Theorycrafting the Classroom: Constructing the Introductory Technical Communication Course as a Game

When games are approached as a pedagogical methodology, the homologies between games and technical communication are highlighted: pedagogy that teaches people to play and succeed within certain confines; classroom assessment that provides meaningful feedback to encourage self-improvement; instructional design that incorporates gaming theory and game design principles; and usability to ensure optimum success. This paper provides an overview of these topics for instructors to consider when designing a technical writing course as a game

The Open Source Composition Space

This paper integrates composition theory with pedagogical practice in order to redefine what is traditionally viewed as the `writing classroom.\u27 Specifically, it explores a new way of considering composition as both a term and a cultural ideology that encompasses many forms of creative expression: traditional alphabetic texts, digital alphabetic texts, multimodal texts such as videos and podcasts, and programming code. The work explores a pedagogical model that can be used to teach composition in its various forms. It also examines what it means to instruct in a classroom in today\u27s digital age by incorporating ideas from traditional classroom teaching, online pedagogy, and dialogic learning methods to propose a model that can span the distance that often exists between teacher and student - literally and figuratively. This thesis suggests a new solution that moves beyond current binaries (print vs. digital, in-class vs. online teaching, textual vs. multimodal) to form a new, inclusive model: The Open Source Composition Space

Student Experiences of Tutoring in an Associate Degree Nursing Education Program

Retention in higher education is a topic of concern, especially in high demand programs. The nursing profession is currently experiencing a shortage and nursing schools are seemingly not able to successfully graduate enough candidates to overcome the shortage. Developing targeted retention solutions for nursing education programs that work not only impacts the higher education community but the nation as a whole. Peer and professional tutoring services specific to nursing education as a retention solution may provide the academic and integrative impact that assists students in performance and improves retention. Understanding the experience of the student tutee is important in developing and modifying the tutoring services to create the greatest impact on retention. This study examined student experiences with peer and professional tutoring. The goal was to determine what aspects of tutoring the students felt helped them to persist in their nursing coursework. The study also attempted to determine why students prefer peer or professional tutoring based on their experiences. Participants included associate degree nursing students from a variety of semesters who attended either peer or professional tutoring. Individual interviews using a semi-structured format were conducted with participants. Colaizzi’s method of analysis was be used to identify themes from the data collected. Jeffreys (2013) Nursing Universal Retention and Success Model was used as a theoretical framework. Findings reinforce the model, indicating that professional integration through engagement with peers and nursing professionals help alter student academic factors and psychological outcomes. Students interviewed articulated that all of these elements together improved their academic outcomes, increasing persistence and program retention

Higher education vulnerability: An assessment model

In the face of declining enrollments and increasing accountability and expectations, private colleges and universities will be facing greater internal and external pressures to deliver higher quality education at a lower cost. In this environment, multiple stakeholders are focused on institutional sustainability. To address these concerns, it is important to understand whether there are leading indicators that may aid in the anticipation of institutional decline. While there is a body of work addressing institutional metrics that serve as predictors of higher education financial viability, there has been little emphasis on complex organizational dynamics. This integrated mixed methods study employed grounded theory to explore how higher education experts understand organizational vulnerability. To gain insight and develop theory, interviews were conducted with institutional leadership, policy makers, and other experts in the field of higher education. This allowed for development of a model which improves understanding of the complex factors that signal institutional decline. Concurrent with the qualitative study, a financial analysis indicator was evaluated to provide an assessment of institutional vulnerability for private colleges and universities. The objective was to use the predictor to identify at-risk institutions. The qualitative and quantitative portions of the study were combined using an iterative, equivalently driven, bidirectional process to address whether the vulnerability theory developed in the study could be used to explain the dynamics of the institutions with an at-risk predictor score. Implications and application of the research for private college and university stakeholders are discussed

Alignment or Detachment: College Educators’ Perceptions of Experiential Learning Pedagogy

The main purpose of this study was to investigate how college educators’ perceptions of experiential learning influence the design, implementation, and assessment of their courses. A second purpose of this study was to examine the way’s college educators use experiential learning in their classes. A final purpose of this study was to evaluate the relationship between a college educators’ prior experience with experiential learning and how they utilize that prior experiences to design, instruct, and assess their courses. A descriptive research design was used in this study. A randomized and anonymous survey containing 29 items was emailed out through Qualtrics to 3000 college educators across the world. The results of the study indicate that college educators develop aptitude in experiential learning in a wide variety of ways. The results of this study also show that college educators believe their prior experience/exposure to experiential learning has been influential to their educational practice. In addition, this study found that college educators believe students should have input in designing, modifying, or evaluating their learning experience. Finally, the results of this study found that college educators typically teach the way they were taught, and that they use a wide variety of assessment and instructional methods in their classrooms

Rover nuclear rocket engine program: Overview of rover engine tests

The results of nuclear rocket development activities from the inception of the ROVER program in 1955 through the termination of activities on January 5, 1973 are summarized. This report discusses the nuclear reactor test configurations (non cold flow) along with the nuclear furnace demonstrated during this time frame. Included in the report are brief descriptions of the propulsion systems, test objectives, accomplishments, technical issues, and relevant test results for the various reactor tests. Additionally, this document is specifically aimed at reporting performance data and their relationship to fuel element development with little or no emphasis on other (important) items

Evaluating Machine Learning Methods for City Bike Demand Prediction in Oslo

A bike-sharing system is a service in which a fleet of bicycles is made available to the public on a short-term basis through self-served docking stations. These stations are limited in capacity and are often depleted or saturated with bikes due to sudden spikes in demand. These spikes are hard to avoid and are both detrimental to the user experience and the effectiveness of the system. Machine learning methods have been used to forecast demand spikes at station level in similar systems successfully and would likely be a valuable tool in proactively counteracting the effect of demand spikes in the Oslo bike-sharing system. The goal of this thesis is to evaluate common machine learning methods for demand prediction modeling at individual bike-sharing stations in Oslo. To accomplish this, four machine learning methods which have successfully predicted station-level demand in similar systems are evaluated through a set of experiments. The methods are based on a random forest, gradient boosting tree and recurrent neural networks with either long short-term memory- or gated recurrent unit units. Based on the experimental results, the recurrent neural network with the long short-term memory unit is deemed to be the most suitable for the Oslo bike-sharing system, both due to performance and future potential. However, all methods achieved good performance and made accurate predictions. The results pave the road for developing a full-scale prediction system in the Oslo bike-sharing system, by highlighting the most promising prediction method

Understanding Underlying Gratifications Behind TikTok Use: A Strategic Marketing Perspective

Masteroppgave(MSc) in Master of Science in Strategic Marketing Management - Handelshøyskolen BI, 2023With TikTok taking more place in firms’ marketing efforts, many businesses launch their debut on the platform. Regardless of knowledge and experience, firms post content and buy ads hopeful to reach their initial goals. However, even on TikTok, some guidelines and a strategic plan is necessary before challenging the market. Target group, strategies, type of content, engagement and algorithm are, among others, factors that need to be considered to succeed as a brand on the platform. This paper aims towards identifying segments in terms of adolescents’ use of TikTok. A cluster analysis was conducted, resulting in three segments of interest; The Social Producers, The Entertainment Lurkers, and The Curious and Inspired. Further on, the segments were described in depth regarding their behavior and gratifications on the platform. This analysis led to strategic recommendations on how firms can reach potential customers with their goal for social media marketing in mind. Whether it be conversion or brand awareness, we describe in depth what type of content and behavior could be effective for a brand on TikTok