Digital Commons Network^™

Introduction To The Special Issue: Emergency Remote Teaching, Online Instruction, And The Community: Lessons From The Covid-19 Crisis In Language Education, Liudmila Klimanova, Jason Merrill, Shannon Donnally Spasova

Russian Language Journal

The COVID-19 crisis took all of us by surprise. Universities and schools, in unprecedented fashion, quickly began to move instruction online. In some universities, the switch to online instruction coincided with spring breaks, allowing instructors a brief period for hurried preparation, whereas other colleagues had only a few hours’ warning. In any case, few educators had previous experience with online instruction, so most were suddenly asked to teach in a completely new way. Despite these new challenges and the isolation necessitated by COVID-19, the language teaching community, in addition to adapting or creating courses for online delivery, was quick to …

To Opi Or Not To Opi: Proficiency-Oriented Instruction And Assessment In U.S. University-Level Russian Programs, Oleksandra Wallo, Molly Godwin-Jones

Russian Language Journal

Back in 1991, Thompson claimed that the impact of the proficiency movement on how Russian was taught in the United States had resulted in something more akin to Soviet glasnost rather than perestroika. She meant that while the introduction of ACTFL Proficiency Guidelines and an emphasis on functional ability in a foreign language spurred much discussion in the Russian teaching profession in the 1980s, these developments did not lead to “the actual restructuring of curricula and assessment along functional lines” (375). Thompson mentioned several obstacles to the adoption of the proficiency-based approach for Russian teaching at that time, including …

From Error Annotation To Quantitative Analysis: Patterns In Russian Language Learning, Irina Kor Chahine, Ekaterina Uetova

Russian Language Journal

Although learner corpus research has been progressively growing into an independent branch of corpus linguistics, the learner corpus cannot yet fully benefit from corpus analysis methods. This is due to several technical obstacles involving data collection, error annotation, and finally, data processing. When it comes to data collection, compared to corpus linguistics, learner corpus is biased because some of the learner corpora are still collected manually: Optical character recognition (OCR) is not yet sophisticated enough to transform a student’s handwritten copy to a digitized text. This fact significantly slows the collection of learner corpora. Furthermore, typed students’ texts present another …

Lives In Musicology: My Life In Writings, Kofi Agawu

Publications and Research

Responding to an invitation from the editors of Acta Musicologica to tell the story of his life in musicology, Kofi Agawu describes his upbringing and early education in Ghana and his university studies in the UK and the US. In a career focused on teaching, research, and writing, he outlines a number of intellectual projects involving the analysis of African and European music. He ends by acknowledging renewed discussions of race and identity in the musical academy today, and hints at his own growing interest in African art music.

Development Of An Unorthodox Support Model To Mentor Undocumented Immigrant Students, Keisha Chin Goosby

Journal of College Access

This article addresses the need to better understand impactful mentoring models for undocumented immigrant students (UIS). Based on interviews of 18 mentors of UIS who were college graduates, findings include diverse effective mentoring models, specific mentoring styles and strategies, how mentors identified and leveraged the community cultural wealth of UIS, and the forms of support that mentors used which highlight an unorthodox approach to mentoring UIS. A new model for mentoring UIS is presented with a framework on how to engage in new research. Recommendations are provided for schools, districts, colleges, and universities.

Policy And Practice Brief 6: Considerations For Using Access Test Scores In Decision-Making, Carolyn N. Waters, Merc English Learner Research & Evaluation Team, Virginia Commonwealth University

MERC Publications

Since the implementation of The No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 (NCLB), all students identified as English learners (ELs) in U.S. public schools have been required to take an annual assessment of English language proficiency (ELP) for federal accountability. Virginia and many other state education agencies (SEAs) use the WIDA ACCESS for ELLs© test (ACCESS), not only to comply with this mandate, but also to inform a variety of high-stakes decisions for EL instruction, such as determining when multilingual learners have reached English proficiency, deciding about Language Instruction Educational Program (LIEP) entry and exit, informing classroom instruction and assessment, …

The Bible In The Millennial Star And The Woman’S Exponent, Amy Easton-Flake

BYU Studies

Despite the gradual erosion of the Bible’s significance in American consciousness after the Civil War, the Bible remained “the most imported, most printed, most distributed, and most read written text in North America up through the nineteenth century.”1 The Bible’s authority was not static but was continuously established as individuals and the nation turned to it for direction on living a Christian life as well as for the answers to religious, social, and political issues.2 For most members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints throughout the nineteenth century, the Bible likewise remained their primary religious text even …

Order Of Operations In Sociophonetic Data Analysis, Joseph A. Stanley

Faculty Publications

It’s difficult to say objectively whether a vowel is shifted:

• Relationship to other vowels (which may also be shifting)
• Benchmarks don’t work because of normalization and dialect differences

Compare to ANAE Benchmarks:

More processing involved:

• remove stopwords
• remove outliers
• remove diphthongs
• remove presonorants
• isolating midpoints
• specific normalization procedure
• remove unstressed vowels

Seven steps = 5040 combinations

What Can Vowel Formant Trajectories Tell Us About Language Change?, Joseph A. Stanley

Faculty Publications

Recent Developments

Easier to extract trajectory data:

• FAVE is good, but only returns 5 points, English-only
• Fast Track has more gradience, cleaner, any language.

Easier to analyze trajectory data:

• Generalized additive mixed effects models
• "Difference smooths” can tells us where along the trajectory we see statistical significance between two curves.

We can analyze the trajectories themselves , rather than properties about them.

Overview

Vowel shifts may involve changes in trajectory:

• Data: sociolinguistic interviews in Cowlitz County
• Phenomenon: The “Elsewhere Shift”

Vowel shift might night involve changes in trajectory:

• Data: Legacy linguistic atlas interviews in the South
• Phenomenon: Southern Vowel Shift …

Aviation English Assessment And Training, Robert Fowler, Elizabeth Mathews, Jena Lynch, Jennifer Roberts M.A.

Publications

Due to a significant global increase in demand for air travel, there has been a corresponding increase in demand for ab initio flight training. Thousands of international flight students seek admission to collegiate aviation programs in the United States and Canada every year. These international flight students come to the United States and Canada because flight training is nonexistent in their native countries. In fact, flight training in most of these countries is impossible due to airspace restrictions and onerous regulations. If there is flight training available in these countries, the cost is usually prohibitive compared to the cost in …

An Exploration Of Teacher Residents’ Perception Of Culture And Their Use Of Culturally Responsive Pedagogy, Jodi Larson

Theses and Dissertations

Urban teacher residency (UTR) programs place residents in urban schools labeled “hard-to-staff” or “under-resourced.” Enrollment in residency schools tends to be majority Brown or Black students from various cultures. Teacher residents are from diverse backgrounds and races who have a commitment to teach in Title 1 schools with the support of a residency program that coaches them how to teach using culturally relevant pedagogy. Their journeys are unique from typical student teaching experiences because they co-teach with an experienced teacher for a full school year while attending university classes on pedagogy and theory. This qualitative case study followed seven elementary …

Yolkkh: The Story Of My People, Amna Zelimkha Yandarbin

Theses and Dissertations

The name of my project is: Yolkkh, The Story of My People. With this project I present a series of scarves each one bearing an illustrated scene in order to tell a story – my story and the story of the Noxci people. Noxci are the people who are referred to as “Chechens” by Russians and are generally known by that title. As a Muslim, I have witnessed the way Western media tend to dehumanize my community. In order to contrast this dehumanizing process, I thought that telling the story of my family would help reverse Islamophobic tendencies and raise …

Reclamancipation: A Story Of Brilliance, Resilience, And Transilience, Nia A. Campbell

Theses and Dissertations

The experiences of African American women are composed of more than the maltreatment that often exclusively defines them. Oppression and celebration intermingle to define the identities of African American women, and this thesis proposes a method to understand this reality through an exchange of stories in the form of a customizable board game. The game educates those inside and outside the African American women’s community by encouraging the emancipation of self, decolonization of society, and formation of empathy. This thesis embraces intersectional feminism, womanism, and linguistic descriptivism. The research is informed by personal narratives of African American women ages 23-71 …

Inclusive Academic Education & Vocationally-Oriented Transition Predictors’ Association With Post-Secondary Outcomes Of Youth With Intellectual And Developmental Disabilities, Joshua P. Taylor

Theses and Dissertations

Despite efforts through legislation to increase the engagement of individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD) in competitive integrated employment (CIE) and post-secondary education, outcomes remain poor. However, recent policy has emphasized CIE as a preferred outcome and created new opportunities to engage individuals with IDD in post-secondary education. Likewise, research into the transition of youth with disabilities has revealed several predictors of post-school success including inclusive education and a variety of vocationally-oriented experiences. Previous research had not determined whether students with IDD received both inclusive academic education and vocational transition experiences or how these predictors might interact. The purpose …

Earth Tone Sigh Spell, Martha Glenn

Theses and Dissertations

A written accompaniment to the artist’s thesis exhibition titled Earth Tone Sigh Spell, conceived during the years 2020-21 and installed at The Anderson Gallery, Richmond from May 1–15, 2021.

The following thesis explores themes of personal memory, geo-theory, myth, symbol, and historical event. The artist uses research and stream of consciousness writing methods as a way to weave these concepts together and tie them back to her own practice with installation, sculpture, and new media.

On The Domestication Of Critical Legal History, Justin Deystone, Samuel Moyn

Publications

Among many of today’s legal historians, there is a relatively new and generally unreflective understanding of the relationship between history and method. The landscape is everywhere marked by a tendency to eschew big thinking, grand theory, and programmatic approaches to historical explanation and social transformation. In the place of the grand theory approach to law and history, there is a preference for the minimalist, the pragmatic, the particularistic, and the quotidian. What this normal science of today’s legal historiography makes obvious is a kind of attachment to particular kinds of problems with particular sorts of built-in solutions. The result for …

A Grammar Of Legal Thought, Derek H. Kiernan-Johnson

Publications

No abstract provided.

Scite: A Smart Citation Index That Displays The Context Of Citations And Classifies Their Intent Using Deep Learning, Josh M. Nicholson, Milo Mordaunt, Patrice Lopez, Ashish Uppala, Domenic Rosati, Neves P. Rodrigues, Peter Grabitz, Sean C. Rife

Copyright, Fair Use, Scholarly Communication, etc.

Citation indices are tools used by the academic community for research and research evaluation that aggregate scientific literature output and measure impact by collating citation counts. Citation indices help measure the interconnections between scientific papers but fall short because they fail to communicate contextual information about a citation. The use of citations in research evaluation without consideration of context can be problematic because a citation that presents contrasting evidence to a paper is treated the same as a citation that presents supporting evidence. To solve this problem, we have used machine learning, traditional document ingestion methods, and a network of …

Race-Conscious Jury Selection, Anna Offit

Faculty Publications

Among the central issues in scholarship on the American jury is the effect of Batson v. Kentucky (1986) on discriminatory empanelment. Empirical legal research has confirmed that despite the promise of the Batson doctrine, both peremptory strikes and challenges for cause remain tools of racial exclusion. But these studies, based on post facto interviews, transcript analysis, and quantitative methods offer little insight into Batson’s critical impact on real-time decision-making and strategy in voir dire. If we increasingly know what kinds of juries are produced in the post-Batson world, we know very little about how they are produced.

This …

Reevaluating Legal Theory, Jeffrey A. Pojanowski

Journal Articles

Must a good general theory of law incorporate what is good for persons in general? This question has been at the center of methodological debates in general jurisprudence for decades. Answering “no,” Julie Dickson’s book Evaluation and Legal Theory offered both a clear and concise conspectus of positivist methodology, as well as a response to the longstanding objection that such an approach has to evaluate the data it studies rather than simply describe facts about legal systems. She agreed that legal positivism must evaluate. At the same time, she argued, it is possible to offer an evaluative theory of the …

The Mischief Rule, Samuel L. Bray

Journal Articles

The mischief rule tells an interpreter to read a statute in light of the “mischief” or “evil”—the problem that prompted the statute. The mischief rule has been associated with Blackstone’s appeal to a statute’s “reason and spirit” and with Hart-and-Sacks-style purposivism. Justice Scalia rejected the mischief rule. But the rule is widely misunderstood, both by those inclined to love it and those inclined to hate it. This Article reconsiders the mischief rule. It shows that the rule has two enduringly useful functions: guiding an interpreter to a stopping point for statutory language that can be given a broader or narrower …

Collective Teacher Efficacy And Its Enabling Conditions: Measurement And Associations, Christine Marie Anderson

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

Background/Purpose: Over two decades of research has demonstrated that collective teacher efficacy has a significant effect on student learning, and numerous studies have explored environmental variables related to high levels of collective teacher efficacy (Donohoo, 2018, Donohoo et al., 2020; Eells, 2011; Hattie, 2016). Donohoo et al.’s (2020) enabling conditions for collective teacher efficacy (EC-CTES) propose a synthesized framework educational practitioners can implement to foster collective teacher efficacy in their schools. The purpose of this quantitative study was to explore the validity of Donohoo et al.’s (2020) emerging EC-CTES and evaluate the strength and direction of its relationship to measures …

Cultivating A Stem Investigation: Reading And Task Expectations For Introductory Biology Courses, Tina M. Ballard

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

College completion is an important discussion in today’s world with only about 30% of community college students completing their degrees within three years of starting their programs. Especially in the Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM) fields, students are changing their majors or not completing their degrees for a variety of reasons. Previous research has established that there are high attrition and failure rates for introductory biology courses which may be causing some students to change their majors or not complete their degrees. This multicase study investigated the reading and task demands for introductory biology courses designed for STEM majors …

A New Frontier: The Transformative Essence Of F-1 International Students At Suburban Community Colleges In The American Midwest, Gregory Michael Gordon

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

This qualitative study explored the impediments, social adjustments challenges, and classroom experiences of F-1 international students enrolled at community colleges in the Midwest region of the United States with at least one semester completed after their arrival. Through their respective accounts, the participants shared their positive and negative experiences about their respective host environments, struggles and challenges, acculturation, perseverance, and triumphs. The assertions and themes produced from the analysis of participant interviews provided salient insights into the experiences of the selected F-1 international students. Many of the participants while accommodating themselves to their respective community college environments struggled with issues …

A Select Group: When Do Parties In Consensual Democracies Expand Their Leadership Selectorates?, James Godowic

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

This dissertation seeks to answer the question of when do parties in consensual parliamentary systems expand the group of people who can pick the party leader? Previous literature has offered two opposing theories of change. One is rooted in the exogenous factor of electoral performance as a catalyst for parties to change. The other focuses on the endogenous factor of internal party struggles between the party leadership and ideological activists occupying positions in the mid-level of the party. Using a regression analysis of six consensual parliamentary democracies and process tracing of six political parties in the previously unexamined case of …

Herlands: Imperial Feminisms From Charlotte Perkins Gilman To Wonder Woman, Anna Jankovsky

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

The society of women is a trope of feminist utopian fiction in which a group of women live together in harmony without the influence of men to disrupt their society. This trope functions on five criteria: 1) The society must be able to defend itself and replenish itself without the assistance of men. 2) It must be fully isolated and nearly impenetrable from the outside world 3) It must have a utopic order of society untroubled by ambition. 4) It must be infiltrated and challenged by a man during the course of the story. 5) It must grapple with the …

Undocumented Community College Students: The Impact Of Strategic Enrollment Management Frontline Staff In Level Of Undocufriendliness, Melisa Erica Jimenez

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

Thousands of undocumented students are enrolled in post-secondary education institutions across the nation and continue to encounter challenges in accessing the resources and support for an equitable transition into these institutions. The goal of this qualitative case study was to explore the experiences and knowledge gaps of Strategic Enrollment Management (SEM) staff by examining their perceptions of their role and responsibility in supporting undocumented students and their assessment of the campus climate and culture for undocumented students. While scholarship exists about undocumented students in colleges and universities, this research explores this in the context of the community college, where there …

International Graduate Students’ Interactions With Their Writing Tutors And The Role Of Writing Center In Their Academic Experiences, Chynar Amanova

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

The main purpose of this qualitative case study was to examine the interactions of international students who were pursuing doctoral degrees at a public university in the Midwest (PUM) with their writing tutors. This study also explored how their writing center experiences contributed to their academic experiences. Sociocultural theory and situated learning theory served as the conceptual framework for this qualitative case study. Sociocultural theory guided understanding of the nature of the interactions, while situated learning revealed how the students’ experiences with their writing center coaches helped them join the U.S. academic community of practice through the socialization process. Semi-structured …

Understanding Prosocial Teasing In Early Adolescence, Kristina Wiemer

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

Prosocial teasing is not well known or understood by educators. Prosocial teasing is intentional but playful verbal and non-verbal provocation meant to be taken non-literally by the target of the tease (Keltner et al., 2001) and is not an uncommon experience for students to have (Barnett et al., 2004). While much research has been conducted on social and emotional skills (Nix et al., 2013; Smith & Low, 2013), there is still a gap in the literature looking at how these skills relate to prosocial teasing. The current study examined and described middle school students’ use of prosocial teasing and their …

New Features For Speech Processing Standard Pronunciation Classification, Mutian Zhuang

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

Pronunciation is essential in language learning. Standard English speakers could pronounce in the right way, because their pronunciation procedure is correct. The aim of this research is to see how an artificial intelligence program can be developed to provide feedback to people while they learn to generate accurate phoneme /r/. The audio signal will first be detected, after which features of audio signal will be extracted, and finally, classification will be performed. This suggested algorithm and method may be applied to other related topics. This thesis proposes new features and uses them to classify standard English speakers and non-standard English …