Does New Teacher Support Affect Student Achievement? Some Early Research Findings

We understand the importance of having qualified, effective teachers in every classroom. We have learned from many research studies, particularly those of William Sanders and his colleagues in Tennessee, that students who are taught by effective teachers (defined by Sanders as those whose students consistently post gains in student achievement scores) for several years in a row will experience the benefits throughout the rest of their school careers and beyond. After three years with the most effective teachers, students show achievement gains significantly higher than those of students with the least effective teachers.We can reasonably hypothesize that more experienced teachers will exceed the effectiveness of recently inducted beginning teachers. Further, as is now widely recognized in most states, new teachers need and benefit from support during their induction period. Support during the new teachers' first year or two may be just as important to their effectiveness as their pre-service training, their state certification, and their subject matter skills. To justify assigning resources to provide support for novice teachers, legislators and school district administrators need to be convinced that such support is associated with educational outcomes beyond participant satisfaction. Researchers have shown that induction and mentoring programs may have a positive effect on teacher retention. However, few studies demonstrate any connection between new teacher induction and student achievement, the outcome that is probably of most interest to parents, educators, and legislators. Perhaps the main reason for this is that such studies are diffi cult to conduct. First, it is hard to obtain the necessary data. Many schools and districts do not maintain databases connecting student test scores to teachers. Many states do not test students in all grade levels annually, and tests are changed frequently, making it diffi cult to compare performance from year to year. Also, induction programs vary, and many factors contribute to changes in student achievement besides the kinds of support beginning teachers receive. These include school variables, family, economic status, and social issues; other kinds of support such as teacher aides, subject-matter specialists, tutoring; teaching to the test; language issues; and students' health and mood at the time of the testing. Finally, not all educators agree on the validity of using standardized test scores to measure student learning.Imposing an experimental design on treatment and subjects would address all of these issues, except the last. However, the most challenging aspect of this field is often securing access to a suitable control or comparison group of any sort, much less one meeting the standards of an experimental design. These dilemmas force compromises that can make interpretation more difficult

GALPROP WebRun: an internet-based service for calculating galactic cosmic ray propagation and associated photon emissions

GALPROP is a numerical code for calculating the galactic propagation of relativistic charged particles and the diffuse emissions produced during their propagation. The code incorporates as much realistic astrophysical input as possible together with latest theoretical developments and has become a de facto standard in astrophysics of cosmic rays. We present GALPROP WebRun, a service to the scientific community enabling easy use of the freely available GALPROP code via web browsers. In addition, we introduce the latest GALPROP version 54, available through this service.Comment: Accepted for publication in Computer Physics Communications. Version 2 includes improvements suggested by the referee. Metadata completed in version 3 (no changes to the manuscript

Time, tide and narrative: adapting chronology in Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World

This paper is concerned with the 2003 film Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World, and with the book – or more accurately – books from which it is adapted. The film’s source material comes from novelist Patrick O’Brian who, between 1969 and his death in 2000, wrote 20 completed novels, plus one unfinished work. While no single text manifests a glaring temporal anomaly, taken as a whole it is apparent that numerous factors including the age of characters, aspects of their backstory, and especially the cumulative duration of several epic sea journeys do not cohere. It is not the object of this paper to treat this distortion as a failure. Rather, it is to focus on how the single screen adaptation engages with this aspect of its literary predecessors

Mentoring New Teachers to Increase Retention: A Look at the Research

In recent years the demand for new teachers across the nation has risen steeply. Demographic factors (such as the baby boom echo) and legislative policies (such as class size reduction) have resulted in the increased need for new teachers, while promising young graduates are often discouraged from entering the profession by low salaries and poor earnings opportunities. Many districts attempt to fill shortages by hiring non-credentialed teachers, who, if they are interns attending a credentialing program, are considered "highly qualified" under the terms of NCLB. Under-qualified and least-experienced teachers are often assigned the most difficult classes, and tend to be concentrated in special education, urban schools, and in schools serving students who are poor, minorities, and English learners. Factors such as these lead to high rates of attrition among practicing teachers, lending some educators to suggest we have a teacher retention problem rather than a teacher shortage problem.High attrition rates have negative effects on student achievement. This is exacerbated by the fact that schools with large numbers of poor and minority pupils have more trouble retaining teachers and the most difficulty attracting new applicants for teaching positions. The continual flight of teachers from these schools creates burdensome extra costs to the district. Hiring and professional development are direct costs, increased instability in the school culture represents an indirect cost

Gamma-ray emission from the solar halo and disk: a study with EGRET data

Context: The Sun has recently been predicted to be an extended source of gamma-ray emission, produced by inverse-Compton (IC) scattering of cosmic-ray (CR) electrons on the solar radiation field. The emission was predicted to be extended and a confusing foreground for the diffuse extragalactic background even at large angular distances from the Sun. The solar disk is also expected to be a steady gamma-ray source. While these emissions are expected to be readily detectable in the future by GLAST, the situation for available EGRET data is more challenging. Aims: The theory of gamma-ray emission from IC scattering on the solar radiation field by Galactic CR electrons is given in detail. This is used as the basis for detection and model verification using EGRET data. Methods: We present a detailed study of the solar emission using the EGRET database, accounting for the effect of the emission from 3C 279, the moon, and other sources, which interfere with the solar emission. The analysis was performed for 2 energy ranges, above 300 MeV and for 100-300 MeV, as well as for the combination to improve the detection statistics. The technique was tested on the moon signal, with our results consistent with previous work. Results: Analyzing the EGRET database, we find evidence of emission from the solar disk and its halo. The observations are compared with our model for the extended emission. The spectrum of the solar disk emission and the spectrum of the extended emission have been obtained. The spectrum of the moon is also given. Conclusions: The observed intensity distribution and the flux are consistent with the predicted model of IC gamma-rays from the halo around the Sun.Comment: Corrected typos, added acknowledgements. A&A in pres

Sexual dimorphism, fresh water dispersal range, and prey items of Marine toads (Rhinella marina) in Lennox Head, Australia

The invasive cane or marine toad (Rhinella marina) has spread across much of Australia since its initial introduction in 1935. Naturally found in Central and South America, R. marina was introduced to Northern Queensland to control cane insect pest populations. This study was conducted at Lake Ainsworth, Lerui.ox Head, New South Wales, Australia to determine if there was sexual dimorphism amoflg ~dult males, adult females, and juveniles by measuring snout-vent length (SVL) and weight. Additional research objectives included determining aquatic range dispersal between adult male and female cane toads, and stomach contents of adult male, adult female, and juvenile by prey order and abundance. There were significant differences detected between SVL of males with small testes (80.00 ± 9.35) and males with developed testes (102.1 ± 11.3, p = 0.007), SVL between gravid females (111.4 ± 16.1) and non-gravid females (95.7 ± 12.1,p = 0.039), and weight between male cane toads (90.9 ± 31.3) and gravid females (145.6 ± 66.7,p = 0.011). There was no significant difference in weight between males (90.9 ± 31.3) and non-gravid females (82.1 ± 34.0, p = 0.506), or SVL between males (102.1 ± 11.3) and females (103.6 ± 16.1, p = 0.637). Insect orders in the stomach contents of R. marina included Coleoptera, Hymenoptera, Arachnida, Diptera, Blattodea, Isoptera, Hemiptera, Orthoptera, Odonata, and Dermaptera! . This species likely competes with native species found in the area such as: Limnodyn4sles terraereginae, Liloria caeruiea, Liloria nasuta, Liloria chloris, Liloria brevipalmala, Limnodynastes peronii, Litoria pe ron ii, Crinia signifera, Liloria fallax, Limnodynastes ornatus, Liloria gracilenta, and Liloria tyleri, which also feed on small insects. Several other native species of anurans from New South Wales such as Pseudophryne corroboree, P. dendyi, P. bibroni, Crinia signifera, and Hyla verreauxi had stomach contents that contained the orders Collembola, Coleoptera, Hymenoptera, Formicidae, Hemiptera, Diptera, Acarina, Araneae, Orthoptera, Odonata, and Diplopoda, suggesting that cane toads compete directly for food resources with the native species.Honors CollegeThesis (B.?.

Diffuse emission measurement with INTEGRAL/SPI as indirect probe of cosmic-ray electrons and positrons

Significant advances have been made in the understanding of the diffuse Galactic hard X-ray continuum emission using data from the INTEGRAL observatory. The diffuse hard power-law component seen with the INTEGRAL/SPI spectrometer has been identified with inverse-Compton emission from relativistic (GeV) electrons on the cosmic microwave background and Galactic interstellar radiation field. In the present analysis, SPI data from 2003 to 2009, with a total exposure time of ~ 10^8 s, are used to derive the Galactic ridge hard X-ray spatial distribution and spectrum between 20 keV and 2.4 MeV. Both are consistent with predictions from the GALPROP code. The good agreement between measured and predicted emission from keV to GeV energies suggests that the correct production mechanisms have been identified. We discuss the potential of the SPI data to provide an indirect probe of the interstellar cosmic-ray electron distribution, in particular for energies below a few GeV.Comment: 39 pages, 11 figures. Accepted for publication in The Astrophysical Journa