Tangled Roots, Bittersweet Exposure

Accompanied by tree portraits, this personal narrative reflects upon the intersecting histories between the indigenous peoples of Marin County (north of San Francisco, CA) and the author, who is Euro-American, while contemplating the changing relationship to their shared woodland, the effects of colonization, and possibilities for healing

Learning Analytics Community Exchange: Evidence Hub

This poster sets out the background and development of the LACE Evidence Hub, a site that gathers evidence about learning analytics in an accessible form. The poster also describes the functionality of the site, summarises its quantitative and thematic content to date and the state of evidence. In addition, it encourages people to add to and make use of the Hub

An Open Future for Higher Education

As the world becomes more open, universities have the opportunity to embrace openness in how they carry out their operations, teaching, and research. Open educational resources can provide the catalyst for different forms of learning, linking formal and informal aspects and splitting up the functions of content, support, assessment, and accreditation. Models from research suggest that an open approach is likely to encourage the crossing of boundaries between inside and outside the classroom, games and tools for learning, and the amateur and the expert. A new attitude toward research and scholarship is needed to work with the data of openness and to use it as an approach to gather evidence, share thoughts, and disseminate results

Recollected in tranquility : FE teachers’ perceptions of their initial teacher training

"The main research question posed by the project was: ‘What are FE teachers’ perceptions of the effectiveness of initial training in helping them to teach and to support learning?’" -- page 1

MARKETING AND CROP INSURANCE COMBINED TO MANAGE RISK ON A CASS COUNTY REPRESENTATIVE FARM

This study analyzed the effects that the use of crop insurance products and marketing alternatives had on the gross revenue per acre for an individual farm in Cass County. Crop insurance products and marketing strategies were analyzed individually to determine if they were effective in minimizing down side risk, and combined to determine if integration created synergies. A whole farm scenario analysis was run that included integrated strategies that implemented the same insurance coverage and marketing alternatives for each crop. Several general conclusions can be drawn for situations similar to the representative farm. When analyzed at the individual crop level, the use of crop insurance at the 65 percent level minimizes down side risk in wheat and corn, but not significantly in soybeans. Marketing alternatives generally increase the up side potential of gross revenue per acre, while doing little to minimize the down side risk. The integration of crop insurance products and marketing alternatives create a synergy at the lower levels of value at risk, where the down side risk is located. However, the use of integrated strategies does not increase the chances of achieving a cash flow breakeven gross revenue per acre over the base strategy, which did not include insurance or marketing alternatives. The breakeven level is not reached until the 70 percent level, which means that 7 out of 10 years, the farm will not cash flow. Output from the Bullock and AgRisk models are similar. This study may be used as a guide for producers and analysts in studying risk management strategies. To assist in the individual decision making process, further study will need to be done with yield data and budgets for the individual farm.risk, management, strategy, yield, price, insurance, market, Risk and Uncertainty,

Characteristics of the Martian atmosphere surface layer

Elements of various terrestrial boundary layer models are extended to Mars in order to estimate sensible heat, latent heat, and momentum fluxes within the Martian atmospheric surface ('constant flux') layer. The atmospheric surface layer consists of an interfacial sublayer immediately adjacent to the ground and an overlying fully turbulent surface sublayer where wind-shear production of turbulence dominates buoyancy production. Within the interfacial sublayer, sensible and latent heat are transported by non-steady molecular diffusion into small-scale eddies which intermittently burst through this zone. Both the thickness of the interfacial sublayer and the characteristics of the turbulent eddies penetrating through it depend on whether airflow is aerodynamically smooth or aerodynamically rough, as determined by the Roughness Reynold's number. Within the overlying surface sublayer, similarity theory can be used to express the mean vertical windspeed, temperature, and water vapor profiles in terms of a single parameter, the Monin-Obukhov stability parameter. To estimate the molecular viscosity and thermal conductivity of a CO2-H2O gas mixture under Martian conditions, parameterizations were developed using data from the TPRC Data Series and the first-order Chapman-Cowling expressions; the required collision integrals were approximated using the Lenard-Jones potential. Parameterizations for specific heat and binary diffusivity were also determined. The Brutsart model for sensible and latent heat transport within the interfacial sublayer for both aerodynamically smooth and rough airflow was experimentally tested under similar conditions, validating its application to Martian conditions. For the surface sublayer, the definition of the Monin-Obukhov length was modified to properly account for the buoyancy forces arising from water vapor gradients in the Martian atmospheric boundary layer. It was found that under most Martian conditions, the interfacial and surface sublayers offer roughly comparable resistance to sensible heat and water vapor transport and are thus both important in determining the associated fluxes

An Illustration of Students’ Engagement with Mathematical Software using Remote Observation

Students using three types of spreadsheet calculators for understanding expected value were observed remotely. This remote observation involves the use of webcams and application sharing for observing students learning mathematics. The study illustrates how remote observation can be used for collecting mathematical education data and raises questions about the extent to which such a method can be used in future experiments

Mathematical thinking of undergraduate students when using three types of software

The research investigates how conceptual understanding of mathematics is promoted when using three types of software: black-box (no mathematical intermediate steps shown), glass-box (intermediate steps shown) and open-box (interaction at each intermediate step). Thirty-eight students were asked to think-aloud and give detailed explanations whilst answering three types of tasks: mechanical (mostly procedural), interpretive (mostly conceptual) and constructive (mixture of conceptual and procedural). The software types had no impact on how students answered the mechanical tasks; however students using the black-box did better on the constructive tasks because of their increased explorations. Students with low maths confidence resorted to using real-life explanations when answering tasks that were application related

The teaching of linear programming in different disciplines and in different countries

This paper discusses an online survey of linear programming (LP) lecturers in four countries in various disciplines. The study uses Biglan’s [1, 2] classification of disciplines to show that courses in hard-pure and hard-applied subjects were more likely to teach theoretical aspects of linear programming whilst the hard-applied and soft-applied subjects looked more at the application. Further, the soft-applied disciplines were more likely to utilize software during the teaching of the topic. Also, US lecturers were more likely to teach theoretical aspects of LP whilst the UK lecturers were more likely to use common software such as spreadsheets rather than dedicated LP or maths software