6591 research outputs found
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Exploring Optics: A Kit and Curriculum for Teaching Eighth Graders About Light Waves and Their Applications
No full textCreated with support from an SPIE Outreach Grant, the “Exploring Optics” kit, curriculum, and teacher training was developed with the aim of increasing awareness of and interest in optics and photonics in Arkansas by targeting pre-high school students and science teachers
Enhancing Self-Regulated Learning Strategies for College Students Through Discussion Reflections in Online Learning Environment
No full textThis study investigates the effect of the use of students’ discussion reflections on their course scores in an online learning environment regarding their self-regulated learning strategies (SRL) to complete weekly learning activities. The investigators assigned discussion assignments for students to share with their instructors and peers regarding the strategies they used each week. Participants were 56 preservice teachers enrolled in graduate and undergraduate technology integration courses. Correlations and multiple linear regression analyses were used with students’ final course grades and the four sub- self-regulated learning strategies constructs: self-efficacy, intrinsic value, cognitive strategy use, and self-regulation learning. The results of the correlation analysis show that there was a strong and positive correlation between students’ final course grades and their self-regulated learning strategies measured after engaging in the assigned weekly discussion reflections. The multiple linear regression analysis showed that the predictor model was able to account for 34% of the variance in students’ course scores variable and was statistically significant at p \u3c .000. Individual predictors were examined further and found that students’ intrinsic value and self-efficacy to be significant predictors of students’ final course scores (t = 2.168, and 2.238, p = .05). Implications, recommendations, and limitations of these results were also discussed
Visitor Expenditure Patterns in Trail Towns on Kentucky’s Sheltowee Trace
No full textThe Sheltowee Trace is a 333-mile trail extending from the northern boundary of the Daniel Boone National Forest in Kentucky to the southern boundary of the Big South Fork National Recreational Area in Tennessee. Kentucky has designated six official trail towns along the Sheltowee Trace: Morehead, Livingston, Slade, McKee, Stearns, and London. Data from an online survey of 2020 Sheltowee Trace visitors indicate they spent an average of 76 at hotels/motels, 206 for rental cabins with an estimated 90% choosing to stay at least one night. Further explorations of marketing and meeting Sheltowee Trace visitor needs along with minimizing user impacts are strongly recommended
Seeing Like a Commons: Eighty Years of Intentional Community Building and Commons Stewardship in Celo, North Carolina
No full textIn Seeing Like a Commons, Joshua Lockyer demonstrates how a growing group of people have, over the last eighty years, deliberately built Celo Community, a communal settlement on 1,200 acres of commonly owned land in the Appalachian Mountains of North Carolina. Joshua Lockyer highlights the potential for intentional communities like Celo to raise awareness of global interconnectivity and structural inequalities, enabling people and communities to become better stewards and citizens of both local landscapes and global commons.https://orc.library.atu.edu/atu_faculty_books/1058/thumbnail.jp
The United States and Venezuela during the First World War: Cordial Relations of Suspicious Cooperation
No full textThis book details the diplomatic relations between the United States and Venezuela during a pivotal time in world history. Through the utilization of archival materials and newspaper accounts, the author highlights the words of the major participants to demonstrate how the two nations worked together – sometimes hand-in-hand, sometimes face-to-face – to prevent the European War from spreading to the Western Hemisphere. Despite several efforts to develop hemispheric unity during the War, Venezuelan leaders perceived the policy of neutrality to be in the best interest of the country\u27s national sovereignty. This book explores the personalities of the chief executives and selected diplomats to illustrate how both personnel and personalities molded their nation’s foreign relations. In the end, while perceived as two very different individuals who pursued different paths during the global conflict, the leadership styles of President Woodrow Wilson and General Juan Vicente Gómez were more alike than they realized. The overall cordial relations between the two nations during the period under review helped establish the foundation for the petroleum bonanza that United States companies would enjoy in the following years.https://orc.library.atu.edu/atu_faculty_books/1059/thumbnail.jp
Secondary Teacher Attitudes Targeting Inclusion of English Language Learners in Mainstream Classrooms
Get PDFEducational leadership in public schools have struggled to service second language learners across the United States. Although support systems in urban education settings have seemed to be fully staffed, the surge of new immigrants, has posed challenges to classroom teachers. Unspoken attitudes of bias and perception of faculty members have been menacing and could have impeded equitable practice and performance of both the English language learner and the teacher. Previous research of Reeves (2002, 2004, & 2006) has inferred teachers have struggled with their attitudes toward ELLs in their mainstream classes and have indicated professional development as being essential. Specifically, high schools have had little research to indicate if progress has been made to address the issues of social justice and the effects on teacher attitudes and student performance. Inevitably, current research on secondary teacher attitudes toward ELLs in content-area subjects is important. Urban school districts have needed to hear and understand teachers’ feelings to equitably plan and employ fundamental supports of practice for teachers that can be of benefit to ELLs. Because of ongoing needs to seek further understanding of teachers attitudes toward linguistic diversity of ELLs in the mainstream classroom, a further examination of teacher attitudes within urban secondary schools, as relates to the inclusion of English Language Learners required further research. Therefore, four significant attitudinal themes were collected from teachers from the study in the form of questions. Those themes were attitudes toward: ELL inclusion in mainstream classes; modification of coursework for ELLs; ELL professional development for teachers; and teacher perceptions of second-language acquisition. The contents of the study consisted of an introduction, a literature review, the methodology (sampling and design of the study), the research findings along with a conclusion and recommendations. The study was a survey and held in the largest school district in the State of Arkansas accessing 133 faculty members who all have had contact with ELLs in their content-area subjects. Last, school leaders and districts will find the recent research document to be realistic and applicable as they navigate support for teachers that enhance ELL proficiency rates
Online deep neural network-based feedback control of a Lutein bioprocess
No full textAn online adaptive deep neural network (DNN) scheme has been introduced for the tracking control of a nonlinear bioprocess with uncertain internal dynamics. First, a detailed controllability analysis is conducted for the Lutein bioprocess to represent the bioprocess as a nonlinear system in affine form. Next, a controller consisting of a DNN-based function approximator is designed for the nonlinear Lutein production bioprocess. It is demonstrated that closed-loop tracking control of a bioprocess for a desired yield profile is possible only with two inputs. The set point trajectory to yield maximum Lutein production is shown by the proposed online adaptive deep NN controller. The proposed controller exhibits self-learning capability under closed loop condition, due to the online learning phase. In other words, no explicit offline learning phase is required and online learning is preferred due to lack of a priori training data for approximating complex nonlinear functions. Simulation results are provided to confirm the performance of the proposed approach. © 2020 Elsevier Lt
Predictive Ability of NWEA MAP Tests for ACT Aspire at Rivercrest High School
Get PDFNWEA claimed their assessment results could accurately predict student performance in reading and mathematics on the ACT Aspire for students in Grades 7 through 10. The purpose of this study was to determine the relationship between students’ scores on the NWEA MAP tests in reading and mathematics and the ACT Aspire for students in Grades 7 through 10 in Rivercrest High School, as well as determining if NWEA MAP tests accurately predicted 7th through 10th grade students’ scores on the ACT Aspire for reading and mathematics. The findings revealed a significant relationship between NWEA MAP test (seventh/eighth/ninth/tenth) grade reading and math scores and ACT Aspire scores. Further, NWEA MAP test (seventh/eighth/ninth/tenth) scores significantly predicted (seventh/eighth/ninth/tenth) grade ACT Aspire reading and mathematics scores
Wildfire Affects Expression of Male Sexual Plumage Through Suppressed Testosterone Circulation in a Tropical Songbird
No full textNatural disturbances like drought and wildfires are expected to increase in prevalence, so understanding how organisms are affected is a key goal for conservationists and biologists alike. While many studies have illustrated long-term effects of perturbations on survival and reproduction, little is known of short-term effects to physiology and sexual signal expression. Ornamental traits have been proposed as reliable indicators of environmental health, yet studies are lacking in the context of natural disturbances. Here we present short-term (7–65 days) responses of male red-backed fairywrens Malurus melanocephalus to wildfire near the onset of the typical breeding season. Young males of this species are characterized by plastic expression of sexual plumage phenotypes depending on circulating testosterone and body condition. Using two populations with fairywren captures before and after separate wildfires we illustrate that wildfire suppressed molt into ornamented plumage. Neither baseline plasma corticosterone or furcular fat stores were affected by fire. However, fire seemed to interfere with the termporal increase in plasma testosterone during the pre-breeding season, leading to a lower proportion of males molting into ornamented plumage. Collectively, these findings suggest that wildfires inhibit or greatly delay acquisition of ornamentation in males through enduring suppression of testosterone circulation
Information Management and the Return-Entry Process: Examining Information Needs, Sources, and Strategies after Superstorm Sandy
No full textThe effective management of disasters requires timely and accurate information. Both emergency management (EM) organizations and the public are involved in information management activities during and after a disaster where they seek information from various sources to reduce disaster-related uncertainties. While studies have focused on information needs and source reliance behaviors of EM organizations amid a disaster, the information management behaviors of the organizations during return-entry phase has gained little scholarly attention. This study examines the information management strategies of local EM organizations while managing the initial return-entry movement following Superstorm Sandy. Using a qualitative research design, the researchers conducted semi-structured telephone interviews with 25 EM officials from New Jersey. The data analysis yielded five themes that highlight the information management strategies of the EM organizations – information needs, information sources, information seeking behavior, information exchange, and applying information for return-entry decisions. This paper discusses these findings and provides proactive strategies to gather and manage information to facilitate return-entry decision-making and risk communication in the immediate aftermath of a disaster