Online teaching tool simplifies faculty use of multimedia and improves student interest and knowledge in science

Digital technologies can improve student interest and knowledge in science. However, researching the vast number of websites devoted to science education and integrating them into undergraduate curricula is time-consuming. We developed an Adobe ColdFusion- and Adobe Flash-based system for simplifying the construction, use, and delivery of electronic educational materials in science. The Online Multimedia Teaching Tool (OMTT) in Neuroscience was constructed from a ColdFusion-based online interface, which reduced the need for programming skills and the time for curriculum development. The OMTT in Neuroscience was used by faculty to enhance their lectures in existing curricula. Students had unlimited online access to encourage user-centered exploration. We found the OMTT was rapidly adapted by multiple professors, and its use by undergraduate students was consistent with the interpretation that the OMTT improved performance on exams and increased interest in the field of neuroscience.     

Teaching biology through statistics: application of statistical methods in genetics and zoology courses

Incorporation of mathematics into biology curricula is critical to underscore for undergraduate students the relevance of mathematics to most fields of biology and the usefulness of developing quantitative process skills demanded in modern biology. At our institution, we have made significant changes to better integrate mathematics into the undergraduate biology curriculum. The curricular revision included changes in the suggested course sequence, addition of statistics and precalculus as prerequisites to core science courses, and incorporating interdisciplinary (math-biology) learning activities in genetics and zoology courses. In this article, we describe the activities developed for these two courses and the assessment tools used to measure the learning that took place with respect to biology and statistics. We distinguished the effectiveness of these learning opportunities in helping students improve their understanding of the math and statistical concepts addressed and, more importantly, their ability to apply them to solve a biological problem. We also identified areas that need emphasis in both biology and mathematics courses. In light of our observations, we recommend best practices that biology and mathematics academic departments can implement to train undergraduates for the demands of modern biology.     

1,4-DNI的绿色合成

以二氯甲烷为溶剂,用新型绿色硝化剂五氧化二氮,对4-硝基咪唑进行硝化合成1,4-二硝基咪唑。在物料摩尔比（4-硝基咪唑/五氧化二氮）10：11的条件下,通过实验考察了溶剂用量、反应时间和反应温度对产率的影响,结果表明,较佳的实验条件为：五氧化二氮0.011 mol,4-硝基咪唑为0.01 mol,二氯甲烷6 mL,反应温度15~20℃,反应时间12 h,产率为91%。     

20世纪末至21世纪初的中俄教育交流合作

中俄的教育交流有着漫长而又跌宕起伏的历史,曾经历过半个多世纪的风风雨雨.1948年,苏联开始向中国派遣专家,帮助新中国经济建设.1948年至1966年间,苏联帮助中国培养了约25000名专业技术人员.其中,大部分专家已经担任中国的高级领导.随后两国关系进入了复杂的时期,教育交流逐渐减少了.直到90年代,中俄教育交流重新恢复,两国在教育领域签署了大量的合作协议,为两国的教育合作提供了制度化基础.     

Health-related quality of life and classroom participation of deaf and hard-of-hearing students in general schools

A group of deaf and hard-of-hearing (D/HH) students at mainstream schools (N = 212) was investigated in a questionnaire-based survey using the Inventory of Life Quality of Children and Youth (ILC) and the Classroom Participation Questionnaire. The ILC data for the D/HH sample are for the most part comparable with the data from a normative hearing sample. Item-total correlations showed that the domains of school and social activities with peers were more important for the Health-Related Quality of Life (HRQoL) of the D/HH students than for that of the hearing students. The results also reveal differences in the HRQoL levels of the two samples, with the D/HH sample having higher scores for school experiences, physical and mental health, and overall HRQoL, though the effect sizes for the differences are small to moderate. Specific characteristics of the D/HH sample may be responsible for this result. There are also relationships between quality of life and perceived classroom participation in certain domains: Students who perceive classroom participation as satisfying have higher scores for quality of life in school, social contact with peers, and mental health. This also applied to the scores for global assessment and a summarized quality of life indicator.     

The learning of basic-level categories by pigeons: the prototype effect, attention, and effects of categorization

Pigeons were trained to classify composite faces of two categories created by mimicking the structure of basic-level categories, with each face consisting of an item-specific component and a common component diagnostic for its category. Classification accuracy increased as the proportion of common components increased, regardless of familiar and novel item-specific components, with the best discrimination occurring at untrained original faces used as the common components. A no-categorization control condition suggested that categorization gives rise to equivalence for item-specific components and distinctiveness for degrees of prototypicality. When some item-specific components were shared by exemplars of the contrasting categories, those that were not overlapping between the categories became the effective cues for the pigeons’ responses. Implications of these results are discussed in the context of current categorization and associative learning theories.     

Moral Education and Improvement of Coexistence in Secondary Education （12-16 Years） in Spain

Coexistence and moral education are areas of great interest in Spanish compulsory education, especially in the period that comprises between 12 and 16 years of age, named ＂compulsory secondary education＂ in Spain. With the aim to improve the processes of coexistence within this level, this research team on education from the University of Salamanca has conducted an experimental study, implementing a programme to provide moral education through ICTs （information and communication technologies）. So as to verify the positive influence of the programme, a series of means have been applied with consideration for two groups--control and experimental--and certain stages of pre- and post- test assessment. The first results denote that there has been an improvement in social-personal values in the students that were involved more actively in the programme.     

A Twin and Adoption Study of Reading Achievement: Exploration of Shared-Environmental and Gene-Environment-Interaction Effects

Existing behavior-genetic research implicates substantial influence of heredity and modest influence of shared environment on reading achievement and reading disability. Applying DeFries-Fulker analysis to a combined sample of twins and adoptees (N = 4,886, including 266 reading-disabled probands), the present study replicates prior findings of considerable heritability for both reading achievement and reading disability. A simple biometric model adequately described parent and offspring data (combined N = 9,430 parents and offspring) across differing types of families present in the sample Analyses yielded a high heritability estimate (around 0.70) and a negligible shared-environmentality estimate for both reading achievement and reading disability. No evidence of gene × environment interaction was found for parental reading ability and parental educational attainment, the two moderators analyzed.     

SciVal Experts: a collaborative tool

SciVal Experts is a resource for finding experts and fostering collaboration. The tool creates researcher profiles with automatically updated publication and grant information and faculty-inputted curriculum vitae, more fully capturing a researcher's body of work. SciVal Experts indexes campus-based "experts" by research topic, allowing faculty to find potential research partners and mentors, furthering translational research opportunities and dissemination of knowledge.