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Re-Assembling Assessment: The Multiliterate and Affective Flows Among Multilingual 2nd Graders and Their Writing Portfolios
No full textThis practitioner inquiry dissertation is situated within the context of U.S. education policy that persists in defining literacy as print-based and privileges standardized literacy assessments as the singular measure of what students “know”. Decades of literacy research have shown that such orientations to education policy and resulting curriculum and pedagogical practices position students from non-dominant backgrounds, including multilingual learners, as “at-risk”, “remedial”, and “struggling”. Through this research, I implement asset-based curriculum, pedagogy, and assessment with students in a 2nd grade English as a Second Language (ESL) writing classroom. Specifically, I explore how students engaged with the end-of-school-year writing portfolio unit where they collaborated with their peers to design writing portfolios comprising writings and illustrations from the school year. Students collaboratively reflected on and revised their writing portfolio’s contents and ultimately shared them with their classmates, families, and me, their ESL teacher, during student-led portfolio conferences. Writing portfolios have long been identified as an alternative assessment for multilingual learners, yet few studies exist on what emerges when teachers and multilingual students collaboratively engage in writing portfolio design, reflection, revision, and sharing. I apply posthuman orientations toward literacy, specifically drawing from multiliteracies and embodied/affective literacies to analyze the entangled material and discursive ways that students knew/became/did literacies across the writing portfolio unit. Findings show that multilingual learners have a wealth of multiliterate and affective resources that they draw upon as engage in literacy events. Further, when writing portfolios are approached as an assemblage, students come to see themselves and their literacies as “becoming”. This research has implications for policy, research, and practice by demonstrating how the mapping of the multiliterate and affective flows among multilingual learners and texts can provide insights into the complex material and discursive ways that students know/become/do literacies
Building Community and Advancing Literacy Learning During a Pandemic and Beyond
No full textThis is a practitioner research study that examines what it takes to co-create school contexts that support strong school communities and instructional practices. This practitioner inquiry study took a case study approach and looked closely at the relationships cultivated between and among teachers and administrators grappling to advance students’ learning in three elementary schools located in historically marginalized communities in the midst of a pandemic. In the process, I inquired into the strategies, resources and investments made in professional learning to build community and strengthen teacher practice from the vantage point of the principal as well as the classroom teacher. I drew upon a range of data sources including teacher and principal interviews, focus groups, and school artifacts. I kept a reflective journal to document my own thoughts and reflections to better connect my new learning to my current role as an assistant superintendent serving across a similar set of historically marginalized schools. I conclude the study with a discussion of the implications of this work for practitioners, researchers, and policy makers
Walking the Tightrope: Exploring Authenticity of Black Women in Fortune 500 Companies
No full textThis qualitative phenomenological study included perspectives of 20 Black women, ranging from early-career professionals to executive level, spanning various Fortune 500 companies. This study investigated the person-centered model of authenticity, which includes self-alienation, authentic living, and external influences. A lens of critical race theory (CRT) was leveraged to understand how the model applied to the experiences of Black women in Fortune 500 companies. In addition, this study explored the impacts of social norms, standards, and leadership characteristics concerning Black women’s success. The study provided insights into how organizations can effectively support Black women to be their authentic selves without sacrificing opportunities to ascend into leadership positions. Critical insights from Black women represented an opportunity to identify effective and sustainable methods to create more diverse, inclusive, and equitable workplaces. Black women within the conversation are essential as organizations across the nation are identifying strategies to increase their efforts in this area. Many social norms, standards, and leadership characteristics studied, created, and expected have been based on the white male perspective. The study’s findings demonstrated the ability to navigate within organizations and feel appreciated for cultural aspects, skills, and abilities demonstrated in the workplace, which created an inclusive environment where participants could thrive. An inclusive environment created more productive relationships and increased participants’ desire to remain in their organizations
Collation Model for Ms. Codex 2074: Contra impedimiam.
Get PDFSmall 15th-century collection of advice and prescriptions for the plague, likely abridged from other manuscript sources. The recommendations address diet, exertion, avoiding public gatherings, and bloodletting. The text of this manuscript is related to that of Paris, BNF lat. 7138, ff. 109-110 in order, vocabulary (except for the use in this manuscript of the term impedimia for plague, rather than the more common epidimia), and references to 14th-century Montpellier physician Joannes Jacobi (f. 3r, 4v).https://repository.upenn.edu/sims_models/1110/thumbnail.jp
Collation Model for Ms. Codex 1329: De Canticis canticorum
Get PDF13th-century copy of Haimo\u27s 9th-century commentary on the Song of Solomon, with an unusual layout presenting the biblical lemmata in the margins enclosed in decorated circles and triangles. The commentary is allegorical, interpreting the Song of Songs as describing the marriage of Christ and the Church. Chapter divisions are added in the margins in a later medieval hand. This text is also known as the Commentarius in cantica canticorum or Expositio in cantica canticorum and has been attributed to Haimo of Halberstadt, Remigius Altissiodorensis, Cassiodorus, and Thomas Aquinas. The commentary is followed by an unidentified introduction to the Song of Songs.https://repository.upenn.edu/sims_models/1108/thumbnail.jp
Understanding the Differences in Strategic Alliance Formation in the Indian and Chinese Pharmaceutical Industry
Get PDFBy using data on Indian and Chinese pharmaceutical companies, before and after the domestic implementation of the Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPs), this study seeks to understand the role of the institutional theory in the formation of strategic alliances. Four structural dimensions of strategic alliances formation are identified as economic distance, the number of alliance participants, cross-national and partner diversity across different alliance types- marketing, manufacturing, licensing, retail and wholesale services, R&D, health and medical services, and others. Some alliances from both countries are multi-type which are categorized as different variables. The trend analysis reveals that TRIPS does not appear to be impactful for either country which aligns with its staggered domestic implementation in both countries. Through an analysis involving the Fisher Exact test on a dataset of 307 strategic alliances, this study finds that China had a statistically significant greater number of alliances with heterogeneous partners, partners from different industries, manufacturing alliances, all single type alliances (alliances that had only one type of motivation), and all alliances as compared to India. Furthermore, India demonstrated a statistically significant preference for multipurpose alliances revealing a broader trend of China engaging in more single motivation alliances in comparison to India’s fewer multipurpose strategic alliances with respect to the pharmaceutical industry
Towards a Centralized Venture Capital Data Source - The Key to Increased Minority Access to Venture Capital?
Get PDFIn 2016, Steven Kaplan and Josh Lerner wrote about how the shortage of reliable and comprehensive industry data has created challenges for academics who wish to replicate or build on previous venture capital1 (VC) studies (414). The author of this paper experienced a similar lack of data first-hand while attempting to validate findings from a 2008 study which found that minority focused VC funds tend to earn equivalent or higher returns on their investments than the returns of the VC industry (Bates and Bradford 2008). The data required was virtually nonexistent, which prompted a search for databases which collect VC data. This paper is a call to action for greater VC fund financial transparency. This paper’s original goal of validating a prior study should be replicable by any researcher. The findings, which result from first-hand experiences and secondary research sources, conclude that while there are various companies and resources that offer VC data, none can provide the necessary compilation of VC fund IRR data efficiently or inexpensively. This suggests that such a collection is needed
Essays on the Market for IPv4 Addresses
No full textIn this dissertation I study the market for IPv4 addresses - a multi-billion dollar market that is crucial for seamless internet communication. As this market has been understudied due to lack of accessible data, I collect data from various sources and create novel datasets that make this study possible. In the chapter, ``Technology transition with frictions: Evidence from the market for IP addresses , I introduce IP addresses and the market for IPv4 addresses. Each IPv4 address is a durable, homogenous resource and has zero fundamental value once the standard changes from IPv4 to IPv6. Yet in the market prices have been continuously increasing. Understanding this pricing puzzle is not just interesting from a theoretical perspective, but also crucial for applied policy analysis. To understand these and other empirical facts I explore the transition of firms from IPv4 to IPv6 in the presence of market frictions. The two key frictions in the market are switching costs and network effects. To substantiate this, I develop a dynamic model of firm behavior and calibrate the model to get a plausibly parametrized version of the model. This model can explain the striking increase in prices observed and the delay in IPv6 adoption. In the parameterized version of the model I find that it would take 33 years to reach near complete IPv6 adoption. In counterfactual simulations, I examine the role of frictions and optimal adoption path by a social planner. A regulation that aims to shut down the market by a certain period leads to a coordination in IPv6 adoption and increase in producer surplus, thus making it in an effective policy tool to enable transition to IPv6. Thus, in the presence of market frictions, the market on its own could fail in efficiently transitioning to the next protocol
Honey over Vinegar: Alignment Decisions of Smaller States and U.S.-China Competition for Influence in Southeast Asia
No full textCommitments of alignment from smaller states are central to the efforts of major powers to manipulate the regional and international systems in which they operate, and contestation over such commitments increasingly represents a persistent source of tension among major powers. Largely overlooked in the literature has been the active role of the smaller states and their agency in decisions of alignment. In my analysis, I highlight situations in which 1) there is explicit competition for alignment commitments between at least two major powers vying, through investment of time and resources, for influence over policy behavior, and 2) the smaller state is actively engaged in this competition. Smaller states face a simplified choice between three options: alignment with Major Power A, alignment with Major Power B, or nonalignment through hedging. Alignment comes with material benefits to the smaller state but also a loss of policy autonomy; through a strategy of nonalignment through hedging, on the other hand, the smaller state retains a greater degree of policy freedom but loses the diplomatic, economic, and security support that comes with alignment. I argue that smaller states select major power patrons based on the strategy for building authority employed by the major power: inducement or coercion. I contend that inducements are the more effective strategy, as they offer ruling regimes in smaller states material benefits that bolster their survival prospects. This framework, in which such regimes can leverage their positions to their own benefit amidst major power competition, is better able to explain alignment outcomes than traditional theories focused on the threats to national or internal security or regime-type affinity. I apply my framework to investigate alignment decisions in Southeast Asia amid growing U.S.-China competition. Through primary and secondary sources, open-source research, and cross- and between-case comparison of alignment decisions in Myanmar, Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia, and the Philippines, I show the importance of inducements and coercion in smaller state alignment decisions
Computational Mechanisms Underlying Perception of Visual Motion
No full textMotion is a fundamental property estimated by human sensory-perception. When visual shapes and patterns change their positions over time, we perceive motion. Relating properties of perceived motion—speed and direction—to properties of visual stimuli is an important endeavor in vision science. Understanding this relationship requires an understanding of the computations performed by the visual system to extract motion information from visual stimuli. The present research sheds light on the nature of these computations. In the first study, human performance in a speed discrimination task with naturalistic stimuli is compared to performance of an ideal observer model. The ideal observer model utilizes computations that have been optimized for discriminating speed among a large training set of naturalistic stimuli. Although human performance falls short of ideal observer performance because of the presence of internal noise, the remarkable finding is that the computations performed minimize, to the maximum possible extent, the performance limits imposed by external stimulus variability. In other words, humans perform computations that are optimal. The second study focuses on how spatial frequency, a basic characteristic of visual patterns, impacts the process by which the visual system integrates motion across time (temporal integration). A continuous target-tracking task demonstrates that longer temporal integration periods are associated with higher spatial frequencies. This predicts a visual depth illusion when the left and right eyes are simultaneously presented stimuli having different spatial frequencies. A second experiment using traditional forced-choice psychophysics confirms this prediction. The third study explores how color impacts estimates of spatial position during motion. We parameterize color in terms of L-cone and S-cone activity modulations in the eye. Using the same continuous target-tracking paradigm from Chapter 2, we demonstrate that position estimates for stimuli comprised of pure S-cone modulations lag behind position estimates for stimuli comprised of pure L-cone modulations. A key finding is that when L-cone and S-cone modulations are combined, processing lag is almost exclusively determined by L-cone modulations