Changes in Fish Communities in the Upper Patuxent River from 1966 to 1977

Ten year comparison of fish survey's with respect to diversity evenness and composition of fish communities. The upper Patuxent River was divided into Piedmont Plateau and Coastal Plain regions, not only for geographical purposes, but also because of the clustering of sewage treatment plants in the Coastal Plain region. In the Piedmont Plateau region, the fish species diversity changed very little from 1966 to 1977 ( Little Patuxent -- 2.82 to 2.66; Middle Patuxent -- 2.86 to 2.83; and main stem -- 2.46 to 2.63), except in a section of Little Patuxent River at and below the City of Columbia where the species diversity index showed a significant reduction from 2.97 to 1.99, and in a section of the main stem Patuxent River immediately downstream from the Brighton Dam of the Triadelphia Reservoir where the index increased significantly from 1.66 to 3.20. In the Coastal Plain region, a significant reduction in the fish species diversity index occurred between 1966 and 1977 below the two sewage treatment plant outfalls : Savage -- 2.69 to 0 and Patuxent-Crofton -- 3.06 to 1.33. Also, the substantial reduction in the species diversity index which had already occurred in 1966 below the six other plant: outfalls of Fort Meade No. I, Fort Meade No. 2, Maryland House of Correction, Maryland City , Parkway and Bowie, remained depressed in 1977. On the other hand, below the Horsepen Sewage Treatment Plant (a tertiary plant practicing dechlorination) the species diversity index increased from 1.91 to 2.8. (PDF contains 48 pages

Youth and Digital Media: From Credibility to Information Quality

Building upon a process-and context-oriented information quality framework, this paper seeks to map and explore what we know about the ways in which young users of age 18 and under search for information online, how they evaluate information, and how their related practices of content creation, levels of new literacies, general digital media usage, and social patterns affect these activities. A review of selected literature at the intersection of digital media, youth, and information quality -- primarily works from library and information science, sociology, education, and selected ethnographic studies -- reveals patterns in youth's information-seeking behavior, but also highlights the importance of contextual and demographic factors both for search and evaluation. Looking at the phenomenon from an information-learning and educational perspective, the literature shows that youth develop competencies for personal goals that sometimes do not transfer to school, and are sometimes not appropriate for school. Thus far, educational initiatives to educate youth about search, evaluation, or creation have depended greatly on the local circumstances for their success or failure

Continuous Improvement in Education

In recent years, 'continuous improvement' has become a popular catchphrase in the field of education. However, while continuous improvement has become commonplace and well-documented in other industries, such as healthcare and manufacturing, little is known about how this work has manifested itself in education.This white paper attempts to map the landscape of this terrain by identifying and describing organizations engaged in continuous improvement, and by highlighting commonalities and differences among them. The findings classify three types of organizations engaged in continuous improvement: those focused on instructional improvement at the classroom level; those concentrating on system-wide improvement; and those addressing collective impact. Each type is described in turn and illustrated by an organizational case study. Through the analysis, six common themes that characterize all three types of organizations (e.g., leadership and strategy, communication and engagement, organizational infrastructure, methodology, data collection and analysis, and building capacity) are enumerated. This white paper makes four concluding observations. First, the three case studies provide evidence of organizations conducting continuous improvement work in the field of education, albeit at different levels and in different ways. Second, entry points to continuous improvement work are not mutually exclusive, but are nested and, hence, mutually informative and comparative. Third, continuous improvement is not synonymous with improving all organizational processes simultaneously; rather, research and learning cycles are iterative and gradual in nature. Fourth, despite being both iterative and gradual, it is imperative that improvement work is planned and undertaken in a rigorous, thoughtful, and transparent fashion

The Causes of Student Unrest

Protest is not a new invention of the 1960\u27s. Protest has always been the normal apparatus to initiate change in human societies. College students can no longer be taken for granted. Though the great majority of them remain largely content, conservative, and apathetic, a determined minority of restless ones have forces other to examine and sometimes to change institutions, rules, and values that were once considered inviolate

Theory becomes practice : combining reader-response theory and the new rhetoric in describing the meaning-making processes of college freshmen as they respond to poetry

For my study, I investigated the meaning-making processes of college freshmen as they interpreted and discussed poetry. Operating from a theory base involving Reader-Response Theory and the New Rhetoric, I studied the students\u27 individual construction of meaning and their social construction and negotiation of meaning, respectively, as they interpreted poems. I used the methods of qualitative researchers in gathering the data: participant observation; a collection of artifacts that included student compositions, written notes, and audiotaped discussions from small-group work; purposive sampling of these artifacts; questionnaires; and field notes. I placed myself as a full participant observer, since I served as both professor and researcher in my own classroom. For each theory, I identified and described categories of the meaning-making processes derived from the artifacts, and I used the constant comparative method for refining them. For the purposive sampling procedure, I used maximum variation sampling of the student compositions and the audiotaped discussions in selecting salient examples to demonstrate these meaning-making processes for both theories

Teaching Aids in Mathematics

For many years, mathematics classes have had a traditional aura about them. The textbook has been the major source of material. The typical lesson consists of review assignments discussed in class, presentation of the new material usually by the teacher, some applications of these new concepts, and a homework assignment for the next day. This routine is repeated from day to day, term to term. The students are acting merely as machines. The teachers ask questions, and the students answer from memory. This is one of the main reasons why there is a lack of understanding in mathematics classes. Some memorization in learning is required, but the contention is that it can and should be minimized. Mathematics is a topic that cannot be learned by sheer memory. A student of mathematics must minimize memorization and maximize reasoning to find the correct method for a problem. If a student has something tangible that he can hold, see, feel, and better yet if he can make it for himself, much more retention of the subject is possible. Through the use of instructional aids memorization can be minimized and the student\u27s imagination will be challenged. He must still reason to solve problems, but imagination acts as a stimulus to reason