Instruments for Determining Reaction of Students,Parents, and Teachers to the Program of a Regional Hebrew High School

The rabbi-educator relationship is a major concern to the Jewish educator. The quality of the working relationship fluctuates from synagogue to synagogue. In some congregations it is excellent. However, in most synagogues the rabbi-educator working relationship is far from satisfactory. Many talented and creative educators have left congregational education in order to escape the tension and frustration associated with congregational school administration.     

Sites of Indeterminacy and the Spectres of Eurocentrism

The concepts of Europe and Eurocentrism, along with the political, cultural, and philosophical issues that are inseparable from them, touch upon many of today's most pressing concerns. This essay examines the ways in which problems of the aporia and of undecidability may shed light on the possibility of a new Europe to come. Through a comparative reading of Slavoj ?i?ek's pleas for a leftist Eurocentrism, Walter Benjamin's historical unweaving of Europe and Jacques Derrida's engagements with Europe as perpetually nonself-identical, Europe becomes visible as one of the names for the faint promise lodged in what will not simply remain transparent and itself.     

An axiomatic analysis of Egghe’s g-index

The g-index is a well-known index for measuring and comparing the output of scientific researchers, which has been introduced by Leo Egghe in 2006 as an improvement of the Hirsch-index. This article gives an axiomatic characterization of the g-index in terms of three natural axioms.     

Cognitive Teaching Methods for Special Education: Development of Approaches for Intervention and Assessment in Germany

FOLLOWING a short introduction to historical aspects of the development of cognitive teaching methods, four current areas of research are described: cognitive behaviour modification with a focus on problem solving and metacognitive abilities, comprising the methods of cognitive modelling and self‐instruction; intelligence training based on the theoretical propositions of inductive thinking; attempts at applying Piagetian concepts as a conceptual framework for education and training; dynamic testing, focussing on modifiability of performance and thus bridging the gap between diagnostic assessment and education. Basic theoretical assumptions, methods and applications are separately discussed for each of these fields. Empirical data are presented for evaluation of their level of development Summarizing the results, it seems, that promising effects of training and fruitful application of diagnostic procedures can be obtained; however, implementation of the respective methods in special education settings does not show great progress. It is, thus, concluded that research on implementation is indispensable.     

The impact of student misconceptions on student persistence in a MOOC

Massive Online Open Courses (MOOCs) provide opportunities to learn a vast range of subjects. Because MOOCs are open to anyone with computer access and rarely have prerequisite requirements, the range of student backgrounds can be far more varied than in conventional classroom-based courses. Prior studies have shown that misconceptions have a huge impact on students' learning performance; however, no study has empirically examined the relationship between misconceptions and learning persistence. This study of 12,913 MOOC-takers examines how students' misconceptions about the upcoming course material affect course completion. Using a survival analysis approach, we found that, controlling for the score in a pre-course test, students holding more misconceptions had a higher dropout rate at the start of the course, an effect that diminished over time. Other student variables were found to have a positive impact on survival that persisted throughout the entire course: U.S. location, higher age, an intention to complete, better English skills, prior familiarity with the subject, motivation to earn a certificate, and score and time spent on the previous problem set (homework). By contrast, student gender, education level, number of previous MOOCs completed, and motivation to participate in online discussion forums did not affect survival.     

Parallel assessment of nutrition and activity in athletes: Validation against doubly labelled water, 24-h urea excretion,and indirect calorimetry

Abstract

The assessment of nutrition and activity in athletes requires accurate and precise methods. The aim of this study was to validate a protocol for parallel assessment of diet and exercise against doubly labelled water, 24-h urea excretion, and respiratory gas exchange. The participants were 14 male triathletes under normal training conditions. Energy intake and doubly labelled water were weakly associated with each other (r = 0.69, standard error of estimate [SEE] = 304 kcal · day^?1). Protein intake was strongly correlated with 24-h urea (r = 0.89) but showed considerable individual variation (SEE = 0.34 g · kg^?1 · day^?1). Total energy expenditure based on recorded activities was highly correlated with doubly labelled water (r = 0.95, SEE = 195 kcal · day^?1) but was proportionally biased. During running and cycling, estimated exercise energy expenditure was highly correlated with gas exchange (running: r = 0.89, SEE = 1.6 kcal · min^?1; cycling: r = 0.95, SEE = 1.4 kcal · min^?1). High exercise energy expenditure was slightly underestimated during running. For nutrition data, variations appear too large for precise measurements in individual athletes, which is a common problem of dietary assessment methods. Despite the high correlations of total energy expenditure and exercise energy expenditure with reference methods, a correction for systematic errors is necessary for the valid estimation of energetic requirements in individual athletes.