Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

Institutional Changes In Western Michigan University For Incorporation Of Education For Sustainability, Saman Khan

Dissertations

Higher Education institutions (HEIs) have the potential to be significant contributors in the pursuit of a sustainable world through the incorporation of Education for Sustainability (EFS). However, HEIs are entrenched with structures and values that are often resistant to change. The literature reveals that instructors’ beliefs and institutional contexts are the two main factors that impact the implementation of institutional change for sustainability education. Western Michigan University (WMU) has created new required curriculum “WMU Essential Studies” (WES) for undergraduate students and they have targeted sustainability as an essential learning outcome, by integrating and applying it in content courses. Using a …

Museum Exploration Club, Celeste Kenworthy, Aurora Kenworthy

Honors Expanded Learning Clubs

Afterschool club that virtually visits museums in order to help students gain an appreciation for museums and learn about concepts related to art, history, and science.

Factors That Influence Teachers' Utilization Of Siop Learning Strategies When Teaching English Language Learners, Courtney R. Stuart

Theses and Dissertations

Despite standardized certification tests and popular English Language Learner trainings, the strategies and methods used in two educators’ classes would not be identical. In this case-study we look to see what variables cause teachers to utilize certain strategies and how these variables affect the number of strategies used consistently when teaching ELLs. We study the effect of teachers’ language experiences, certifications, participation in SIOP trainings, education levels, perceived preparedness, and years spent in the classroom.

Using quantitative and qualitative data we conclude that dual-language fluency and professional advancements can lead to teachers using more ELL learning strategies in their classrooms, …

The Impact Of Service-Learning On General Chemistry Ii Students At The University Of Nebraska At Omaha, Kayla Rud

Theses/Capstones/Creative Projects

Service-learning has been shown to enhance academic and leadership skills while promoting community engagement and exposing students to different career opportunities (Esson et al., 2005). While the benefits of service-learning courses are clear, few STEM courses include service-learning components (Esson et al., 2005). Here, students in a totally online 2nd semester UNO chemistry course completed a service-learning project where they remotely led a live, inquiry-based STEM activity for Girl Scouts. To quantify the impact of service-learning on professional development, future career plans, and future volunteerism, a series of pre and post surveys were administered. Paired-sample t-tests revealed a statistically significant …

Evaluating Urban Parks Accessibility And Equity: A Case Study Of Hartford, Ct And New Haven, Ct, Natalie Roach, Mara Tu

Honors Scholar Theses

Public parks provide cities with environmental benefits, positive health effects, recreational opportunities, community building, educational spaces, and public amenities. However, certain populations have been systematically denied their fair share of these benefits because of unjust practices in the creation and maintenance of urban parks. With a lens of environmental justice, the goal of this research was to assess park quality and accessibility of two Connecticut cities, Hartford and New Haven, by gathering publicly available information as well as using GIS tools.

The Trust for Public Land (TPL) has an existing ParkScore rating system that evaluates the quality of a city’s …

Secondary Teachers’ Noticing Of Students’ Mathematical Thinking As They Participate In A Professional Development Program Centered On Task-Based Student Interviews, Gurkan Kose

Theses, Dissertations and Culminating Projects

Teacher’s noticing of students’ mathematical thinking has been an important focus of research in the past two decades (e.g., Jacobs et al., 2010; Sherin et al., 2011). Noticing matters, but it is not an end in itself (Schoenfeld, 2011). It is operationalized within the context of teachers’ dispositions and knowledge which shape decisions teachers make while responding to student thinking and planning the next instructional steps. In order for teachers to adapt productive beliefs about how children learn and shift to student-centered instruction, they need to acknowledge the importance of understanding students' existing conceptions of mathematical ideas (Carpenter & Lehrer, …

Coordinating Stem Core Courses For Student Success, Cristina Villalobos, Hyung Won Kim, Timothy J. Huber, Roger Knobel, Shaghayegh Setayesh, Lekshmi Sasidharan, Anahit Galstyan, Andras Balogh

School of Mathematical and Statistical Sciences Faculty Publications and Presentations

Research indicates multi-section coordination improves the academic performance of students in STEM education. This paper describes the process of coordination in Precalculus, Calculus 1, and Calculus 2 courses undertaken by a large department that grew from the merger of two institutions through a pilot program, and a project grant. Components introduced in the project courses are documented, including collaborative problem-solving sessions, student learning assistants, Q&A sessions, and additional technology resources. Preliminary data is provided on the impacts of the initiative on student success. The study findings provide a template for coordination, faculty buy-in, and increased student engagement at similar institutions …

A Visual Analytics Approach To Facilitate The Proctoring Of Online Exams, Haotian Li, Min Xu, Yong Wang, Huan Wei, Huamin Qu

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Online exams have become widely used in recent years to evaluate students’ performance in mastering the knowledge, especially during the pandemic of COVID-19. However, it is challenging to conduct proctoring for online exams due to the lack of face-to-face interactions. Also, prior research has shown that online exams are more vulnerable to various cheating behaviors, which can damage the credibility of online exams. In this paper, we present a novel vi- sual analytics approach to facilitate the proctoring of online exams by analyzing the exam video records and mouse movement data of each student. Specifically, we detect and visualize suspected …

Improving Reader Motivation With Machine Learning, Tanner A. Bohn

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

This thesis focuses on the problem of increasing reading motivation with machine learning (ML). The act of reading is central to modern human life, and there is much to be gained by improving the reading experience. For example, the internal reading motivation of students, especially their interest and enjoyment in reading, are important factors in their academic success.

There are many topics in natural language processing (NLP) which can be applied to improving the reading experience in terms of readability, comprehension, reading speed, motivation, etc. Such topics include personalized recommendation, headline optimization, text simplification, and many others. However, to the …

In The Spirit Of St. Peter Claver: Social Justice And Black Catholicism In San Antonio, Philip Lampe Ph.D.

Verbum Incarnatum: An Academic Journal of Social Justice

The editors want to take the space reserved for the abstract to say that this is the final piece of research that Phil Lampe completed before his passing. We publish it here posthumously in tribute to Phil’s tireless work for social justice, as editor of Verbum Incarnatum, as researcher of social-justice efforts in South Texas and Mexico, and as an educator committed to inspiring students to pursue justice in their lives outside the academy.

Social Justice In The Cigar Factory: The Finck Cigar Strikes, 1933-1935, Roger Barnes

Verbum Incarnatum: An Academic Journal of Social Justice

No abstract provided.

A Participatory Action Research Study Of Police Interviewing Following Crisis Intervention Team Training, Maria Felix-Ortiz, Catherine Steele, Marisa Deguzman, Georgen Guerrero, Melissa Graham

Verbum Incarnatum: An Academic Journal of Social Justice

Estimates vary, but a third to one half of individuals shot and killed by police have a mental illness or disability, and many who are taken into custody languish in county jails where no treatment for their illness is available. The Crisis Intervention Team (CIT) model is an increasingly important adjunct to U.S. police training because it de-escalates tense situations, diverts people with mental illness away from jail and into treatment, and can reduce the risk of civilian deaths during a police encounter. As such, it is a strategy for reducing the social injustice of incarceration or deaths of people …

Promises Endure: Historical Views Of Nursing Faculty, Laura R. Muñoz

Verbum Incarnatum: An Academic Journal of Social Justice

Lessons learned from the history of an organization are valuable. This is especially true for an organization with the legacy held by the Ila Faye Miller School of Nursing and Health Professions at the University of the Incarnate Word. Memories recounted by nursing faculty were collected to enhance information provided in the two-volume chronicle written by Sister Patrice Slattery in 1995 entitled, “Promises to Keep” and the last history of the school, “The Story of One School of Nursing” written by Sister Charles Marie Frank in 1976.

2021- The Twenty-Fifth Annual Symposium Of Student Scholars

Symposium of Student Scholars Program Books

The full program book from the Twenty-fifth Annual Symposium of Student Scholars, held on April 29, 2021. Includes abstracts from the presentations and posters.

Volume 7 Full Text, Bjur Staff

Butler Journal of Undergraduate Research

No abstract provided.

Table Of Contents And Front Matter, Bjur Staff

Butler Journal of Undergraduate Research

No abstract provided.

Mapping Renewal: How An Unexpected Interdisciplinary Collaboration Transformed A Digital Humanities Project, Elise Tanner, Geoffrey Joseph

Digital Initiatives Symposium

Funded by a National Endowment for Humanities (NEH) Humanities Collections and Reference Resources Foundations Grant, the UA Little Rock Center for Arkansas History and Culture’s “Mapping Renewal” pilot project focused on creating access to and providing spatial context to archival materials related to racial segregation and urban renewal in the city of Little Rock, Arkansas, from 1954-1989. An unplanned interdisciplinary collaboration with the UA Little Rock Arkansas Economic Development Institute (AEDI) has proven to be an invaluable partnership. One team member from each department will demonstrate the Mapping Renewal website and discuss how the collaborative process has changed and shaped …

Characterizing Students’ Engineering Design Strategies Using Energy3d, Jasmine Singh, Viranga Perera, Alejandra Magana, Brittany Newell

Discovery Undergraduate Interdisciplinary Research Internship

The goals of this study are to characterize design actions that students performed when solving a design challenge, and to create a machine learning model to help future students make better engineering design choices. We analyze data from an introductory engineering course where students used Energy3D, an open source computer-aided design software, to design a zero-energy home (i.e. a home that consumes no net energy over a period of a year). Student design actions within the software were recorded into text files. Using a sample of over 300 students, we first identify patterns in the data to assess how students …

075— A Test Of The Efficacy Of The Augmented Reality Sandbox To Improve Students' Reading Topographic Map Skills, Megan Jankowiak, Alexandra Ranaudo

GREAT Day Posters

The augmented reality (AR) sandbox is a teaching tool used to connect two-dimensional (2D) and three-dimensional (3D) map representations through modeling. Our hypothesis is: the AR sandbox is effective at teaching topographic map reading skills by comparing pre vs. post test scores. Student data was processed to analyze the efficiency of using the AR sandbox to increase student ability to read topographic maps. Data consists of student answers on a topographic map reading skills test at the beginning and the end of a Historical Geology college course. Between tests, students used the AR sandbox to complete short exercises during multiple …

201— Diversity, Equity, And Inclusion Within The Department Of Geological Sciences At Suny Geneseo, Maria Leonard

GREAT Day Posters

The field of Geosciences historically has lacked diversity. This lack of diversity is observed at all levels of higher education—for example, 90% of doctoral degrees are awarded to white people (Wilson, 2016) and only 3.8% of tenured or tenure track positions at the top 100 geoscience departments are held by faculty of color (Bernard & Cooperdock 2018). There are multiple reasons at the heart of this issue including the lack of representation which can fuel stereotype threats and imposter syndromes.

This project aimed to take actions that would help grow the diversity, equity, and accessibility within Geneseo’s GSCI department. This …

The Experiences Of Black Women Pursuing Advanced Degrees In Stem, Denaja Haygood

Honors Projects

Black women are severely underrepresented in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) fields. While the underrepresentation of professional Black women in STEM has been well-researched, the pipeline problem of the education of Black women in STEM has been overlooked. The number of Black women pursuing STEM degrees dramatically decreases as the level of education increases. This gap in the literature is problematic, because Black women are still severely underrepresented in STEM-focused advanced degree programs. A small but growing literature indicates that Black women tend to experience frequent forms of discrimination, feelings of isolation and less satisfaction with their graduate programs, …

Developing Better Instruction, Better Instructors, And New Investigators, Clay Vander Kolk, Abigail Pyle

Celebration of Scholarship 2021

This research discusses how HAMTE and future educators collaborated to use the Principles to Action Professional Learning Toolkit in their classes and the tools they used to measure and gather conclusions about the development in the future teachers.

Parallel Computation Of Feynman Path Integrals And Many-Body Polarization With Application To Metal-Organic Materials, Brant H. Tudor

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The Space Research Group is a computational outfit, and so the work presented herein will reflect that. Much of our simulation code is developed in-house and so what follows is a small exploration of that development—although the physics underpinning our software development is never ignored for long. Following the programming centric work, the code and the physics are put to the test. The final chapter describes a scientific endeavor in which a new, robust force field has been validated. Indeed, the new potential has taken a first step in proving itself by making accurate predictions in what have historically found …

Integrating Common Data Analytics Tools Into Non-Technical Undergraduate Curricula, Kurt Kirstein

All Faculty Scholarship for the College of Education and Professional Studies

Aside from statistics courses, accessible data analytics skills are often excluded from traditional non-technical university programs. These are topics that are typically the domain of programs that focus on math, statistics and computer science. Yet the need for these skills in non-technical disciplines is changing. A rapid expansion of data-related processes in organizations of many types requires individuals who have at least a working knowledge of common analytic tools. This article briefly describes three categories of data analytics tools that can be useful for graduates in any discipline. The first category covers descriptive tools that allow students to learn what …

Ready To Engage? Urban Middle School Teachers’ Responsiveness To Targeted Engagement Interventions On Their Virtual Instructional Practices: An Action Research Study, Svetlana Nikic

Dissertations

Teachers’ effectiveness is associated with their instructional practices and is ultimately linked to students’ learning outcomes. In order to impact teachers’ effectiveness, schools focus substantial effort and resources on professional development led by an assumption that teachers’ classroom practices can be improved through targeted interventions. Even if this premise is correct, little information is available about how much a teacher’s practice may change through interventions, or which aspects of instructional practice are more receptive to improving teacher effectiveness (Garret et al., 2019).

This study took place at an urban middle school and examined teachers’ responsiveness to targeted engagement intervention in …

Can CP Be Less Than CV?, Yingbin Ge, Samuel L. Montgomery, Gabriel L. Borrello

All Faculty Scholarship for the College of the Sciences

Can C_P be less than C_V? This is a fundamental question in physics, chemistry, chemical engineering, and mechanical engineering. This question hangs in the minds of many students, instructors, and researchers. The first instinct is to answer “Yes, for water between 0 and 4 °C” if one knows that water expands as temperature decreases in this temperature range. The same question is asked in several Physical Chemistry and Physics textbooks. Students are supposed to answer that water contracts when heated at below 4 °C in an isobaric process. Because work is done to the contracting water, less …

Covid-19_Umaine News_Education Week Talks With Ferrini-Mundy About Stem Teaching During The Pandemic, University Of Maine Division Of Marketing And Communications

Division of Marketing & Communications

Screenshot of UMaine in the News regarding Education Week report on a symposium at the American Educational Research Association's virtual annual meeting featuring Joan Ferrini-Mundy, University of Maine System vice chancellor for research and innovation and president of the University of Maine.

"Inclusive Inquiry." 14th Annual Research Week: Event Proceedings, University Of The Incarnate Word

Research Week Archived Proceedings

Presentations of completed and ongoing research activity conducted by graduate and undergraduate students and faculty at University of the Incarnate Word. Coordinated and presented by the Office of Research and Graduate Studies.

B35: Development And Validation Of A Stability Indicating Hplc Method For Quantification Of Estriol In Compounded Glycerinated Gelatin Troches, Tayler Hutto

Annual Research Symposium

No abstract provided.

B30: Identifying New G Protein Coupled Receptor Kinase 6 Substrates Among Proteins Closely Linked To Prognoses Of Pancreatic Cancer, Christine Taing, Jelena Jovanovic, Nicole Khalil, Christopher So

Annual Research Symposium

No abstract provided.