Browsing by Subject "composition"

Now showing 1 - 7 of 7
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    Adapting Writing Center Pedagogy for Composition Classrooms: A Metacognitive Approach
    (2012-05-04) Gellin, Laura M.; Fox, Stephen L.; Buchenot, Andre; Hogue, Teresa Molinder
    While a writing center tutor may view her role as a coach, a commentator, and a counselor, the tutor actually serves as scaffolding, a temporary, supportive replacement of the processes more experienced writers can manage alone without a tutor, namely, the metacognitive processes of self-assessing, self-monitoring, and self-motivating. Metacognition then becomes the essential factor in adapting writing center practices into the composition classroom. By re-conceptualizing the three roles of a writing center tutor and re-visioning the classroom into a more “pure” learning space, tutor-teachers improve students’ writing skills, increase their engagement, and redirect students’ focus toward the writing process rather than the grade. To demonstrate the efficacy of this adapted writing center approach in the composition classroom, I created an authentic, challenging project in which the pre-project activities, task design, work process, and reflection assignment enact my proposed theory. By adopting this approach, tutor-teachers ultimately empower students and design compositional tasks that act as a catalyst for transforming the way students understand themselves as writers and as students.
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    "Discovering" Writing With Struggling Students: Using Discovery Learning Pedagogy to Improve Writing Skills in Reluctant and Remedial Learners
    (2016-03) Bohney, Brandie Lee; Lovejoy, Kim B.; Fox, Steve; Brooks-Gillies, Marilee Elizabeth
    Few writing teachers will disagree that teaching writing conventions in isolation is a fruitless, even harmful, pedagogy which does little, if anything, to improve student writing. Teaching conventions, style, and usage (often collectively referred to as grammar) in context, however, proves difficult when struggling secondary students develop good ideas and evidence but fail to clearly articulate them because of their lack of understanding of various writing conventions. The purpose of this study is to test the efficacy of a carefully designed discovery learning activity which intends to push students into metacognition about what they read, how it is structured, and how that structure affects the reader. Three sources of data were used to determine whether students who had learned by discovery were better able to avoid and revise run-on sentences than students who did not learn through discovery pedagogy. The data sources include two sets of essays, surveys taken by the students, and teacher analyses of essays for readability. The results of the data analysis indicate that use of run-on sentences, especially early in an essay, detrimentally affects the readability of student written work; discovery learning activities improve student understanding, application, and transfer of skill; and while students believe they understand more than their written work indicates, the results provide teachers direction for further instruction. The findings of this study indicate that use of discovery learning for writing instruction with struggling learners holds great promise: a group of students generally regarded as academically weak showed greater understanding and application of run-on sentence avoidance than slightly stronger students who learned without discovery methods. This indicates that discovery learning is a method that improves learning among reluctant secondary students, a population many teachers struggle to reach effectively. Discovery learning is not limited to conventions, though: the promise of its application potential extends into a variety of writing skills and concepts. In addition to the run-on sentence discovery activity studied here, discovery activities for various other skills—from semicolon use through creating characterization with dialogue—are included.
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    Restrictions to Invariant Subspaces of Composition Operators on the Hardy Space of the Disk
    (2014-01-29) Thompson, Derek Allen; Cowen, Carl C.; Ji, Ronghui ; Klimek, Slawomir; Bell, Steven R.; Mukhin, Evgeny
    Invariant subspaces are a natural topic in linear algebra and operator theory. In some rare cases, the restrictions of operators to different invariant subspaces are unitarily equivalent, such as certain restrictions of the unilateral shift on the Hardy space of the disk. A composition operator with symbol fixing 0 has a nested sequence of invariant subspaces, and if the symbol is linear fractional and extremally noncompact, the restrictions to these subspaces all have the same norm and spectrum. Despite this evidence, we will use semigroup techniques to show many cases where the restrictions are still not unitarily equivalent.
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    Subject factors influencing blood flow restriction in the arm at low cuff pressures
    (Wiley, 2022) Meek, Anthony W.; Heavrin, Adam M.; Mikesky, Alan E.; Segal, Neil A.; Riley, Zachary A.; Health Sciences, School of Health and Human Sciences
    BACKGROUND Limb circumference predicts the pressure needed for complete occlusion. However, that relationship is inconsistent at moderate pressures typical of effective blood flow restriction (BFR) training. The purpose of this study was to investigate the influence of subject factors on BFR at low restriction pressures in the arm. METHODS Fifty subjects had arm anthropometrics assessed by peripheral quantitative computed tomography (pQCT), skin folds (sumSKF) and Gulick tape (GulCirc) at cuff level. Blood flow was measured with ultrasound at baseline and five restrictive pressures (20,30,40,50, and 60mmHg). Relationships between subject characteristics and BFR were assessed using Pearson correlations and hierarchical regression. RESULTS Blood flow decreased (p<0.05) at each incremental pressure. Regression models including muscle composition (%Muscle), pQCT circumference, and systolic blood pressure (SBP), were significant at all 5 pressures (R2 = 0.18 to 0.49). %Muscle explained the most variance at each pressure. Regression models including sumSKF, Gul circ, and SBP, were significant at 30–60mmHg (R2 = 0.28 to 0.49). SumSKF explained the most variance at each pressure. CONCLUSIONS At low pressures (20–60mmHg), there is considerable variability in the magnitude of BFR across individuals. Arm composition factors (muscle, fat) explained the greatest variance at each cuff pressure, and may be the most important consideration when using BFR protocols.
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    Thermal durability and fracture behavior of layered Yb-Gd-Y-based thermal barrier coatings in thermal cyclic exposure
    (Elsevier, 2017-08) Jung, Sung-Hoon; Lu, Zhe; Jung, Yeon-Gil; Song, Dowon; Paik, Ungyu; Choi, Baig-Gyu; Kim, In-Soo; Guo, Xingye; Zhang, Jing; Department of Mechanical Engineering, School of Engineering and Technology
    The effects of structural design on the thermal durability and fracture behavior of Yb-Gd-Y-based thermal barrier coatings (TBCs) were investigated through thermal cyclic exposure tests, such as furnace cyclic thermal fatigue (FCTF) and jet engine thermal shock (JETS) tests. The effects of composition in the bond coat and feedstock purity for the buffer layer on its lifetime performance were also examined. To overcome the drawbacks of Yb-Gd-Y-based material with inferior thermal durability due to poor mechanical properties and low coefficient of thermal expansion, a buffer layer was introduced in the Yb-Gd-Y-based TBC systems. In FCTF tests, the TBCs with the buffer layer showed a longer lifetime performance than those without the buffer layer, showing the longest thermal durability in the TBC with the Co-Ni-based bond coat and the buffer layer of regular purity. In JETS tests, the TBC with the Ni-based bond coat and the buffer layer of high purity showed a sound condition after 2000 cycles, showing better thermal durability for TBC with the Co-Ni-based bond coat rather than that with the Ni-based bond coat in the single layer coating without the buffer layer. The buffer layer effectively enhanced the thermal durability in slow temperature change (in the FCTF test), while the bond-coat composition and the feedstock purity for the buffer layer were found to be important factor to improve the thermal durability of the TBC in fast temperature change (in the JEET test). Finally, these research findings allow us to control the structure, composition, and feedstock purity in TBC system for improving the thermal durability in cyclic thermal environments.
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    Toward a Commonsense Answer to the Special Composition Question
    (Taylor and Francis, 2015) Carmichael, Chad; Department of Philosophy, School of Liberal Arts
    The special composition question is the question, ‘When do some things compose something?’ The answers to this question in the literature have largely been at odds with common sense, either by allowing that any two things (no matter how apparently unrelated) compose something, or by denying the existence of most ordinary composite objects. I propose a new ‘series-style’ answer to the special composition question that accords much more closely with common sense, and I defend this answer from van Inwagen's objections. Specifically, I will argue (among other things) that the proposed answer entails the transitivity of parthood, that it is non-circular, and that it casts some light on the ancient puzzle about the Ship of Theseus.
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    Worlds collide: integrating writing center best practices into a first year composition classroom
    (2010-07-29T18:56:53Z) Sherven, Keva N.; Fox, Stephen L.; Shepherd, Susan Carol; Hogue, Teresa Molinder
    As an undergraduate, I had the opportunity to work in the University Writing Center (UWC) at IUPUI. This opportunity influenced my life in many ways, but none more important than my teaching. Looking back on my time in the UWC, I did not realize the connection between writing centers and composition classrooms. As a graduate student, I began to read literature that defined composition classrooms and writing centers as separate worlds. However, once I was an instructor, these two worlds were seamless weaving in and out of each other to the point that I couldn’t separate them. In fact, I didn’t understand how one could. I had read literature defining composition classrooms and writing centers as different worlds but was having experiences in the classroom that contradicted this perception, so I wanted to investigate how these experiences influenced my teaching. I sought out literature that explored the writing center-composition classroom connection to look at specific elements of my teaching and how they tied to UWC practices. This case study grew out of the initial challenges I faced as a new instructor, which led me on a journey to find my own approach to teaching composition. That journey resulted in the implementation of writing center best practices, that I learned as a tutor, into my teaching philosophy, and this background equipped me to approach writing instruction as a facilitator, guiding students to become better writers.This case study examines which writing center practices, gleaned from my experiences in the UWC at IUPUI, I’ve incorporated into my classroom, why I’ve chosen these practices, and what student feedback reveals about these practices.