Implementing individual and small group learning structures with a computer simulation

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of implementing individual and small group learning structures with a computer simulation in accounting. College students used one of three learning structures with the simulation: (a) an individual structure, (b) a small group structure with extensive interaction, or (c) a small group structure with occasional interaction. Results indicated that performance scores were high regardless of learning structure. However, students who worked alone expressed significantly more continuing motivation for their learning structure than students who worked with a partner. Responses to student interviews revealed somewhat mixed feelings for the small group structures. Observation data indicated that students who used the extensive small group structure exhibited significantly more discussion and provided more answers to their partners' questions than students who used the occasional group structure. Implications for implementing small group structures with computer-based instruction are provided.     

The Rise and Fall of the Science Advisor to the President of the United States

The president’s science advisor was formerly established in the days following the Soviet launch of Sputnik at the height of the Cold War, creating an impression of scientists at the center of presidential power. However, since that time the role of the science advisor has been far more prosaic, with a role that might be more aptly described as a coordinator of budgets and programs, and thus more closely related to the functions of the Office of Management and Budget than the development of presidential policy. This role dramatically enhances the position of the scientific community to argue for its share of federal expenditures. At the same time, scientific and technological expertise permeates every function of government policy and politics, and the science advisor is only rarely involved in wider White House decision making. The actual role of the science advisor as compared to its heady initial days, in the context of an overall rise of governmental expertise, provides ample reason to reconsider the role of the presidential science advisor, and to set our expectations for that role accordingly.

A single nucleotide mutation in the dual-oxidase 2 (DUOX2) gene causes some of the panda's unique metabolic phenotypes

The giant panda (Ailuropoda melanoleuca) is an iconic bear native to China, famous for eating almost exclusively bamboo. This unusual dietary behavior for a carnivore is enabled by several key adaptations including low physical activity, reduced organ sizes and hypothyroidism leading to lowered energy expenditure. These adaptive phenotypes have been hypothesized to arise from a panda-unique single-nucleotide mutation in the dual-oxidase 2 (DUOX2) gene, involved in thyroid hormone synthesis. To test this hypothesis, we created genome-edited mice carrying the same point mutation as the panda and investigated its effect on metabolic phenotype. Homozygous mice were 27% smaller than heterozygous and wild-type ones, had 13% lower body mass-adjusted food intake, 55% decreased physical activity, lower mass of kidneys (11%) and brain (5%), lower serum thyroxine (T4: 36%), decreased absolute (12%) and mass-adjusted (5%) daily energy expenditure, and altered gut microbiota. Supplementation with T4 reversed the effects of the mutation. This work uses a state-of-the-art genome editing approach to demonstrate the link between a single-nucleotide mutation in a key endocrine-related gene and profound adaptive changes in the metabolic phenotype, with great importance in ecology and evolution.     

Adapting IAIMS to a hospital library level

The Children's Hospital of Michigan Medical Library has adapted several of the Integrated Academic Information Management Systems (IAIMS) concepts and implemented them at a hospital library level. These have included features of network development, electronic interfacing and interlinking, and implementing an integrated information system in the library. The library has incorporated several information systems into library operations, including a variety of in-house, local, and national automated systems and telecommunication networks. Hospital libraries can incorporate IAIMS features and promote an institutional framework of interconnecting communication systems and electronic linkages.     

Impairment of teacher efficiency during extended sessions of test correction

SUMMARY The relationship between monotonous work, mental fatigue, and reduction in efficiency has been discussed at length in the literature. This paper examines a theory, based on the interactions revealed in those studies, that uninterrupted examination of a large number of tests over an extended period of time, leads to inconsistency in grading. Three specialists judged typed compositions of seventh-grade pupils, and independently awarded the grade of 80% to 31 papers. These compositions were submitted to 60 female teachers. Each teacher received all 31 papers, stacked in one of three different, randomly arranged sequences. The subjects, unaware of the earlier review, were asked to read the compositions in one sitting and in the order in which they were stacked, and to assign a grade. There was no communication between teachers in the project with regard to the task. The variable found to contribute significantly to the grading pattern was the order in which the essays were arranged. The first tests received lower grades, on average, than those awarded by the specialists. As the teachers worked their way through the stack, the grades gradually rose, and eventually exceeded those given by the specialists. The discrepancy between the mean evaluation of the first papers and last papers in the pile was approximately 10%. Teacher seniority and other variables tested did not contribute significantly to the process.     

E‐learning: new opportunities in continuing professional development

The growth in professional learning is opening up many new opportunities for the application of e‐learning to the world of continuing professional development (CPD). CPD programmes require professionals to engage in annual programmes of professional development, and in some cases revalidation or recertification. To date, most of this activity has been off‐line. Increasingly, CPD requirements will be satisfied through the use of learning resources available on‐line or packaged into specially tailored e‐learning courses. Societies and professional associations – as the primary managers and coordinators of CPD programmes – are in a strong position to expand upon their existing Web‐based initiatives to deliver a new generation of e‐learning services to their members.     

Assessing Students' Opportunity to Learn: Teacher and Student Perspectives

How can we assess the opportunity that students have to learn the material they find on tests? How do students' perceptions of opportunity to learn differ from their teachers?