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- Creators: School of Life Sciences
- Member of: Barrett, The Honors College Thesis/Creative Project Collection
- Member of: Theses and Dissertations
- Status: Published
The research begins with the history of standards, starting with traditional outcome-based standards. It then delves into the Partnership for 21st Century Skills (P21), which highlights the type of skills 21st century students are expected to develop and master by the time they enter college and careers. Next, it explores the hot topic of Education to this date: Common Core State Standards. In the midst of educational reform, these standards seek to add consistency across the nation in regards to what students should know at each grade level and also encourage teaching of the 21st century skills. This section briefly details the content of Common Core English Language Arts and Mathematics standards.
After summarizing P21 and Common Core, this report shifts into its focused 21st century skill: collaboration. As one of the 4 C’s that P21 and Common Core emphasize in their standards, it is imperative to research critical elements of collaboration as they relate to groups and teams of all ages. Even more specifically, collaboration is a practice that is becoming more and more standard in business across all industries, so it is a skill that is highly in demand for students to acquire. In regards to collaboration, Executive Vice President of Verizon, Bob Mudge, states, “companies are able to innovate much more quickly and even create solutions to problems that may not be prevalent issues yet” (Mudge 1). The standards expect that students will be prepared to collaborate in college and careers, so key elements of collaboration in those settings—in-person or virtual—need apply or be simplified to K-6 collaborative environments. This section also analyzes a case study experiment on young children about how technology functionality and design enables, encourages, or enforces collaboration.
Next, this thesis reviews three case studies that represent evolution in our understanding of technology’s role as a support system in teaching and learning collaboration. The first case study shows how simple handheld devices assisted in correcting weaknesses in a variety of collaborative and organizational skills. The second study utilizes interactive tabletop technology to realize the idea of tracking collaborative ability in real time through synchronized audio and touch recording. Finally, researchers assess the effectiveness of one student to one device (1:1) initiatives by gathering student-reported data before and after the program’s implementation, which largely speak to the direction of many schools’ technology strategies.
To supplement all of the secondary research above, the researcher of this thesis conducted interviews with nine K-6 teachers to gather their insights on collaboration and how they facilitate it. They explain how they use technology in their classroom to enhance the learning environment. Additionally, they give opinions on what could be done to make collaboration more easily taught and facilitated, as well as what would better develop their students’ collaborative skills.
The compilation of this information then leads to implications of what needs to be present, from a technology standpoint, to more effectively teach collaborative skills to our schoolchildren. This includes a brief industry analysis of a program that already exists, as well as recommendations for new technology that considers the research conducted throughout the paper. Another implication addressed centers on the instruction and facilitation of technology and the digital divide that can result from varying competency among teachers, which brings to light the need for proper technology development programs for educators.
To gain insight into the state of the industry and current position of independent bookstores, I will first examine the past fifty years of the brick-and-mortar bookstore, followed by a Porter’s Five Forces analysis of the industry threats and a SWOT analysis to compare the strengths and weaknesses of independent bookstores. Next, the patrons of independent bookstores will be discussed with a focus on the two largest consumer groups of Millennials and Baby Boomers, their characteristics, and the opportunities they provide to bookstores. After this there will be an exploration of the competitors to brick-and-mortar bookstores, focusing on Amazon and then touching on some of the other rivals to bookstores’ consumer base. The next section will be an in-depth analysis of a variety of bookstores across the United States, with attention to their successful practices, goals, concerns, and failures. First, there will be a comparison of industry success and failure through case studies of Borders and Powell’s bookstores. Next, there will be a comparison of five beloved independent bookstores across the country to share their varied competitive advantages that are the secret to their success. Finally, there are primary source interviews with the employees of three major Phoenix bookstores, which provide insight into the goals, current projects, attitudes, and inner strengths of these businesses. Finally, the thesis will conclude with a section offering solutions and suggestions for independent bookstores to pursue based on the primary and secondary research discussed above. These recommendations are focused on five key areas:
• Community
• Consumers
• Store Design
• Technology
• Diversification
Ultimately, the information provided by this research and these interviews indicates that while vital business changes are being pursued by independent and chain bookstores across the United States, the independent bookstore shows no signs of disappearing in favor of online vendors or e-readers.
A large section of United States citizens live far away from supermarkets and do not have an easy way to get to one. This portion of the population lives in an area called a food desert. Food deserts are geographic areas in which access to affordable, healthy food, such as fresh produce, is limited or completely nonexistent due to the absence of convenient grocery stores. Individuals living in food deserts are left to rely on convenience store snacks and fast food for their meals because they do not have access to a grocery store with fresh produce in their area. Unhealthy foods also lead to health issues, as people living in food deserts are typically at a higher risk of diet-related conditions, such as obesity, diabetes, and cardiovascular disease. Harvest, a sustainable farming network, is a smartphone application that teaches and guides people living in small spaces through the process of growing fresh, nutritious produce in their own homes. The app will guide users through the entire process of gardening, from seed to harvest. Harvest would give individuals living in food deserts an opportunity to access fresh produce that they currently can’t access. An overwhelming response based on our user discussion and market analysis revealed that our platform was in demand. Development of a target market, brand guide, and full-lifecycle were beneficial during the second semester as Harvest moved forward. Through the development of a website, social media platform, and smartphone application, Harvest grew traction for our platform. Our social media accounts saw a 1700% growth rate, and this wider audience was able to provide helpful feedback.
The nineteenth-century invention of smallpox vaccination in Great Britain has been well studied for its significance in the history of medicine as well as the ways in which it exposes Victorian anxieties regarding British nationalism, rural and urban class struggles, the behaviors of women, and animal contamination. Yet inoculation against smallpox by variolation, vaccination’s predecessor and a well-established Chinese medical technique that was spread from east to west to Great Britain, remains largely understudied in modern scholarly literature. In the early 1700s, Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, credited with bringing smallpox variolation to Great Britain, wrote first about the practice in the Turkish city of Adrianople and describes variolation as a “useful invention,” yet laments that, unlike the Turkish women who variolate only those in their “small neighborhoods,” British doctors would be able to “destroy this [disease] swiftly” worldwide should they adopt variolation. Examined through the lens of Edward Said’s Orientalism, techno-Orientalism, and medical Orientalism and contextualized by a comparison to British attitudes toward nineteenth century vaccination, eighteenth century smallpox variolation’s introduction to Britain from the non-British “Orient” represents an instance of reversed Orientalism, in which a technologically deficient British “Occident” must “Orientalize” itself to import the superior medical technology of variolation into Britain. In a scramble to retain technological superiority over the Chinese Orient, Britain manufactures a sense of total difference between an imagined British version of variolation and a real, non-British version of variolation. This imagination of total difference is maintained through characterizations of the non-British variolation as ancient, unsafe, and practiced by illegitimate practitioners, while the imagined British variolation is characterized as safe, heroic, and practiced by legitimate British medical doctors. The Occident’s instance of medical technological inferiority brought about by the importation of variolation from the Orient, which I propose represents an eighteenth-century instance of what I call medical techno-Orientalism, represents an expression of British anxiety over a medical technologically superior Orient—anxieties which express themselves as retaliatory attacks on the Orient and variolation as it is practiced in the Orient—and as an expression of British desire to maintain medical technological superiority over the Orient.
Human communication has been dramatically altered by the emergence of the internet and other communication technologies. Technology facilitates communication in a way that offers both benefits and potential dangers. For example, for those experiencing domestic or intimate partner violence, technology may be used by the perpetrator to extend the psychological and emotional aspects of abuse. This is accomplished by harassment via information communication technology, monitoring of devices, and deprivation of technology by taking or breaking devices. Technology also makes it possible to find domestic violence services and resources online and to communicate with others. With technology offering potential benefits and dangers, this study was conducted to gain insight about the role of technology in help-seeking behaviors and its potential to serve those leaving abusive relationships.
