Digital Commons Network^™

Building Bridges: A Comparative Study Of Women Working In The Construction Industry In India And The Us, Susan Moir Scd

Labor Resource Center Publications

In January 2017, a delegation of women construction workers and advocates from the United States will visit India to meet with labour and civic leaders and share stories and experiences with women working in India’s construction industry. The goal of the delegation is to lay a foundation for an international network by and for women construction workers. This article describes the history and background of the delegation and its purpose.

Avengers Assemble...In Therapy: An Exploration Of Superheroes And Their Trauma, Megan R. Butler

Capstone Projects and Master's Theses

Superheroes are more than just their superhero abilities. They are representations of individual and societal traumas experienced by many in our universe. By studying superheroes we may critically develop new methods of therapy to aid in the healing process to traumatic experiences. Through this, individuals may find their own superpower and aid others in the discovery of theirs.

The Benefits Of Outdoor Education Curriculum For Elementary School Students With Nature Deficit Disorder, Madison L. Allen

Capstone Projects and Master's Theses

The benefits of implementing outdoor education curriculum and outdoor learning into the state standards are plentiful, and the consequences of children who do not get the exposure to outdoor learning and activity can be severe. Nature deficit disorder is a term coined by Louv (2008) in his book Last child in the woods describing a child with little to no contact to nature and the outside world around them. Louv (2008) made connections to behavioral and developmental disorders that may have to do with the lack of outdoor exposure in the child’s life. There are countless advantages to implementing outdoor …

Benefits Of Therapeutic Recreation For Young Adults With Special Needs, Summer L. Esseff

Capstone Projects and Master's Theses

There are many benefits of therapeutic recreations; however, due to the lack of knowledge about the organizations and services available, many young adults with special needs are not able to fully participate within the community. The purpose of this project is to discover those benefits specifically for people who have special needs. Through a vast literature review and several interviews among local therapeutic recreation organizations, the findings indicate that therapeutic recreation provide many benefits that contribute to a person's physical, social, and all around quality of life and well-being.

Past, Present, Future: How Time Affects Identity, Keith Maus

Capstone Projects and Master's Theses

My project will be the creative option. I decided to use both poetry and short stories. Last semester I took creative writing and it really struck a chord with me. I find it and these tools to be an extremely valuable way to analyze oneself. Each story or poem will focus on my own self-identity and development by looking at my past, at myself today, and myself in the future.

Lgbt Client Satisfaction At A University-Associated Primary Care Center, Christopher M. Bouma

Doctoral Projects

Sexual minority individuals are a vulnerable population. Historically this has led to worse access to care and worse health outcomes compared to heterosexual individuals; this can be addressed through changes to practice. Patient satisfaction has also been a health care focus in recent years for all patients. This project examined patient satisfaction in a small university-associated primary care center and compared patient satisfaction scores for sexual minorities to heterosexual respondents. This was conducted after a series of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) educational initiatives with center staff. A total of 73 individuals chose to participate. Most individuals were highly …

Risk Assessment And Research Synthesis Methodologies In Food Safety: Two Effective Tools To Provide Scientific Evidence Into The Decision Making Process, Juan E. Ortuzar

Department of Food Science and Technology: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

The food supply chain is a complex and diverse system. Some food products need minimum processing to reach the consumers, while others involve several different processes, countries and suppliers, can take several months to be on the table of the end consumer. Regarding food safety, the public health of consumers is at stake and the consequences of outbreaks could prove disastrous. This has been recognized as a matter of global importance for the food industry and authorities around the world since several efforts to improve quality, safety and trade of food have arisen since the early 1960s. The birth of …

Connecting Mothers And Infants In The Nicu, O.N. Lloyd

Honors Capstones

When one thinks of the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU), technical skills and electronic monitoring are often considered the most important. While this may be appropriate when considering the maternal-infant experience in the NICU from a medical perspective, it is far from the case from the nursing perspective. As nurses, it is our responsibility and duty to care holistically for our patients’ being, which includes their mental and emotional strength as well as their physical and medical needs. In the context of mothers and babies, this means doing everything in nurse’s power to promote the maternal-infant bond. While this may …

Exploring Factors Influencing Grade-Level Reading Proficiency Among The Hearing Impaired Learners: A Case Of A Public Primary School In Kiambu County, Kenya, Kuria Jennifer Wanjiru

Master of Education

In primary school, learners should read to grade level, synthesize, explain and analyze what they read for them to be called proficient readers. Yet, according to the US National deaf children's society, 20% of HI learners leave primary school with a reading level at or below second grade. This denies them the opportunity to acquire knowledge and skills because academic content is transmitted through text as they pass through grade levels. Subsequently, they may not benefit from learning and participate fully in public and economic life. In Kenya, a number of studies address reading to grade-level proficiency based on observations …

Exploring How The Use Of Pedagogy Of Play Enhances Children’S Learning: A Case Study Of Two Pre-Primary Schools In Stesheni, Nachingwea, Athman Hassan Mushi

Master of Education

Play and children’s learning are the two things that cannot be separated, as play appears to be children’s work and the most comfort and preferable activity to children. This means for children to easily capture and learn new concepts, they need to be exposed and assisted through playful learning activities. Thus teachers and parents are required to use children’s initiated plays to support and facilitate their easily concept understanding and construction. Therefore, the use of play in early childhood learning is unavoidable phenomenon for easily children’s social, cognitive, and emotional developments Educationists, parents, and administrators have appreciations and therefore, acknowledge …

Exploring Performance Based Assessment Task Development Practices Of Tutors: A Case Of A Technical And Vocational Education And Training Institute In Coastal Kenya, Gertrude Kiloko Musyoka

Master of Education

Assessment of student learning is an integral part of teaching and learning. Performance based assessments (PBA) is a common form of assessments used in TVET institutions to assess skill competencies of the trainees. These skills cannot be effectively assessed using traditional paper and pencil tests. Literature shows that PBA should be well designed so as to give accurate feedback that can be used to make valid judgments on TVET trainees‟ performance in relation to acquisition of skills for employability. There are guidelines that should be followed in order to develop quality PBA tasks that can assess skills effectively. This is …

Experiences Of Hearing Impaired Learners In Assessment, Jenniffer Jeptepkeny

Master of Education

This study sought to find out the experiences of HI leaners in assessment.The HI students are those whose ability to hear and subsequently engage in conversation is severely compromised by their inability to hear. As part of the governments‟ agenda to provide free education to all children the HI students have been admitted in inclusive schools. However, they face many challenges and opportunities in their quest for an education and more specifically when engaging with assessment activities. Assessment activities are crucial to learning as they give insight into the extent of which the student has learnt. This study sought to …

Exploring Community Primary Teachers’ Experiences In The Generalist Based Teaching Subject Allocations. The Case Of Two Schools In Newala Urban, Ahmad Awadh Mussa

Master of Education

The approaches to allocating subjects to primary school teachers in Tanzania have been affected with the changes in the systems of instruction between the generalist and specialist systems. While the prevailing approach to subject allocations is based in the generalist system, the presence of both specialist and generalist teachers in schools have made those teachers experience varying associated feelings, challenges, and ways to address those challenges. This study explores these experiences of teachers by first creating an understanding, strengths and weaknesses of each system before examining teachers’ views regarding the more ideal approach to subject allocations. Data was collected using …

Learners‟ Conceptual Understanding And Misconceptions Of Fractions In Primary Schools In Amuria District Local Government, Uganda, Erumu Simon Peter

Master of Education

Fractions are a core part of the mathematics curriculum, important in their own right and also as a building block to more advanced topics. There is clear evidence, however, that the teaching and learning of fractions pose a challenge to many teachers and learners in primary schools the world over, with a number of common misconceptions resulting in persistent errors in learners‟ work. If these errors are not addressed at their early stages, it becomes a challenge to address them. In this study a sample of 20 Ugandan primary 5 and 6 children were given 7 additional lessons on fractions …

The Readiness Of Rural Government Secondary Schools In Uganda To Teach Information And Communication Technology (Ict) As A Dedicated Subject On The Curriculum: A Case Study Of Two Schools In Yumbe District, Baiga Solomon

Master of Education

This study sought to establish the readiness of two rural government secondary schools in Uganda to teach Information and Communication Technology (ICT) as a dedicated subject on the curriculum as part of the effort to equip the students with the necessary skills necessary for them to be able to access the benefits of ICTs both for enhancing their education and also for enabling them to fit and work successfully in an increasingly ICT- driven world. This qualitative study involved two schools in the rural district of Yumbe, in West Nile, Northern Uganda. The findings of this study suggest that schools …

Exploration Of Students‟ Perceptions On The Teaching Strategies In The Chemistry Classroom: A Case Study Of One Public Secondary School In Jinja District- Uganda, Ajiga Swale Kelili

Master of Education

Chemistry is a crucial subject in the school curriculum, equipping future citizens with crucial knowledge and understanding, both in the world of work and in everyday life. Against this, literature can be found indicating that chemistry is considered to be a difficult and remote subject, hierarchical in nature, using notation which is not readily understood. The current study sought to explore students‟ perceptions on teaching strategies in the chemistry classroom, and was conducted in one rural public secondary school in Jinja District, Uganda. 100 senior 3 students completed a questionnaire asking their perceptions as to what teaching methods get used …

Exploring The Efficacy Of School And Community Based Literacy Intervention Programmes: A Case Of Literacy Development And Learning Outcomes In Low Resource Environments, Anyanzo John Philip

Master of Education

Literacy is perceived as a crucial tool for acquiring a wide range of learning skills and acts as an inducement for everyday life and life-long learning. Besides, literacy is one of the pillars that support individual and societal development as well as playing key role in poverty reduction. As such, this study explored the factors influencing the efficacy of school and community based literacy intervention programmes in context of literacy development, and learning outcomes in low resource communities. The study was conducted in two public primary schools, and two community literacy intervention centres, in Koboko district, Uganda. The study used …

Commencement Program, December (2016), Minnesota State University Moorhead

Commencement Programs

No abstract provided.

A Balancing Equation For Social Media Publication Notice, Philip P. Ehrlich

University of Chicago Law Review

No abstract provided.

2016-12-01 Faculty Senate Newsletter, Morehead State University. Faculty Senate.

Faculty Senate Records

Faculty Senate newsletter for December 1, 2016.

Multi-Robot Task Allocation Using Agglomerative Clustering, Maria Shoaib

Theses

The main objective of this thesis is to solve the problem of balancing tasks in the Multi-robot Task Allocation problem domain. When allocating a large number of tasks to a multi-robot system, it is important to balance the load effectively across the robots in the system. In this thesis an algorithm is proposed in which tasks are allocated through clustering, investigating the effectiveness of agglomerative hierarchical clustering as compared to K-means clustering. Once the tasks are clustered, each agent claims a cluster through a greedy self-assignment. This thesis investigates the performance both when all tasks are known ahead of time …

Reconfigurable Model For Risc Processors, Thiago Pinheiro Felix Da Silva E Lima

Theses

The instruction set of a processor is embodied in the particular micro-architecture representing the processor hardware. Verifying proper operation of the instruction set for a particular processor hardware implementation requires exhaustive testing to expose unknown dependencies and other elusive design flaws. This paper presents the research and development of a flexible micro-architectural model written in SystemC for a RISC processor based upon a user defined configuration database; the RISC processor is based on an architecture assigned in course Design of Computer Systems (DCS) offered at Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT). This model will be tested by a test bench written …

Directly Comparing Handoff Protocols For Pediatric Hospitalists., Elizabeth H. Lazzara, Robert Riss, Brady Patzer, Dustin C. Smith, Y Raymond Chan, Joseph R. Keebler, Sarah D. Fouquet, Evan M. Palmer

Manuscripts, Articles, Book Chapters and Other Papers

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES: Handoff protocols are often developed by brainstorming and consensus, and few are directly compared. We hypothesized that a handoff protocol (Flex 11) developed using a rigorous methodology would be more favorable in terms of clinicians' attitudes, behaviors, cognitions, or time-on-task when performing handoffs compared with a prevalent protocol (Situation Background Assessment Recommendation [SBAR]).

METHODS: Using a between-groups, randomized control trial design (Flex 11 versus SBAR) during a pilot study in a simulated environment, 20 clinicians (13 attending physicians and 7 residents) received 3 patient handoffs from a standardized physician, managed the patients, and handed off the patients …

Being A Scholar In The Digital Era: Transforming Scholarly Practice For The Public Good, Polly Thistlethwaite, Jessie Daniels

Publications and Research

What opportunities do digital technologies present scholars? How do developments in digital media support scholarship and teaching, and how can academics apply them to further social justice activism? The authors, a sociologist and a librarian, examine scholarly practice in the digital era to explore how academics, journalists, and activists can combine efforts to support social justice issues. With scholarly communication undergoing rapid change, and with digital innovation applied in higher education for many reasons, authors outline what scholars can do to channel their work to benefit the public good.

Redefining A Special Education Alternative High School Program To Make Students College And Career Ready: A Change Leadership Plan, Janine E. Gruhn

Dissertations

The change leadership plan examines redefining college and career readiness for students in alternative programs. We know from research that all students need to have the necessary skills to be ready for post-secondary employment or to attend colleges; however, students attending a special education alternative program were not successfully transitioning back to their high school and tended to stay in the district’s program until graduation (Gruhn, 2016). Therefore, this change leadership plan used Wagner’s (2006) 4 C’s framework to examine the areas of context, culture, conditions and competencies. Focusing on 10 practices of college of career and college readiness (Brand …

Modifying Board Policy On Attendance For Alternative High School Students: A Policy Advocacy Document, Janine E. Gruhn

Dissertations

This proposed policy advocates for students in alternative high school programs to have flexible school day schedules according to Illinois State Board of Education compulsory attendance laws. Students in alternative high school programs are often referred for chronic truancy. Most school board policies state that all students need to attend school for the entire 300 minutes of the instructional day because when students do not attend for a full day or a half-day (150 minutes) the district is penalized in the amount of general state aid. This is all too often the case with students enrolled in a district’s high …

Advocating For Standards-Based Grading In A Suburban School District: A Policy Advocacy Document, Cody Huisman

Dissertations

This document focuses on a vision for “what ought to be,” in this case, a new grading system in a suburban district. The document takes the reader through numerous aspects of advocating for district-wide policy change. The vision for a new grading system is evaluated from several perspectives, such as: educational, economic, social, political, and moral, and ethical. Using publications and research from numerous practitioners, it was determined that a change to standards-based grading is the right decision for this district. This policy advocacy document shows the reader how to work through policy change from the beginning to the end, …

Going 1:1- Writing Policy To Support The 21st Century Student: A Policy Advocacy Document, Tracey K. Landry

Dissertations

In an effort to prepare its graduates with the 21^st century skills of problem solving, collaboration, technology savvy, creativity, and information literacy and to close the learning gaps between students who have access to technology and those who don’t, this study proposes that District 123 create a policy to support a 1:1 Chromebook initiative. Using Browder’s needs analysis model, the impact of a 1:1 program is analyzed through the educational, social, political, economic and moral frames (Browder, 1995). It is determined that a 1:1 program can transform teaching and learning by giving equal access to technology, by incorporating student-driven …

Block Scheduling For The 21st Century High School: A Change Leadership Plan, Tracey K. Landry

Dissertations

The needs of 21st Century learners require an overhaul in the way classroom instruction is organized and delivered. This Change Plan outlines how and why high schools may consider modifying the bell schedule to support needed change. The current high school structure was developed at the turn of the 20th Century, over 100 years ago, when the world was much smaller, and the vast majority of students did not go on to college or need advanced coursework to enter and compete in the workforce. Yet, this late 19th century concept is still the basic organizing structure of our modern day …

Perceptions Of The Effects Of Homework On Student Achievement At A Suburban Middle School: A Program Evaluation, Cody Huisman

Dissertations

The purpose of this program evaluation was to gain a clear understanding of how homework supports or deters the achievement of students, specifically the overall grade a student attains. This document details how students and teachers at a suburban Middle School perceive homework and its effect on student learning. The findings were that many students received failing grades in classes, primarily due to missing homework. The program evaluation used mixed methodology. Using survey and focus group results in conjunction with current literature, the conclusion revealed a need for homework policies that would support student learning without punishing students’ grades. Students …