Indiana University Columbus

In 1991 over 38% of all U.S. college students, and nearly 42% of female U.S. college students, were age 25 or older.According to projections, by 1998 the number of nontraditional (age 25 or older) U.S. college students will rise to almost 46% (U.S. Bureau of the Census, 1995, p. 178-179).The Education Resources Institute (1996) reported that the percentage of college students age 40 or over grew from 5.5% of the total enrollment in 1970 to 11.2% in 1993, making this group the fastest-growing age category during that period.Clearly, nontraditional students will continue to be an increasingly significant part of the college classroom.Despite their significance, nontraditional college students have been largely ignored in investigations of classroom discussion.Much of the debate has centered around the issue of student gender in the college classroom with little consideration to the impact of student age on classroom participation.The Education Resources Institute (1996) report described the typical 40 and over student as a white female who attends a community college part-time and works thirty or more hours per week.Thus, as Howard, Short, and Clark (1996) suggested, due to their different life experiences, nontraditional students' definition of the situation in the college classroom is likely to differ considerably from that of traditional students.These differences contribute to the greater willingness of nontraditional students to participate in classroom discussion.Because Howard, Short, and Clark's (1996) sample of 13 introductory level courses were taught almost exclusively (12 of 13 courses) by fe-

Academic AbstractInterpersonal synchrony, the alignment of behavior and/or physiology during interactions, is a pervasive phenomenon observed in diverse social contexts. Here we synthesize across contexts and behaviors to classify the different forms and functions of synchrony. We provide a concise framework for classifying the manifold forms of synchrony along six dimensions: periodicity, discreteness, spatial similarity, directionality, leader-follower dynamics, and observability. We also distill the various proposed functions of interpersonal synchrony into four interconnected functions: reducing complexity and improving understanding, accomplishing joint tasks, strengthening social connection, and influencing partners' behavior. These functions derive from first principles, emerge from each other, and are accomplished by some forms of synchrony more than others. Effective synchrony flexibly adapts to social goals and more synchrony is not always better. Our synthesis offers a shared framework and language for the field, allowing for better cross-context and cross-behavior comparisons, generating new hypotheses, and highlighting future research directions.

Background: High-fidelity simulation recreates real-life situations in a safe learning environment and encourages critical thinking in students. Published research in simulation in psychiatric/mental health nursing is sparse. Methods: Four scenarios exemplifying drug or alcohol abuse utilizing the computerized, mannequin SimMan® were implemented. Students evaluated their learning experience following completion of the simulation via a 20-item, Likert-scale survey which included open-ended questions. Results: Results were positive. Students rated all items on the survey as “agree” or “strongly agree” (Mean 4.77, SD=0.55). Conclusions: High fidelity clinical education simulations are an effective means of facilitating student learning of psychiatric and mental health clinical experiences. Students found simulation to be a useful and engaging means by which to learn to care for clients with drug or alcohol abuse disorders.

With the rapid growth of the information society the ability of technology graduates to be information literate has become critically important. Through the collaboration of a Mechanical Engineering Technology professor and an academic librarian, a project was designed which increased students' information research skills, their awareness of other sources of technical information, and their communication and team building skills. One problem faced by the authors was to develop strategies to integrate these skills into a curriculum that is already very demanding without deleting any of the elements in the current curriculum. A pre-test, post-test, and student comments supported the usefulness of the assignment. This paper will discuss the methods used, desired outcomes, students' experiences and the research results.

This study investigates student perceptions of generative artificial intelligence (AI) in an introductory chemistry course. Students engaged with AI chatbots of their choice to correct missed exam questions, revealing overall positive attitudes toward their usefulness. Despite this positive perception, the study shows a disconnect between the overall media portrayal of AI in academia and how actual students use it. Only a small number of students had used AI before this activity. This study highlights the need for training on responsible AI use to address ongoing ethical concerns over the misuse of these systems and to get ahead of future issues.

This research study examines the impact of teacher research on participants in a large-scale educational reform initiative in the United States, No Child Left Behind, and its strand for reading teachers, Reading First. Reading First supported professional development for teachers in order to increase student scores on standardized tests. The authors were part of the team delivering university courses to augment that training so that teachers could earn graduate credit in the authors’ state. Participants in the two-year study included 250–400 Reading First K–3 reading teachers in about 60 schools. In hopes of empowering teachers in what the authors felt was an over-prescriptive reading program that imposed numerous constraints on teachers, they viewed teacher research as a way to work within and against the Reading First agenda. Investigating the impact of teacher research on participants, the authors used mixed methods and found a powerful gain in teachers’ self-efficacy resulting from the inquiry projects.

Introduction: Over the last decade of research, a notable connection between autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and unique motor system characteristics has been identified, which may influence social communication through distinct movement patterns. In this study, we investigated the potential for features of the broader autism phenotype to account for kinematic idiosyncrasies in social movements expressed by neurotypical individuals. Methods: Fifty-eight participants provided recordings of point-light displays expressing three basic emotions and completed the Autism Spectrum Quotient (AQ). We extracted kinematic metrics from the biological movements using computer vision and applied linear mixed-effects modeling to analyze the relationship between these kinematic metrics and AQ scores. Results: Our results revealed that individual differences in the total AQ scores, and the sub-scale scores, significantly predicted variations in kinematic metrics representing order, volume, and magnitude. Discussion: The results of this study suggest that autistic traits may intricately influence the movement expressions at the microlevel, highlighting the need for a more nuanced understanding of the potential endophenotypic characteristics associated with social movements in neurotypical individuals.

Positive social bidding refers to moments when infants look at an unresponsive caregiver and try to re-engage the social partner via smiling and/or vocalizing. Prior to six months of age, there is considerable variability in the extent to which infants engage in positive social bidding. In this study we explore whether infants' and mothers' cardiac vagal tone is associated with these individual differences. Mothers and their 4- to 6-month-old infants (n = 132) participated in the Face-to-Face Still-Face Paradigm (FFSF); social behaviors and respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA) were recorded on a moment-to-moment basis. More frequent vocal bidding during the Still-Face episode was related to infants' and mothers' physiological synchrony, as well as lower levels of infants' negative affect and higher levels of infants' RSA during face-to-face Social Play. Also, infants demonstrating more vocal bidding exhibited greater increases in RSA at the beginning and end of the Reunion phase following the Still-Face stressor. Critically, the relation between infants' physiological regulation and vocal bidding differed as a function of the FFSF episode in which RSA was measured. The implications of adopting a biobehavioral perspective on the development of positive social bidding are discussed.

Interpersonal synchrony, the alignment of behavior and/or physiology during interactions, is a pervasive phenomenon observed in diverse social contexts. Here we synthesize across contexts and behaviors to classify the different forms and functions of synchrony. We provide a concise framework for classifying the manifold forms of synchrony along six dimensions: periodicity, discreteness, spatial similarity, directionality, leader-follower dynamics, and observability. We also distill the various proposed functions of interpersonal synchrony to four interconnected functions: reducing complexity and improving understanding, accomplishing joint tasks, strengthening social connection, and influencing partners’ behavior. These functions derive from first principles, emerge from each other, and are accomplished by some forms of synchrony more than others. Effective synchrony flexibly adapts to social goals and more synchrony is not always better. Our synthesis offers a shared framework and language for the field, allowing for better cross-context and cross-behavior comparisons, generates new hypotheses, and highlights future research directions.

BACKGROUND: Pathogenic variants in subunits of succinyl-CoA synthetase (SCS) are associated with mitochondrial encephalomyopathy in humans. SCS catalyses the conversion of succinyl-CoA to succinate coupled with substrate-level phosphorylation of either ADP or GDP in the TCA cycle. This report presents a muscle-specific conditional knock-out (KO) mouse model of Sucla2, the ADP-specific beta subunit of SCS, generating a novel in vivo model of mitochondrial myopathy. METHODS: The mouse model was generated using the Cre-Lox system, with the human skeletal actin (HSA) promoter driving Cre-recombination of a CRISPR-Cas9-generated Sucla2 floxed allele within skeletal muscle. Inactivation of Sucla2 was validated using RT-qPCR and western blot, and both enzyme activity and serum metabolites were quantified by mass spectrometry. To characterize the model in vivo, whole-body phenotyping was conducted, with mice undergoing a panel of strength and locomotor behavioural assays. Additionally, ex vivo contractility experiments were performed on the soleus (SOL) and extensor digitorum longus (EDL) muscles. SOL and EDL cryosections were also subject to imaging analyses to assess muscle fibre-specific phenotypes. RESULTS: Molecular validation confirmed 68% reduction of Sucla2 transcript within the mutant skeletal muscle (p < 0.001) and 95% functionally reduced SUCLA2 protein (p < 0.0001). By 3 weeks of age, Sucla2 KO mice were 44% the size of controls by body weight (p < 0.0001). Mutant mice also exhibited 34%-40% reduced grip strength (p < 0.01) and reduced spontaneous exercise, spending about 88% less cumulative time on a running wheel (p < 0.0001). Contractile function was also perturbed in a muscle-specific manner; although no genotype-specific deficiencies were seen in EDL function, SUCLA2-deficient SOL muscles generated 40% less specific tetanic force (p < 0.0001), alongside slower contraction and relaxation rates (p < 0.001). Similarly, a SOL-specific threefold increase in mitochondria (p < 0.0001) was observed, with qualitatively increased staining for both COX and SDH, and the proportion of Type 1 myosin heavy chain expressing fibres within the SOL was nearly doubled (95% increase, p < 0.0001) in the Sucla2 KO mice compared with that in controls. CONCLUSIONS: SUCLA2 loss within murine skeletal muscle yields a model of SCS-deficient mitochondrial myopathy with reduced body weight, muscle weakness and exercise intolerance. Physiological and morphological analyses of hindlimb muscles showed remarkable differences in ex vivo function and cellular consequences between the EDL and SOL muscles, with SOL muscles significantly more impacted by Sucla2 inactivation. This novel model will provide an invaluable tool for investigations of muscle-specific and fibre type-specific pathogenic mechanisms to better understand SCS-deficient myopathy.

Digital technologies have had a significant impact on how educators have come to understand and define literacy, and on the types of literacies and literacy practices that are required in the 21st century. In response, organizations such as the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE) have designed frameworks that attempt to articulate practices required to be literate in the 21st century. Although educators often turn to the NCTE framework to define the characteristics of a 21st-century literacies curriculum, missing from the professional literature are examples of student projects that have the potential to embody these characteristics. This article describes 1 such project, a digital transmedia magazine, in which groups of students transmediated a story or novel into a magazine using digital technologies. The article illustrates ways in which this project can be used to support students with the 6 elements of the NCTE framework.

ABSTRACT A paucity of research has examined the lived religious practices of women with terminal cancer. The purpose of this paper is to examine how women with metastatic breast cancer engage in religious and spiritual practices, both inside and outside traditional religious institutions. We utilize a two‐stage Explanatory Sequential Mixed Methods Design consisting of a national online survey with 310 respondents and 33 follow‐up interviews. Findings show women with metastatic breast cancer engage in a variety of lived religious practices with more women reporting their participation outside of religious institutions. Common religious and spiritual experiences include attending services, reading religious texts, engaging in prayer, helping others, meditation, bodywork, and spending time in nature. We argue that this combination of practices that create lived religious experiences may be more likely to be seen among women in body crisis, whose appearance is negatively affected by an illness.

Multiple-item indexes are ubiquitous within the sociology of religion. However, there are a growing number of articles in other disciplines that have advocated the use of single-item measures in specific circumstances. Using quantitative survey data taken from the United Kingdom, this article contributes to this literature by exploring the impact of single and multiple item measures of religious evil on a series of social and political attitudes. The findings suggest that belief in the devil is the most consistent predictor within a multiple-item measure of religious evil and the multiple-item measure does not significantly outperform single-item measures. Indeed, the item “most evil in the world is caused by the devil” could be a more efficient measure of religious evil, particularly where it is combined with religious attendance. While further cross-cultural research on the impact of belief in religious evil remains necessary, the article also finds some evidence to suggest that exploration of more secular beliefs in evil might be advantageous.

This data-based theoretical paper explores the contrasting tensions of adults being in “solidarity” with youths while not reproducing systems of oppression through adultism. Written by adults who have been engaged side-by-side with youth activism, the purpose of this article is to better understand what adult solidarity and support look like according to youth activists themselves as we grapple with the unintentional mechanisms of reinforcing oppressive power dynamics between young people and adults in activist communities. Extending on the Gaztambide-Fernández’s (2012) notion of relational solidarity, the findings offer four types of actions (modeling, connecting, supporting, and protecting) adults can do to authentically support youths and thereby adds conceptual clarification and nuance for adults seeking to work in solidarity in more authentic youth adult partnerships (YAPs).

This article provides information about a Youth Service Bureau’s (YSB) experience in collaborating with court officials to expand services and a subsequent funding base. YSBs, like many other nonprofit human service agencies, have found that partnering with local governmental officials, especially judges, can enhance sustainability. Implications for strengthening partnerships between local nonprofits and county judges are discussed.

The problem of defining a profession continues to be a cen-tral issue. In the structural-func-tional view, the term "profession" refers to a "compara ti ve status level attained after deliberate act-ion by an occupation " (Mi Ilerson 1964a 9). This professionalizing action refers to a dynamic process whereby an occupation "can be observed to change certain crucial characteri st i cs in the di rect i on of a profession " (Vollmer & Mills 1966 7). A profession is an occu-pation with a set of professionaliz-

This chapter draws from a one-year qualitative investigation of a ninth-grade English classroom in a new technology-rich high school. The study explores the question, What identities did students compose as they alternately resisted and embraced the use of digital media in the writing classroom? Presenting a case study of one student, Shane, the chapter traces the ways in which he responded to the teacher’s invitations to use digital media, thereby discursively crafting particular identity performances in on-site and online communities. Analysis identifies a number of tensions specific to the use of authentic audiences and purposes in the 21st century digital writing classroom and reveals three identity performance categories: Shane the comedian, Shane the subversive, and Shane the artist. In analyzing the ways in which social networking tools, literacy practices, and identity performances converge in the classroom, the chapter challenges dominant pedagogical assumptions about using new technologies in the schools to engage learners.

Accounts of student teachers engaging in action research are abundant. Few of those accounts, however, provide insights into the challenges that this context might pose for an action researcher. Using narrative research methods, this study shares the story of one pre-service elementary education teacher who, with the permission of her supervising teacher and student teaching partner, made plans to teach a New Literacies Studies unit during her fourth grade student teaching placement and engage in action research in order to reflect on teaching and learning during that unit. Ultimately, philosophical tensions underpinning the student teacher and supervising’s understandings of literacy and literacy instruction, as well as power differentials that often define the student teacher/supervising teacher relationship, undermined the student teacher’s role as action researcher. Implications for student teachers engaging in action research and their university mentors are discussed.

The data, scripts and results for the paper "From dyads to networks: a round-robin approach to physiological synchrony".

The data, scripts and results for the paper "From dyads to networks: a round-robin approach to physiological synchrony".