Digital Commons Network^™

Reimagining Accountability Through Educational Leadership: Applying The Metaphors Of “Agora” And “Bazaar”, Taeyeon Kim

Department of Educational Administration: Faculty Publications

This study aims to explore reimagined accountability through collective efforts initiated by school leaders and to challenge the fixed notion of accountability prescribed by policy scripts. Drawing on studies highlighting humanizing leadership and the metaphors of “agora” and “bazaar,” I investigate how school leaders (re)construct and (re)define meanings of accountability in their daily practices. Using portraiture as research method, I analyze qualitative data collected through observation, interviews, and artifacts in a rural school in the United States, over the course of the 2018–2019 school year. In contrast to prevalent discourses around technical, performance-driven approaches to accountability, the principal and teachers …

Community-Centered School Leadership: Radical Care And Aperturas During Covid-19, Leticia Alvarez Gutiérrez, Taeyeon Kim, Sonny Partola, Paul J. Kuttner, Amadou Niang, Alma Yanagui, Laura Hernández, Gerardo R. López, Jennifer Mayer-Glenn

Department of Educational Administration: Faculty Publications

We share school leaders’ perspectives on Zoom videos concerning the needs of immigrant and refugee families in Title I schools. In these videos, participants crafted and shared personal narratives about their leadership experiences during the COVID-19 era of education. Rooted in participatory design research methods, the process of designing these videos were both a research project and an intervention to assist families and school leaders to better understand each other. We present a close analysis of administrators’ perspectives and describe how our codesigned video methodology enabled participants to coconstruct new meanings of school-community relationships during the pandemic through a radical …

Limited Irrigation For Managing Declining Water Resources In The Us High Plains, Bijesh Maharjan, Gary Hergert, Saurav Das

Department of Agronomy and Horticulture: Faculty Publications

The US High Plains region has a semiarid climate receiving between 330 and 455 mm of rainfall annually. In the Nebraska Panhandle of the High Plains, 30-year average rainfall is 394 mm, and one-fourth of agriculture is under irrigation. In addition to concerns about water quality, there is a growing concern over water quantity for ground- and surface-water resources that producers use for irrigation. Wisely managing limited water resources for irrigation can help maintain crop productivity and profitability. Deficit irrigation research for 13 years (2005–2017) was conducted in the Nebraska Panhandle to study effects of limited irrigation on maize ( …

Charles A. Francis, Abstracts And Publications [1969--2022], December 2022, Charles A. Francis

Department of Agronomy and Horticulture: Faculty Publications

Contents

I. Journal articles (218), p.1

II. Book reviews (60), p. 18

III. Published abstracts (213), p. 23

IV. Books (23), p. 40

V. Chapters in books (81), p. 42

VI. Symposium or workshop proceedings (127), p. 50

VII. Symposia or extension publications edited (31), p. 62

VIII. Miscellaneous (522), p. 65

The Brazilian Soil Spectral Service (Braspecs): A User-Friendly System For Global Soil Spectra Communication, José A. M. Demattê, Ariane Francine Da Silveira Paiva, Raul Roberto Poppiel, Nícolas Augusto Rosin, Luis Fernando Chimelo Ruiz, Fellipe Alcantara De Oliveira Mello, Budiman Minasny, Sabine Grunwald, Yufeng Ge, Eyal Ben Dor, Asa Gholizadeh, Cecile Gomez, Sabine Chabrillat, Nicolas Francos, Shamsollah Ayoubi, Dian Fiantis, James Kobina Mensah Biney, Changkun Wang, Abdelaziz Belal, Salman Naimi, Najmeh Asgari Hafshejani, Henrique Bellinaso, Jean Michel Moura-Bueno, Nélida E. Q. Silvero

Department of Agricultural and Biological Systems Engineering: Faculty Publications

Although many Soil Spectral Libraries (SSLs) have been created globally, these libraries still have not been operationalized for end-users. To address this limitation, this study created an online Brazilian Soil Spectral Service (BraSpecS). The system was based on the Brazilian Soil Spectral Library (BSSL) with samples collected in the Visible–Near–Short-wave infrared (vis–NIR–SWIR) and Midinfrared (MIR) ranges. The interactive platform allows users to find spectra, act as custodians of the data, and estimate several soil properties and classification. The system was tested by 500 Brazilian and 65 international users. Users accessed the platform (besbbr.com.br), uploaded their spectra, and received soil organic …

Integrating Tropical Research Into Biology Education Is Urgently Needed, Ann E. Russell, T. Mitchell Aide, Elizabeth Braker, Carissa N. Ganong, Rebecca D. Hardin, Karen D. Holl, Sara C. Hotchkiss, Jeffrey A. Klemens, Erin K. Kuprewicz, Deedra Mcclearn, George Middendorf, Rebecca Ostertag, Jennifer S. Powers, Sabrina E. Russo, Jennifer L. Stynoski, Ursula Valdez, Charles G. Willis

School of Biological Sciences: Faculty Publications

Understanding tropical biology is important for solving complex problems such as climate change, biodiversity loss, and zoonotic pandemics, but biology curricula view research mostly via a temperatezone lens. Integrating tropical research into biology education is urgently needed to tackle these issues.

The tropics are engines of Earth systems that regulate global cycles of carbon and water, and are thus critical for management of greenhouse gases. Compared with higher-latitude areas, tropical regions contain a greater diversity of biomes, organisms, and complexity of biological interactions. The tropics house the majority of the world’s human population and provide important global commodities from species …

Comparing Readability Measures And Computer-Assisted Question Evaluation Tools For Self-Administered Survey Questions, Rachel Stenger, Kristen Olson, Jolene Smyth

Department of Sociology: Faculty Publications

Questionnaire designers use readability measures to ensure that questions can be understood by the target population. The most common measure is the Flesch-Kincaid Grade level, but other formulas exist. This article compares six different readability measures across 150 questions in a self-administered questionnaire, finding notable variation in calculated readability across measures. Some question formats, including those that are part of a battery, require important decisions that have large effects on the estimated readability of survey items. Other question evaluation tools, such as the Question Understanding Aid (QUAID) and the Survey Quality Predictor (SQP), may identify similar problems in questions, making …

Dynamic Causal Modeling Of Neural Responses To An Orofacial Pneumotactile Velocity Array, Yingying Wang, Rebecca Custead, Hyuntaek Oh, Steven M. Barlow

Department of Special Education and Communication Disorders: Faculty Publications

The effective connectivity of neuronal networks during orofacial pneumotactile stimulation with different velocities is still unknown. The present study aims to characterize the effectivity connectivity elicited by three different saltatory velocities (5, 25, and 65 cm/s) over the lower face using dynamic causal modeling on functional magnetic resonance imaging data of twenty neurotypical adults. Our results revealed the contralateral SI and SII as the most likely sources of the driving inputs within the sensorimotor network for the pneumotactile stimuli, suggesting parallel processing of the orofacial pneumotactile stimuli. The 25 cm/s pneumotactile stimuli modulated forward interhemispheric connection from the contralateral SII …

A Systematic Map Of Human-Carnivore Coexistence, Cassandre C. Venumière-Lefebvre, Stewart W. Breck, Kevin R. Crooks

United States Department of Agriculture Wildlife Services: Staff Publications

Carnivore populations globally have largely declined, and coexistence, where humans and carnivores share landscapes, plays a crucial role in carnivore conservation. However, the term “coexistence” is often used in scientific and popular literature without being clearly defined. Herein, we provide a global perspective on what coexistence is and how it is studied. We conducted a systematic map of 366 articles published between 1987 and 2020 to characterize human-carnivore coexistence literature according to coexistence definitions, temporal trends, geographic and taxonomic focus, and four thematic aspects of coexistence: carnivore ecology, human endeavors, social conflict and human-carnivore conflict. We used chi-squared tests and …

Exploring The Value Of A Global Gene Drive Project Registry, Riley I. Taitingfong, Antoinette J. Piaggio, Cinnamon S. Bloss, Et Al.

United States Department of Agriculture Wildlife Services: Staff Publications

Recent calls to establish a global project registry before releasing any gene-drive-modified organisms (GDOs) have suggested a registry could be valuable to coordinate research, collect data to monitor and evaluate potential ecological impacts, and facilitate transparent communication with community stakeholders and the general public. Here, we report the results of a multidisciplinary expert workshop on GDO registries convened on 8–9 December 2020 involving 70 participants from 14 countries. Participants had expertise in gene drive design, conservation and population modeling, social science, stakeholder engagement, governance and regulation, international policy, and vector control; they represented 45 organizations, spanning national and local governmental …

Don’T Be Afraid To Eat The Whole Whale! Using Mixed Methods To Enhance What We Learn In Leadership Research And Assessment, Lindsay J. Hastings

Department of Agricultural Leadership, Education, and Communication: Faculty Publications

The purpose of this article is to identify proper uses for mixed methods in leadership research and assessment. This article will highlight research and assessment questions that are best served by mixed methods and will offer practitioner-friendly guides and examples for integrating quantitative and qualitative data to help eat the whole whale “one bite at a time.” Sound decision-making in the design, execution, and presentation of mixed methods studies and outcomes assessments not only produces better outputs, but greatly increases the likelihood of (a) publication in reputable journals, (b) sound program evaluation decisions, and (c) public consumption of study or …

Botchan, Natsume Sōseki, Yasotaro Morri , Trans.

Zea E-Books Collection

This English translation of 坊っちゃん (1906) was published in Tokyo by Ogawa Seibundo in 1918. It is a first-person narrative of a young man’s two-month tenure as assistant mathematics teacher at a provincial middle school in 1890s Japan. A native son of Tokyo, with all its traits and prejudices, he finds life in a narrow country town unappealing — with its dull and mischievous students, scheming faculty, bland diets, stifling rules, and gossipy inhabitants. Impulsive, combative, committed to strict ideals of honesty, honor, and justice, he is quickly enmeshed in the strategems of the head teacher, “Red Shirt.” His sufferings …

Kokoro: Hints And Echoes Of Japanese Inner Life, Lafcadio Hearn, Koizumi Yakumo

Zea E-Books Collection

The works of Lafcadio Hearn (Koizumi Yakumo) played a critical role in introducing his adopted Japan to a worldwide audience. In Kokoro: Hints and Echoes of Japanese Inner Life, he writes, “The papers composing this volume treat of the inner rather than of the outer life of Japan, — for which reason they have been grouped under the title Kokoro (heart). This word signifies also mind, in the emotional sense; spirit; courage; resolve; sentiment; affection; and inner meaning, — just as we say in English, ‘the heart of things.’” After centuries of isolation Meiji-era Japan was forced to adjust …

Course Portfolio For Bioc934: Genome Dynamics And Gene Expression, Nicole R. Buan

UNL Faculty Course Portfolios

A graduate degree in Biochemistry or any molecular life science field requires a strong foundation in molecular biology. BIOC934 Genome Dynamics and Gene Expression is a course designed to challenge graduate students whose research interests lie in the areas of biochemistry, molecular biology, synthetic biology, bioinformatics, and systems biology of prokaryote and eukaryote systems. Graduate students in these disciplines require a rigorous and thorough examination of core concepts in addition to practice applying theory to new observations while traversing unfamiliar disciplinary terrain. This portfolio describes the design of BIOC934, its implementation, and observed outcomes to identify strengths of the course …

“Are You …”: An Examination Of Incomplete Question Stems In Self-Administered Surveys, Nestor Hernandez, Kristen Olson, Jolene D. Smyth

Department of Sociology: Faculty Publications

Questionnaire designers are encouraged to write questions as complete sentences. In self-administered surveys, incomplete question stems may reduce visual clutter but may also increase burden when respondents need to scan the response options to fully complete the question. We experimentally examine the effects of three categories of incomplete question stems (incomplete conversational, incomplete ordinal, and incomplete nominal questions) versus complete question stems on 53 items in a probability webmail survey. We examine item nonresponse, response time, selection of the first and last response options, and response distributions. We find that incomplete question stems take slightly longer to answer and slightly …

Quality Content Teaching For Multilingual Students: An International Examination Of Excellence In Instructional Practices In Four Countries, Kara Viesca, Annela Teemant, Jenni Alisaari, Johanna Ennser-Kananen, Naomi Flynn, Svenja Hammer, Sara Routarinne

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

Observations of Pedagogical Excellence of Teaching Across Nations (OPETAN) is a mixed methods observation study of 31 content teachers, most nominated for their excellence in teaching multilingual students in Germany, Finland, the US, and England. The study relied on an observation rubric that operationalizes seven Enduring Principles of Learning grounded in critical sociocultural theory and pedagogy. Findings revealed excellent teachers emphasize complex thinking, language use, and modeling. Teacher use of small groups, contextualization, and equity-focused practices were areas of potential growth. International research holds promise for understanding and improving K-12 content teaching and teacher education for teachers of multilingual learners.

Representing Transition Experiences: A Multimodal Critical Discourse Analysis Of Young Immigrants In Children’S Literature, Xiaoyan Gu, Theresa Catalano

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

Because literature can serve as a mirror for children’s self-reflection and a window into humanizing insights on immigrants and immigration, it can be a powerful educational tool to promote understanding of immigrant learner’s experiences and needs. However, this has not always been the case. As such, informed by our theoretical framework of critical discourse studies (CDS) and raciolinguistics, this study explores the representations of immigrant children’s experiences in children’s literature. Employing multimodal critical discourse analysis, the authors analyze the visual and verbal representations of immigrant children (and the ideologies behind them) in 18 picture books with immigration themes. Findings reveal …

(Re)Turning To Freirean Philosophy In Preparing Content Teachers To Work With Multilingual Students, Kara Viesca, Peiwen Wang, Brandon Heinz, Alexa Yunes-Koch

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

In 2019, Bettina Love published a call for abolitionist teaching, an effort for educational freedom and racial justice. In her work, she centered the role of theory in teaching calling it a "North Star." She suggested that theory provides teachers a "steadfast tool" that explains the experiences of people minoritized due to racism, sexism, ableism, linguicism, etc., as well as provides language for and knowledge about intersectional issues of injustice. Love literally calls theory a "practical guide" as well as a "location for healing" (Love, 2019, p. 132).

The work of Paulo Freire has long served as the kind of …

Spiritual And Religious Meaning Making In Language And Literacy Studies: Global Perspectives On Teaching, Learning, Curriculum And Policy, Mary M. Juzwik, Robert Jean Leblanc, Denise Dávila, Eric D. Rackley, Loukia K. Sarroub

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

Purpose—In an editorial introduction essay for the special issue on Religion, Literacies, and English Education in Global Dialogue, the editors frame papers in the special issue in dialogue with previous scholarly literature around three central lines of inquiry: How do children, youth and families navigate relationships among religion, spirituality, language and literacy? What challenges are faced by language and literacy teachers and teacher educators around the globe who seek to respond to diverse religious and spiritual perspectives in their work? And what opportunities do teachers seize or create toward this end? How are developments of language and literacy theory, …

Seeking Clarity In Murky Waters: Nuances Of Equity And Social Justice From A Teacher Perspective, Elaine J. Chan

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

In this study, I examined interactions between an English teacher and her students to illustrate ways in which issues of equity and social justice may play out in nuanced ways in the implementation of school curriculum in a diverse, Midwestern high school. These stories of classroom teacher and student experiences reveal complexities of how equity and social justice might unfold for students, and be understood by a teacher as she works with her students, to build a body of “teacher knowledge” (Clandinin and Connelly, 1996) that grows as the teacher gains experience. Examining complexities of “teacher knowledge” as a classroom …

Considering The Needs, Challenges, And Assets Of School Systems In Rural Meatpacking Communities During Covid-19: The Roles Of Schools As Vehicles Of Community, Edmund T. Hamann, Amanda R. Morales, Ricardo Martinez

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

For more than 40 years, the relocation of meatpacking from urban to rural communities and the related change of who works in these high-risk, modestly compensated positions has brought Spanish-speaking and African and Asian refugee populations to communities like the seven focal Nebraska communities we consider here. These seven, five rural and two part of multi-county metropolitan areas, all have majority Latinx school enrollments and they all have been particularly hard hit by both the first and third waves of the COVID-19 pandemic. They were each also foci of a special new course we co-taught in December 2020 called: “Pandemics, …

Preparing Teachers For Culturally Responsive/Relevant Pedagogy (Crp): A Critical Review Of Research, Wen-Chia Chang, Kara Viesca

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

Context: Proposed more than two decades ago, culturally relevant/responsive teaching or pedagogy (CRP) is one promising approach to transform education experiences of historically marginalized groups. The development of CRP has since inspired changes in teacher education programs and resulted in considerable research on preparing teachers for CRP. However, critics have argued that much work on CRP has not fulfilled its transformative potential of addressing racism and the white-supremacist foundations underlying teacher education research and practice, and have urged CRP research to grow from the existing knowledge base and to innovate.

Purpose of Study: This study critically examines the research practices …

Linguistically Responsive Leaders: Working With Multilingual Students And Their Families, Aprille Phillips, Joan Barnatt, Kara Viesca

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

The demographic composition of the United States (US) has transformed since the early 1990s with immigrant arrivals from Mexico and Central America. Education leaders frequently exit preparation programs without content focused on opportunities around working successfully with multilingual students. This qualitative case study explores the implementation of online learning modules focused on engaging multilingual students and their families that were embedded into advanced leadership preparation coursework. Utilizing data (e.g., classwork, fieldnotes, semi-structured interviews) collected from 10 participants, findings include recommendations for stronger preparation on multilingual learners and flexible learning experiences that encourage the application of knowledge in professional practice.

Research Team As Methodology: The Value Of Pluri-National Research Teams For Studying Education And Migration., Edmund T. Hamann, Betsabé Román, Juan Sánchez García, Víctor Zúñiga

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

Research team membership should be understood as a prospective dimension of research design. When the phenomenon to be examined is pluri-national – i.e., involving more than one country – as has been our case for more than two-decades of consideration of the educations of transnationally mobile children and youth, it follows that much can be gained by organizing a research team that is also pluri-national. Here, we suggest ways that our team’s border-spanning composition has supported our efforts to pursue empirical questions, like who, where, and how many. It has also allowed us to consider perception questions regarding how transnational …

Novice General Education Teachers’ Perceptions Of Preparedness In U.S. Public Schools: The Impact Of Learning About And Working With Multilingual Students, Lydiah Kananu Kiramba, Qizhen Deng, Kara Viesca

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

This study examined perceptions of preparedness among novice general education teachers using 2015/ 2016 National Teacher and Principal Survey data. Results show that teachers with training in teaching multilingual learners reported higher perceived preparedness than those without across all five general aspects of teaching (i.e., instructional methods, teaching subject matters, assessing students, differentiating instruction, and using assessment data to inform instruction). Further, teacher preparedness in differentiating instruction was positively associated with the percentage of multilingual learners in a teacher's classroom. Findings suggest that learning to teach multilingual learners supports novice general content teachers to feel more prepared as teachers overall.

A Meta-Analysis Examining Technology-Assisted L2 Vocabulary Learning, Aiqing Yu, Guy Trainin

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

This meta-analysis examines the effectiveness of technology-assisted second language (L2) vocabulary learning as well as identifies factors that may play a role in their effectiveness. We found 34 studies with 2,511 participants yielding 49 separate effect sizes. Following the procedure developed by Hunter and Schmidt (2004), we corrected for sample size bias and measurement error. The overall effect size for using technology to learn L2 vocabulary was d = 0.64, which is a moderate effect size. The Q statistic indicated a significant variability in effect size, so we followed up with a theory-driven moderator analysis. The results of the moderator …

Diez Cosas Que Maestros Mexicanos Deben Saber De Las Escuelas Estadounidenses, Edmund T. Hamann

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

La escuela es un universo institucional que la niñez y la adolescencia migrante tienen que negociar en sus contextos de llegada. A menudo, las niñas, niños y adolescentes (NNyA) migrantes han tenido una experiencia escolar anterior, en un país en el que el sistema educativo opera sobre la base de una serie de normas diferentes. Por eso es importante que las personas que guían la escolarización en el nuevo escenario educativo –en este caso los maestros mexicanos– sepan cómo funciona el sistema educativo estadounidense en el que estaban escolarizados anteriormente sus estudiantes. Con este conocimiento pueden ayudar a sus alumnos …

Reevaluation Of The Described Subspecies Of Euphydryas Phaeton (Drury, 1773) With A Replacement Name For Melitaea Phaeton Schausi (Clark, 1927), Harry Pavulaan

The Taxonomic Report of the International Lepidoptera Survey

The present paper reevaluates the subspecific standing of the nominotypical and three described subspecies of Euphydryas phaeton (Drury, 1773). The nominotypical subspecies phaeton occupies the mid-Atlantic region, with undefined zones of contact with described subspecies borealis (F. Chermock & R. Chermock, 1940) to the north, and subspecies schausi (Clark, 1927) to the south. Nominotypical phaeton is an intermediate phenotype between borealis and schausi, which are each noticeably different from each other but both reasonably similar to intermediate (nominotypical) phaeton. Both borealis and schausi were synonymized under nominotypical phaeton since about time of their descriptions, by authors and list …

Identification Of Candidate Genes And Genomic Regions Associated With Adult Plant Resistance To Stripe Rust In Spring Wheat, Amira M. I. Mourad, Mohamed A. Abou-Zeid, Shamseldeen Eltaher, P. Stephen Baenziger, Andreas Börner

Department of Agronomy and Horticulture: Faculty Publications

Wheat stripe rust (caused by Puccinia striiformis f. sp. tritici) is a major disease that damages wheat plants and affects wheat yield all over the world. In recent years, stripe rust became a major problem that affects wheat yield in Egypt. New races appeared and caused breakdowns in the resistant genotypes. To improve resistance in the Egyptian genotypes, new sources of resistance are urgently needed. In the recent research, a set of 95 wheat genotypes collected from 19 countries, including Egypt, were evaluated for their resistance against the Egyptian race(s) of stripe rust under field conditions in the two …

I Am A Cat, Natsume Sōseki

Zea E-Books Collection

This English version of 吾輩は猫である (Wagahai-wa neko de aru: I Am a Cat), Chapters I and II, written by Natsume Sōseki, pseudonym of Natsume Kinnosuke (1867–1916), and translated by Kan-ichi Ando (1878-1924), was published by Hattori Shoten, Tokyo, in 1906.

It begins: "I am a cat; but as yet I have no name." Its sardonic feline narrator describes his origins, his settlement in the household of a Meiji teacher-intellectual, and the goings-on and conversations among the cats and humans about the neighborhood. Of the men he concludes: "They are miserable creatures in the eyes of a cat."

Japanese novelist Natsume …