Clustering is one of the most common data mining tasks, used frequently for data organization and analysis in various application domains. Traditional machine learning approaches to clustering are fully automated and unsupervised where class labels are unknown a priori. In real application domains, however, some "weak" form of side…

This discussion paper compares and contrasts "inductive" and "deductive" research approaches as described by Trochim (2006) and Plano Clark and Creswell (2007). It also examines the "exploratory" and "confirmatory" approaches by Onwueghuzie and Leech (2005) with respect to the assumption each holds about the nature of knowledge. The paper starts…

This article considers prototype data sets that attain lower and upper bounds on the standard deviation in terms of the range.

This article presents case studies of two rural districts--both confronting economic and demographic challenges--that were making significant strides toward closing achievement gaps between students with and without disabilities. The districts accomplished this work by using six practices, common to both but implemented differently in each: (a)…

This qualitative research study explored second graders' use of visual information to understand characters in picturebooks. Students participated in whole class read-alouds of three picturebooks. Immediately following each read-aloud, students were individually interviewed and invited to talk about the visual text in pre-selected illustrations.…

Accurate and early predictions of student performance could significantly affect interventions during teaching and assessment, which gradually could lead to improved learning outcomes. In our research, we seek to identify and formalize temporal parameters as predictors of performance ("temporal learning analytics" or TLA) and examine…

This article presents strategies to enhance quality through intentional teaching in classrooms serving toddlers. The authors illustrate how the recently published "Classroom Assessment Scoring System-Toddler Version" (CLASS Toddler) can be used as a tool to support toddler development in early care and education settings. Strategies…

This paper draws upon data from a broader piece of research aimed at examining pre-service teachers' views of their initial teacher education within the context of a master's degree programme in teaching. The data were collected through questionnaires and written narratives at the beginning and at the end of the programme. In this paper, the data…

Many institutions struggle to develop a meaningful way to assess the effectiveness of drop-in tutorial services provided to students. This article discusses the development of a data collection system based on a visitor sign-in system that proved to be an efficient method of gathering assessment data, including frequency of visits, end-of-course…

Twitter is increasingly being used by Extension educators as a teaching and program-marketing tool. It is not enough, however, to simply use Twitter to disseminate information. Steps must be taken to evaluate program impact with quantitative and qualitative data. This article described the following Twitter evaluation metrics: unique hashtags,…

In 2012, the United Nations General Assembly declared 2014 the International Year of Crystallography. Throughout the year 2014 and beyond, all the crystallographic associations and societies active all over the world are organizing events to attract the wider public toward crystallography and the numerous topics to which it is deeply interlinked.…

This study aims to observe the increased effectiveness of Higher Educational Institutions in India and its competitiveness. It proposes to develop the interest in enhancing the quality in Educational Institutions. It is monitored and evaluated through rapid growth of information technology, which makes sophisticated data collection possible. This…

This article outlines a conceptual framework for mapping and understanding training trends. It uses the metonyms of floors and ceilings to distinguish between different types of training configurations. The argument is made that the ups and downs of employer reports of training activity are a crude basis on which to make judgements about the…

The potential of ePortfolios for both students and staff has generated considerable interest and investment by universities over the past ten years or so within Australia. Despite funded projects, ePortfolio specific conferences and a range of commercial and open software, there is not wide spread uptake of ePortfolios, although many universities…

In an earlier article (EJ1058920), Lee Kern and Joseph H. Wehby identified the reasons and process for using adaptive intensive behavioral intervention. Kern and Wehby use this article to present a fictional example of how the intervention is applied. Isaac, a 12 year old, 7th grade student at Highland Middle School, had a history of behavior…