No Arabic abstract
Collaboration among students is fundamental for knowledge building and competency development. Nonetheless, the effectiveness of student collaboration depends on the extent that these interactions take place under conditions that favor commitment, trust, and decision-making among those who interact. The sanitary situation and the transition to remote teaching has added new challenges for collaboration given that students interactions are mediated by Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs). In this study we explore the effectiveness of different collaborative relationships on physics and mathematics, from a sample of secondary students from two schools located in rural and urban areas in southern Chile. We used Social Network Analysis (SNA) to map students friendships relations, academic prestige, and collaboration on both courses. Later we combined the collaboration network with friendship and academic prestige on the course, to separate strong from weak friendship working ties, and those among students who enjoy or not academic prestige. Multiple linear regression models showed, on average, positive effects of collaboration on grades. Yet, when isolating the effects of the types of collaboration, the positive effects are observed only between those who display more strong friendship ties. Also, we found differences on the social networks and their effects over grades between both courses, presumably due to their pedagogical nature. With these results we contribute to the literature of collaboration and its effectiveness based on the nature of students relationships, and advocate for the importance of instructional design in fostering appropriate motivations and guidelines for constructive collaboration in the classroom.
Publish or perish is an expression describing the pressure on academics to consistently publish research to ensure a successful career in academia. With a global pandemic that has changed the world, how has it changed academic productivity? Here we show that academics are posting just as many publications on the arXiv pre-print server as if there were no pandemic: 168,630 were posted in 2020, a +12.6% change from 2019 and $+1.4sigma$ deviation above the predicted 162,577 $pm$ 4,393. However, some immediate impacts are visible in individual research fields. Conference cancellations have led to sharp drops in pre-prints, but laboratory closures have had mixed effects. Only some experimental fields show mild declines in outputs, with most being consistent on previous years or even increasing above model expectations. The most significant change is a 50% increase ($+8sigma$) in quantitative biology research, all related to the COVID-19 pandemic. Some of these publications are by biologists using arXiv for the first time, and some are written by researchers from other fields (e.g., physicists, mathematicians). While quantitative biology pre-prints have returned to pre-pandemic levels, 20% of the research in this field is now focussed on the COVID-19 pandemic, demonstrating a strong shift in research focus.
Students who serve as Learning Assistants (LAs) and have the opportunity to teach the content they are learning, while also studying effective teaching pedagogy, have demonstrated achievement gains in advanced content courses and positive shifts in attitudes about learning science [V. Otero, S. Pollock & N. Finkelstein, Amer J Physics 78, 11 (2010)]. Although the LA experience is also valuable for high school students, the tight schedule and credit requirements of advanced high school students limit opportunities for implementing traditional LA programs at the high school level. In order to provide high school physics students with an LA-like experience, iPads were used as tools for students to synthesize screencast video tutorials for students to access, review and evaluate. The iPads were utilized in a one-to-one tablet-to-student environment throughout the course of an entire school year. This research investigates the impact of a one-to-one iPad environment and the use of iPads to create teaching-to-learn (TtL) experiences on student agency and attitudes toward learning science. Project funded by NSF grant # DUE 934921.
In the past decade, blogging web sites have become more sophisticated and influential than ever. Much of this sophistication and influence follows from their network organization. Blogging social networks (BSNs) allow individual bloggers to form contact lists, subscribe to other blogs, comment on blog posts, declare interests, and participate in collective blogs. Thus, a BSN is a bimodal venue, where users can engage in publishing (post) as well as in social (make friends) activities. In this paper, we study the co-evolution of both activities. We observed a significant positive correlation between blogging and socializing. In addition, we identified a number of user archetypes that correspond to mainly bloggers, mainly socializers, etc. We analyzed a BSN at the level of individual posts and changes in contact lists and at the level of trajectories in the friendship-publishing space. Both approaches produced consistent results: the majority of BSN users are passive readers; publishing is the dominant active behavior in a BSN; and social activities complement blogging, rather than compete with it.
Redlining is the discriminatory practice whereby institutions avoided investment in certain neighborhoods due to their demographics. Here we explore the lasting impacts of redlining on the spread of COVID-19 in New York City (NYC). Using data available through the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act, we construct a redlining index for each NYC census tract via a multi-level logistical model. We compare this redlining index with the COVID-19 statistics for each NYC Zip Code Tabulation Area. Accurate mappings of the pandemic would aid the identification of the most vulnerable areas and permit the most effective allocation of medical resources, while reducing ethnic health disparities.
In the field of astronomy, Maunakea is known as a prestigious site for observing and science. In Native Hawaiian culture, Maunakea is revered as the connection between past, present, and future generations and their ancestral lands of Hawaii. We have reached a juncture at which it is necessary to allow and enable Native Hawaiians to pursue careers in astronomy, especially on Maunakea. This paper serves to tell the accounts of four Kanaka astronomers and raise awareness of the barriers they have faced while pursuing astronomy careers. The authors identify issues that the community faces due to the disconnect between astronomy and Hawaii communities and propose resolutions to lead the way forward.