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Student Perspectives On Assignment Deadline Policies In Computer Science Courses
Get PDFWhile the COVID-19 pandemic encouraged higher education to be more flexible, there is now growing uncertainty regarding the usefulness of flexibility as students return to in-person classes, particularly in fast-paced, rigorous fields such as Computer Science (CS). A big part of providing flexibility in education is through assignment deadlines. On one hand, flexible deadline policies may reduce student stress, help students face unexpected circumstances, and improve student learning; on the other, too much flexibility may lead to procrastination and poor time management. In order to help CS instructors make informed decisions when choosing an assignment deadline policy, we compared student perspectives on different deadline policies and assessed their benefits and drawbacks. Results from a survey of 56 undergraduate students showed that deadline policies that provide both flexibility and structure for students have the advantage of being perceived as more welcoming, causing less stress, and reflecting instructor concern for mental health without having negative effects on time management and leading to procrastination. Participants also overwhelmingly preferred flexible deadline policies to a strict deadline policy, citing reduced stress and the ability to deal with unexpected circumstances as their primary reasons
The Impact Of Generative AI On Artists
No full textGenerative AI has the potential to augment artists’ creative expression, while simultaneously harming their professions through unethical data collection practices and replacement of human labor. We conducted a thematic analysis of social media posts to understand artists’ perceptions and experiences of the direct and indirect impact of generative AI on their profession. Our findings also highlight growing public distrust toward artists amidst the rise of generative AI, with accusations of using AI tools leading to stress and fear of unemployment. Our study provides valuable insights into the complex interplay between artists, generative AI, and the public. We discuss potential protective measures for artists, including regulatory interventions and opt-in/out data collection, and explore future impacts of generative AI on artists’ creative processes
Grounding Digital Scholarship In The Analog: Reimagining Library Fellowships Post-Pandemic
No full textA digital object is grounded in the analog. By examining the object in a continuum rather than its current state, we can better understand both the analog item and its digital representation. As part of this pedagogical exploration, we reimagined a year-long, library-based, digital scholarship fellowship that provides hands-on instruction for undergraduate students, grounded in physical collections and spaces,but resulting in digital manifestations. The fellowship focuses on social justice by highlighting ethical issues in the field of digital scholarship, specifically exploring the topics of labor, race, gender, disability, infrastructure, and environmental inequality. We frame the work through a pedagogy of play, or critical making, that encourages students to embrace failure. As instructors and collaborators, our philosophy is deeply informed by the scholarship of André Brock, Miriam Posner, and Katherine Harris, which manifests in the readings and activities we integrate into the course. In the fellowship, students grapple with the theoretical work of a diverse set of scholars (Simone Browne, Shannon Mattern, Lisa Nakamura, Lauren Klein, Catherine D\u27Agnozio, etc.) and experiment with a wide range of kinesthetic, object-oriented digital literacy activities. Each week, students create digital objects and interact via touch, smell, and feel with analog objects. Our discussions act as the bridge between these two modes, making their relationship explicit. Without the analog objects, the relationship and history these objects have with our library would be lost
Why Narrative Frames Matter For Instructional Videos: A Value-Evoking Narrative Frame Is Essential To Foster Sustained Learning With Emotional Design Videos
No full textBackground & aims: Instructional videos on the internet that incorporate emotional design often employ a narrative frame. This frame is intended to enhance the value of the content to-be-learned and, in turn, promote sustained learning in longer learning sessions. We tested whether the presence of a value-evoking narrative frame (vs. expository frame) actually enhances sustained learning. Sample & methods: We employed a 2 × 2 × 3 mixed between-subject design (N = 128) with repeated measures on three 5-min sections of video. The between-subject factors included audiovisual design (emotional vs. neutral) and frame (narrative vs. expository). Results & conclusion: We observed a three-way interaction between audiovisual design, frame, and learning phase with respect to learning outcomes: The narrative frame was essential for improving sustained learning at the end of the video. Without the narrative frame, emotional audiovisual design hindered sustained learning. This pattern of results suggests that employing a narrative frame maintains triggered situational interest and contributes significantly to sustained learning from instructional video
Kants Überholte Vorstellung Von Raum Und Kausalität
No full textIn seiner theoretischen Philosophie, insbesondere der Kritik der reinen Vernunft, argumentiert Kant unter anderem für zwei fundamentale Thesen: dass der Raum unserer erfahrbaren Welt drei-dimensional und euklidisch ist und dass alle Ereignisse in der erfahrbaren Welt kausal determiniert sind. Inzwischen hat die Wissenschaftsentwicklung (insbesondere Relativitätstheorie und Quantenmechanik) seine Thesen zu Raum und Kausalität widerlegt. Selbst wenn zukünftige wissenschaftliche Entwicklungen Kants Thesen rehabilitieren sollten (was wohl nicht zu erwarten ist), so wären doch erhebliche Zweifel an der Idee angebracht, dass die Grundstrukturen der erfahrbaren Welt allesamt unabhängig von Erfahrung erkannt werden können, wie Kant meinte. Zu Gunsten von Kant sollte man allerdings hinzufügen, dass seine Thesen zu Raum und Kausalität nur die Welt betreffen, wie wir sie erfahren, aber nicht die Welt, wie sie an sich ist; über Letztere können wir, Kant zufolge, nichts wissen
Resolving The Hubble Tension With Early Dark Energy
No full textEarly Dark Energy (EDE), a new form of dark energy active before recombination, has emerged as a promising way to explain the Hubble tension. This chapter summarizes constraints on EDE (paying particular attention to the axion-like model) in light of recent cosmological data, including constraints from the Planck cosmic microwave background (CMB) data, baryonic acoustic oscillations and Type Ia supernovae, and the more recent hints driven by CMB observations using the Atacama Cosmology Telescope. We describe the many consequences of EDE beyond these data, including the impact of EDE on the matter power spectrum; the decrease in the age of the universe; the impact for models of inflation; fine-tuning issues raised in the axion-like model. We also discuss model-building efforts towards resolving some of the challenges that EDE is facing. We stress that the next-generation of ground-based CMB experiments will firmly establish whether EDE is the mechanism responsible for the Hubble tension
Identification Of The Top TESS Objects Of Interest For Atmospheric Characterization Of Transiting Exoplanets With JWST
No full textJWST has ushered in an era of unprecedented ability to characterize exoplanetary atmospheres. While there are over 5000 confirmed planets, more than 4000 Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) planet candidates are still unconfirmed and many of the best planets for atmospheric characterization may remain to be identified. We present a sample of TESS planets and planet candidates that we identify as best-in-class for transmission and emission spectroscopy with JWST. These targets are sorted into bins across equilibrium temperature Teq and planetary radius Rp and are ranked by a transmission and an emission spectroscopy metric (TSM and ESM, respectively) within each bin. We perform cuts for expected signal size and stellar brightness to remove suboptimal targets for JWST. Of the 194 targets in the resulting sample, 103 are unconfirmed TESS planet candidates, also known as TESS Objects of Interest (TOIs). We perform vetting and statistical validation analyses on these 103 targets to determine which are likely planets and which are likely false positives, incorporating ground-based follow-up from the TESS Follow-up Observation Program to aid the vetting and validation process. We statistically validate 18 TOIs, marginally validate 31 TOIs to varying levels of confidence, deem 29 TOIs likely false positives, and leave the dispositions for four TOIs as inconclusive. Twenty-one of the 103 TOIs were confirmed independently over the course of our analysis. We intend for this work to serve as a community resource and motivate formal confirmation and mass measurements of each validated planet. We encourage more detailed analysis of individual targets by the community
Exact Treatment Of Weak Dark Matter-Baryon Scattering For Linear-Cosmology Observables
No full textElastic scattering of dark matter (DM) particles with baryons induce cosmological signals that may be detectable with modern or future telescopes. For DM-baryon scattering cross sections scaling with negative powers of relative velocity, () ∝⁻²,⁻⁴, such interactions introduce a momentum-exchange rate that is nonlinear in DM-baryon bulk relative velocities, thus not amenable for inclusion as-is into standard linear cosmological Boltzmann codes. Linear Ansätze have been adopted in past works, but their accuracy is unknown as they do not arise from first-principles derivations. In this work, for the first time, we construct a rigorous framework for computing linear-cosmology observables as a perturbative expansion in . We argue that this approach is accurate for cosmic microwave background (CMB) angular power spectra when most or all of the DM is scattering with baryons with cross section () ∝⁻²,⁻⁴. We derive exact formal expressions for CMB power spectra at linear order in , and show that they only depend on a specific velocity integral of the momentum-exchange rate. Consequently, we can obtain the exact power spectra at linear order in by substituting the original nonlinear momentum-exchange rate with a uniquely specified linear rate. Serendipitously, we find that the exact substitution we derive from first principles precisely coincides with the most widely used linear Ansatz, thus placing previous CMB-anisotropy upper bounds on more solid footing. In addition to finally providing an exact cosmological solution to the DM-baryon scattering problem in a well-defined region of parameter space, the framework we construct opens the way to computing higher-order correlation functions, beyond power spectra, which are promising, yet unexplored, probes of DM-baryon scattering
The Supreme Court And The Allocation Of Burden: Truncating The Voting Rights Act
No full textThe US Supreme Court’s decision in Shelby County v. Holder and subsequent legislative failures to restore the Voting Rights Act (VRA) have alerted scholars to the precarity of federal voting rights and the importance of the Supreme Court to its implementation. I argue, however, that the court has exercised outsized influence on the administration and development of the VRA long before Shelby County, consistently advancing the goals of the Act’s opponents. Using statutory interpretation, the court has shifted both administrative and political burdens from VRA skeptics to its supporters, gradually undermining the efficacy of the law. Administratively, the court has made it harder to implement and enforce the VRA by raising evidentiary standards and narrowing the scope of section 2 and section 5. Making the VRA more burdensome to administer also creates new political burdens for the Act’s supporters, who must navigate a veto-riddled legislative process to reverse unfavorable Court decisions. As a result, the Court has made it more difficult to effectively use sections 2 and 5 to combat racial discrimination in territorial annexations, redistricting, and ballot access. These findings demonstrate yet another instance of the Supreme Court wielding its statutory authority to reshape public policies and illustrate the judicialization of the VRA
Black Immigrant Racial Identity Scholarship In The United States: A Conceptual Examination
No full textFirst- and second-generation Black immigrants are a growing population, comprising a significant portion of the Black people living in the United States, but are an under researched group. Racial identity is one framework that may be used to examine their identity-making in the context of racial oppression. This conceptual paper examines the research literature on Black immigrant racial identity to determine what we have learned about racial identity construction, whether there are associations between Black immigrants’ racial identity and psychosocial outcomes, and where we need to go next. To this end, this manuscript is organized into four major parts. First, we provide a brief overview of Black racial identity theories. In the second and third sections, we discuss the contributions of the current literature on Black immigrant racial identity, particularly to scholars’ understanding of racial identity construction and psychosocial outcomes, and we identify limitations in the current research, respectively. Last, we propose three directions for future research that can further explore and expand intersectional approaches to understanding Black immigrants’ racial identities