Digital Commons Network^™

The Relationships Of Teachers' Levels Of Technology Integration On Student Achievement In Reading And Mathematics, Valerie S. Fields

Doctoral Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to determine to what extent the level of technology integration of fourth and eighth grade teachers in eleven rural school districts in northeastern Louisiana related to student achievement in reading and mathematics.

The sample consisted of 123 fourth and eighth grade teachers and their students from the eleven rural school districts in northeastern Louisiana. Fifty-eight percent of the teachers represented the fourth grade and 42% of the teachers represented the eighth grade. The teachers served a school age population in which 20% or more was from families with incomes below the poverty line.

Mean …

Modeling Of Solid Layer Growth At A Constant Speed In A Binary Melt Crystallization Process, Zongwen Feng

Doctoral Dissertations

Melt crystallization is an attractive separation method for the purification of organics at a large scale. Because the geometry of the rigid crystal lattice is peculiar to the particular substance, most crystallization processes form eutectic systems. The kinetics of crystallization limit the rate in which crystal growth can occur without the incorporation of undesired impurity. If the rate of heat transfer exceeds the mass transfer rate of the impurity, the impurity can solidify, contaminating the product. In practice, one would like to specify a crystallization rate and determine the temperature profile of the crystallizer wall that would achieve this rate. …

Free Products Of Operator Spaces And Free Markov Processes, Mingchu Gao

Doctoral Dissertations

Certain (reduced) free product is introduced in the framework of operator spaces. Under the construction, the free product of preduals of von Neumann algebras agrees with the predual of the free product of von Neumann algebras. This answers a question asked by Effros affirmatively. An example is presented to show that the C*-algebra reduced free product of two C*-algebras may be contractively isomorphic to a proper subspace of the operator space reduced free product of the two C*-algebras.

Free Markov processes are also investigated in Voiculescu's free probability theory. This highly non-commutative notion generalizes that of free Brownian motion and …

Perceptions Of Eighth-Grade Mathematics Teachers Of The Impact Of The Maine Educational Assessment On Instructional Practices, Mary Christine Runge

Doctoral Dissertations

The purposes of this study are (a) to examine the perceptions of eighth grade mathematics teachers in the state of Maine concerning their classroom instructional and assessment practices and the influence on their students' scores in the MEA tests and (b) to determine if there is a relationship between community social/economic levels and student achievement on the Maine Educational Assessment (MEA) mathematics tests. The survey instrument consisting of a mailed questionnaire designed for this study contained 86 Likert scale items that measured teachers' beliefs regarding the following resource 1 indicators: awareness and use of MEA resources, content area knowledge, instructional …

Spectral Interpretation Of Zeros Of Zeta Functions, Tamas Waldhauser

Doctoral Dissertations

For every algebraic number field we construct an operator on a separable Hilbert space, whose eigenvalues are exactly the critical zeros of the Dedekind zeta function of the number field.

The Interplay Between Instructional Policy And Its Constituents: How Mathematics Teachers Interact With And Understand "Principles And Standards For School Mathematics", Dawn M. Berk

Doctoral Dissertations

Educational policies aimed at reforming school mathematics education have been disseminated at an increasing rate in recent years. The impact of such policies hinges on if and how constituents decide to implement the policy recommendations, and these decisions depend largely on constituents' interpretations of the policy. Investigating how classroom teachers make sense of policy recommendations is particularly important, for teachers are the ones who ultimately decide what mathematics students learn, and how they learn it. This research followed a group of teachers as they studied a particular instructional policy, Principles and Standards for School Mathematics (NCTM, 2000). Fourteen middle school …