This book represents the most comprehensive and up-to-date collection of information on the topic of computational molecular biology. Bringing the most recent research into the forefront of discussion, Algorithms in Computational Molecular Biology studies the most important and useful algorithms currently being used in the field, and provides related problems. It also succeeds where other titles have failed, in offering a wide range of information from the introductory fundamentals right up to the latest, most advanced levels of study.
Gain a nuanced understanding of parent–adolescent conflict in Chinese- and Mexican-origin families in the United States. This volume explores key issues related to family conflict such as acculturation gaps parent and adolescent internal conflicts conflict resolution seeking out confidants for help in coping with conflict. This volume showcases the complexity of conflict among Chinese- and Mexican-origin families and furthers our understanding of how both developmental and cultural sources of parent–adolescent conflict are linked to adjustment. This is the 135th volume in this series. Its mission is to provide scientific and scholarly presentations on cutting edge issues and concepts in child and adolescent development. Each volume focuses on a specific new direction or research topic and is edited by experts on that topic.
Finally, the first research-based book of sound strategies and best practices to help instructors motivate students to complete their online courses. Although studies support the effectiveness of learning online, students often fail to complete online courses. Some studies have found that as many as 50–70% drop out of their online courses or programs. Retention is not only a growing expectation and imperative, but it is also as opportunity for faculty members to take the lead in innovating, researching, and implementing new strategies while demonstrating their effectiveness. Designed for instructors and instructional designers, Motivating and Retaining Online Students is filled with empirical research from the authors’ study of motivation and retention strategies that can reduce online learner dropout. Focusing on the most important issues instructors face, such as course design; student engagement and motivation; and institutional, instructional, and informal student support strategies, the book provides effective online strategies that help minimize student dropout, increase student retention, and support student learning. While helping to improve the overall retention rates for educational institutions, the strategies outlined in the book also allow for student diversity and individual learner differences. Lehman and Conceição’s proven model gives instructors an effective approach to help students persist in online courses and succeed as learners.
This important new resource shows how a strong sense of online presence contributes to greater student satisfaction and retention. The authors explore the psychological and social aspects of online presence from both the instructor and student perspective and provide an instructional design framework for developing effective online learning. Based on solid research and extensive experience, the book is filled with suggested methods, illustrative case scenarios, and effective activities for creating, maintaining, and evaluating presence throughout an online course. «The authors have taken the mystery out of the critical concept of presence by providing the theory that supports its importance and simple techniques to make it happen. Instructors who read this book will be able to develop effective online learning communities and achieve desired learning outcomes.» —Rena M. Palloff and Keith Pratt, program directors and faculty, Teaching in the Virtual Classroom Program, Fielding Graduate University «Lehman and Conceição blend hands-on experience, research, and a collection of practical tips to provide every online instructor with strategies for 'being there.' If you want to bring the real you into your online classes and take your online teaching to the next level, this is the book to read.» —Chip Donohue, director of distance learning, Erikson Institute «This book provides a practical and interactive model to help readers reflect on why and how they can guide online and blended learning activities, characterized by a personal 'sense of presence.'» —Alan B. Knox, professor, School of Education, University of Wisconsin-Madison
Managing Online Instructor Workload is a groundbreaking book that offers strategies, advice, illustrative examples, and a four-step process for identifying challenges and rethinking, prioritizing, managing, and balancing one's online instruction workload. Based on surveys and interviews with successful online instructors, the book is filled with timely and comprehensive insight that is essential for online instructors, instructional designers, faculty developers, and anyone who wants to succeed in online learning. Praise for Managing Online Instructor Workload «Managing Online Instructor Workload breaks the pattern of prior distance learning books with its research-based orientation by including a broad range of experience. This is a valuable resource to encourage greater faculty persistence and adoption.»—Kathleen P. King, professor of higher education, University of South Florida, Tampa «This is a must-read for all online instructors who strive not only to provide a high-quality learning experience for their students but also maintain a quality life of their own!»—Rita-Marie Conrad, online educator and author «Do you teach online? Do you need sleep? Here is the first book that I know of that will allow you to do both?no more endless hours wasted online attempting to be an effective instructor.»—Curtis J. Bonk, professor, Indiana University
One reason so many students fail to achieve complex learning goals may be that they rely too heavily on others’ opinions about what to believe, who to be, and how to relate to others. The meaning-making capacity of self-authorship provides a basis from which to understand and learn from one’s experiences; without this, students are at a loss to know how to make intentional choices about what to believe and how to act. Similarly, without a means to access and assess students’ meaning making, researchers are at a disadvantage in deciding how to interpret students’ academic performance and other behaviors, and educators are at a disadvantage in translating findings into the design of new programs and services. This monograph is for those who are interested in understanding self-authorship and its assessment, and in using this approach in their own work. Drawing from well-established theories and extensive longitudinal research including nearly two thousand interviews, it offers a detailed account of how young adults’ capacities become more complex and adaptive over time. Those who understand the role of meaning making will be better able to document its effects on educational outcomes and provide better information to decision makers about program effectiveness. Each monograph in the series is the definitive analysis of a tough higher education problem, based on thorough research of pertinent literature and institutional experiences. Topics are identified by a national survey. Noted practitioners and scholars are then commissioned to write the reports, with experts providing critical reviews of each manuscript before publication.
In this comprehensive resource, Raymond J. Wlodkowski and Margery B. Ginsberg describe how to meet the challenge of teaching intensive and accelerated courses to nontraditional learners and working adults. By making motivation and cultural relevance essential to instruction, they clearly show what instructors can do to enhance learning in classes that can last from three to six hours. Teaching Intensive and Accelerated Courses makes full use of the authors' twenty years of experience researching and teaching accelerated courses, along with selected strategies from Wlodkowski's classic Enhancing Adult Motivation to Learn, to offer tried-and-true practices instructors can use to provide continuously engaging learning.
This issue focuses on connections between performance management and evaluation, a contentious topic at the moment. It does so by placing evaluation and monitoring under the overarching concept of performance management, and then by investigating five complementarities between performance monitoring and measurement on the one hand, and evaluation on the other. These complementarities are: Sequential Informational Organizational Methodical Hierarchical. Several case studies discuss the uses and complementarities of evaluation and performance management in contexts including national and local governments and the work of government, philanthropic foundations, and a direct-service nonprofit agency. These cases illustrate the advantages and pitfalls in utilizing evaluative approaches within the context of performance management. This is the 137th volume of the Jossey-Bass quarterly report series New Directions for Evaluation, an official publication of the American Evaluation Association.
This textbook brings together the fundamentals of the macroscopic and microscopic aspects of thermal physics by presenting thermodynamics and statistical mechanics as complementary theories based on small numbers of postulates. The book is designed to give the instructor flexibility in structuring courses for advanced undergraduates and/or beginning graduate students and is written on the principle that a good text should also be a good reference. The presentation of thermodynamics follows the logic of Clausius and Kelvin while relating the concepts involved to familiar phenomena and the modern student's knowledge of the atomic nature of matter. Another unique aspect of the book is the treatment of the mathematics involved. The essential mathematical concepts are briefly reviewed before using them, and the similarity of the mathematics to that employed in other fields of physics is emphasized. The text gives in depth treatments of low density gases, harmonic solids, magnetic and dielectric materials, phase transitions, and the concept of entropy. The microcanonical, canonical, and grand canonical ensembles of statistical mechanics are derived and used as the starting point for the analysis of fluctuations, blackbody radiation, the Maxwell distribution, Fermi-Dirac statistics, Bose-Einstein condensation, and the statistical basis of computer simulations. Supplementary material including PowerPoint slides and detailed worked solutions can be downloaded online at http://booksupport.wiley.com
The book gives an overview on the current development status of synthetic diamond films and their applications. Its initial part is devoted to discuss the different types of conductive diamond electrodes that have been synthesized, their preparation methods, and their chemical properties and characterization. The electrochemical properties of diamond films in different scientific areas, with special attention in electroanalysis, are further described. Different strategies to modify these electrodes are also discussed as important technologies with ability to change their electrochemical characteristics for a more specific electroanalytical use. The second part of the book deals with practical applications of diamond electrodes to the industry, organic electrosynthesis, electrochemical energy technology, and biotechnology. Special emphasis is made on the properties of these materials for the production of strong oxidizing species allowing the fast mineralization of organics and their use for water disinfection and decontamination. Recent biotechnological development on biosensors, microelectrodes, and nanostructured electrodes, as well as on neurochemistry, is also presented. The book will be written by a large number of internationally recognized experts and comprises 24 chapters describing the characteristics and theoretical fundaments of the different electrochemical uses and applications of synthetic diamond films.