The purpose of this research study is to determine and describe in-service SBAE teachers? perceived Pedagogical Content Knowledge (PCK) and challenges with non-content related classroom material. In general, PCK is the point where knowledge of teaching meets agricultural content knowledge. With the rising number of alternatively certified agricultural educators across the country, it is important to examine PCK in both traditionally and alternatively certified teachers as well as the differences between the two. Since successful classroom management is crucial to teacher retention, it is necessary to look at the differences in difficulty of implementation of various strategies. Agricultural education is diverse and involves numerous topics within the broad industry. This study also describes the sources of content knowledge among the two licensure types. It is recommended that future studies research the PCK of teachers based on years of experience and licensure route.

This study examines the developmental history of teacher's certifications in Texas as a means to highlight needed improvements.

Qualitative research conducted in athletic training in the last two decades has increased but still lacks depth and breadth in pedagogy and education. This is especially evident in the multifaceted clinical education environment where diverse and alternat

International Telemetering Conference Proceedings / October 22-25, 2001 / Riviera Hotel and Convention Center, Las Vegas, Nevada / During these times of acquisition reform in the federal government, various missile systems are being forced into using Commercial-off-the-Shelf (COTS) products in the design of their subsystems. However one problem that this presents is the lack of configuration management. There is a concern that the manufacturer will modify the product without informing the end user. This may have a severe effect on the performance of an already flight qualified subsystem. An example of how one program is dealing with this issue will be discussed.

Significant investments are being made in the construction sector in order to raise the quality of the buildings and make them more sustainable and energy-efficient. The key aspect of these investments should be the purposeful optimization of the possible renovation and construction measures. However, this important matter usually is being pushed aside in favor of construction price and/or quality. Nevertheless, there are plenty of criteria that play a major role in building sustainable development. The main purpose of this study is to present a tool that combines multi-criteria decision making (MCDM) methods and building certification systems in order to make weighted decisions in complicated construction tasks. For this, a decision making model was developed with a focus on sustainability, buildings’ life cycle, MCDM methods, and building certification. The first section of this thesis, the introduction, discusses the importance of the investigated area, and the main objectives, tasks, and structure of the thesis. A literature review is presented in Section 2 – Theory. The main works in the area of sustainability, LCA, building certification, and MCDM are collected to show their role and importance and how they interact in the construction industry. Section 3 presents and discusses the main ideas and instructions of the proposed decision making model. Section 4 (Methodology) introduces the main existing and proposed techniques that I have used to implement the study. Sections 5 and 6 are the case studies, which demonstrate how the proposed methods can be used in practice. Final conclusions and recommendations are presented in Section 7. / <p>QC 20170209</p> / Funded by L.E. Lundberg foundation

This is a study to ascertain the current qualifications and status of the industrial arts teachers employed in the elementary, junior, and senior high schools in the state of Texas. The purpose of this study is threefold: 1) to hypothesize that the qualifications and status of Texas industrial arts teachers have improved within the last fourteen years; 2) to hypothesize that those industrial arts teachers who were active in professional organizations have higher academic qualifications and status than those teachers who were not active in professional organizations; and 3) to hypothesize that industrial arts programs under the guidance of those teachers who were active members of professional organizations had a more complete industrial arts program and offer a wider selection of courses than those not.

The issue of alternative certification teacher training has greatly affected art education over three decades. As a result of training through alternative certification, many art educators enter the profession unprepared and unable to cope with the realities of teaching. This study attempts to understand and represent the experiences and struggles of four alternatively certified art teachers, including myself. By reading these stories, others within the education community can empathize with and provide support for struggling novice teachers. This creative thesis uses a graphic novel format to represent participants' stories. By combining text and imagery, the graphic novel format provides different meanings, interpretations, and insights into the teachers' lives. This medium offered a unique and rich perspective on the stories of what it is like being an alternatively certified art teacher.

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This dissertation consists of three chapters that study issues in Corporate Finance and Industrial Organization related to the behavior of markets with asymmetric information. The first two chapters study the economics of credit rating agencies; the third chapter examines a process of social learning about product quality. Chapter 1 models the effect of rating agency competition on the quality of rated securities. I compare equilibria across a regime of competition between two rating agencies and a monopolistic regime. In both regimes, all available agencies are hired in equilibrium, so under competition more ratings are observed. However, competing agencies do not fully internalize the return of a reputation for being honest. Whenever strategic agencies are not very concerned about their reputation, competition can induce more issuer effort than monopoly. Otherwise, a monopolistic agency induces more effort. Chapter 2 analyzes the effect of the Cuomo Plan, a much-discussed regulation that prohibits issuers of residential mortgage-backed securities from making payments to rating agencies contingent on the assigned ratings. I construct a certification model which consists of the following features: (i) an issuer privately informed about her security's quality can hire a rating agency to assign a rating; (ii) the agency can observe, at a cost, a private signal correlated with the quality of the security; (iii) an undeserved favorable rating reduces the agency's future revenues. I show that the Plan has an effect on the informative content of the rating only if the agency's signal is not too costly. In this case, the Plan ensures that the rating is more informative; otherwise the Plan has no effect. In chapter 3, I study the pricing strategy of a monopolistic firm in a market characterized by consumers with heterogeneous preferences and private information about the product quality. Consumers purchase sequentially and observe the history of purchasing decisions, prices, and consumers' preferences. I characterize the conditions under which the monopolist gains when consumers learn the true quality, and, which pricing strategy ensures that learning takes place.

The objective of this study is to investigate the economic impacts of Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) certification on global trade of forest products. Global Forest Products Model (GFPM) is used to predict export, import and net trade quantity of several forest products from year 2006 to 2056. The simulation findings suggest that: (1) Under the assumption that FSC certification plays negative effects on forest stock, Europe reduced sawnwood export; while Ireland became the net importer of sawnwood and wood pulp for next fifty years. (2) Under the assumption that FSC certification has no effects on forest stock, North America, Europe and Asia became the three major sawnwood importers; Europe and North America dominated sawnwood export; Africa significantly expanded its market share of sawnwood export from 1.3% in 2006 to 8.8% in 2056. Africa and Asia became the two largest importers of fuelwood. (3) Under the assumption that FSC certification plays positive effects on forest stock, Europe increased its export of sawnwood; Ireland became the net exporter of sawnwood and wood pulp since 2026. However, FSC certification has no impact on the trend of forestry stocks and products in Canada.