Journals.uncc.edu (North Carolina's Urban Research University)
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The Phone as a Tool in Modern Black Self-Defense
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As Black Americans continue to be targets of police brutality and racial discrimination, the phone has evolved into an effective tool for Black self-defense. This paper examines the ways in which ideas of black self-protection have persisted and evolved over the past two decades. While many historical notions of Black self-defense have persevered, the emergence of social media and technology in activism has led to a new form of Black protection. Utilizing a variety of primary and secondary sources, this paper examines the history of Black Self-Defense, nonviolence versus militancy, and using social media in activism, particularly in Black liberation movements. In recognizing the phone as an effective weapon in combating racial discrimination, Black Americans can utilize this tool to protect themselves, get justice for others, and prevent future recurrence
Keep Teaching at NC State: Lessons Learned in Academic Continuity
No full textTrack: Open Educational Resources, Open Pedagogy & Open Access Scholarship
The onset of the COVID-19 pandemic required immediate shifts in higher education, compelling faculty and instructional support teams to adapt rapidly to remote and hybrid teaching models. This poster shares lessons learned in the development of NC State University\u27s Keep Teaching website, a resource launched at the beginning of the pandemic to support faculty in navigating new instructional challenges. By examining the iterative design process, technology choices, and user feedback, this poster highlights effective strategies and unexpected challenges in creating and maintaining an adaptable online resource. Key insights include the importance of timely content updates, strategies for fostering user engagement, and methods for integrating diverse multimedia tools to enhance teaching efficacy. These findings are invaluable for educational technology teams and administrators seeking to build resilient teaching resources in response to evolving instructional needs
Evaluating open access publishing opportunities: Recognizing and avoiding predatory journals
No full textTrack: Open Educational Resources, Open Pedagogy & Open Access Scholarship
Open access publishing provides many benefits, including increased readership and higher citation rates. But when evaluating and selecting open publication venues, authors must be aware of practices and characteristics that are associated with predatory publishing. These publications use deceptive practices and prioritize self-interest and financial gain over scholarship quality, often charging authors to publish their work without providing peer review, editing, and other services associated with legitimate scholarly publishing. New scholars - especially graduate students - need to be educated to recognize and avoid these journals, but even experienced authors can be caught unaware, as predatory practices evolve and change over time.
This session will discuss predatory and deceptive academic publishing practices–including new and developing concerns in this area–offer methods and resources to help evaluate journal quality, show examples of red flags related to journal practices, and offer tools and tips to help authors avoid entanglement with predatory journals
Student-Led Research as a Catalyst for Curriculum Relevance in an Applied Infectious Disease Course
No full textTrack: Learning Professionals as Researchers
Introduction:The influenza vaccination status of healthcare workers (HCWs) can influence HCW infection risks, absenteeism, rates of healthcare-associated infections, patient healthcare costs, and institutional effectiveness. While extensive research has explored vaccine knowledge and attitudes among professional nurses, limited attention has been given to pre-nursing students—an essential group poised to address future healthcare challenges. Faculty from Schools of Health Sciences and Nursing collaborated with traditional undergraduate research (UR) students to design and implement an evidence-based course-based undergraduate research experience (CURE) to engage pre-nursing students in meaningful, real-time research. By integrating vaccination relevance, the etiology of viruses, and flu into the curriculum, the study demonstrates how applied infectious disease education can prepare students for professional practice while addressing critical gaps in knowledge and beliefs.
Methods:Faculty investigators and UR students collected data via anonymous surveys and confidential interviews to assess baseline knowledge and beliefs among 5 working nurses (Fall 2023), 38 nursing students (Spring 2022), and 89 pre-nursing students enrolled in an applied infectious diseases course (Spring 2023/Fall 2023/Spring 2024). Evidence from working nurses and nursing students informed the development of a CURE curriculum designed to improve pre-nursing students’ understanding of influenza disease, vaccination, and their implications for HCWs. Chi-square tests analyzed differences in pre/post-curriculum knowledge and beliefs, with a focus on contrasting outcomes between historically-high (HHV) and historically-low influenza vaccinators (LHV).
Results:Among working nurses, interviews revealed gaps in knowledge regarding vaccine safety, efficacy, and the role of HCW vaccine status in patient outcomes, as well as resistance to employer vaccine mandates. Nursing students also displayed limited understanding of vaccine safety and the risks HCW vaccination poses to both their own health and patient outcomes. Pre-nursing students exhibited similar deficiencies, with LHV students demonstrating lower baseline knowledge and less support for HCWs\u27 personal responsibility to vaccinate. After participating in the CURE curriculum, pre-nursing students showed significant knowledge improvements in areas such as vaccine safety, efficacy, and patient risks. However, changes in vaccine-related beliefs were less pronounced, indicating the complexity of influencing personal perspectives.
Discussion:This study highlights the importance of using research and evidence-based practices to design a curriculum bridging the gap between foundational etiology knowledge and real-world clinical challenges. Incorporating real-time research and relevant practice topics, such as the etiology of viruses and the importance of vaccinations, increases engagement by directly tying course content to students’ future professional responsibilities. Collaboration between faculty in the Schools of Health Sciences and Nursing ensured a focus on career-relevant outcomes, and UR students played a key role in data collection and analysis. The CURE curriculum not only improved pre-nursing students’ knowledge but also attracted participants to engage in future research projects, fostering a pipeline of research-oriented healthcare professionals.
Differences identified between HHV and LHV student groups provided insights for refining future curricula, emphasizing the need for tailored educational strategies to address both knowledge and belief disparities. This framework, combining interdisciplinary research, CURE activities, and evidence-based practice, can serve as a model for enhancing curriculum relevance and student engagement across diverse academic disciplines
Adaptive Learning Platform for Engineering Dynamics
No full textTrack: Student Success & Wellness
Engineering Dynamics is a foundational junior‑level mechanical engineering course that focuses on the mathematical modeling and dynamic analysis of a broad spectrum of systems—from translational and rotational mechanics to thermal processes, multi‑degree‑of‑freedom mechanisms, and electromechanical and electrical subsystems—using differential equations, Laplace transforms, and transfer functions. To address both the rigor of this mathematical content and the diversity of student preparedness, we developed an adaptive learning framework with the Realizeit platform and seamlessly integrated it into UNC Charlotte’s Canvas environment. Key concepts in Dynamics 2 were mapped into a hierarchical prerequisite network of modules and nodes, each containing instructional materials, randomized practice problems, and auto‑graded assessments, including MATLAB Grader for coding tasks. Standalone exam modules provided secure, timed evaluations of mastery. Realizeit’s analytics dashboard enabled real‑time monitoring of student progress and classification of learners as high achievers, struggling students, or inconsistent performers. Based on these insights, we deployed targeted interventions—including personalized messages, supplemental videos, and concise lecture notes—which students reported made them feel more confident and supported. Preliminary outcomes indicate increased engagement, higher assignment completion rates, deeper conceptual mastery, and an overall positive learning experience. Challenges included reduced in‑class attendance and the resource demands of content development. Future directions involve refining intervention strategies, incentivizing attendance with challenge problems, and extending the adaptive framework to other STEM courses. This work demonstrates a scalable approach for integrating adaptive learning technologies to personalize instruction and enhance student success in mathematically intensive engineering curricula
Examining One Mathematics Teacher’s Decisions Regarding Mathematics and Language
No full textTeachers have to make many in-the-moment decisions when teaching. We investigated one teacher’s decisions in response to the difference between the intended meaning of a mathematical problem and her student’s understanding. The student—an English language learner—had a different interpretation of the mathematical scenario related to one particular clause in the problem that was, ironically, intended to be explanatory but ended up obscuring intended meaning and therefore impacted the student’s solution. In order to reflect on the teacher’s decisions, we include a vignette that illustrates the teacher’s tensions when making her instructional decisions. The vignette is followed by the teacher’s rationale for her decisions and an analysis of the episode. We invite readers to participate in her decision-making process and explore impacts of each decision
Twenty-One Days of First Grade Spanish Dual Language Immersion: A Nurturing Mathematics and Linguistics Incubation
No full textAnalogous to a 21-day incubation period of a chick, four mathematics and linguistics practices are employed as a framework in a first grade Dual Language Immersion classroom. These practices include: 1) Concrete-Representational-Abstract instructional sequences, 2) Receptive and Productive Language Modalities, 3) Gradual Release of Responsibility, and 4) Number Representations and Subitizing. The article illustrates how the framework can be implemented by offering details about mathematics and management routines and examples of formal mathematics instruction
Transmodalising for Equitable Mathematics Instruction for Multilingual Classroom
No full textThis paper introduces a repertoire of practice called transmodalising to support discursive practices in the multilingual mathematics classroom. Using the transmodal framework, we describe a classroom vignette of a mathematics classroom using translanguaging and transmodalising that promoted discursive practices and equitable access to rigorous mathematics for emergent bilingual learners. Our discussion highlights the ways in which transmodalising practices align with research-based recommendations for mathematics instruction for English learners (ELs) by treating language as a resource, supporting ELs’ participation in mathematical discussions while learning English, and drawing on all meaning-making resources, including home languages, multimodal tools, and out-of-school experiences
Editorial
No full textThis is the editorial review by Dr. Arshiya Sethi on the state of the field of South Asian Dance Intersections as experienced through the microscopic and macroscopic narratives curated in the issue
Navigating the Integration of Artificial Intelligence and Surgery
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Integrating artificial intelligence (AI) into surgery presents a promising avenue for enhancing diagnostic and therapeutic practices, yet challenges persist in advancing this technology in a surgical setting. Despite strides made in AI-based platforms for medical imaging, robot-assisted laparoscopic surgery, and anesthetic calculations, AI for surgery remains elusive due to limitations in existing optimization approaches and potential ethical issues that arise from utilizing such tools on patients. This literature review investigates the feasibility of utilizing AI to optimize surgery, particularly in aligning 3D images, assisting surgeons with breakthrough techniques, and highlighting certain areas of the body that surgeons have a hard time seeing while operating at the same time. Preliminary research reveals that leveraging an AI agent matches, and sometimes outperforms, current state-of-the-art methods in accuracy and robustness for aligning images in patient screenings and diagnoses. These findings highlight the potential of AI-driven image registration techniques to revolutionize medical imaging, offering insights into addressing long-standing challenges and paving the way for more effective utilization of AI in surgical settings. Additionally, it highlights the importance of continuous ethical considerations in the deployment of AI technologies in patient care, emphasizing the need for ongoing revisions to ethical codes to accommodate the evolving landscape of machine learning systems and technology. This review contributes to understanding the transformative impact of AI in a surgical environment while emphasizing the importance of ethical frameworks in harnessing its full potential