/text was developed for this project and used to guide teachers through the research process; from observation, and hypothesis formation and testing through the evaluation of data and drawing conclusions from the experiment. Twenty-two teachers from the Richmond metropolitan area and King and Queen County developed individual projects (laboratory research), and prepared written reports and display boards to present their results. Projects were adjudicated by staff at the Science Museum of Virginia in a formal competition for teachers. Several teachers admitted that this was the first time that they had actually performed a full experiment. All participants agreed, at. the end, that they had a much better understanding of the process, and would be better able to teach it to their students. This successful activity is being submitted to the review panel as a reproducible model which affords preservice teachers an opportunity to strengthen their research skills. It can also make teachers feel more confident, and equip them to do a better job of teaching this block of SOLs

Bibliography and summary of methods related to the error analysis of hybrid computers technical note no. 4

Bibliography and summary of methods used in error analysis of hybrid computer

Gas chromatograph sample-transfer valve

Slide-type gate valve incorporates sampling volume and transfer passageway for guiding a metered quantity of gas from pressurized test cell to gas chromatograph. Gate is moved by pneumatic bellows-type actuator

Miniature high pressure regulator

Metal bellows, capable of suppling required spring rate and operational stability, replaced diaphragms, sliding seals, and springs in design of small gas regulator

A survey of physical education for boys in the public high schools of the state of Rhode Island

Thesis (Ed.M.)--Boston Universit

Instructions to the Jury: Summary Without Comment

Any attempt at sensible explanation requires state-by-state discussion. For the time being, therefore, it is simply mentioned that the merits or demerits of the mere colorless summary are hardly a profitable subject of discussion if it be true, as this paper contends, that in truth the instruction process of an overwhelming majority of the states stops very considerably short thereof

Adequacy of Instructions to the Jury: I

In view of frequent judicial complaints about instructions by the acre, it may be appropriate to begin with a short justification for an article bearing a title which might appear to suggest an antithetical problem, that is, the existence of a question as to the adequacy of instructions to the jury. To this end one might repeat the assertion that the verdict of a jury which is not instructed as to the fundamental law of the case is crackerbarrel justice. If this is true, it certainly is also true that the mere number of instructions given is no guarantee of their adequacy. Furthermore, the general practice of submitting too many instructions has sometimes caused a reaction to an even less desirable extreme-the complete waiver of instructions (where permissible) by stipulation. In Missouri, for instance, that practice became so prevalent that the supreme court of that state had to work out an unusual solution, as will later appear. Finally, the very giving of such great numbers of instructions is often rooted in fear on the part of the trial judge that refusal of any correct and applicable request may be a violation of his Duty to Charge. Duty to Charge is the rubric under which many of the cases considered herein may be found. For the purposes of this article, however, the phrase adequacy of the charge is more accurately descriptive. It has wider scope than the conventional duty to charge, which, furthermore, has been found to have no fixed meaning, being used to signify anything from a semipoetic, unformed ideal to the rule of reversible error for failure to read all written requests which are correct and applicable. At its best the conventional phrase may indicate solicitude for thorough presentation of the issues and the law to the jury. At its worst it may simply be one of the many spikes in the abatis which was erected in the American trial court\u27s path in the nineteenth century

Who\u27s Black, Who\u27s White, and Who Cares: Reconceptualizing the United States Definition of Race and Racial Classifications

How much would it be worth to a young man entering upon the practice of law, to be regarded as a white man rather than a colored one?... Probably most white persons if given a choice, would prefer death to life in the United States as a colored person.... Indeed, [being white] is the master-key that unlocks the golden door of opportunity. There is no law of the United States, or of the state of Louisiana defining the limits of race-who are white and who are colored\u27? By what rule then shall any tribunal be guided in determining racial character? It may be said that all those should be classed as colored in whom appears a visible admixture of colored blood. By what law? With what justice? Why not count every- one as white in whom is visible any trace of white blood? There is but one reason to wit, the domination of the white race.\u2

Adequacy of Instructions to the Jury: II

The six states in this group present some very special cases. They range from an original colony to Florida and Texas, which were admitted to statehood in 1845. National rank in population varies from sixth (Texas) to twenty-sixth (Mississippi) with the average almost within the top one-third. As to increase of population, the mean is close to the national figure of fifteen percent. That statement needs qualification, however, since Florida increased 46 percent and Texas 20 percent, whereas Mississippi had an actual loss of two percent. No docket delay of more than six months is found anywhere except in Texas, but some real congestion is evident there. None of these states could be called code in the sense of having followed the wave of imitation of the Field Code of New York-each having worked out its own system of regulation of procedure. At present, no judicial (supervisory) rule-making is known to exist in Louisiana or Mississippi, and the power is very limited in Alabama. Although the legislature still holds the leash in the other states, there has been judicial rule-making as to instructions in Georgia, Texas and Florida. Instructions are given at the approved time (after argument) except in Mississippi and Texas, and written instructions are required only in those two states. In Alabama, to the contrary, it is mandatory that the general charge be oral. In Florida and Louisiana the charge may be oral unless the parties request that it be in writing; in Georgia the instructions are considered written if they are stenographically reported. In none of these states is the court permitted to summarize or comment on the evidence. In this latter connection the heavy hand of the constitutions and legislation of the Reconstruction period is most apparent