Indiana University – Purdue University Fort Wayne
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Prepare, Motivate, Lead: The Development of a Peer Mentoring and Leadership Service Learning Capstone Course for Psychology Majors
No full textWe developed a service learning capstone course: PSY 392 Peer Mentoring and Leadership. Whereas service learning courses typically provide service to an organization external to the campus, here advanced psychology majors serve as support resources/peer mentors for first-year students during their summer orientation experience, and then throughout their first semester
Measuring Newton\u27s Constant of Universal Gravitation using a Gravitational Torsion Balance
No full textNewton’s Constant of Universal Gravitation is used in the calculation of gravitational attraction between any two or more objects. In this experiment, we use a rotating torsional pendulum, different sized masses, and an optical lever to determine the value of this constant. After accounting for additional forces acting on our masses and various sources of error, we determined our most precise measurement for the constant of universal gravitation to be 6.4110-11 ± 5.1610-13 m3kg−1s−2. This measurement, given the NIST CODATA value of 6.6740810-11 m3kg−1s−2, was 5.1 times our uncertainty
Warm-Up Workshop: Warm-Up Workshop: Getting Your Amateur Group to Sound Professional in Seconds
No full textWarm-ups are the oft-neglected yet essential component to an excellent choral rehearsal, and many of us come into the rehearsal room well-prepared to teach repertoire but ill-prepared to lead warm-ups that will set the tone for success. Beyond supplying attendees with examples of different warm-ups, this workshop will offer a pedagogical approach and practical advice about how to lead effective and relevant choral warm-ups for groups of any age
Local social media policies governing teachers’ professionally oriented participation online: A content analysis
No full textIn light of recent scholarship about teachers leveraging social media to support their continuing professional development, this article documents an investigation of school board policies governing teachers’ use of social media. Focusing on 30 traditional public school systems within a 10-county region in the Midwestern United States, the author collected social media policies and conducted an ethnographic content analysis to build an understanding of the policies that stand to guide teachers’ professionally oriented participation online. Of the 30 public school districts included in the study, 19 districts published policies specific to teachers’ use of social media. Reporting the study’s findings, the author addresses the districts’ efforts to craft policies that define social media, reiterate relevant pre-existing policies and support educational uses of social media. Implications for teachers, teacher educators and policymakers are included
Trackways of the American Crocodile (Crocodylus acutus) in Northwestern Costa Rica: Implications for Crocodylian Ichnology
No full textWe documented trackways of free-living Crocodylus acutus on beaches at the mouths of Tamarindo and Ventanas estuaries, Costa Rica. Our crocodiles had estimated total lengths of 1–3 meters or more. Manus prints have five digits, with digits I–III bearing claw marks. Pes prints have four digits, with claw marks on digits I–III. The pes is plantigrade. Claws generally dig into the substrate. Apart from claw marks, digit I and the heel of the pes are usually the most deeply impressed parts of footprints. Trackways are wide-gauge. Pes prints are usually positioned just behind ipsilateral manus prints of the same set and may overlap them. Manus and pes prints angle slightly outward with respect to the crocodile\u27s direction of movement. Claw-bearing digits of both the manus and pes may create curved, concave-toward-the-midline drag marks as the autopodium is protracted. The tail mark varies in depth and clarity, and in shape from nearly linear to markedly sinuous. Sometimes the tail mark hugs the trackway midline, but sometimes it is closer to, or even cuts across, prints of one side. American crocodile footprints and trackways are similar to those observed in other extant crocodylian species, indicating substantial trackway conservatism across the group
Children of Cienfuegos
No full textI am going to be documenting through photography, the lives of the people of Cienfuegos, located in the Dominican Republic. This is an area within the Dominican that has poor housing, few paying jobs and extremely poor living conditions. The people of Cienfuegos are considered squatters on land that they do not own. This is true even if they have built a house to live in. The area is so poor and destitute that people essentially find a small area of land and construct a very basic house to provide shelter. It is an area adjacent to the city of Santiago’s trash dump. This creates conditions in which many people living in the area, roam the dump for food, toys, and daily needs. These conditions have caused respiratory and gastric problems among many of the people here and is an unsuitable place for any human being to live. I will be traveling to Cienfuegos for a week and performing research on these people and how their life is different than ours. I will also be taking photos in order to observe more fully and share the people of Cienfuegos’ way of life. After research, I will be comparing and contrasting their way of life with our life here in the US, as well as researching new ways to help these people change their life. My hope is that I can bring to light a very serious humanitarian crisis that is not very well know here in the United States
Promoting Civic Engagement, Cultivating Human Agency and Stimulating Environmental Justice
No full textWe are providing residents surrounding the Hartford Iron \u26 Metal (HI\u26M) facility with groundwater contamination results, distributing hand soap labeled with contact information for reporting violations to the Indiana Department of Environmental Management (IDEM), and collecting nine upwind/downwind moss samples to analyze for possible air contamination. Located in Blackford County, HI\u26M sits in the middle of a low SES residential neighborhood where many residents rent; it lacks a neighborhood association. Blackford County Concerned Citizens (BCCC) is investigating the concerns of residents in relation to the industrial history of the county in an attempt to improve public health. Statistics indicate that Blackford County has significantly higher levels of three types of cancers – colon, thyroid, bladder – in Indiana. HI\u26M, IDEM and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) entered an agreement in 2009 and a 2010 site assessment showed soil samples that were contaminated with heavy metals and organic compounds. HI\u26M had not complied with the court order as of 2015 and IDEM is responsible for enforcement of that order and has been slow to force remediation. Recent remediation efforts have been focused on groundwater contamination and municipality entities and have ignored other avenues of contamination, including air pollutants surrounding HI\u26M. The goal of this service learning course is to cultivate human agency by development of collective consciousness that seeks to address the concerns of affected residents. We aim to address HI\u26M’s ecological impact on the surrounding neighborhood by empowering residents in light of institutional deficiencies.http://opus.ipfw.edu/stu_symp2017/1030/thumbnail.jp
Faculty Perception of Accommodations for Students with Disabilities
No full textEducational advances over the years has enabled students with disabilities to access educational opportunities in higher educational institutions, creating a diversification of the student population in higher education. This has necessitated faculty to increase their knowledge about providing appropriate accommodations for students with disabilities, as well as devise new pedagogical methods that cater to the different learning needs of students in their classrooms. This study was conducted to investigate faculty willingness to utilize inclusive instructional accommodations for students with disabilities in their classrooms, through an anonymous survey that was distributed to full time and part time faculty from a Midwestern University. Quantitative analysis of the data through SPSS showed that 79.1% of the participants reported a willingness to provide instructional accommodations in their classrooms. Qualitative analysis of the data reported that participants expressed a need for improved knowledge and training on how to provide certain instructional accommodations, citing increased collaboration and enhanced communication with the office of services for students with disabilities as avenues that would aid in fulfilling the gaps. This type of research study adds to the previous and increasing literature in the field, which focuses on how pedagogical methods can be enriched to cater for the currently diversified learning needs of the students at high institutions of learning. Key Words: Students with disabilities, higher education, instructional accommodation, faculty perception, faculty knowledgehttp://opus.ipfw.edu/stu_symp2017/1027/thumbnail.jp