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Empowered learning through microworlds and teaching methods: a text mining and meta-analysis-based systematic review
No full textMicroworlds are simulations in computational environments where the student can manipulate objects and learn from those manipulations. Since their creation, they have been used in a wide range of academic areas to improve students learning from elementary school to college. However, their effectiveness is unclear since many studies do not measure the acquired knowledge after the use of microworlds but instead they focus on self-evaluation. Furthermore, it has not been clear whether its effect on learning is related to the teaching method. In this study, we perform a meta-analysis to ascertain the impact of microworlds combined with different teaching methods on students’ knowledge acquisition. We applied a selection criterion to a collection of 668 studies and were left with 10 microworld applications relevant to our learning context. These studies were then assessed through a meta-analysis using effect size with Cohen’s d and p-value. Our analysis shows that the cognitive methods combined with microworlds have a great impact on the knowledge acquisition (d = 1.03; p \u3c 0.001) but failed to show a significant effect (d = 0.21) for expository methods
Distant Viewing Toolkit: A Python Package for the Analysis of Visual Culture
No full textThe Distant Viewing Toolkit is a Python package for the computational analysis of visual culture. It addresses the challenges of working with moving images through the automated extraction and visualization of metadata summarizing the content (e.g., people/actors, dia- logue, scenes, objects) and style (e.g., shot angle, shot length, lighting, framing, sound) of time-based media. This toolkit is optimized for two purposes: (1) scholarly inquiry of visual culture from the humanities and social sciences, and (2) search and discovery of collections within libraries, archives, and museums
Fostering Diversity in Top-Rated Pure Mathematics Graduate Programs
No full textThe lack of a diverse student body continues to be a prob- lem among graduate programs in pure mathematics. This is true despite broad agreement among scholars that a more diverse student body would greatly improve the graduate experience, as well as overall professional productivity [1]. In an article entitled “Prioritizing Diversity in Graduate School,” Dr. Mark J. T. Smith, dean of the Graduate School and senior vice provost for academic affairs at The Univer- sity of Texas at Austin, noted, “Diversity is a strength we should fervently embrace, as it allows us to leverage the rich perspectives, experiences and talents of the full spectrum of groups in our society” [1].
In this article, we explore what some top-rated pure mathematics graduate programs are doing to make their programs more diverse and inclusive. Most of the infor- mation in this article was gleaned from discussions with representatives from Columbia University, Harvard Uni- versity, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Princeton University, Stanford University, University of California Berkeley, and University of Chicago. Our aims are to report what these programs are doing, to give context to why these efforts are important, and to stimulate further discussion about diversity and inclusion in pure mathematics. This article is not directly applicable to related fields like applied mathematics and statistics (although trends in those fields are similar)
Quantifying the effects of species traits on predation risk in nature: A comparative study of butterfly wing damage
No full text1. Evading predators is a fundamental aspect of the ecology and evolution of all prey animals. In studying the influence of prey traits on predation risk, previous research-ers have shown that crypsis reduces attack rates on resting prey, predation risk in-creases with increased prey activity, and rapid locomotion reduces attack rates and increases chances of surviving predator attacks. However, evidence for these con-clusions is nearly always based on observations of selected species under artificial conditions. In nature, it remains unclear how defensive traits such as crypsis, activity levels and speed influence realized predation risk across species in a community. Whereas direct observations of predator–prey interactions in nature are rare, insight can be gained by quantifying bodily damage caused by failed predator attacks.
2. We quantified how butterfly species traits affect predation risk in nature by determining how defensive traits correlate with wing damage caused by failed predation attempts, thereby providing the first robust multi-species comparative analysis of predator-induced bodily damage in wild animals.
3. For 34 species of fruit-feeding butterflies in an African forest, we recorded wing damage and quantified crypsis, activity levels and flight speed. We then tested for correlations between damage parameters and species traits using comparative methods that account for measurement error.
4. We detected considerable differences in the extent, location and symmetry of wing surface loss among species, with smaller differences between sexes. We found that males (but not females) of species that flew faster had substantially less wing surface loss. However, we found no correlation between cryptic colora-tion and symmetrical wing surface loss across species. In species in which males appeared to be more active than females, males had a lower proportion of sym-metrical wing surface loss than females.
5. Our results provide evidence that activity greatly influences the probability of at-tacks and that flying rapidly is effective for escaping pursuing predators in the wild, but we did not find evidence that cryptic species are less likely to be attacked while at rest
A Theoretical Model of Neural Maturation in the Developing Chick Spinal Cord.
No full textCellular differentiation is a tightly regulated process under the control of intricate signaling and transcription factors interaction network working in coordination. These interactions make the systems dynamic, robust and stable but also difficult to dissect. In the spinal cord, recent work has shown that a network of FGF, WNT and Retinoic Acid (RA) signaling factors regulate neural maturation by directing the activity of a transcription factor network that contains CDX at its core. Here we have used partial and ordinary (Hill) differential equation based models to understand the spatiotemporal dynamics of the FGF/WNT/RA and the CDX/transcription factor networks, alone and in combination. We show that in both networks, the strength of interaction among network partners impacts the dynamics, behavior and output of the system. In the signaling network, interaction strength determine the position and size of discrete regions of cell differentiation and small changes in the strength of the interactions among networking partners can result in a signal overriding, balancing or oscillating with another signal. We also show that the spatiotemporal information generated by the signaling network can be conveyed to the CDX/transcription network to produces a transition zone that separates regions of high cell potency from regions of cell differentiation, in agreement with most in vivo observations. Importantly, one emerging property of the networks is their robustness to extrinsic disturbances, which allows the system to retain or canalize NP cells in developmental trajectories. This analysis provides a model for the interaction conditions underlying spinal cord cell maturation during embryonic axial elongation
Feminist Flash Mob Intervention in front of Gottwald Center for the Sciences
No full texthttps://scholarship.richmond.edu/feministflashmobintervention-photographs/1013/thumbnail.jp
Another Kind of Education: The Gruner School
Get PDFBelieving in the limitless potential of the next generation, The Gruner School prepares students to be academically, socially, and mentally strong and excel in life beyond high school through a rigorous program rooted in the intersection of academia and the workforce.
Project Description: The project was the result of the Spring 2020 course, IDST 290: Education in Fiction and Fact Seminar, a continuation of the fall SSIR (Sophomore Scholars in Residence) course, Education in Fiction and Fact. The project was to design an ideal school.https://scholarship.richmond.edu/ssir-presentations-2020/1000/thumbnail.jp
2020 Faculty Accomplishments Reception
No full texthttps://scholarship.richmond.edu/far-photos-2020/1017/thumbnail.jp
2020 Faculty Accomplishments Reception
No full texthttps://scholarship.richmond.edu/far-photos-2020/1002/thumbnail.jp
Assessing Inequitable Urban Heat Islands and Air Pollution Disparities with Low-Cost Sensors in Richmond, Virginia
Get PDFAir pollution and the urban heat island effect are consistently linked to numerous respiratory and heat-related illnesses. Additionally, these stressors disproportionately impact low-income and historically marginalized communities due to their proximity to emissions sources, lack of access to green space, and exposure to other adverse environmental conditions. Here, we use relatively low-cost stationary sensors to analyze PM2.5 and temperature data throughout the city of Richmond, Virginia, on the ten hottest days of 2019. For both hourly means within the ten hottest days of 2019 and daily means for the entire record for the year, the temperature was found to exhibit a positive correlation with PM2.5. Analysis of hourly means on the ten hottest days yielded a diurnal pattern in which PM2.5 levels peaked in the early morning and reached their minima in the mid-afternoon. Spatially, sites exhibiting higher temperatures consistently had higher PM2.5 readings, with vulnerable communities in the east end and more intensely developed parts of the city experiencing significantly higher temperatures and PM2.5 concentrations than the suburban neighborhoods in the west end. These findings suggest an uneven distribution of air pollution in Richmond during extreme heat events that are similar in pattern but less pronounced than the temperature differences during these events, although further investigation is required to verify the extent of this relationship. As other studies have found both of these environmental stressors to correlate with the distribution of green space and other land-use factors in cities, innovative and sustainable planning decisions are crucial to the mitigation of these issues of inequity going forward