Digital Commons Network^™

Student Achievement Using Web 2.0 Technologies: A Mixed Methods Study, Dallas R. Malhiwsky

College of Education and Human Sciences: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

The need for proficient speakers of multiple languages has emerged as a result of political and economic forces in the last decade driving the challenge to find effective and efficient way to teach and learn languages. The past decade has brought numerous innovations and advances in the area of technology, which have changed the role from one of consumer of knowledge to one of producer of knowledge which has revolutionized the delivery of education.

The purpose of this mixed method study was to determine the effect of Web 2.0 technologies on student achievement. The quantitative portion of the study examined …

Counter-Mapping As Place-Framing: Naturalized Injustice, De-Naturalized Community And Organizing For Social Change On Google Earth, Joshua P. Ewalt

Department of Communication Studies: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

In this thesis, I perform an analysis of counter-mapping on Google Earth as a process of organizing for social change. I address the process of mapping the virtual earth as an act of place-framing, an organizing process by which space is transformed to place so as to motivate action on the part of current and potential organizational adherents. Specifically, I argue that there are at least two ways in which place is framed on Google Earth so as to motivate action: place as “naturalized injustice” and place as “de-naturalized community.” Using the analytical vocabulary of collective action framing, and Martin’s …

Responses Of Young Adult Grandchildren To Grandparents’ Painful Self-Disclosures, Craig Frowler, Jordan Soliz

Department of Communication Studies: Faculty Publications

This study examined grandchildren’s relational and communicative responses to grandparents’ painful self-disclosures (PSDs). From the perspective of young adult grandchildren (N = 297), dis-comfort with PSDs is more significant in differentiating positive and negative aspects of the grandparent-grandchild relationship than simply the occurrence of such disclosures. Furthermore, results reveal that the family communication environment and communicative responsiveness of the grandchild are important factors in predicting discomfort with PSDs as well as grandchildren’s communication with grandparents.

The Influence Of Cultural Orientation, Alcohol Expectancies, And Self-Efficacy On Adolescent Drinking Behavior In China, Duane F. Shell, Ian M. Newman, Xiaoyi Fang

Department of Educational Psychology: Faculty Publications

Objective: We hypothesized that the drinking behavior of adolescents in China is influenced by expectancies and self-efficacy and that adolescents’ cultural orientation towards western versus traditional Chinese values influences expectancies, self-efficacy and drinking behavior, with western values leading to more dysfunctional patterns of beliefs and drinking, and that these beliefs are influenced by students’ gender and school environment. Methods: A total of 1020 high school students from Beijing completed the Chinese Adolescent Alcohol Expectancy, the Chinese Cultural Orientation and the Chinese Self-regulation Self-efficacy questionnaires. Results: Results generally confirmed our hypotheses. Higher negative expectancies and higher self-efficacy reduced …

Aejmc Adnews Winter 2010, Stacy C. James

College of Journalism and Mass Communications: Faculty Publications

This is the mid-year newsletter written, designed and produced for the AEJMC's Ad Division. It includes information about the Ad Division, kudos, paper submission guidelines for the summer convention and other Ad Division news and information.

School Of Natural Resources Collection Development Policy, Joan Latta Konecky

University of Nebraska-Lincoln Libraries: Collection Development Policies

The collection supports the teaching, research and service activities of the School of Natural Resources and the related research endeavors of the University of Nebraska-Lincoln community.

School of Natural Resources cooperative research is conducted with various academic units including Institute of Agriculture and Natural Resources, Department of Geosciences, Department of Civil Engineering, Department of Biological Systems Engineering, Department of Agricultural Economics, Arsenic Info System, College of Law, Public Policy Center, and Cooperative Extension.

Communication Studies Collection Development Policy, Signe Boudreau

University of Nebraska-Lincoln Libraries: Collection Development Policies

The communication studies collection supports the teaching, research and service activities of the entire university community. Its primary audience is the faculty, staff, and students of the Communication Studies Department in the College of Arts & Sciences. Its primary focus is support for the undergraduate and graduate curricula for communication studies. Research needs of faculty and students are supplemented through Interlibrary Loan. The collection focuses on works related to intercultural communication, organizational communication, interpersonal communication, instructional communication, and rhetorical and communication theory (classified throughout the Library of Congress B’s, H’s, and P’s). The program also integrates relevant knowledge from diverse …

English Collection Development Policy, Kathleen Johnson

University of Nebraska-Lincoln Libraries: Collection Development Policies

The English language and Literatures in English collection supports the teaching, research, and service activities of the entire university community. Its primary audience is the faculty, staff, and students of the Department of English in the College of Arts & Sciences and its primary focus is support for the undergraduate and graduate curricula for English and related programs. Specific and transient research needs of English faculty and graduate students are supplemented through Interlibrary Loan. Materials are not purchased for the general public though others may benefit from the collection. While the collection focuses on works classified in the Library of …

Getting Out Of A Rut: Decolonizing Western Women’S History, Margaret D. Jacobs

Department of History: Faculty Publications

For over three decades, western women’s historians have been working not just to challenge male biases within western history scholarship but also to create a more multicultural inclusive narrative. Paradoxically, however, the overarching narrative of western women’s history continues to sideline women of color and to advance a triumphalist interpretation of white women in the West. This essay argues that a multicultural approach has not provided an adequate framework for understanding women and gender in the American West. Instead, western women historians must “decolonize” our narrative and our field through seriously considering the West as a colonial site. To do …

Dialectic Tensions Experienced By Resettled Sudanese Refugees In Mediating Organizations, Sarah Steimel

Department of Communication Studies: Faculty Publications

An increasing number of global migrants are refugees who have fled religious, racial, ethnic, or other political persecution. As these refugee populations have grown, governmental and nonprofit organizations have emerged to help mediate the resettlement experience. The current study explores the dialectical tensions Sudanese refugees face in communicating with the organizations designed to make their resettlement successful. Sudanese refugees participated in semistructured interviews about their experiences communicating with mediating organizations. Four dialectical tensions emerged from participants’ stories about their communication in and with mediating organizations: (a) dissemination and dialogue, (b) emancipation and control, (c) empowerment and oppression, and (d) integration …

Discursive Struggles In Families Formed Through Visible Adoption: An Exploration Of Dialectical Unity, Meredith Marko Harrigan, Dawn O. Braithwaite

Department of Communication Studies: Faculty Publications

Grounded in the interpretive paradigm and framed by relational dialectics theory, the present study addressed the question: What discourses interpenetrate to reflect dialectical unity as parents communicate about their child’s adoption? Interviews with 40 parents across 31 visibly adoptive families—families with an obvious lack of biological connection—highlighted four instances of dialectical unity resulting from the following discursive struggles: (a) pride and imperfection; (b) love, constraint, and sacrifice; (c) difference, pride, and enrichment; and (d) legitimacy, expansion, similarity, and difference. Each struggle contains seemingly disparate discourses that, in combination, contribute to how parents discursively make sense of adoption. Practical implications of …

Acetyl-L-Carnitine Protects Neuronal Function From Alcohol-Induced Oxidative Damage In The Brain, Travis J. Rump, P. M. Abdul Muneer, Adam M. Szlachetka, Allyson Lamb, Catherine Haorei, Saleena Alikunju, Huangui Xiong, James Keblesh, Jianuo Liu, Matthew C. Zimmerman, Jocelyn Jones, Terrence M. Donohue Jr., Yuri Persidsky, James Haorah

United States Department of Veterans Affairs: Publications

The studies presented here demonstrate the protective effect of acetyl-L-carnitine (ALC) against alcoholinduced oxidative neuroinflammation, neuronal degeneration, and impaired neurotransmission. Our findings reveal the cellular and biochemical mechanisms of alcohol-induced oxidative damage in various types of brain cells. Chronic ethanol administration to mice caused an increase in inducible nitric oxide synthase (iNOS) and 3-nitrotyrosine adduct formation in frontal cortical neurons but not in astrocytes from brains of these animals. Interestingly, alcohol administration caused a rather selective activation of NADPH oxidase (NOX), which, in turn, enhanced levels of reactive oxygen species (ROS) and 4-hydroxynonenal, but these were predominantly localized in astrocytes …

Constructing Family: A Typology Of Voluntary Kin, Dawn O. Braithwaite, Betsy Wackernagel Bach, Leslie A. Baxter, Rebecca Diverniero, Joshua R. Hammonds, Angela M. Hosek, Erin K. Willer, Bianca M. Wolf

Department of Communication Studies: Faculty Publications

This study explored how participants discursively rendered voluntary kin relationships sensical and legitimate. Interpretive analyses of 110 interviews revealed four main types of voluntary kin: (i) substitute family, (ii) supplemental family, (iii) convenience family, and (iv) extended family. These types were rendered sensical and legitimated by drawing on the discourse of the traditional family. Except for the extended family, three of four voluntary kin family types were justified by an attributed deficit in the blood and legal family. Because voluntary kin relationships are not based on the traditional criteria of association by blood or law, members experience them as potentially …

Reduced Hamster Usage And Stress In Propagating Leishmania Chagasi Promastigotes Using Cryopreservation And Saphenous Vein Inoculation, Soi Meng Lei, Amanda E. Ramer-Tait, Rebecca R. Dahlin-Laborde, Kathleen Mullin, Jeffrey K. Beetham

Amanda Ramer-Tait Publications

Leishmania chagasi, a causal agent of visceral leishmaniasis, requires passage through lab animals such as hamsters to maintain its virulence. Hamster infection is typically accomplished via cardiac puncture or intraperitoneal injection, procedures accompanied by risks of increased animal stress and death. The use of the hamster model also necessitates a regular supply of infected animals, because L. chagasi parasites newly isolated from an infected hamster can be grown in culture for only several weeks before loss of function/phenotype occurs. In an effort to decrease animal usage and animal stress, experiments were performed to assess a more gentle inoculation …

Great Plains Quarterly, Volume 30, Number 1, Winter 2010--Editorial Matter

Great Plains Quarterly (through 2013)

Masthead

Contents

Book Reviews

News and Notes: CALLS FOR PAPERS; INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON CZECH AND SLOVAK AMERICANS; BEST ARTICLE PRIZE IN WOMEN'S HISTORY; VISITING SCHOLARS PROGRAM GRANTS FREDERICK C. LUEBKE AWARD

Introduction: Context And Content (The Contact Zone In Historical Curricular Context And Relation To Contemporary Literacies), James Bucky Carter Ph.D.

SANE journal: Sequential Art Narrative in Education

An introduction and situation of the contact zone in terms of literacy and comics studies. An introduction to the first issue of the journal and exploration of its contents. An introduction and situation of the contact zone in terms of literacy and comics studies. An introduction to the first issue of the journal and exploration of its contents.

Weaving Promising Practices For Inclusive Excellence Into The Higher Education Classroom, María Del Carmen Salazar, Amanda Stone Norton, Franklin A. Tuitt

To Improve the Academy: A Journal of Educational Development

Higher education is faced with an increasingly diverse student body and historic opportunities to foster inclusive excellence, meaning a purposeful embodiment of inclusive practices toward multiple student identity groups. Although the benefits of inclusive excellence are well established, college faculty often cite barriers to promoting it in classrooms, and this creates an opening for faculty developers to support them in weaving promising practices for inclusive excellence into their teaching. This chapter highlights the practices of inclusive faculty and the methods faculty developers can use to promote inclusive excellence along five dimensions: (1) intrapersonal awareness, (2) interpersonal awareness, (3) curricular transformation, …

Individual Achievement In An Honors Research Community: Teaching Vygotsky’S Zone Of Proximal Development, Kaitlin A. Briggs

Honors in Practice Online Archive

The years leading up to the 1917 Russian October Revolution must have been a dynamic environment for an emerging young intellectual living in Moscow. Eclipsed by such popular Western cultural representations as David Lean’s 1965 Academy Award winning film, Dr. Zhivago (based on Pasternak’s novel), this milieu included the writers Babel, Gorky, and Nabokov; the poets Mandel’shtam and Tsvetaeva; the composers Prokofiev, Shostakovich, and Stravinsky; the theater director and acting teacher Stanislavsky; and the artists Chagall and Kandinsky (Van Der Veer, 23–4). There we find situated a law student, also studying philosophy, literature, and aesthetics, who went on to become …

Book Review: Shanghai World Expo Guide 2010, Adam D. Frank

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

On first blush, one would think that reviewing Nick Land’s Shanghai World Expo Guidebook 2010 would be an exercise akin to reviewing a movie poster for Avatar—a kind of 2-D portrait of a 3-D experience.

Perceived Fairness Of Pay: The Importance Of Task Versus Maintenance Inputs In Japan, South Korea, And Hong Kong, Tae-Yeol Kim, Todd J. Weber, Kwok Leung, Yukiko Muramoto

Leadership Institute: Faculty Publications

This study compares East Asians’ evaluations of task and maintenance inputs in reward allocation decisions and examines the effects that inequity in various types of inputs and rewards have on fairness judgments. Based on a sample of 587 employees from various organizations in Hong Kong, Japan, and South Korea, we find that Hong Kong Chinese and South Korean employees are more likely to want their organizations and supervisors to emphasize maintenance inputs, while Japanese employees value task inputs in reward allocation. Results also show that there are significant country differences in fairness judgments associated with various types of inputs. For …

The Experience Of Infertility: A Review Of Recent Literature, Arthur L. Greil, Kathleen Slauson-Blevins, Julia Mcquillan

Department of Sociology: Faculty Publications

About 10 years ago Greil published a review and critique of the literature on the socio-psychological impact of infertility. He found at the time that most scholars treated infertility as a medical condition with psychological consequences rather than as a socially constructed reality. This article examines research published since the last review. More studies now place infertility within larger social contexts and social scientific frameworks although clinical emphases persist. Methodological problems remain but important improvements are also evident. We identify two vigorous research traditions in the social scientific study of infertility. One tradition uses primarily quantitative techniques to study clinic …

Exploring Links Between Well-Being And Interactional Sense-Making In Married Couples’ Jointly Told Stories Of Stress, Jody Koenig Kellas, April R. Trees, Paul Schrodt, Cassandra Leclair-Underberg, Erin K. Willer

Department of Communication Studies: Faculty Publications

Narrative theorizing suggests that narrating stress, difficulty, or trauma can be beneficial for improved mental health, yet extant research tends to consider narrating stress as an individual or psychological construct. However, in close relationships, people often experience shared stressors and jointly tell their shared stories of difficulty to others. Thus, joint storytelling processes likely also relate to individual health. We tested this expectation using a series of actor-partner interdependence models and path analyses in a study that included 68 couples’ video-recorded joint storytelling interactions. Findings primarily indicate relationships between husbands’, wives’, and couples’ storytelling behaviors and husbands’ mental health. Generally …

El Testimonio Desde El Exilio: El Compromiso Político En Las Memorias De Dolores Ibárruri Y María Martínez Sierra, Iker González-Allende

Spanish Language and Literature Papers

En sus memorias Una mujer por caminos de España (1952), María Martinez Sierra recuerda su participación en un mitin en un pueblo de Asturias en la primavera de 1936. En aquel acto de propaganda política, además de ella, los otros dos oradores eran la socialista Matilde de la Torre y la comunista Dolores Ibárruri, Pasionaria. Martínez Sierra resalta los lazos comunes que existían entre las tres mujeres: "por encima de toda doctrina, estábamos unidas en una sola voluntad. Queríamosq ue las izquierdasg anasenl as elecciones"( 223).

Education In The New Latino Diaspora, Edmund T. Hamann, Linda Harklau

Department of Teaching, Learning, and Teacher Education: Faculty Publications

In 2002 Hamann, Wortham, and Murillo noted that many U.S. states were hosting significant and often rapidly growing Latino populations for the first time and that these changes had multiple implications for formal schooling as well as out-of-school learning processes. They speculated about whether Latinos were encountering the same, often disappointing, educational fates in communities where their presence was unprecedented as in areas with a longstanding Latino presence. Only tentative conclusions could be provided at that time since the dynamics referenced were frequently novel and in flux.

In this chapter we revisit their inquiry in light of six subsequent years …

Cognitive Conflict And Situational Interest As Factors Influencing Conceptual Change, Hunsik Kang, Lawrence C. Scharmann, Sukjin Kang, Taehee Noh

Department of Teaching, Learning, and Teacher Education: Faculty Publications

In this study, we investigated the relationships among cognitive conflict and situational interest induced by a discrepant event, attention and effort allocated to learning, and conceptual change in learning the concept of density. Subjects were 183 seventh graders from six middle schools in Seoul, Korea. A preconception test, a test of responses to a dis-crepant event, and a questionnaire of situational interest were administered as pretests. Computer-assisted instruction was then provided to the students as a conceptual change in-tervention. Questionnaires regarding attention and effort, and a conception test were admin-istered as posttests. The conception test was administered once more as …

The Whitings’ Concepts Of Culture And How They Have Fared In Contemporary Psychology And Anthropology, Carolyn P. Edwards, Marianne Bloch

Department of Psychology: Faculty Publications

This article presents a brief intellectual biography of John and Beatrice Whiting, followed by an examination of five key ideas that they put forward to the fields of psychology and anthropology through their theoretical and empirical writings. These key ideas are (a) the assumption of the psychic unity of humankind, (b) the cultural learning environment, (c) the psychocultural model, (d) the synergistic relationship of the disciplines of psychology and anthropology, and (e) the role of mothers as agents of social change through child-rearing roles as well as through various other ways they guide change in the communities and learning environments …

About The Authors

Honors in Practice Online Archive

No abstract provided.

Everything I Learned About Teaching In The Contact Zone I Learned From Charles Xavier And The Uncanny X-Men, James Bucky Carter Ph.D.

SANE journal: Sequential Art Narrative in Education

The article asserts that reading and studying comics via the lens of the contact zone help illuminate comics' literary and literacy value and helps illuminate notions of comics art and notions of schooling.

“We Just Don’T Have The Possibility Yet”: U.S. Latina/O Narratives On Study Abroad, Kevin R. Mcclure, Katalin Szelényi, Elizabeth Niehaus, Aeriel A. Anderson, Jeffrey Reed

Department of Educational Administration: Faculty Publications

Whether indirectly from governmental and non-governmental organizations or directly from higher education institutions, students receive messages that they should study abroad. Studying in a foreign country is considered essential if students are to be marketable to future employers and prepared to lead the U.S. into a new era. Despite the presence of such messages, the understanding of what it means to be absent from the undergraduate student population willing and able to study in a foreign country is severely limited. Importantly, what are the perceptions and experiences of students who repeatedly hear the value of study abroad and who, at …

A Model Of Tuberculosis Transmission And Intervention Strategies In An Urban Residential Area, Elsje Pienaar, Aaron M. Fluitt, Scott E. Whitney, Alison G. Freifeld, Hendrik J. Viljoen

Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering: Faculty Publications

The model herein aims to explore the dynamics of the spread of tuberculosis (TB) in an informal settlement or township. The population is divided into households of various sizes and also based on commuting status. The model dynamics distinguishes between three distinct social patterns: the exposure of commuters during travel, random diurnal interaction and familial exposure at night. Following the general SLIR models, the population is further segmented into susceptible (S), exposed/latently infected (L), active/infectious (I), and recovered (R) individuals. During the daytime, commuters travel on public transport, while non-commuters randomly interact in the community to mimic chance encounters with …