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Curriculum Implementation: A Study Of The Effect Of A Specialized Curriculum On Sixth Grade Mathematics Summative Test Scores In A Rural Middle School, Libby Plath Bicknell

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

The purpose of this study was to examine curriculum implementation in sixth grade mathematics as it related to standardized testing in a rural district. The school in the study contained two groups of students, one group who had been taught the new statemandated curriculum and another group who was taught an outdated curriculum. The purpose was to determine if there was a statistically significant disparity between the criterion-reference test scores of the two groups while controlling for differences in student ability level through the use of pre-test scores as measured through an analysis of covariance (ANCOVA). The hypothesis was that …

Certain Pattern Recognition Tasks Using Genetic Programming., Durga Muni Dr.

Doctoral Theses

No abstract provided.

2009 Sonia Kovalevsky Math For Girls Day Program, Association For Women In Mathematics, Lincoln University Of Missouri, Ameren Ue Callaway Plant Win- Women In Nuclear, Kjlu Radio Station

Math for Girls Day Documents

4th Annual Lincoln University Sonia Kovalevsky Math for Girls Day program on April 24, 2009.

2009 Sonia Kovalevsky Math For Girls Day Flyer, Association For Women In Mathematics, Lincoln University Of Missouri

Math for Girls Day Documents

4th Annual Lincoln University Sonia Kovalevsky Math for Girls Day program flyer on April 24, 2009.

Gender Differences On The American Mathematics Competition Amc 8 Contest, Melissa A. Desjarlais

College of Education and Human Sciences: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

This study examines gender differences on the American Mathematics Competition AMC 8 contest between 2003 and 2007 by comparing the performances of male and female United States eighth grade students after controlling for ability. During these years 183,857 males and 178,857 females participated in the contest. Research on gender differences frequently measures impact which is a difference in performance between two groups that can often be explained by different ability distributions. In contrast, differential item functioning (DIF) is a difference in performance after controlling for ability. Three types of analyses were performed to compare the performances. First, statistical analyses identified …

Control And Inverse Problems For One Dimensional Systems, Victor S. Mikhaylov

Mathematics and Statistics

The thesis is devoted to control and inverse problems (dynamical and spectral) for systems on graphs and on the half line. In the first part we study the boundary control problems for the wave, heat, and Schrodinger equations on a finite graph. We suppose that the graph is a tree (i.e., it does not contain cycles), and on each edge an equation is defined. The control is acting through the Dirichlet condition applied to all or all but one boundary vertices. The exact controllability in L2-classes of controls is proved and sharp estimates of the time of controllability are obtained …

Using Maxwells Z Model To Determine Lunar Mare Lava Thickness, Autumn Wille

Honors Capstones

Capstone submitted as a graduate requirement for the BSU Honors Program.

Form And Numbers: Mathematical Patterns And Ordering Elements In Design, Alison Marie Thom

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

In America, buildings are often constructed with the intent of being utile only 30-40 years. All over the world though, there are buildings that are hundreds of years old that are still very functional. Historically, architecture was a part of mathematics, and in many periods of the past, the two were indistinguishable. Architects were often required to be also mathematicians in ancient times. The idea of this thesis is to identify the relationship between mathematics and architecture and to reintroduce them in order to create a module for successful design .

Presence of mathematical boundaries help to attain visual consistency …

Distance To The Sagittarius Dwarf Galaxy Using Macho Project Rr Lyrae Stars, Andrea Kunder, Brian Chaboyer

Dartmouth Scholarship

We derive the distance to the northern extension of the Sagittarius (Sgr) dwarf spheroidal galaxy from 203 Sgr RR0 Lyrae stars found in the MACHO database. Their distances are determined differentially with respect to 288 Galactic bulge RR0 Lyrae stars also found in the MACHO data. We find a distance modulus difference of 2.41 mag at l = 5^◦ and b =− 8^◦ and that the extension of the Sgr galaxy toward the galactic plane is inclined toward us. Assuming R GC = 8 kpc, this implies the distance to these stars is (m − M) 0 = …

Bits And Pieces -- Working With Fractions [6th-8th Grade], Kathleen Kilday

Understanding by Design: Complete Collection

In this unit, students will be introduced to fractions. Students will have practice identifying commonly used fractions using physical models, pictures, numbers, and word problems. Using these skills, students will recognize equivalent fractions and be able to sort fractions from largest to smallest and vice versa. Students will also be introduced to adding and subtracting these commonly used fractions. To demonstrate their knowledge of fractions, students will be asked to complete a performance assessment. The students will be given a recipe and 2 situations. The students will use the given information to amend the recipe for the appropriate number of …

Fractional Weak Discrepancy And Interval Orders, Alan Shuchat, Randy Shull, Ann N. Trenk

Faculty Research and Scholarship

The fractional weak discrepancy wd_F(P) of a poset P=(V,≺) was introduced in [A. Shuchat, R. Shull, A. Trenk, The fractional weak discrepancy of a partially ordered set, Discrete Applied Mathematics 155 (2007) 2227–2235] as the minimum nonnegative k for which there exists a function satisfying (i) if a≺b then f(a)+1≤f(b) and (ii) if a∥b then |f(a)−f(b)|≤k. In this paper we generalize results in [A. Shuchat, R. Shull, A. Trenk, Range of the fractional weak discrepancy function, ORDER 23 (2006) 51–63; A. Shuchat, R. Shull, A. Trenk, Fractional weak discrepancy of posets and certain forbidden configurations, in: S.J. Brams, …

Japanese Players In Major League Baseball: An Econometric Analysis Of Labor Discrimination, Kyle Audet

Honors Projects in Economics

In recent years, Major League Baseball (MLB) teams have increasingly drawn talent from the international market. This study employs econometric techniques to test the various labor discrimination issues facing Japanese players playing in America’s MLB. There have been remarkably few studies focusing on Japanese players in MLB. Data from the 1995 to 2007 season has been analyzed. High degrees of discriminatory pay scales are found for Japanese pitchers. The findings suggest that Japanese batters do not face such pay discrimination. Positional discrimination has also been the subject of investigation. Japanese players are found to be disproportionally pitchers. Suggestions for future …

Mathematics Discipline Assessment Report 2008/2009, Mathematics Discipline

Assessment of Student Learning Reports

No abstract provided.

Educational Video Game Effects Upon Mathematics Achievement And Motivation Scores: An Experimental Study Examining Differences Between The Sexes, Wendi M. Kappers

Publications

An experimental research study using a mixed-method analysis to was conducted to examine educational video game effects on mathematics achievement and motivation between sexes. This study examined sex difference in a 7th grade mathematics (Mathematics 2/Mathematics 2 Advanced) classroom (n=60) learning algebra. Attributes and barriers relating to educational video game play, preference, and setting characteristics were explored. To examine achievement and motivation outcomes, a repeated-measure (SPSS v14) test was used. The analysis included ethnographic results from both student and teacher interview and observation sessions for data triangulation. Results revealed a statistically significant academic mathematics achievement score increase (F =21.8, df …

Math Island At Brewer Elementary School: A Learner-Centered Model For Education, Vikki K. Collins, H. Marguerite Yates

Georgia Educational Researcher

This paper examines a learner-centered model for the teaching of elementary mathematics established at an urban Georgia school that serves a highly mobile, diverse population of approximately 475 students. The school was on its state’s list of schools needing improvement because students continued to perform poorly on standardized tests. Math Island, a support center for students designed to facilitate the conceptual understanding of mathematics, was created, and professional development programs were implemented to assist teachers in developing their pedagogical and content expertise in the teaching of mathematics. The school made substantial progress after these initiatives were employed and was removed …

New Neighbors: Parallaxes Of 18 Nearby Stars Selected From The Lspm-North Catalog, Sébastien Lépine, John R. Thorstensen, Michael M. Shara, R. Michael Rich

Dartmouth Scholarship

We present astrometric parallaxes for 18 suspected nearby stars selected from the LSPM-north proper motion catalog. 16 objects are confirmed to be main-sequence M dwarfs within 16 pc of the Sun, including three stars (LSPM J0011+5908, LSPM J0330+5413, and LSPM J0510+2714) which lie just within the 10 pc horizon. Two other targets (LSPM J1817+1328, LSPM J2325+1403) are confirmed to be nearby white dwarfs at distances of 14 and 22 pc, respectively. One of our targets, the common proper motion pair LSPM J0405+7116E + LSPM J0405+7116W, is revealed to be a triple system, with the western component resolved into a pair …

Studies On Construction And List Decoding Of Codes On Some Towers Of Function Fields., M. Prem Laxman Das Dr.

Doctoral Theses

In everyday life, there arise many situations where two parties, sender and receiver, need to communicate. The channel through which they communicate is assumed to be binary symmetric, that is, it changes 0 to 1 and vice versa with equal probability. At the receiver’s end, the sent message has to be recovered from the corrupted received word using some reasonable mechanism. This real life problem has attracted a lot of research in the past few decades. A solution to this problem is obtained by adding redundancy in a systematic manner to the message to construct a codeword. The collection of …

Uncovering Transformative Experiences: A Case Study Of The Transformations Made By One Teacher In A Mathematics Professional Development Program, Rachelle Myler Orsak

Theses and Dissertations

Effective professional development is vital for improving mathematics teaching (National Council of Teachers of Mathematics [NCTM], 2007), so studying effective professional development programs is important to the field of mathematics education. This case study presents findings on one teacher, Rebecca, and her experiences in a five-semester mathematics professional development for elementary teachers. The participants in this professional development engaged in collaborative problem solving of challenging mathematical tasks over extended periods of time. I used qualitative research methods based on grounded theory methodology (Charmaz, 2006) to analyze Rebecca's entrance and exit surveys, video data of Rebecca's individual interviews, and video data …

Comparison Of Fifth-Grade Students’ Mathematics Achievement As Evidenced By Georgia’S Criterion-Referenced Competency Test: Traditional And Departmentalized Settings, Marcia Wright Williams

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

This study examined the effect of traditional (self-contained, one teacher for all academic subjects) and departmentalized (math taught by a different teacher) instruction upon the mathematics CRCT achievement of fifth-grade general education students. A secondary purpose addressed teachers' experiences, perceptions, and opinions concerning the classroom structure at this level. The 2007 and 2008 CRCT math data was used with a total of 9,386 students. The researcher's Data Collection and Opinions (DCO) for Teachers surveyed 180 fifth-grade teachers. A z score population proportion and a two-sample t test determined significant differences between the two structures. Results of the passing percentages showed …

Spectral Analysis And Synthesis For Radial Sections Of Homogenous Vector Bundles On Certain Noncompath Riemannian Symmetric Spaces., Sanjoy Pusti Dr.

Doctoral Theses

We consider two classical theorems of real analysis which deals with translation invariant subspaces of integrable and smooth functions on R respectively. The first one is a theorem of Norbert Wiener [63] which states that if the Fourier transform of a function f ∈ L 1 (R) has no real zeros then the finite linear combinations of translations f(x − a) of f with complex coefficients form a dense subspace in L 1 (R), equivalently, span{g ∗ f | g ∈ L 1 (R)} is dense in L 1 (R). This theorem is well known as the Wiener-Tauberian Theorem (WTT). …

Homogeneous Operators In The Cowen-Douglas Class., Subrata Shyam Roy Dr.

Doctoral Theses

Although, we have used techniques developed in the paper of Cowen-Douglas [18, 20], a systematic account of Hilbert space operators using a variety of tools from several different areas of mathematics is given in the book [26]. This book provides, what the authors call, a sheaf model for a large class of commuting Hilbert space operators. It is likely that these ideas will play a significant role in the future development of the topics discussed here.

Web Surfer Models: Preprocessing, Page Ranking, And Quantitative Evaluation., Narayan L. Bhamidipati Dr.

Doctoral Theses

The World Wide Web [12] (usually referred to as the Web, WWW or W3) is an enormous collection of data available over the Internet, which is a vast network of computers. It was created in the year 1990 by Tim Berners-Lee, while he worked at CERN, Switzerland, and was made available over the Internet in 1991. The World Wide Web Consortium [136] authoritatively defines the Web as the universe of network-accessible information, the embodiment of human knowledge. The Web consists of objects, also called documents or pages in a generic sense, that are identified using a Uniform Resource Identifier (URI), …

Correlation Between Animal And Mathematical Models For Prostate Cancer Progression, Zdzislaw Jackiewiczy, Cheryl L. Jorcyk, Mikhail K. Kolev, Barbara Zubik-Kowal

Biology Faculty Publications and Presentations

This work demonstrates that prostate tumour progression in vivo can be analysed by using solutions of a mathematical model supplemented by initial conditions chosen according to growth rates of cell lines in vitro. The mathematical model is investigated and solved numerically. Its numerical solutions are compared with experimental data from animal models. The numerical results confirm the experimental results with the growth rates in vivo.

Quantitative Literacy On The Web Of Science, 2 – Mining The Health Numeracy Literature For Assessment Items, H L. Vacher, Todd Chavez

Numeracy

A topic search of the Web of Science (WoS) database using the term “numeracy” produced a bibliography of 293 articles, reviews and editorial commentaries (Oct 2008). The citation graph of the bibliography clearly identifies five benchmark papers (1995-2001), four of which developed numeracy assessment instruments. Starting with the 80 papers that cite these benchmarks, we identified a set of 25 papers (1995-2008) in which the medical research community reports the development and/or application of health-numeracy assessments. In all we found 10 assessment instruments from which we have compiled a total of 48 assessment items. There are both general and context-specific …

Establishing The Quantitative Thinking Program At Macalester, David Bressoud

Numeracy

In November 2005, the faculty of Macalester College voted to institute a graduation requirement in Quantitative Thinking (QT) that is truly interdisciplinary. It currently draws on courses from thirteen departments including Anthropology, Economics, Geography, Political Science, Theater, Mathematics, Environmental Science, and Geology. This article describes the process that led to the creation of this program. It explains how we were able to get broad buy-in at the beginning and the long process of trial and error—informed by formative assessment—that was needed to refine the initial vision and shape it into a viable program that would be accepted by most of …

Confronting Challenges, Overcoming Obstacles: A Conversation About Quantitative Literacy, Bernard L. Madison, Lynn A. Steen

Numeracy

An edited transcript of the opening session of a workshop on quantitative literacy held Oct. 10-12, 2008 at Carleton College, Northfield, Minnesota. The workshop, which brought together interdisciplinary teams from two dozen colleges and universities, was sponsored by the Quantitative Inquiry, Reasoning, and Knowledge (QuIRK) Initiative at Carleton and the Washington-based Project Kaleidoscope. Two mathematicians in the forefront of quantitative literacy initiatives over the period 1997-2008, Lynn Arthur Steen and Bernard L. Madison, converse about attitudes, obstacles, changes and accomplishments. The conversation, structured as an interview, begins with the relationship between mathematics and quantitative literacy and moves through issues central …

All The More Reason For Qr Across The Curriculum, Bernard L. Madison

Numeracy

No abstract provided.

Specialized Science High Schools: Exploring Contributions Of The Model To Adolescent Talent Development Specialized Science, Christopher G. Kolar, Tracy L. Cross, Rena F. Subotnik, Paula Olszewski-Kubilius

Publications & Research

As the field of gifted education shifts much of its focus to domain-specific talent development, specialized science high schools are taking their place on the stage. Back in 1981,Bloom and Sosniak argued persuasively that talent development cannot take place exclusively in schools. They stressed that schools were not prepared to offer the required levels of expert teaching, time, and effort. Yet, specialized science high schools, by design, are staffed with teachers with advanced degrees, offer relatively flexible schedules, interested peers,reasonable access to appropriate technology, and connections with research institutions to provide apprenticeships for the most motivated and interested students.

A Two-Step Approach To Diagnostic Assessment In College Math, Fall 2007, Mark C. Henning

Faculty and Staff Publications - CRI

This study examines a modified strategy for diagnostic testing and its use as a predictor of performance in college math. A study conducted in 2005 analyzed the results of a single diagnostic test given at the beginning of first semester to all students in the School of Manufacturing Sciences post-secondary programs at Fanshawe College. The range of topics covered by this single test was comprehensive. The attempt to find correlation between the results of this test and grade outcomes in first semester college technology math was inconclusive. The current study examines the results of a system of two similar tests, …

Correlating Student Mathematics Diagnostic Testing And High School Mathematics Grades With Performance In The Fanshawe College Pre-Health Science Program, Susan Cluett, Julian Jarosh, Wendi Roscoe

Faculty and Staff Publications - CRI

A diagnostic mathematics test has been administered to incoming Fanshawe College Pre-Health Science (PHS) students for many years. A perception that this test was a good predictor of incoming students’ success in the PHS mathematics curriculum has traditionally been the basis for justifying the necessity of this test. In addition, the PHS program required students to have completed Grade 11 University, Grade 11 University/College, Grade 12 University or Grade 12 College level math upon completing high school. This study aimed to evaluate the relationship between mathematics diagnostic test scores and final grades in all PHS courses, as well as overall …