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The article focuses on a tutoring program between high school students and preservice teacher students from a local college. The 10-week tutoring program, which involved two 1-hour tutoring sessions each week. On the first visit to the high school, the teachers and principal provided the preservice teachers with a 30-minute orientation and tour of the school. The preservice teachers had to submit a lesson plan for their tutoring that was reviewed by staff in the college's Education Lab. At the end of each week, the preservice teachers wrote a one-page reflection on their tutoring experience to include the lesson's objectives; the activities they used; an evaluation of whether they met the objectives; and what they learned about their tutees, themselves as tutors, and the process of tutoring. They were also encouraged to include any connections to the instructional design course in which they were currently enrolled as well as prior education courses. The tutoring program (renamed a mentoring program) helped preservice teachers realize the importance of looking at the whole person when evaluating their success. Conversations with the two high schools teachers and principal also established a clearer sense of purpose to the program around "seeing the child," including why some students, because of their race, class, and gender, are not seen.

With the rise of social media and the peer-to-peer economy, sellers can easily tell potential buyers about themselves and their process of producing products and services. This research investigates the influence of a central aspect of the production process that sellers can communicate—their production enjoyment. Buyers are willing to pay a higher price, are more likely to click on ads, and are more likely to choose a product or service when the seller signals that they enjoy producing it. In contrast, sellers are willing to accept lower prices, and actually charge less, for products and services they enjoy producing. Both buyers and sellers make the inference that production enjoyment leads to higher quality products/services, but only buyers rely on this inference when forming their pricing judgments relative to sellers. Nine studies illustrate these effects across a wide variety of products and services, participant samples, and operationalizations of production enjoyment. They show that signals of production enjoyment can influence buyers more than other established signals (e.g., effort) and demonstrate contexts where these effects are more and less likely to occur. These findings offer practical recommendations for both buyers and sellers as well as a variety of theoretical contributions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For many years, the main approach to educational improvement has consisted of high-stakes testing and accountability. While this approach has achieved some success, it has also created negative outcomes including a narrowing of the curriculum, and an over-testing of students. Against this backdrop, there are examples of teachers that have introduced new and innovative approaches to teaching and learning. This study explores teachers' perceptions of innovative approaches and the supports and obstacles to innovation.

This study evaluated the influence of acute water ingestion and maintaining an upright posture on raw bioimpedance and subsequent estimates of body fluids and composition. Twenty healthy adults participated in a randomized crossover study. In both conditions, an overnight food and fluid fast was followed by an initial multi-frequency bioimpedance assessment (InBody 770). Participants then ingested 11 mL/kg of water (water condition) or did not (control condition) during a 5-minute period. Thereafter, bioimpedance assessments were performed every 10 minutes for one hour with participants remaining upright throughout. Linear mixed effects models were used to examine the influence of condition and time on raw bioimpedance, body fluids, and body composition. Water consumption increased impedance of the arms but not trunk or legs. However, drift in leg impedance was observed, with decreasing values over time in both conditions. No effects of condition on body fluids were detected, but total body water and intracellular water decreased by ~0.5 kg over time in both conditions. Correspondingly, lean body mass did not differ between conditions but decreased over the measurement duration. The increase in body mass in the water condition was detected exclusively as fat mass, with final fat mass values ~1.3 kg higher than baseline and also higher than the control condition. Acute water ingestion and prolonged standing exert practically meaningful effects on relevant bioimpedance variables quantified by a modern, vertical multi-frequency analyzer. These findings have implications for pre-assessment standardization, methodological reporting, and interpretation of assessments.

The long nineteenth century--the period from the end of the French Revolution to the start of World War I--saw huge transformations in the body of astronomical knowledge and what astronomers regarded as the boundaries and limits of legitimate astronomy. These changes resulted from the complex interplay of scientific, technical, social, political and cultural factors. In this paper, I will examine three features of astronomy in the long nineteenth century. These features are 1) the drive for precision in the first half of the nineteenth century; 2) the range of activities undertaken in official observatories; and 3) the emergence of astrophysics in the second half of the century and how it was shaped in the United States by a new form of astronomical patronage. For each of these features, we will see that astronomers played different roles beyond that of astronomers narrowly defined and that these roles illuminate major aspects of nineteenth-century astronomy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examined the effects of resistance training combined with whey protein and leucine blends on muscular strength (1-RM), endurance (repetitions to failure [RTF]), cross-sectional area (CSA), perceived exertion (RPE), and body mass (BM). Thirty-nine men (age = 20.6 ± 1.5 yrs) were randomly assigned to 1 of 3 Groups: (a) 1 dose of 40 g of whey protein and 6.2 g of total leucine (1PRO+L, n = 13); (b) 2 doses of 20 g of whey protein and 6.2 g of total leucine per dose (2PRO+L, n = 12); or (c) placebo (PLA, n = 14). The dependent variables were assessed before and after 8 weeks of high-intensity resistance training 3 d·wk-1. Mixed factorial ANOVAs revealed significant (P < 0.001) increases in BP and LE 1-RM and RTF, VL CSA, a reduction in RPE, and no change in BM (P > 0.05), with no between Group differences. Individual analyses indicated that a greater proportion of the 1PRO+L Group exceeded the minimal important difference for LE 1-RM and RTF compared to those in the 2PRO+L and PLA Groups (P < 0.05). No other differences were observed for the individual responses. These findings indicate that 40 g of whey protein with 6.2 g of total leucine increased LE 1-RM and RTF more than 2 doses of 20 g of whey protein with 6.2 g of total leucine or PLA. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The researchers surveyed 23 North Carolina high schools that had markedly improved their graduation rates over the past five years. The administrators reported on the dropout prevention practices and programs to which they attributed their improved graduation rates. The majority of schools reported policy changes, especially with suspension. The main interventions that showed positive impact were improvements in academic support, school/classroom climate, and transition from middle to high school. School districts did support their schools, but only 61% gave additional financial support. Several school administrators reported success of specific programs, teachers having engaging lessons and high expectations, close monitoring of students, giving students more chances to succeed, and improved individual/family support as contributors to their improved graduation rates.

Despite reticence from the central office, strong middle level teacher leaders worked together to develop an effective anti-bullying program that addresses a significant need for safety and inclusion for all middle school students. This article describes how one teacher's concerns changed her school's attitude with regard to bullying from assuming that "bullying is not a major problem at our school" to "bullying is a priority issue included in the school improvement plan with a school-wide program to address bullying." The article offers six key points for educators to consider when a grassroots approach to raising awareness about bullying at any school.

Background Due to inherent errors involved in the transformation of raw bioelectrical variables to body fluids or composition estimates, the sole use of resistance (R), reactance (Xc), and phase angle ([phi]) has been advocated when quantifying longitudinal changes. The aim of this investigation was to assess the ability of four bioimpedance analyzers to detect raw bioimpedance changes induced by purposeful weight gain with resistance training. Methods Twenty-one resistance trained males completed a 6-week lifestyle intervention with the aim of purposeful weight gain. Bioimpedance analysis was performed before and after the intervention using four different analyzers (MFBIA.sub.InBody: InBody 770; MFBIA.sub.SECA: Seca mBCA 515/514; BIS: ImpediMed SFB7; SFBIA: RJL Quantum V) for the quantification of R, Xc, and [phi] at the 50-kHz frequency. Repeated measures ANOVA and follow up tests were performed. Results Analysis revealed main effects of time and method for R, Xc, and [phi] (p [less than or equal to] 0.02), without significant time x method interactions (p [greater than or equal to] 0.07). Follow up for time main effects indicated that, on average, R decreased by 4.5-5.8%, Xc decreased by 2.3-4.0%, and [phi] increased by 1.8-2.6% across time for all analyzers combined. However, varying levels of disagreement in absolute values were observed for each bioelectrical variable. Conclusions The differences in absolute bioelectrical values suggests that analyzers should not be used interchangeably, which holds particular importance when reference values are utilized. Despite absolute differences, analyzers with varying characteristics demonstrated similar abilities to detect changes in R, Xc, and [phi] over time., Author(s): Matthew T. Stratton [sup.1] , Robert W. Smith [sup.1] , Patrick S. Harty [sup.1] , Christian Rodriguez [sup.1] , Baylor A. Johnson [sup.1] , Jacob R. Dellinger [sup.1] , [...]

This study examined the effects of sustained, isometric forearm flexion tasks anchored to ratings of perceived exertion of 2 (RPE2FT) and 8 (RPE8FT) on the patterns of fatigue-induced changes in torque and neuromuscular responses, time to task failure (TTF), performance fatigability (% decline in maximal voluntary isometric contraction [MVIC]), and perceived factors that contributed to task termination. Twelve men (mean ± SD: age = 20.9 ± 2.2 yrs) performed MVICs before and after the tasks and completed post-test questionnaires (PTQ). Data were analyzed using polynomial regression analyses, dependent t-tests, Spearman's rank order correlations, and Wilcoxon signed rank tests. The RPE8FT had greater (p < 0.001) performance fatigability than the RPE2FT, despite no difference (p > 0.05) in TTF. During both tasks, there were significant (p ≤ 0.05) composite linear decreases for torque, electromyographic amplitude, and neuromuscular efficiency, and substantial individual variability in the neuromuscular responses. There were no significant (p > 0.05) associations among the perceived factors and TTF or performance fatigability. Thus, there were RPE-specific differences in performance fatigability, but not TTF or the composite patterns of changes in torque and neuromuscular responses. In addition, in most cases, the individual neuromuscular, but not torque, patterns of responses were RPE-specific. Furthermore, the perceived factors assessed by the PTQ were not related to TTF or performance fatigability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]