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Research in mentoring has shown that students may at times be more willing and able to absorb information that is delivered to them by their near-peers, rather than by traditional figures of authority, like teachers and professors. In this study, underrepresented minority high school students participated in an informal learning experience that was led by college students who were "near-peers" to the high schoolers. Students were engaged by participating in interactive MathShows, following a Math Social Media Campaign, and attending a summer Math Internship. Participants in the quantitative component of the study included N = 559 U.S. high schoolers who were from predominantly (>99%) Hispanic ethnic backgrounds. The qualitative component of the study involved another 19 students from the same school. The mixed methods study addresses associations between high schoolers' attitudes toward mathematics and their identity alignment, as well as classes of reasons that students gave for their identity alignment. Interactions with the college near-peers that occurred during the experiential learning intervention are also discussed. Results of this study address the goal of broadening participation of underrepresented student groups in STEM careers.

In this paper, we explain changes made in an introductory Real Analysis classroom that address common challenges and that may allow for all levels of students to meet a high standard of learning and written work. We aim for this goal by fusing elements of a hybrid course with scaffolded collaborative work to improve student learning. The hybrid structure allows students to engage new material at their pace, while the scaffolding allows for more challenging coursework and models for students some typical arguments in analysis. As a result, students that initially submitted proofs needing significant improvement in coherence and organization show positive gains in self-confidence and are enabled to progress quickly to submitting mathematical writing of a high calibre. Our case study occurred at a large institution serving many underrepresented and non-traditional student populations. The approach may be effective at schools with similar goals and challenges.

Short's assertion that Peirce lacked a cohesive philosophical system is critically examined, and the interconnectedness of Peirce's 1884-1893 'cosmology' with other aspects of his work is explored, countering Short's claims of its limited systematic relevance. Additionally, Short's claim that Peirce 'expanded empiricism empirically' is scrutinized, and his interpretation of Peirce's account of perception is criticized. By contrasting Short's anti-system reading, I highlight the importance of studying Peirce's philosophy holistically. Keywords: Charles S. Peirce, T. L. Short, metaphysics, cosmology, empiricism, perception., Introduction In the preface of his 2022 book, Charles Peirce and Modern Science, T. L. Short says that its two main themes are, first, that Peirce 'proposed that all of [...]

Mathematical dispositions (MD) and self-efficacy for teaching mathematics (SEFTM) are important elements of teachers? beliefs that significantly influence their behaviors and educational practices in the classroom. This study looked at relationships between pre-service teachers? (PSTs) MD and their SEFTM in connection with other descriptors related to their progress through the teacher education program and prior mathematical experiences. Survey data were collected from 238 PSTs at a midsized university in the US. Results include the finding that PSTs? intended grade-level and subject approximately mirror their MD and SEFTM: those planning to be elementary school (generalist) teachers were slightly behind both middle and high school teachers, who had more positive MD, while both elementary and middles school PSTs were slightly behind high school-level mathematics content PSTs, who had the greatest SEFTM. Additionally, MD was a strong predictor of SEFTM, and both MD and SEFTM appear to be mediated by the influence upon PSTs of their prior mathematics teachers. Implications for teacher education and avenues for further research into these associations are offered.

The use of confidence intervals (CIs) for making a statistical inference is gaining popularity in research communities. To evaluate college statistics instructors' readiness to teach CIs, this study explores their attitudes toward teaching CIs in elementary statistics courses, and toward using CIs in inferential statistics. Data were collected with a survey that classifies instructors' attitudes on the basis of three previously established pedagogical components: affective, cognitive, and behavioral. Based on the survey responses from 270 participants, we created three profiles (subgroups) via latent profile analysis, and identified each profile's pattern of attitudes toward CIs and common characteristics of the instructors that fit each profile. In addition, we compared the profiles across groupings created by six variables: gender, academic background, statistics teaching experience, subject preference, degree level, and desire to improve teaching. The results of the latent profile analysis support three profiles within the population of statistics instructors, and the results of the comparative analysis of teacher characteristics indicate that the six variables are moderate to strong predictors of the grouping of the sample into three profiles.

The Fluid Earth (FE) is an interactive data visualization initially developed for learning about Earth's atmosphere in informal educational settings. In this study, we tested FE in middle school classes to assess student engagement in a formal educational setting. Using a quasi-experimental design, students were assigned to interact with the data visualization website (high interactivity) or prerecorded videos of the visualization (low interactivity). Students who used the website demonstrated greater engagement and perceived learning than students who used videos, but no differences were observed for behavioral intentions to use FE in the future. Results provide preliminary evidence that the interactive interface provided a more engaging educational experience than videos. Findings suggest that interactivity is an important component of science education visualizations, and there is value in creating interactive tools for students to explore geosciences processes and concepts. Additional work is needed to assess the visualization's impact on student learning of content knowledge and its applicability to more diverse student groups.

Forward osmosis (FO) has emerged as a new technology for desalination and exhibits potentials for applications where reverse osmosis is incapable or uneconomical for treating streams with high salinity or fouling propensity. However, most of current draw agents in FO are salts and difficult to be recycled cost- and energy-effectively. In this work, we demonstrate a new and facile approach to efficiently recover water from the FO process with enhanced water purity by using a binary ion liquid/hydrogel system. The hybrid ion liquid/hydrogel draw solution system demonstrated in this work synergistically leverages the thermoresponsive properties of both the ionic liquid (IL) and hydrogel to improve the overall FO performance. Our findings corroborate that the hydrogel mitigates the water flux decline of the IL as the draw agent and provide a ready route to contiguously and effectively regenerate water from the FO process. Such a route allows for an efficient recovery of water from the draw solute/water mixture with enhanced water purity, compared with conventional thermal treating of lower critical solution temperature IL draw solute/water. Furthermore, hydrogels can be used in a continuous and readily recyclable process to recover water without heating the entire draw solute/water mixture. Our design principles open the door to use low-grade/waste heat or solar energy to regenerate draw agents and potentially reduce energy in the FO process considerably.