Digital Commons Network^™

A Study Of New Jersey's Assessment And Accountability System For Students With Disabilities And Its Impact On Special Education Services, Julie Moul Gardner

Seton Hall University Dissertations and Theses (ETDs)

Use of high stakes assessment for special needs students is a key element in the current educational reform movement. State assessment systems use these tests to determine and report school accountability scores, distribute school funding, and assess school rewards and sanctions. The impact of including these students' test score on the district accountability reports has not yet been determined. Directors of special services, the primary individuals for supervising or coordinating district special education programs, have an extensive understanding of administrative and functional knowledge of special education services and are therefore able to provide insight concerning the impact of accountability on …

A Study Of The Qualities Of Effective Mentor Teachers, Eileen Mooney Cambria

Seton Hall University Dissertations and Theses (ETDs)

A STUDY OF THE QUALITIES OF EFFECTIVE MENTOR TEACHERS The purpose of this study is to identify the attributes of teachers who are master teachers and exemplary mentors. This qualitative inquiry was designed to shed light on the values, attributes, beliefs and practices of these individuals as they relate to the art of teaching and mentoring novice teachers. A stable faculty provides schools with a strong support structure that enables students to achieve high levels of instruction and new teachers the high quality of mentoring needed during the first phase of their careers. Recruiting new teachers to fill the void …

A Validation Study Of The Administrator Data Use Survey, Francis Nicholas Sheboy

Seton Hall University Dissertations and Theses (ETDs)

The purpose of this study was to create an original instrument, the Administrator Data Use Survey (ADUS), to assess practicing school administrators' perceptions of the importance of data to school improvement, the importance of data to their position, and the degree to which they feel their graduate preparation in educational administration adequately prepared them for the data use demands of their position. Validation panels were used to assess construct, content, criterion, and face validity of the ADUS. In addition, factor analysis was utilized for construct validation. The ADUS was sent to a random sampling of practicing administrators from New York …

Effects Of Elevated Atmospheric Co₂ On Scrub-Oak Root Carbon Pools And Soil Microbial Processes, Alisha Lea Pagel Brown

Biological Sciences Theses & Dissertations

The levels of atmospheric CO₂ are rising and this affects the growth of plants and the ecosystems in which they reside. Plants take up additional C from the atmosphere and have potential to sequester C in the soil. I investigated the sequestration of C belowground and the microbial processes that control C retention in the soil. This study was conducted in a Florida scrub-oak ecosystem, where CO₂ levels have been elevated to twice ambient since 1996 in open top chambers. There were eight replicates of ambient CO₂ chambers and eight replicates of twice-ambient CO₂ levels. The …

Age Validation And Reproductive Biology Of Bluefish, Pomatomus Saltatrix, Along The East Coast Of United States, Eric Robillard

OES Theses and Dissertations

I describe a new preparation technique that increases readability of otoliths, along with criteria for the interpretation of otolith microstructure of bluefish, Pomatomus saltatrix, collected from Florida to New York during 2001-2003 (n = 2652). I validated annulus formation in otoliths for ages 1 to 8 using marginal increment analysis and thus extended validation by four years to include the preponderance of age classes in the catch. Although otoliths are typically superior for ageing, bluefish are routinely aged with scales; thus a side-by-side comparison of otoliths versus scales is necessary before otoliths can supplant scales. When compared, precision …

Template-Based Metadata Extraction For Heterogeneous Collection, Jianfeng Tang

Computer Science Theses & Dissertations

With the growth of the Internet and related tools, there has been a rapid growth of online resources. In particular, by using high-quality OCR (Optical Character Recognition) tools it has become easy to convert an existing corpus into digital form and make it available online. However, a number of organizations have legacy collections that lack metadata. The lack of metadata hampers not only the discovery and dispersion of these collections over the Web, but also their interoperability with other collections. Unfortunately, manual metadata creation is expensive and time-consuming for a large collection, and most existing automated metadata extraction approaches have …

Relation Of Riparian Buffer Strips To In-Stream Habitat, Macroinvertebrates And Fish In A Small Iowa Stream, Jeremy P. Duehr, Michael J. Siepker, Clay L. Pierce, Thomas M. Isenhart

Journal of the Iowa Academy of Science: JIAS

Macroinvertebrate and fish habitat is often degraded as a result of agriculture. Riparian buffer strips are commonly used to counteract the negative effects of agriculture in headwater streams. We assessed the relation of multi-aged riparian buffer strips to in-stream habitat, macroinvertebrate and fish assemblages in an Iowa stream. In-stream habitat, macroinvertebrates, and fish were sampled from two buffered sites and two unbuffered sites, with the greatest substrate, water depth, and velocity heterogeneity occurring in buffered sites. The highest macroinvertebrate richness (11) as well as fish species richness (14), diversity (1.99) and IBI score (3 7) were found in the site …

Research Plan And Preliminary Results - A Field Research Site For Emerging Contaminants In Iowa, Douglas J. Schnoebelen, Dana W. Kolpin, Larry B. Barber, Edward T. Furlong, Michael M. Meyer, Mary Skopec

Journal of the Iowa Academy of Science: JIAS

Research has recently documented the prevalence of a wide variety of pharmaceuticals and other emerging contaminants (ECs) in streams across the United States. Wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) have been found to be an important source and collection point of ECs to streams as many ECs are incompletely removed during treatment. To investigate the complex instream processes (e.g., dilution, sorption, degradation, dispersion, etc.) chat can affect ECs following their input from a WWTP and determining if such input is having an effect on the aquatic ecosystem requires the integration of multi-disciplinary efforts at a carefully selected field site. Preliminary work has …

Cover - Table Of Contents

Journal of the Iowa Academy of Science: JIAS

No abstract provided.

The Honey Creek Member: A New Holocene Alluvial Stratigraphic Unit In The Midwest, Jeremy S. Dillon, Rolfe D. Mandel

Journal of the Iowa Academy of Science: JIAS

This paper describes the type locality and type section for the Honey Creek Member, a stratigraphic unit first recognized in the Honey Creek drainage in southeastern Nebraska. The alluvial chronology for Honey Creek basin is similar to the regional chronology of streams in the Midwest, and all of the formal members of the DeForest Formation occur in the basin. However, the lithology of one unit, the Honey Creek Member, does not correlate with any of the formally recognized members of the DeForest Formation. The Honey Creek Member is composed of grayish brown silt loam overbank facies coarsening downward to a …

Silicification Of Corals, Stromatoporids, And Brachiopods At The Weathered Surface Within The Devonian-Age Little Cedar Formation (Solon And Rapid Members) In Eastern Iowa, Adam L. Majeski, Paul L. Garvin

Journal of the Iowa Academy of Science: JIAS

Diagenesis of fossils contained in middle-Devonian limestones was studied at the Troy Mills and Robins quarries in Linn County, Iowa and at the Four County and Ernst quarries in Johnson County, Iowa. Fossils located at weathered bedrock surfaces were preferentially silicified, and the silicification affected corals, stromatoporids and, to a limited extent, brachiopods, but not other fossils or the host rock. The siliceous horizon extends no more than a few centimeters below the weathered surfaces, suggesting that silicification was constrained by them. Silica for silicification might have come from a variety of sources, including sponge spicules or radiolarian tests, insoluble …

Relation Of Riparian Buffer Strips To In-Stream Habitat, Macroinvertebrates And Fish In A Small Iowa Stream, Jeremy P. Duehr, Michael J. Siepker, Clay L. Pierce, Thomas M. Isenhart

Journal of the Iowa Academy of Science: JIAS

Macroinvertebrate and fish habitat is often degraded as a result of agriculture. Riparian buffer strips are commonly used to counteract the negative effects of agriculture in headwater streams. We assessed the relation of multi-aged riparian buffer strips to in-stream habitat, macroinvertebrate and fish assemblages in an Iowa stream. In-stream habitat, macroinvertebrates, and fish were sampled from two buffered sites and two unbuffered sites, with the greatest substrate, water depth, and velocity heterogeneity occurring in buffered sites. The highest macroinvertebrate richness (11) as well as fish species richness (14), diversity (1.99) and IBI score (37) were found in the site buffered …

Incorporating Reading Comprehension Tools Into An Anatomy And Physiology Curriculum, Stephanie Monahan

Graduate Research Papers

During the 2003-2004 school year, Hempstead High School in Dubuque, Iowa was one of several schools in the state selected to pilot the Iowa Professional Development Model. The purpose of the Iowa Professional Development Model is to develop a link between professional development and increasing student achievement. A main component of the model plan is the implementation of research-based activities in the professional development plan of a school. Hempstead chose to focus all professional development time on how to produce independent readers/learners by incorporating reading strategies into all curricular areas. Over the course of two school years, a professional by …

Impact Of Music Education In Early Childhood Classrooms, Melissa J. Wolf

Graduate Research Papers

Music is a universal language that connects all students regardless of age, background, or social status. In our school's today, music instruction can offer many academic benefits to our students, especially in the areas of reading and mathematics. However, elementary school music teacher positions are being cut each year because of the lack of funds in the school district's budget. When this happens, classroom teachers are required to teach this subject to their students, according to Iowa Code-Chapter 12. These teachers may not be educated enough to give the students the instruction that is needed. This literature review examined the …

A Dyadic Composition To Foster Virtual Team Effectiveness: An Experimental Study, Gamze Karayaz

Engineering Management & Systems Engineering Theses & Dissertations

The importance of effectiveness for virtual teamwork continues to gain momentum as technology and globalization of work accelerate. The implementation of virtual teams provides one approach to enhance competitiveness, overcoming the disadvantages of space and time differences through collaborative technologies. The influence of structure to virtual team performance has not been clearly established in the literature. The purpose of this research study was to investigate the effectiveness of a dyad structured approach for virtual teams using a quasi-experimental research design.

This research investigated four questions related to the influence of structure on virtual team effectiveness related to task performance, communication …

Development Of Single Nanoparticle Optical Assays For Imaging Single Living Cells, William John Brownlow

Chemistry & Biochemistry Theses & Dissertations

Multi-drug resistance (MDR) has been reported in both prokaryotes and eukaryotes; the pathogenic gram-negative bacteria Pseudomonas aeruginosa can extrude a variety of structurally and functionally diverse substrates via a number of membrane transport systems leading to MDR. We have developed a novel nanoparticle assay to characterize both the membrane transport system composed of the MexAB-OprM efflux pump and the membrane permeability induced by antibiotics. Gold (Au) and silver (Ag) nanoparticles were investigated for use as probes to explore membrane transport in P. aeruginosa.

The surface plasmon absorption (color) of Au nanoparticle solutions was found to change in the presence …

Automatic Speech Recognition Using Lp-Dctc/Dcs Analysis Followed By Morphological Filtering, Penny Hix

Electrical & Computer Engineering Theses & Dissertations

Front-end feature extraction techniques have long been a critical component in Automatic Speech Recognition (ASR). Nonlinear filtering techniques are becoming increasingly important in this application, and are often better than linear filters at removing noise without distorting speech features. However, design and analysis of nonlinear filters are more difficult than for linear filters. Mathematical morphology, which creates filters based on shape and size characteristics, is a design structure for nonlinear filters. These filters are limited to minimum and maximum operations that introduce a deterministic bias into filtered signals.

This work develops filtering structures based on a mathematical morphology that utilizes …

Stability Analysis Of Hybrid Jump Linear Systems With Markov Inputs, Arturo Tejada Ruiz

Electrical & Computer Engineering Theses & Dissertations

In the past two decades, the number of applications that make use of supervisory algorithms to control complex continuous-time or discrete-time systems has increased steadily. Typical examples include air traffic management, digital control systems over networks, and flexible manufacturing systems. A common feature of these applications is the intermixing of the continuous dynamics of the controlled plant with the logical and discrete dynamics of the supervising algorithms. These so-called hybrid systems are the focus of much ongoing research. To improve the performance of these systems, it is important to analyze the interactions between the supervising algorithms and the plant. Few …

An Examination Of Differences Between Occupational-Technical Student And Transfer Student Engagement At Small Community Colleges In Virginia, Janet T. Laughlin

Educational Leadership & Workforce Development Theses & Dissertations

This study examined the differences in levels of student engagement between occupational-technical students and transfer students in an attempt to gain insight into why so many students fail to attain their educational goals. Students' engagement or involvement with their educational institution and program of study is considered a major contributor to persistence and graduation. Research on student engagement as it relates to persisters and leavers includes the five student engagement variables benchmarked by the Community College Survey of Student Engagement (CCSSE): (a) active and collaborative learning, (b) student effort, (c) academic challenge, (d) student-faculty interaction, and (e) support for learners. …

Femtosecond Laser Ablation With Single And Two-Photon Excitation For Mems, Mohamed Abdelfattah Kottb Ahmad Elbandrawy

Electrical & Computer Engineering Theses & Dissertations

There is an increasing interest in femtosecond laser micromachining of materials because of the femtosecond laser's unique high peak power, ultrashort pulse width, negligible heat conductivity process during the laser pulse, and the minimal heat affected zone, which is in the same order of magnitude of the ablated submicron spot. There are some obstacles in reaching optimal and reliable micromachining parameters. One of these obstacles is the lack of understanding of the nature of the interaction and related physical processes. These processes include amorphization, melting, re-crystallization, nucleated-vaporization, and ablation.

The focus of this Dissertation was to study the laser-matter interaction …

Examining Retention And Academic Success Among Community College Developmental Algebra I Students, Patricia B. Huber

Educational Leadership & Workforce Development Theses & Dissertations

An increasing number of community college matriculants enter college needing remediation in mathematics. This study examined factors that may affect student retention and academic success in a developmental Algebra I course at a community college, including demographic variables, life demand variables, pre-enrollment academic characteristic, self-regulated learning characteristics, and instructional methodology.

The study ran for two consecutive semesters and included 154 participants. Self-report measures were used to gain demographic information and information about students' beliefs about math and their self-regulated learning characteristics at the beginning of the semester. An elementary algebra pre-test was administered at the beginning of the semester with …

Annual Report Of The Registrar 2005/2006, University Of Northern Iowa

Institutional Effectiveness & Planning Documents

Contents:

--- Definitions
--- Annual Report Data
--- Summary of Attendance
--- Attendance by Session
--- Full-time Equivalency Enrollment --Degrees Granted
--- Degree Summary
--- Program Certificates
--- Pupils in Price Laboratory School
--- Miscellaneous Enrollment Information
--- Degrees Granted by College, Degree Objective, and Racial/Ethnic Classification

Counting Coffee Combinations: An Example Of The Fundamental Principle Of Counting, David R. Duncan, Bonnie H. Litwiller

Faculty Work

Teachers in courses which involve probability and statistics are always looking for situations in which the Fundamental Principle of Counting (FPC) can be exemplified. We shall present an example involving a coffee vending machine at a highway rest stop.

The Influence Of Significant Others On High School Students’ Expectancies, Task Value, And Motivation In Physical Education, Skip M. Williams

Dissertations and Theses @ UNI

In physical education, students perform physical activities among their peers and teachers. Some students are highly skilled, while others are developing their skill, and some just do not participate at all. It has been questioned why one child would approach a new opportunity with excitement and enthusiasm and another child (with the same opportunity) would have anxiety and self-doubt. The purpose of the study was to examine the influence of significant others on high school students' expectancies for success, task value, and motivation in physical education class. Specifically, this study examined perceived influence of significant others' beliefs on students': expectancies …

The Relationship Of Undergraduate Cognitive Development And Academic Advising Preference At Two Small, Private, Liberal Arts Colleges, Vicki Van Vark Edelnant

Dissertations and Theses @ UNI

Though developmental advising has been widely accepted for some time, some recent studies have questioned whether this approach to advising is universally appropriate. The primary purposes of this study were to determine what, if any, relationship exists between students' preference for academic advising approach and either their level of cognitive development or their gender.

One hundred seventy-three students at two small, private, liberal arts colleges completed the Academic Advising Inventory (AAI) to assess their advising preferences and the Measure of Epistemological Reflection (MER) to measure cognitive development levels. A correlation coefficient of scores on the AAI and the MER indicated …

Students At A Chinese Radio And Television University: Reasons For Participation, And Perceptions Of Their Status As Students And The Quality Of Their Learning, Huiping Ding

Dissertations and Theses @ UNI

The purpose of this case study was to investigate students' participation in distance education and perceptions of their status as students and the learning achieved within the context of a radio and television university in the North of China. This study focused on the students who had completed a two-year college program and been promoted to a four-year bachelor's degree program. Data was collected and analyzed from observations, interviews and document reviews.

Results of the study identified many reasons for students' participation at the radio and television university to pursue their higher education. The primary reason for most was their …

Understanding The Nature Of Surgical Excellence Using A Competency Modeling Approach, Hope S. Hanner-Bailey

Psychology Theses & Dissertations

Currently, a thorough description of the knowledge, skills, abilities, and other personal characteristics (KSAOs) that distinguish an exceptional surgeon does not exist. This knowledge is pertinent to the development of selection, training, and performance assessment methods that can be used to develop high performing surgeons. Expert surgeons from around the country were recruited to participate in an interview to discuss the KSAOs (i.e., the competencies) needed to be exceptional in the field. A smaller number of novice surgeons were also interviewed. The expert interview data were distilled into a competency model that consists of ten competencies and patterns within the …

The Study Of Computational Fluency, Cassandra Hart

Graduate Research Papers

Teachers, educators and researchers are still attempting to reach consensus on the kinds and amounts of computational fluency that are relevant for today's classroom. But one thing is certain, computational fluency is one of the most vital components of developing mathematical understanding. It is absolutely necessary that students have knowledge of basic number relationships and the ability to choose from a number of appropriate strategies. The question to be answered in this study is how can Computational Fluency strategies enhance student achievement in math and improve the current climate for learning? This study evaluated the implementation of the Computational Fluency …

The Role Of The Kindergarten : History, Concerns, And Guidelines For Developing An Effective Kindergarten Program, Amanda N. Herber

Graduate Research Papers

This literature review examined the recent literature on the subject of the role of today's kindergarten program. The age of the children, maturity level, attitude.and stress, and confidence were discussed. Guidelines were also presented for developing an effective kindergarten program. Conclusions were drawn from the current literature and recommendations were made for future kindergarten programs.

Components Of Inclusion, Jodi Janssen

Graduate Research Papers

As a special education teacher, I have always had a personal desire for inclusion to happen, and believed it could have benefits for all children of identified disabilities. After a recent transfer to a new school, the administration informed me I'd be teaching kindergarten with full inclusion for my special needs students. I was very excited about the prospect, but I was not armed with any solid information on how to approach a full inclusion model. As the school year progressed, my team and I forged ahead and I began researching what literature had to provide on the components needed …