Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: Many introductory statistics courses now include a dedicated laboratory session, involving the use of one or more software packages. How should such a course component be structured? At Villa Julie College, we have attempted to formalize the course's lab component (and create a consistent template for outcomes assessment)by creating a formal lab manual for our Statistics and Probability course. The perils, successes, and pitfalls we have encountered along the way will be discussed in this presentation.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: The paper treats the US Government Manual as an organizational self-portrait of a presidency. Focusing on transparency and gender representation, it compares the White House Office entries over time and with listings from other sources.

Publication Type: Symposium Paper
Abstract: This presentation will give an overview of each session included in the Juvenile Justice Anger Management (JJAM) Manual for Girls. The major components of treatment will be identified, and a detailed description of the session structure will be provided. Several examples of activities and teaching techniques will be presented.

Publication Type: Abstract
Abstract: Objectives: As professional experience in pharmacy education expands, the need for and use of computer-based systems for rotation selection and management has increased. The University of Iowa recently changed methods of advanced pharmacy practice experiences (APPE) selection from a manual, class–cohort, student-controlled lottery process to a computer-based process. This paper will: 1.) describe two methods of rotation selection for APPE, and 2.) compare student satisfaction for each selection method.

Methods: A non-equivalent control group design will be used. Subjects include final year student pharmacists using the manual selection process in 2003, 2004, and 2006 and student pharmacists using the computer-based process in 2007. A detailed description of each method for selection of APPE will be presented. To compare student’s perceptions of the systems, we used a four-item survey to assess student satisfaction with the APPE selection processes. The survey questions include process satisfaction, flexibility, fairness and recommendation to continue using current system for APPE selection. Each question used a six-item Likert scale ranging from “agree strongly” to “disagree strongly.” We will use t-tests to compare student satisfaction on the four items for students using the manual system versus the computer system.

Results: Comparative data will be presented regarding student satisfaction with APPE selection processes.

Implications: Findings will serve as a benchmark for our professional experience program to assess the use of the computer-based selection method. Identified disparities will be addressed to alter professional experience program policies and methods used in the rotation selection process.

Publication Type: Individual Poster
Abstract: Attention-sharing skills facilitate language development and social learning during late infancy and childhood. However, we do not understand how attention-sharing skills emerge. Recent work (Deák & Triesch in press; Moore & Corkum, 1994; Nagai, 2003; Triesch et al, in press) focuses on neurally plausible learning-based accounts of development. Such accounts presuppose predictable social input. Infant-parent interactions are well-structured, but we do not know how the structure helps infants learn attention-sharing skills like gaze-following. In particular, how frequent are episodes of shared attention, and how do they begin? What caregiver actions precede infants' attention-shifts to share parents' attention?
We collected quasi-naturalistic observational video of play between infants 3 to 11 months old (N = 30) and their caregivers. From 5-min. "object showing" interactions we coded infants' and parents' attention shifts (i.e., target and direction of gaze), attention-sharing states (i.e., non-shared attention, shared-attention with infant or parent as "leader"; mutual gaze), and parents’ manual actions preceding attention-sharing episodes (pointing; holding/moving objects; tapping/shaking, etc.). We are currentloy coding acoustic cues and caregivers' vocalizations/verbalizations.
Dyads spent an average of 38% of time in shared attention, mostly from infants following caregivers' attention-shifts. They spent 11% of time in mutual gaze, and 51% in non-shared attention (mostly with caregivers watching infants scrutinize objects). Interestingly, these proportions changed only modestly with age.
Caregivers’ manual actions (pointing; holding) compel infants to join in shared attention. Infants almost never followed caregivers' gaze shifts unless the parent also manipulated the object or pointed. Infants followed less than 1% of caregiver's simple gaze shifts to objects (though these were fairly frequent), compared to over 10% of caregiver's pointing gestures. Most often, infants followed combinations of manual actions and gaze shifts. In short, gaze-following is rare in everyday interactions: infants watch what caregivers do with their hands.
This is important because some have claimed that gaze-following emerges before point-following (Butterworth & Jarrett, 1991). The current data belie that claim. They also suggest how gaze-following is learned. Adults usually look at what they are doing with their hands (Land et al, 1999). If infants are interested in the motion, complexity, and sounds of adults' manual actions, they will have many opportunities to learn correlations between adults' hand positions and corresponding head poses and eye directions. These correlations could be learned by neurally plausible reinforcement learning systems (Triesch et al, in press). Thus, infants can learn to follow adults' gaze from attending to adults' hands during everyday play episodes.