SOIRE 2019

In advanced algebra classes, the transition from problem-solving to proof-based writing creates challenges for students. The students are not motivated to excel in these courses because they do not see how the materials can be applied to their real life or other classes. In this proposed project, we aim to create project-based learning activities that provide significant learning experiences for students in these high level classes. In particular, we design mini-projects, including applications of materials from the current classes to topics from some other classes or real life experience. These mini-projects require both the understanding of abstract concepts and the ability to conduct multiple computational steps. To help students complete the mini-projects effectively, we teach students to use SageMath, a free open-source mathematics software system with capabilities of abstract and symbolic computation, as a powerful calculator to complete their mini-projects. This new form of learning also serves as a preparatory step for students in their Senior projects. A pilot study is to implement this project in the Linear Algebra and Discrete Mathematics courses at UNG.

Design advanced algebra courses with significant learning experiences: Using SageMath to enhance Project-based learning activities

The Rice Farm site, located in Dawson County, Georgia was a Native American site occupied during the Middle and Late Woodland periods (approximately 300 BCE to 600 CE). Recent excavations at the site have identified pits and posts containing numerous artifacts and ecofacts left behind by the ancient inhabitants. These material remains attest to the economic, social, and ritual behaviors of the ancient occupants. This poster presents the ongoing study of the material culture, employing cutting-edge archaeological science to interpret the material remains of the past. Furthermore, this poster demonstrates the collaborative nature of archaeology as a “team sport” bringing specialists together to best understand past populations.

Archaeological Science - Where Something New Meets Something Old: 9DW276 (Rice Farm) as a Case Study

This study examined two criminal justice data resources to investigate various characteristics about the prison population, to ascertain if any of those factors are related to sentencing trends. Data from the Center for Juvenile and Criminal Justice Sentencing, and the Bureau of Justice Statistics were reviewed to establish if the sentencing practices were associated with extra-legal factors. Additionally, the prison population in Mississippi was examined to reveal that the vast majority of inmates had both prior arrests (90%) and prior convictions (80%). Furthermore, most had been convicted of violent offenses or parole violations. The results of this study suggest that there may be extra-legal considerations in the sentencing of the inmates which comprise the population of our prison system.

Inmate Characteristics and Factors Associated with Sentencing

In recent years, use of online social media networking (OSMN) such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc. has become part of people’s routine life activities. OSMN provides Internet users to communicate and collaborate with family, friends, social groups, and other communities. In addition, it is a great tool for people to share text, family photos, their life habits, etc. Unfortunately, many users are unaware of the security risks associated with the use of this technology. The risk may include privacy violation, identity theft, malware, fake proﬁles, exploiting children, etc. Many OSMN users may accidentally or intentionally expose personal and intimate details about themselves, their friends, and their relationships online. As the use of OSMNs becomes progressively more embedded in users’ daily lives, personal information becomes easily exposed and abused. Information harvesting, by both the OSMN operators and by third-party commercial companies, has recently been identiﬁed as a signiﬁcant security concern for the users as well as for the public.
The objective of this research is to investigate and implement ways for mitigating security breaches and privacy violation of OSMN users. Most social media offer their users an option for security settings. However, it is not known whether those setting are effective for keeping user’s personal and shared data private. To evaluate the effectiveness of the privacy settings, we need to know what types of user’s data various OSMN technology keep about their users and where do they save the data. We will use forensics tools and methodology to retrieve user’s data once before the application of security settings and once after the security settings is applied. Based on the outcome of our experiment, recommendation of best practices for mitigating user’s privacy violation and security breaches will be made. Our initial investigation shows that not all the OSMN technology use the same method and location for saving user’s data. Therefore, we focus on three of the most popular technology namely, Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. Retrieving data from memory will also help forensics investigators to identify criminal or inappropriate activities through online social media networking.

Assessing Security & Privacy of Online Social Media

The ARBC survey instrument asks subjects their perceptions regarding vignettes (short stories) describing business conduct. The survey covers 15 areas of possible concern, and 2 areas, Financial Accounting and Reporting and Acceptable Conduct, which include vignettes that were created to describe completely acceptable conduct. In September 2019, the ARBC ethics assessment instrument was distributed to 1,454 UNG students in the Department of Accounting & Law. 264 responses were received from lower division students (1000 and 2000 level courses, most in ACCT 2102 or BUSA 2810), and 115 responses were received from upper division students (3000 and 4000 level courses). It can be difficult to establish precisely what is a “right” answer, so to permit comparison of the subject responses to a measure of acceptable business conduct the research team obtained responses from over 50 experienced business professionals, averaging well over 20 years of experience each, The aggregate responses of that business panel are used as a benchmark of existing perceptions, and the subject responses are compared to the panel responses to identify statistically significant differences.
Preliminary analysis of the results indicates that lower division responses differed significantly from upper division responses, and the differences were generally in a direction that implies the upper division respondents had a better understanding of the ethical implications of the vignettes presented, but there is still room for improvement. Analysis is underway on the Business Law and Principles of Accounting aspects of the data from this assessment.
All individuals and organizations are affected by business conduct, so the use of the ARBC does not have to be limited to accounting or business classes. The ARBC is designed to protect student privacy and to provide useful results. Students typically complete the assessment in 10 to 15 minutes.

Action Research in Business Conduct – Assessing Student Ethical Perceptions

The Internet of Things (IoT) permits the connection of several devices to a network enabling data to be communicated over a network without direct human-to-human or human-tocomputer communication. The core of IoT systems employs hardware devices, networks, cloud services and software applications. Hardware devices take input from outside the system, networks serve as a communication medium between hardware and the cloud server, cloud services store input data and software applications produce output using the cloud data. Because of the flexibility of IoT systems, it has become a popular model for modern device communication. IoT has a wide range of applications in a plethora of fields such as healthcare, manufacturing, home automation and education. To enhance usage of IoT for educators, this project is designed to implement an Arduino board alongside motion sensors and audio receiver to control a robot car by means of a cloud server, and IoT technologies. More specifically, an Arduino board will be trained using machine learning techniques to recognize a set of predefined gestures. These gestures will be stored in the cloud server, and the robot car will retrieve these commands from the cloud server reacting according to the gesture it the system has recognized. Moreover, the system integrates Google Voice API to control the robot car by pre-set voice commands. Furthermore, a web application is constructed to control the robot car by computer. This project is but a single yet powerful tool for future applications in smart classroom technologies.

Voice and Motion-based Control System: Proof-of-Concept Implementation on Robotics via Internet-of-Things Technologies

The effects of mentorship on clinical education, professional socialization, and professional longevity in healthcare disciplines have been well-established, but the impact of mentorship on first-time success on the Board of Certification (BOC) exam to earn the Certified Athletic Trainer credential and, thereby, entry into the profession, has scarcely been investigated. This study followed an explanatory mixed-method design to investigate the effect of athletic training students’ perceptions of preceptor mentorship and success on the BOC exam. The Athletic Training Preceptor Mentoring Traits Survey was developed via Delphi method following review of mentoring literature from nursing, athletic training, and academic medicine. Reliability coefficient of .980 was calculated. Chi-square tests were applied to measure the presence of a relationship mentoring behaviors and first-attempt success on the BOC exam. This study found that all 25 of the mentoring behaviors demonstrated statistically significant relationships with first-attempt success. These relationships were significant at the level of

Mentoring Behaviors are Associated with Board of Certification Exam Success

The Blue Ridge Scholars Literacy Project has been the focus of the Blue Ridge Scholars program since the fall of 2018. Our community partner and Director of Instructional Services and Policy at Fannin County schools, Ms. Sarah Welch, was awarded an L4GA (Literacy for Learning, Living, and Leading in Georgia) grant during the spring of 2018 that allowed her to implement an ambitious new reading curriculum at Fannin County schools. In our meetings with Ms. Welch, we learned how critical reading at grade level is for elementary students who make the transition from learning how to read to reading to learn in the 3rd grade. We also learned that 75% of Georgia’s third graders are not reading at grade level, alarming stakeholders who worry about long-term trends such as our state’s crime rate and ability to attract businesses that require a highly skilled workforce.
We were drawn to this issue given its importance to our community and our state. Thus, we explored issues and themes related to literacy in each of the courses that make up the Blue Ridge Scholars program. Additionally, we applied for (and subsequently received) a LEAP into Action Grant that allowed us to finance training and supplies for service learning projects that mutually benefitted both UNG and Fannin County students. Our main project was to conduct read alouds in 2nd grade classrooms designed to get students excited about reading and talking about important issues. We used our LEAP into Action Grant to hire experts in early childhood education from the University of West Georgia to work with our students on selecting appropriate books, modeling best practices for read alouds, and constructing lesson plans appropriate for the 2nd grade level. Additionally, our grant helped us purchase high-quality children’s books that were written to promote critical thinking and discussion of important topics, such as segregation and immigration. In this poster, we are presenting an overview of the literacy issue, how we connected it to our disparate courses, and the impact these projects had on our Blue Ridge Scholars.

The Blue Ridge Scholars Literacy Project

There are many benefits to pursuing the study of a foreign language. Post 9/11 and in the wars that followed, there was concern over Americans’ inability to communicate with the world. Even more than that, however, is the global business market. For American companies to gain and retain a competitive edge, the ability to communicate with foreign partners in their own language is a distinct advantage.
According to the Modern Language Association’s most recent survey on foreign language enrollment in American higher education, the number of students enrolled in non-English language courses fell by 9.2% between 2013 and 2016. In the same time period, 651 foreign language programs were cut nationally (MLA, 2016). As the recession of 2008 hit the budgets of our nation’s higher education institutes (HEIs), foreign language courses were cut at a rate of more than double of other humanities-based subjects. While it is not inexpensive to educate students in foreign languages, it is a far smaller cost-per-student than other subjects such as education or fine arts.
As enrollment in foreign language education declines, enrollment in online courses has risen at nearly the same rate. Schools from K-16 are increasingly adopting and using technology in their language classes through different formats, such as formal online courses, virtual worlds, Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs), mobile apps, and learning communities in social media (Hockly, 2015).
Currently, nearly one in three students enrolled in American higher education is taking at least one course online (Lederman, 2018). Online learning grows remarkably as it requires fewer faculty hours than traditional, face-to-face courses (107 hours versus 112 hours) and costs between $12 and $66 less per credit hour to deliver (Bishop, 2019). Online learning also provides flexibility and sustainability as to language program development for HEIs, which have limited people and financial resources, fluctuating demand, and limited classrooms and supplies (The National K-16 Foreign Language Enrollment Survey Report, 2017).
As college enrollment declines will continue (Higher Inside Ed, 2019), we are investigating a future trend in HEIs that foreign language learning and teaching is moving online. This research first introduces two types of online learning, blended and fully online. Then it examines the strengths and drawbacks of using each distant language learning format as an alternative in the context of a reduction in the number of language programs and the dropping enrollment rates. To conclude, a number of guidelines are proposed for the policymakers, teaching staff, and technology support staff in higher education institutes to consider for providing an effective online language learning experience.

A Future Trend in Foreign Language Education: An Examination of Online Language Learning

When students are taking introductory Computer Science courses, the lab activities are critical. Tradition text based labs are accessible for average students. However, the traditional labs are difficult to be accessible for students with disabilities. According to the statistics over 2015 and 2016, the number of students with ages 3–21 receiving special education services was 6.7 million, or 13 percent of all public school students. Among students receiving special education services, more than 1/3 had specific learning disabilities or visually-impaired disabilities. “Specific learning disability" means a disorder in one or more of the basic psychological processes involved in understanding or in using language, spoken or written, that may manifest itself in an imperfect ability to listen, think, speak, read, write, spell or to do mathematical calculations. “Visual impairment,” also known as vision impairment or vision loss, is a decreased ability to see to a degree that causes problems not fixable by usual means, such as glasses. Some also include those who have a decreased ability to see because they do not have access to glasses or contact lenses.
When we are focused on colleges, there are about 770,000 students with disabilities (SWD) enrolled in 2- and 4-year institutions. No matter if their majors are Computer Science, STEM or other disciplines, most of them are enrolled in introductory Computer Science (CS) courses. The introductory CS course are critical not only because they are foundation for other Computer Science courses, but also because they are fundamental for students' other professional courses in their disciplines even for their future career. However, the current labs are not fully accessible for students who have disabilities. Providing multimedia based and visual logic block based activities and laboratory materials to our students with disabilities will allow them to enjoy and understand the subject and increase their interest in introductory CS course and further lead them into other courses offered in their disciplines. This project has the potential for improved recruitment and retention of SWD in these fields.
In my proposed approach, multimedia based lab activities and visual logic block based lab components were developed with the tool APP Inventor supported by my funded Presidential Semester Incentive Awards and Presidential Innovation Incentive Awards. The visual lab components help students with special learning disabilities learn and make lab practice accessible to students with visually-impaired disabilities. 
The characteristics of APP Inventor, the development of visual labs, and the sample labs were presented. In addition, we compare our new-designed visual programs with traditional text programs and conclude that visual programs outperform traditional text programs in terms of teaching/learning for students with disabilities.