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November 22, 2024 Meeting Minutes
Full text linkMinutes of the November 22, 2024 Board of Trustees meeting
What Effect Does a High School Student’s Sleep Habits Have on His/her Academic Success? A Study of the Factors Associated with Sleep Loss in Adolescence.
Full text linkBackground Adequate sleep suggested for adolescence is between 8-10 hours per night, however teenagers often fall short in meeting this recommendation. Current research is aimed at determining factors that contribute most to this shortcoming, as well as the impact sleep has on the body, mainly through the ideas of the brain plasticity framework. The purpose of this study is to examine the relationship between sleep habits, academic success, and attendance rate in high school students with the aim to show that sleep is an essential aspect in adolescent students as well as identify different contributors as to why teens are unable to maintain a healthy sleep pattern. Methods Students enrolled at Bridgeport High School in Bridgeport, Ohio will be surveyed via the Teen Sleep Habits Survey as developed by the University of Minnesota. Responses were analyzed using R and hypotheses are tested using multiple regression techniques. Relationships between variables are examined and conclusions will be drawn based on the implications of the findings. Results A sample size of 69 students were surveyed and data was collected from January 2024 through April 2024. Variables such as students end of course scores, grade point average (GPA), school attendance, LED light usage, work status, activity participation, and sleep habits were tested against respective hypotheses. Some variables, such as work status, end of course scores, and attendance were found to be significant in determining a iv student’s GPA; none of the tested variables showed a significant impact on attendance, and only an individual’s gender was shown to determine sleep habits. Conclusion The study illustrates the effect of numerous variables on overall student life, including their GPA, school attendance, and their sleep habits. Complex relationships among these factors exist and further research should be done to determine mitigation strategies related to overcoming the challenges presented. Key words: Adequate sleep, brain plasticity framework, academic success, healthy sleep pattern
Factors affecting Standardized Test Scores: Internal and External Factors in Ohio School Districts
Full text linkThe focus of this study was the internal and external school district factors that influence standardized test scores within the state of Ohio. This study also looked at differences in school characteristics between income classes as well as the current Black-White achievement gap in Ohio. The topics and analyses in this study were based off James Coleman’s 1966 report titled Equality of Educational Opportunity. Data was collected from public online databases, and all Ohio school districts with sufficient data were used. Findings regarding factors that influence test scores suggest that external school district factors play a larger role in test scores than internal school district factors. However, teacher qualifications significantly impact test scores as well. Per-pupil expenditures have a significant negative relationship with test scores, even while controlling for all other variables. Findings regarding school characteristics across income classes revealed that teacher qualifications significantly increase with each jump in income class, but the middle class significantly lags behind the lower and upper income classes in expenditures. A significant mean test-score difference was found between predominantly black and predominantly white school districts, and the percentage of married parents in the school was the only variable found to moderate the relationship between the black student population and test scores. Limitations to this study were acknowledged, such as the exclusion of intrinsic variables (e.g. work ethic and IQ) and the use of standardized test scores as the only measure of student achievement. However, this study went above and beyond the typical analysis on educational factors by looking at both internal and external school district predictors, by examining educational inputs as well as outputs, and by finding possible moderators to lessen the Black-White achievement gap. The iv practical applications to these findings are far-reaching; parents, educators, school boards, and politicians alike can use the results to create a superior educational environment for future generations
Why a Four-Day Workweek?
Full text linkThis paper explores the growing popularity of the four-day workweek as a way to improve modern work-life balance. By analyzing real-world trials and studies, it highlights how this approach boosts productivity, improves employee well-being, and aligns with corporate social responsibility (CSR) values. Success stories, such as Microsoft\u27s trial in Japan that increased productivity by 40% and Iceland’s experiments that reduced stress and improved overall happiness, show the potential of a shorter workweek. While there are concerns about compressed schedules leading to burnout or challenges in industries requiring round-the-clock staffing, these issues can be addressed through thoughtful planning, such as staggered shifts and flexible policies. The paper concludes that the four-day workweek can create a healthier, more balanced work environment, benefiting both employees and employers. When implemented effectively, this model supports not only productivity and job satisfaction, but also environmental sustainability and stronger community connections
Master\u27s Portfolio
Full text linkContents include reflective introduction, teaching philosophy, sample of scholarly writing, and sample teaching materials (syllabus, assignment, and lesson plan)
Medieval and Modern Burial Strategies in the North of Portugal
No full textBurial practices are an answer to the most inexorable truth of human condition, death, and have very different manifestations depending on the different temporal and cultural framework of human communities. The expansion of Christianity had as consequence a change in the funerary practices, becoming, also in this field, an uniformizer of the cult rites, not only in Europe but also in other regions of the world to where the Church expanded. The funerary ritual of inhumation became the pattern, and burials began to take place around or inside the temples. In this presentation, I will address the strategies of occupation of the funerary space during the Medieval and Modern periods using as an example the Monastery of Vilar de Frades (Barcelos, Portugal), looking simultaneously at the archaeological and historical records. By crossing these two types of sources, we can better understand the complexity of the organization of the funerary space and how this is subdivided into two different, but intertwined, layers: the symbolic and the physical space. This study showed that burial strategies were established in a way to optimize the burial space available. Most importantly, it also showed that only a combination of both the archaeological and historical records allows for a more complete understanding of these funerary practices
Why Phrase Structure Grammar Should Be Taught in Schools
No full textThe presentation focuses on the teaching of Linguistics foundational concepts to the students enrolled in The School of Education programs as well as other Departments who will be future teachers of their respective majors. The main focus is on the Phrase Structure Grammar (PSG) and why it is important to have this component in teacher education. The presentation will cover not just the basics of the introductory ideas of this grammar but the methods and procedures that help develop sentence-tree building techniques and relevant skills. More importantly, the necessity of this conceptual knowledge about language will be explained in greater detail and why some Departments across the country are avoiding teaching this area of Linguistics. The main proposal embedded in the presentation is to make these concepts taught to K-12 students and see its results in the future. There has been some discussion in the literature to develop the basic course of PSG for secondary schools, but the idea has not come to fruition yet. In the conclusions, I will touch on how this kind of knowledge will be helpful in developing the skills relevant not just to academic language but computational linguistics, applied linguistics and other fields that may become a career path for students later enrolling at college. The main part of the presentation will show the main conceptual underpinning of PSG that was developed in 1960s. Specifically, I will show how traditional grammar models still taught at the higher educational institutions lack the same kind of depth in capturing the properties of various constructions as PSG does. One of such examples is syntactically ambiguous structures along with the morphologically and semantically ambiguous ones. Finally, the presentation will explain why there is a resistance towards teaching this grammar to pre-service teachers leaving this content available to only Ivy League or research one universities’ students
Self-Propelled Droplet Motion on Micro- and Nanoscale Ratchets
No full textWe report motion of liquid droplet in the Leidenfrost (film-boiling) regime whose directionality is rectified by topological ratchets. Water droplets dispensed on the asymmetrically ratcheted gratings start to move in a direction perpendicular to the gratings when the surface temperature reaches the Leidenfrost temperature. Topologically ratcheted gratings with the period of 750 μm and the depths of 15 μm and 30 μm were fabricated using micromachining and nickel electroplating processes. The experimental setup with a high speed camera and an automatic injection system was used to investigate the influence of effective length on droplet motion. Geometrical effect between microscale ratchet and millimetric droplet was significant. The droplet even could climb uphill the 1.3° tilted shallow micro-ratchets. We also have demonstrated a simplified, two-dimensional computational fluid dynamics-heat transfer model of Leidenfrost regime on a sub millimeter scale ratchets when the water vapor thickness is less than 100 μm. It is found that the influence of convection and radiation heat transfer to droplet mobility was almost negligible. Finally, the thermal conduction dominant shear viscous model revealed the possible contribution of self-rotating, reversible, and tumbling motion of the droplet to the self-propulsion. Broader applications with micro- and nanoratchets can also be envisioned as a means of increasing efficiencies for film-boiling heat transfer associated with droplets and spray. One critical, but common problem in film-boiling heat transfer systems is that the presence of droplets bounced from the surface hinders a continuous heat transfer between injected droplets and hot surface, which can be avoided by using micro- and nanoratcheted surfaces. Those applications include fuel injection for combustion technology, stream generation for energy conversion in nuclear power energy converters, cooling systems for nuclear reactors, and spray quenching of heat treatable alloys
Relationships between social media comparisons and eating disorder symptoms in men
No full textWe are investigating social network site (SNS) usage to predict disordered eating and extreme attitudes about having a muscular body. Participants will be surveyed about body dissatisfaction, social comparison evoked from both in-person interaction and from SNS usage, disordered eating, and attitudes about muscularity. We expect that taking these factors into account will permit statistical prediction of disordered eating and excessive concern about muscularity
Viability of Seed Stock at Shawnee State University
No full textI sought to determine if the tree and herbaceous plant seed stores housed on Shawnee State University’s campus were viable. Seed storage, when practiced probably, is valuable for selecting for specific characteristics, cultivating plants out of season, and maintaining genetic diversity. I began my research by organizing and identifying all species for which seeds are stored on campus. For each species documented, I aimed to stratify and germinate up to twenty individuals following species-specific propagation procedures. Planted seeds were monitored for successful germination and a percent yield was calculated for each. Based on my research, previous seed storage techniques utilized at the university are largely not successful. Species stored more recently germinated at a greater rate than those collected more than a few years prior. Seed storage is a valuable practice; however my research demonstrates that changes to seed storage protocol are warranted on campus