Digital Commons Network^™

Classroom Strategies To Increase Kindergarten Readiness Of Preschool Ell Students, Cirissa Afonja

Dissertations, Theses, and Projects

Abstract

There are more preschool children in the United States who are English Language Learners than any other age group. This research examines the effects of providing modeling, visuals, and music strategies to English Language Learners in a preschool classroom to increase their literacy, language, and communication skills. The study’s goal was to determine if the specific classroom strategies would improve the participants English language, literacy and communication skills to be kindergarten ready with their same age English speaking peers. The study used language surveys and an assessment to determine which students were English Language Learners, and if they needed …

Fine-Grained Topic Models Using Anchor Words, Jeffrey A. Lund

Theses and Dissertations

Topic modeling is an effective tool for analyzing the thematic content of large collections of text. However, traditional probabilistic topic modeling is limited to a small number of topics (typically no more than hundreds). We introduce fine-grained topic models, which have large numbers of nuanced and specific topics. We demonstrate that fine-grained topic models enable use cases not currently possible with current topic modeling techniques, including an automatic cross-referencing task in which short passages of text are linked to other topically related passages. We do so by leveraging anchor methods, a recent class of topic model based on non-negative matrix …

Brief Of Amici Curiae Law Professors In Support Of Respondent Affluere Investments, Inc., Tenn. Wine & Spirits Retailers Ass'n V. Blair, No. 18-96 (U.S. Dec. 20, 2018)., Richard L. Aynes, James W. Ely Jr., Richard A. Epstein, Christopher R. Green, Ilya Somin, Rebecca E. Zietlow

Con Law Center Amicus Briefs

This case concerns whether a State may forbid United States citizens from plying a lawful trade based purely on the duration of their in-state residency. Tennessee law permits the retail sale of alcohol by anyone holding a state-issued retailer’s license. See Tenn. Code Ann. § 57-3-204. But the law restricts both the grant and renewal of such licenses based on the duration of an applicant’s Tennessee residency. See id. §§ 57-3-204(b)(2)(A), (3)(A)–(B), (3)(D). The Sixth Circuit held that those restrictions violate the negative (also known as the dormant) Commerce Clause and severed them from the rest of the statute. See …

How Can The University Library At Oslomet – Oslo Metropolitan University Become An Important Arena For Culture, Art And Debate?, Tone Berg Knudsen, Hege Skahjem

Proceedings of the IATUL Conferences

OsloMet acquired university status in 2018, and as a result, the Learning Centre and Library has become a University Library. An important social mission for the University Library is that it “shall contribute to the dissemination of results from Research and Development” (University and Higher Education Act §1-3). This also includes R&D in the creative and performing arts. OsloMet shall further “stimulate students and staff to participate in public debates” and “develop activities at an institutional level in order to strengthen engagement, unity and common identity among students and staff” (Strategy 2024).How can the University Library help achieve these goals? …

Quadcopters Or Linguistic Corpora – Establishing Rdm Services For Small-Scale Data Producers At Big Universities, Göran Hamrin, Viola Voß

Proceedings of the IATUL Conferences

During the IATUL Conference 2017, the authors had many productive exchanges about similari-ties and differences in Swedish and German higher-education libraries. Since research data management (RDM) is an emerging topic on both sides of the Baltic Sea, we find it valuable to compare strategies, services, and workflows to learn from each other’s practices. Aim: In this talk, we aim to compare the practices and needs of small-scale data producers in engineering and the humanities. In particular, we try to answer the following research questions: What kind of data do the small-scale data producers produce? What do these producers need in …

Supporting Research In A Digital World – Positioning The Library On Campus, Ewald Brahms

Proceedings of the IATUL Conferences

The digital world offers new opportunities for university libraries to support research and to position itself on campus. However, open access, open science, and further aspects of ‘openness’ necessitate strategic changes in order to ensure high-quality library services tailored to the customers’ needs. Establishing new partnerships, and developing shared initiatives on as well as off campus enable the library to manage new projects, improve its existing services, and also offer new services. Building on a convincing record of past performances Hildesheim University Library is able to undertake new tasks, and thus to position itself on campus as an innovative and …

Community-Based Literacy Learning Spaces As Counterhegemonic Figured Worlds For African American Readers, Melanie M. Acosta, Shaunté Duggins

Reading Horizons: A Journal of Literacy and Language Arts

Community-based literacy learning spaces are crucial to the enduring African American pursuit of literacy. This article reports findings from a study exploring the impact of a community-based literacy tutoring program for African American readers in grades 3-5. Findings also report on ways the community literacy site was similar to historic African American figured communities. Mixed methods analysis revealed significant improvements in decoding, and counternarratives that existed with the figured community cultivated by community volunteers. Taken together, both highlight the powerful role communities’ can play in promoting African American student success. Recommendations for community organizations, teacher educators, and literacy researchers are …

Probing The Promise Of Dual-Language Books, Lisa M. Domke

Reading Horizons: A Journal of Literacy and Language Arts

Because dual-language books (DLBs) are written entirely in two languages, they have the potential to help readers develop multilingual literacy skills while acting as cultural and/or linguistic windows and mirrors. However, the ways in which publishers choose words when translating, format languages, and represent cultures have implications for readers in terms of identity, readability, and language learning. This content analysis of 69 U.S. Spanish–English dual-language picturebooks published from 2013–2016 investigated trends in DLBs’ cultural, linguistic, formatting, and readability factors. It also determined these trends’ relationships with publisher types, original publication language, and author and character ethnicity. Findings include that publishers …

But Are They Actually Healthier? Challenging The Health/Wellness Divide Through The Ethnography Of Embodied Ecological Heritage, Kristina Baines

Publications and Research

A holistic definition of ‘health’ remains difficult to operationalize, despite decades of attempts by medical anthropologists and the World Health Organization to do so. Anthropologists routinely reject dichotomous notions – belief vs. knowledge, wellness vs. health, mental vs. physical, environment vs. self – yet demands for physiological evidence of ‘health’ persist. In this article, I ask what evidence would sufficiently demonstrate health, and explore the possibility of measures that move beyond the physiological. Using ethnographic data collected in indigenous Maya communities in Belize and in immigrant communities in New York City, I argue that ecological heritage practices can provide a …

Hands Off “My” Colors, Patterns, And Shapes! How Non-Traditional Trademarks Promote Standardization And May Negatively Impact Creativity And Innovation, Irene Calboli

Faculty Scholarship

This chapter criticizes the protection of non-traditional trademarks (NTTMs) by focusing on three specific examples from the fashion industry: Louboutin, Gucci, and Bottega Veneta. In particular, besides repeating that granting exclusive rights to NTTMs equates in foreclosing competitors and third parties from using any identical and similar product design and products feature, this chapter highlights an additional problem related to the protection of NTTMs. Notably, that, by recognizing and protecting as marks elements that are product design and aesthetic product features, protecting these marks supports a system of intellectual property protection that promotes standardization, rather than creativity and innovation, in …

Srels Journal Of Information Management: A Gender Analysis, Garima Bisaria, Dr.Babita Jaiswal

Library Philosophy and Practice (e-journal)

The SRELS Journal of Information Management has been playing vital role in the library and information science field since last fifty years. This paper presents the results of a bibliometric study of articles with a gender viewpoint from 2007-2017. The aim of the study is to examine the journal during the period 2007-2017 using bibliometric indicators with a gender perspective. The pattern of research output in 606 publications is analyzed in which 435(71.78%) articles are contributed by male authors and 171(28.21%) by female authors. The degree of collaboration in the publications of the journal is 0.66. Most of the articles …

2013 - Greater Monterey County Integrated Regional Water Management - Disadvantaged Community And Tribal Needs Assessment

Miscellaneous Monterey and San Luis Obispo County Documents and Reports

A 2013 Disadvantaged Community and Tribal Needs Assessment as they relate to water management in the Greater Monterey County Integrated Regional Water Management process in the planning region thus informing future project development.

Moral Philosophy: A Contemporary Introduction, Daniel R. Denicola

Gettysburg College Faculty Books

Moral Philosophy: A Contemporary Introduction is a compact yet comprehensive book offering an explication and critique of the major theories that have shaped philosophical ethics. Engaging with both historical and contemporary figures, this book explores the scope, limits, and requirements of morality. DeNicola traces our various attempts to ground morality: in nature, in religion, in culture, in social contracts, and in aspects of the human person such as reason, emotions, caring, and intuition.

2020 Census Faces Challenges In Rural America, William P. O'Hare

Carsey Publications

In this brief, author Bill O’Hare discusses how the 2020 Census will have ramifications for every person in the United States, urban and rural residents alike. Outlining the special challenges that will make some rural areas and populations difficult to enumerate accurately, he identifies rural areas where special outreach and operations will be needed to get a complete and accurate count. He reports that though the rural population is generally easier to count than the urban population, several places and populations in rural areas will be difficult to enumerate accurately in the 2020 Census. They include: blacks in the rural …

Um Educators Fostering Cuban Educational Collaboration, Edwin B. Smith

University of Mississippi News

Six faculty members are applying principles, information gathered and shared during recent conference

Doctoral‐Level Counseling Students’ Experiences Of Social Class Microaggressions, Caroline O'Hara, Jennifer M. Cook

College of Education Faculty Research and Publications

The authors recruited 11 doctoral‐level counseling students to participate in a study exploring the lived experiences of people who have encountered social class microaggressions (SCMs). Findings (consisting of 6 themes) suggest that SCMs are a distinct phenomenon arising from interpersonal and environmental exchanges that damage recipients. The authors present implications for counselor education and future research trajectories.

A Multicultural Approach To Digital Information Literacy Skills Evaluation In An Israeli College, Efrat Pieterse, Riki Greenberg, Zahava Santo

Communications in Information Literacy

Information literacy is an essential proficiency for success in academic studies, yet many first-year students find it hard to use information sources efficiently and to develop academic information literacy. This study reports findings from first-year students' self-estimation of their information skills according to two information literacy models (Shapiro & Hughes, 1996; Ng, 2012) and presents interesting insights on the differences between the multicultural and multilingual student groups in the study’s population. The researchers found that Hebrew-native speaking students preferred digital sources while Hebrew as second language (Arabic-speaking) students preferred printed sources, and both groups ranked their technological and information literacy …

Narrating The Collapse: The Use And Limits Of A Phenomenology Of Depression, James Bodington

Philosophy ETDs

This project is an attempt to apply certain of the insights of phenomenological philosophy to the analysis of the lived experience of depression. I argue that the centering of experience in phenomenology can, and should, motivate its use in the context of the philosophical analysis of mental health, and may contribute to therapeutic aims as well. While this has been remarked upon in recent and current literature, this project motivates, engages with, augments, and challenges existing philosophical approaches to mental health and depression. I begin by surveying the existing literature, and bringing the critiques of classical phenomenology suggested by Guenther’s …

Fighting For Their Lives: Why The Marginalized Irish From The 1840s-1910 Dominated American Prizefighting, Owen Marshall

Honors Program Theses and Projects

One of the most recognizable figures in the world during his lifetime, heavyweight boxing champion Muhammad Ali, previously Cassius Clay and Cassius X, put his self-esteem on display with the simple declaration “I am the greatest.” This was a phrase he told himself long before he truly was the greatest, but he proved it to the world in 1964 when he defeated defending champion Sonny Liston. Upon knocking out his dangerous, violent, and cheating opponent, Ali whipped himself into a frenzy, as onlookers saw him fall over the ropes, scream at the ringside reporters who had previously doubted him, and …

A Teacher's Role In Feedback And Instructional Conversations In A Kindergarten Ela Classroom, Emerie Fairbanks

Education

This teacher action research examines the role of the teacher and the use of feedback to support kindergarten students' language development. This study provides three emergent categories: A) Corrective feedback provided by the teacher with and without the option of the correct form of students' utterance. B) Student provided feedback: self-correction (no teacher influence) or correcting a classmate. C) Extending the conversation through teacher prompting and students collaborating in the meaning-making process. The findings showed providing feedback was beneficial to students' language development. The findings in this research study can be used to inform educators interested in the role feedback …

Haa LéElk'w HáS Ji.Eetí, Our Grandparents' Art: A Study Of Master Tlingit Artists, 1750-1989, Zachary R. Jones

Anthropology

This dissertation examines the lives and creations of twenty-three master Tlingit artists that practiced in Southeast Alaska between 1750 and 1989. Biographical examination of master Tlingit artists showcases how artists created sacred art objects, known as at.óow, which play a central role in the social and spiritual life of the Tlingit people. Historic Tlingit artists came from the aanyádi, the aristocratic class, and were tasked with the responsibility of not only creating sacred art, but also serving as community leaders and exemplifying Tlingit values throughout their lives. The study of Tlingit artists and their creations also sheds light on objects …

I See What You Meant To Say: Anticipating Speech Errors During Online Sentence Processing, Matthew W. Lowder, Fernanda Ferreira

Psychology Faculty Publications

Everyday speech is rife with errors and disfluencies, yet processing what we hear usually feels effortless. How does the language comprehension system accomplish such an impressive feat? The current experiment tests the hypothesis that listeners draw on relevant contextual and linguistic cues to anticipate speech errors and mentally correct them even before receiving an explicit correction from the speaker. In the current visual-world eye-tracking experiment, we monitored participants’ eye movements to objects in a display while they listened to utterances containing reparandum-repair speech errors (e.g., …his cat, uh I mean his dog…). The contextual plausibility of the misspoken …

Integrating Comprehension Instruction, Multimodalities And Co-Construction Into Cultural Learning, Christine Harrington

Education

This study explores the impact of a story-based approach to teaching reading strategies, and examines the implementation of and co-construction within multimodal activities. Eight third grade students participated in this study in a charter school focused on Alaska Native cultural learning. The phases of the PACE Model focused on transitional words and phrases in the context of a traditional story from the Tlingit, Haida, and Tsimshian cultures of Alaska. Their attention to the language feature was extended to summarizing and retelling as part of the Extension phase of the model. The results are consistent with previous studies that attributed focus …

Sailing Through Ethnographic Data Collection On A Hospital Ship, Sonja Dawson, Debra Jackson, Doug Elliott

International Nursing Research Congress (INRC)

This is a reflection on the experiences of data collection by the researcher positioned as a participant observer whilst conducting an ethnographic study of nurses volunteering in an international humanitarian context on a hospital ship.

Being Black And Depressed Double Sucks, Stephanie C. Jones

Student Theses and Dissertations

This paper investigates the ways race and racism mediate perceptions and experiences of depression among young Black Americans living in the New York metropolitan area. Based on 25 in-depth interviews with Black Americans between the ages of 18-28, the research shows that the Black identity exacerbates suffering for participants because it fundamentally changes how depression is lived, felt, and navigated. This study extends research about the lack of cultural competence among American health professionals, stigma surrounding mental illnesses among the Black American community, and the effects of the systematic dehumanization of Black bodies in American society.

Mindful Practices To Interrupt White Supremacy In Higher Education: Opportunities For Educators In Service Learning And Community Engagement, Jennifer F. Steinfeld

Mindfulness Studies Theses

This thesis proposes reflective practices for educators to interrupt white supremacy in higher education service learning programs. It is relevant today as higher education institutions look more closely at their history, often upholding or benefiting from slavery, racism, indigenous removal, and other forms of race-based exploitation. Other work on this topic demonstrates the power of reflectivity and mindfulness practices in reducing the impact of racial biases. The heart of this creative thesis is a research-based curriculum for a learning community of educators to develop capacity to incorporate reflectivity, meditation, and liberatory pedagogies into their classrooms. This curriculum is designed for …

Usage Statistics: Project Counter R4 Book Report 2 (Br2) By Platform 2017-2018, Andrée Rathemacher

Technical Services Reports and Statistics

Project COUNTER R4 Book Report 2 (BR2) for the University of Rhode Island for the period from July 1, 2017 - June 30, 2018. Book Report 2 is defined as "Number of Successful Section Requests by Month and Title." This report presents an annual total only, by platform.

File for download is Excel spreadsheet generated by Alma Analytics.

Results: 104,151 successful section requests for 73 reported platforms.

Usage Statistics: Project Counter R4 Book Report 1 (Br1) By Title 2017-2018, Andrée Rathemacher

Technical Services Reports and Statistics

Project COUNTER R4 Book Report 1 (BR1) for the University of Rhode Island for the period from July 1, 2017 - June 30, 2018. Book Report 1 is defined as "Number of Successful Title Requests by Month and Title." This report presents an annual total only.

File for download is Excel spreadsheet generated by Alma Analytics.

Results: 407 title requests from 316 titles.

The Plot Thickens : Illustrated Victorian Serial Fiction From Dickens To Du Maurier, Mary Elizabeth Leighton, Lisa Surridge

Ohio University Press Open Access Books

In the early 1800s, books were largely unillustrated. By the 1830s and 1840s, however, innovations in wood- and steel-engraving techniques changed how Victorian readers consumed and conceptualized fiction. A new type of novel was born, often published in serial form, one that melded text and image as partners in meaning-making.

These illustrated serial novels offered Victorians a reading experience that was both verbal and visual, based on complex effects of flash-forward and flashback as the placement of illustrations revealed or recalled significant story elements. Victorians’ experience of what are now canonical novels thus differed markedly from that of modern readers, …

Bounded Rationality, Paternalism, And Trademark Law, Stacey Dogan

Faculty Scholarship

We don’t need behavioral economics to understand that trade marks can shape consumer preferences in ways that have little to do with objectively measurable differences in product quality. Scholars, judges, economists, and policymakers have long recognized the tendency of strong marks to skew consumer decisions. The concern lies not only in price effects but with the allocative effects of encouraging investment in persuasive advertising, rather than product innovation or similar “productive” pursuits. While informative advertising can benefit consumers, advertising that creates artificial brand-based differences between otherwise identical products appears not only costly to consumers but also socially wasteful.

This Essay …