Search for: All records

This paper investigates the relationship between teacher and student discourse patterns, measured by accountable talk moves (Michaels & O’Connor, 2015) and the quality of mathematics instruction as measured by the Mathematical Quality of Instruction (MQI) rubric. This study uses a large public dataset of human coded MQI lesson transcripts and validated AI coding for talk moves to explore how different talk moves predict instructional quality. Results indicate that certain talk moves at certain frequencies, especially those relating to accountability to the learning community and rigorous thinking, positively correlate with higher MQI scores. Thus the nature and frequency of nuanced discourse patterns are crucial for high-quality mathematics instruction, while simple metrics like the amount of student talk have little impact. 

This article showcases a lesson developed by the authors to be a mindful and engaging introduction to 3D printing that positions students to maximize the output of the 3D-printing process by reducing print failures and inefficiencies. The big idea for this lesson is to have students learn and apply the concepts behind designing for manufacturability through the additive manufacturing process. To do so, students will explore various 3D-printed designs and consider the concepts of what makes those designs good or bad. These concepts include print orientation, infill, layer height, and support. Students will then be challenged to apply their acquired knowledge by engaging in an engineering challenge to optimize the speed, quality, and efficiency of a 3D-printed product by appropriately adjusting print settings within slicing software—helping to ensure that students know how to take care in printing objects in a way that maximizes the output of the printing process while minimizing the waste of materials and other resources. At the end of the challenge, students will evaluate and share both the print settings and the final features of the printed products to illustrate and reaffirm their knowledge from the lesson as well as determine which student team achieved the most ideal results for the challenge. 

This commentary paper addresses the outdated and misleading terminology used to categorize termites into “higher” and “lower”. These terms perpetuate a linear progression view of evolution, which is both inaccurate and detrimental to our understanding of the diversity of life. We trace the historical origins of these terms and highlight their flawed interpretation of evolutionary relationships. We advocate for the adoption of Termitidae (or termitid), rather than “higher termites”. As for the paraphyletic group of “lower termites”, we recommend refraining from grouping them together, unless specifically referring to their symbionts. In such cases, we propose “protist-dependent termites” or “non-Termitidae termites”. 

Energetic particle fluxes that are part of the Earth’s ring current and radiation belts can intensify significantly during space weather events like geomagnetic storms and could cause severe damage to satellite-based technologies. Understanding the physical processes that control their dynamics and improving our capability for their prediction is thus extremely important. In the context of space weather applications and user needs, this paper provides a brief description of our kinetic ring current-atmosphere interactions model with self-consistent magnetic field (RAM-SCB) and its further extension to implement a self-consistent electric (E) field. Specific examples that demonstrate RAM-SCB capabilities and limitations to reproduce the near-Earth space weather environment are given. The current status of RAM-SCB is assessed and plans for its further improvement are discussed.