Game Building with Complex-Valued Functions

Abstract

In this paper, we describe how we integrated complex analysis into the second semester of a geometry course designed for preservice secondary mathematics teachers. As part of this inquiry-based course, the preservice teachers incorporated their geometric understanding of the arithmetic of complex numbers and complex-valued functions to create a game using Geometer’s Sketchpad. We detail a game created by a pair of preservice teachers that exemplifies their creativity and knowledge of complex-valued functions. Given inquiry-based courses have inherent challenges we also present projects that were not as exemplary.     

Wage differentials between college graduates with and without learning disabilities

Wage differential studies examining legally protected groups typically focus on gender or racial differences. Legislation also fully protects individuals with learning disabilities (LD). This article is the first to decompose wage differentials between adults with and without LD. An original data set of college graduates with documented LD was constructed, and these individuals were compared to a control group from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (NLSY). Our results show that much of the observed lower wages for individuals with LD is due to differences in productivity characteristics. However, there is an unexplained portion of the wage gap that could possibly be considered wage discrimination against individuals with LD. This possibility seems smaller due to the fact that the subsample of the employers who knew of the employee's learning disabilities did not appear to pay significantly lower wages to these individuals. Alternative hypotheses are discussed, as are sample-specific issues.     

Ways of (Not) Seeing Guns: Presence and Absence at the Cody Firearms Museum

Boasting over 6000 objects, including replicas of a western hardware store, a frontier stage stop, and a late nineteenth-century industrial factory, the Cody Firearms Museum, located at the Buffalo Bill Historical Center in Cody, Wyoming, is “the largest and most important collection of American firearms in the world.” 1 1. Treasures from Our West (Cody, WY: Buffalo Bill Historical Center, 1992), 44. The museum, which creates a decidedly visual space through its near-exclusive engagement with looking, employs an aesthetic of domestication and sterility to frame firearms for museumgoers. Even as it transforms guns into inert objects of visual pleasure, the museum cannot fully erase the history of violence and colonial conquering in which guns played a starring role. The museum's rhetorical effectivity/affectivity, then, turns upon the unique play of presence and absence.     

Keeping In Touch: Talking to Older People about Computers and Communication

Computer-based communication has tremendous potential to support older adults. But if people are to use such systems autonomously, it is necessary to move beyond current interfaces and systems and develop devices that fit into the environment of the user. Using a Grounded Theory approach, three focus groups were held and, subsequently, 9 older adults (age 70–90) were interviewed about the ways in which they kept in touch with friends and relatives. Outcomes included dependence on the telephone as a way of communicating. There is also a specific, supporting role for e-mail, which was used with younger family members or those living abroad to enrich communication with brief, informal messages.     

What are association formation models?

In his presentation of the propositional account of associative learning, De Houwer (2009) argues that association formation models (AFMs) assume excitatory link representations and automatic learning processes. However, the application of AFMs to human causal and contingency learning has assumed propositional forms of representation, although excitatory link representations are also required to explain certain nonrational consequences of associative learning. Moreover, at least two of the AFMs that have been applied to human associative learning invoke processing with nonautomatic characteristics. In conclusion, the distinction between the propositional account and AFMs of associative learning lies not in the form of representations but in the specific details of the learning processes generating the associative representations.     

Program evaluation of a school consultation program

The results of a school psychological and social work program are presented on children referred for behavioral and learning problems. Through the consultation service, the average student objective for learning problems was achieved to 85% of criterion, and the average objective for behavioral problems was achieved to 82% of criterion during a 10-week period. An analysis of the consultation activities was made in relation to the accomplishment of the objectives for both learning and behavioral problems. No clear evidence was found for any single activity being related to success. Also analyzed was the time spent on each consultation activity and the accomplishment of the student objectives. There was a positive relationship between total consultation time and student outcomes on learning problems, but there was no significant relationship between total consultation time and the accomplishment of objectives for behavioral problems. General findings show that consultation activities can be conducted with small investments of time and with a high degree of student accomplishment of objectives. A case is presented for the merits of program improvement by monitoring psychological and social work services.     

Building support for language and early literacy in preschool classrooms through in-service professional development: Effects of the Literacy Environment Enrichment Program (LEEP)

There is a substantial and persistent gap in achievement between children from different backgrounds [National Center for Education Statistics. (2002). Children's reading and mathematics achievement in kindergarten and first grade. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office] that can be traced to the preschool years [Snow, C. E., Burns, M. S., & Griffin, P. (Eds.). (1998). Preventing reading difficulties in young children. Washington, DC: National Research Council, National Academy Press], highlighting the importance of ensuring that preschools that serve low-income populations provide strong support for children's language and early literacy development. The current project sought to improve program quality in Head Start classrooms throughout New England with the Literacy Environment Enrichment Program (LEEP), an in-service intervention that was delivered in the form of a credit-bearing course. The impact of LEEP was studied using a wait-list comparison group strategy to determine whether intervention group teachers (n = 30) showed more fall–spring growth in measures of classroom support for literacy than did comparison group teachers (n = 40). Multiple hierarchical regression analyses that controlled for background measures and fall scores on classroom measures revealed moderate to large positive effects on all measures of classrooms support for language and early literacy with the exception of writing, for which only a small effect was found.     

Digital connections: transforming literacy in the primary school

Much has been written about the transformative influence of new technology on the school curriculum, but only a small number of studies have focused on the practical implications for primary literacy. The dominant paradigm seems less concerned with transformation, instead favouring a view of ‘technology as enrichment’. This case study examines the possibilities of transformation through an electronically mediated partnership between two primary schools in the North of England. Children's digital texts are analysed alongside interview and observational data in order to document what transformation might look like in practice. The study illustrates how technology can be used to promote new literacy practices in the classroom, through the production of new kinds of texts. It also documents the emergence of peer‐based learning relationships and changing perceptions of the teacher's role.