Education Commons^™

An Analysis Of Preservice Elementary Teachers’ Professional Noticing Skills In A Mathematics Education Setting, Liza Bondurant, Lisa Poling, Diana Moss

Journal of Practitioner Research

Prospective elementary mathematics teachers (PTs) were asked to analyze 28 videos of cognitive interviews. The purpose of this study was to determine if experiences analyzing videos would lead to improvements in PTs’ professional noticing skills. Using a coding schema that reflected three levels of understanding (periphery, transitional, and accomplished), a frequency table was constructed that allowed PTs’ use and understanding of a noticing framework to be analyzed. Findings indicate that experiences analyzing videos leads to improvements in PTs’ professional noticing skills.

Laser-Induced Modifications In Two-Dimensional Materials, Tariq Afaneh

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Atomically thin two-dimensional (2D) materials have attracted a growing interest in the lastdecade from the fundamental point of view as well as their potential applications in functional devices. Due to their high surface-to-volume ratio, the physical properties of 2D materials are very sensitive to the environmental factor such as surrounding media and illumination conditions (e.g. light-mater interaction). In the first part of this dissertation I will present recent advances in developing laser-assisted methods to tune the physical properties of 2D transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDs). We demonstrate laser-assisted chemical modification ultrathin TMDs, locally replacing selenium by sulfur atoms. The photo-conversion process …

Breakthroughs In Obtaining Qm/Mm Free Energies, Phillip S. Hudson

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The computation of free energy is pivotal to understanding the fundamental nature of chemical phenomena. That is, whether a specific molecular outcome occurs spontaneously or is inherently unfavorable. The need to do this with consistent accuracy begs for the use of quantum mechanical (QM) methods. However, techniques for directly computing free energy differences with QM or mixed QM/MM methods are untenable, as the computational expense is quite exorbitant. At present, the most feasible approach for obtaining QM/MM free energies is employing the so-called indirect cycle, which relies on accurately computing free energy differences between low (e.g., molecular mechanical, MM) and …

Analyzing The Retention Of Knowledge Among General Chemistry Students, James T. Kingsepp

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

General chemistry is a survey course meant to form a foundation for students’ to build upon as they progress into chemistry sub-disciplines. The effectiveness of this foundation rests heavily on students’ abilities to retain or relearn concepts from the course. This study seeks to investigate the utility of a measure of general chemistry students’ knowledge retention across the time period of one semester. This approach was enacted in five different courses of either first or second semester general chemistry. The results showed that one-quarter to one-half of students exhibited a high rate of retention across the semester. A smaller group, …

Predictive Validity Of Standards-Based And Curriculum-Embedded Assessments For Predicting Readiness At Kindergarten Entry, Elizabeth Ashton Decamilla

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

As with traditional K-12 educational settings, early childhood assessments have been a primary source of information determining whether early educational experiences have promoted children’s readiness to start school in kindergarten. The level of use of Kindergarten Entry Assessments (KEAs) has become more wide-spread to establish levels of school readiness at kindergarten entry.

This quantitative, correlational study of children in schools that have blended Head Start/Voluntary Prekindergarten funded programs examined the predictive relationships between the independent variables (i.e., VPK Assessments and Teaching Strategies GOLD) and the dependent variable of kindergarten readiness, as measured by the Work Sampling System™ (WSS). Additionally, the …

Development And Assessment Of A Continuing Education Unit In Quantitative Literacy For High School Stem Teachers, Craig P. Mcclure

Numeracy

Influencing the teaching of quantitative literacy at all levels of education can be difficult due to the many demands placed on educators. In a continuing education course, public high school science teachers participated in a pilot study of a program on quantitative literacy, involving defining quantitative literacy, how it is beneficial to students, examples of quantitative literacy education, and how it may be supported in the science classroom. Surveys administered before and after the unit indicate an improvement in the teachers’ understanding of quantitative literacy, and a follow-up survey indicates that the unit impacted classroom practice. Results support the conclusion …

Asking Why: Analyzing Students' Explanations Of Organic Chemistry Reaction Mechanisms Using Lexical Analysis And Predictive Logistic Regression Models, Amber J. Dood

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

In order to evaluate student understanding of chemical reactions and reaction mechanisms, it is necessary to ask students to construct written or oral explanations of mechanistic representations. Studies have shown that students can reproduce pictorial representations of organic chemistry mechanisms without understanding the meaning of the representations. Grading written assessments is time-consuming, which limits their use in large-lecture courses. To address this limitation, lexical analysis and logistic regression techniques can be used to develop models that predict human scoring for constructed-response items. In this dissertation, students’ responses to constructed-response items about what is happening and why in organic chemistry reaction …

Advancing Equity Amongst General Chemistry Students With Variable Preparations In Mathematics, Vanessa R. Ralph

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Reducing the inequities propagating the lack of representation in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) careers has become a national imperative made increasingly complex given the inequitable preparations in science and mathematics students experience before college. A common institutional-level approach to promoting equity is the use of math and science prerequisites to prepare students who seek to enroll in lower-level STEM coursework. However, the literature does not support the efficacy of this approach, finding no substantive improvement to student performance despite considerable financial and time costs to students, instructors, and universities alike. Set in first-semester General Chemistry courses taken early …

Effects Of Quantitative Literacy On Healthcare Decision-Making: An Aural Context, Robert G. Root, Sonia Bhala

Numeracy

We propose a relationship between sensory modality, numerical formatting, and performance on a survey simulating healthcare decision-making. We examine the current literature on aural health literacy, and specifically aural literacy coupled with health numeracy. We then create a survey instrument called the Bhala test for this purpose and demonstrate that it is moderately internally consistent and provides results that correlate with the NUMi assessment, a widely accepted measure of health numeracy. The quantitative information provided in the Bhala test has two treatments, percentage and natural frequency formats, in an effort to determine which format is easier for subjects to use …