Probation and parole have become increasingly popular alternatives to incarceration over the past few decades due to efforts to reduce prison overcrowding and government spending. Successful reintegration and management of offenders in the community is hindered by a combination of individual, social, economic, and logistical factors. The frequency in which offenders are re-arrested after being released from correctional settings has serious implications for both the offenders and the community in which they reside due to additional human victimization, the costly use of taxpayer-funded resources, and continued legal involvement and sanctions. Rural and urban areas differ in terms of resource availability and cultural factors, but limited research informing the prevalence and needs of offenders living in rural areas exists. We conducted a review of the available literature to investigate the differences between the needs of offenders in rural and urban areas during reentry as well as the common barriers that hinder successful reintegration. We sought to determine crucial barriers to reentry and rural-specific concerns and needs to better inform future research and policy initiatives. The literature indicates that offenders transitioning into rural communities face many of the same obstacles as those transitioning into urban settings including difficulties securing housing, finding employment, complying with supervision requirements, locating reliable and affordable transportation, and avoiding substance use, reoffending, and other maladaptive behaviors. In rural areas, however, offenders encounter even more limited housing and employment opportunities, a lack of public transportation, higher rates of poverty, difficulties avoiding antisocial peers, and greater alcohol use rates. Providing mental health treatment to offenders in rural areas is impeded by stigmatization of mental health conditions, a shortage of treatment providers, a lack of resources for specialty treatment such as detox services for substance users, and a lack of referral sources. Probation and parole officers also face substantial obstacles to successfully supervise offenders in rural areas including a greater number of caseloads, greater geographical areas to cover, and fewer referral sources. Thus, our findings reveal that offenders in rural areas have diverse experiences of re-entry compared to those in urban areas. Further discussion regarding the need for rural-specific research to inform policies and practices for rural offender management and suggestions for future directions will be included.

This action research study examined my attempts during a six-lesson unit of instruction to implement five practices developed by Stein, Engle, Smith, and Hughes (2008) to assist novice teachers in orchestrating meaningful mathematical discussions, a component of inquiry-based teaching and learning. These practices are anticipating student responses to a mathematical task, monitoring student responses while they engage with the task, planning which of those responses will be shared, planning the sequence of that sharing, and helping students make connections among student responses. Although my initial anticipations of student responses were broad and resulted in unclear expectations during lesson planning, I observed an improvement in my ability to anticipate student responses during the unit. Additionally, I observed a high-level of interaction between my students and me while monitoring their responses but these interactions were generally characterized by low-levels of mathematical thinking. The actual sharing of student responses that I orchestrated during discussions, and the sequencing of that sharing, generally matched my plans although unanticipated responses were also shared. There was a significant amount of student interaction during the discussions characterized by high-levels of thinking, including making connections among student responses. I hypothesize that task quality was a key factor in my ability to implement the five practices and therefore recommend implementing the five practices be accompanied by training in task selection and creation.

One of the most vital decisions that teachers make during classroom discussion is whether to and how to validate the thinking that students present to the class. In this thesis I describe a study that addressed the issues that are associated with the decisions that teachers make in regards to validating students' ideas. Through qualitative research I explored these issues through videotaping an expert teacher, taking field notes, and conducting interviews. I share a description of what it looks like for one middle school mathematics teacher to make different decisions to use student input during class. The expert teacher in this study chose to use student input more than any other decision that she could have made. This study can help pre-service teachers and teachers learn to use student input.

Helheten är större än summan av delarna – en fallstudie om hur olika faktorer kan påverka samtalsledares upplevelse av sin arbetssituation. Examensarbete i verksamhetsutveckling 30 högskolepoäng. Malmö högskola: Fakulteten för hälsa och samhälle, institutionen för Socionomprogrammet 2013. Denna studie undersöker och belyser hur samtalsledare som driver samtalsgrupper för unga pojkar upplever sin arbetssituation. Därför utgör följande frågeställningar ramen för denna studie: • Hur upplever samtalsledare sin arbetssituation i arbetet med att driva samtalsgrupper för unga pojkar? • Vilka faktorer kan påverka samtalsledarnas upplevelse av sin arbetssituation? För att besvara ovanstående frågeställningar har utformats en fallstudie där intervjuer med samtalsledare som driver samtalsgrupper för unga pojkar genomförts. Studien har genererat resultat som visar på att intervjuade samtalsledare upplever sig ha god förståelse för hur arbetet ska utföras och tillgång till resurser för att hantera olika situationer i arbetet och därför upplever en tillfredställelse med befintliga resurser i organisationen. Dock framgår att samtalsledare vars arbetsroll också innefattar organisatoriskt ansvar upplever behov av ökade ekonomiska resurser för att kunna arbeta med frågor rörande verksamhetsutveckling, metodutveckling och kvalitetssäkring. Vidare framgår att samtalsledarnas upplevelse av sin arbetssituation påverkas av personliga, organisatoriska och samhälleliga faktorer och att interaktionen mellan dessa har stor betydelse för hur samtalsledarna upplever sin arbetssituation. / The whole is greater than the sum of its parts - A case study of how different factors may affect communication leaders experience of his work situation Degree project in business development, 30 ECTS credits Malmö University: Faculty of health and society, Department of Social work program 2013 This study examines and illustrates how discussion leaders operating discussion groups for young boys experience their working situation. The following questions provided the framework for this study: • How do discussion leaders experience their work situation in efforts to run discussion groups for young men? • Which factors can affect the way discussion leaders experience their working situation? To answer the questions above have been designed a case study interviews with moderator who runs discussion groups for young men out. The study has generated results showing that interviewed discussion leaders experience that they have a good understanding of how the work is done and access to resources to cope with different situations at work and therefore experience a satisfaction with existing resources in the organization. However, it appears that discussion leaders whose work also includes organizational responsibility experience an increased need for financial resources in order to be able to work with matters related to business development, method development and quality assurance. Furthermore the study shows that the way discussion leaders experience their work situation is influenced by personal, organizational and societal factors and the interaction between them is of great importance for how discussion leaders experience their work situation.

Drill and practice systems provide students with an informal learning environment to learn programming languages. In a traditional classroom setting, while feedback is personalized for each individual, it is a time consuming process. These online environments possess the ability to provide instantaneous feedback and can be accessed from any location. However, while these are conveniences, there is still an issue with the quantity and quality of feedback that is provided to each user by the system, and whether it is helpful towards helping them solve the exercise with a large understanding of the concept being tested. In this thesis we investigate how students perceive additional feedback would help them in completing coding exercises in CodeWorkout. We conducted these investigations through user studies, across two focus groups, with Computer Science students from various years. The study was conducted over one semester with a total of seventeen participants. A discussion based frequently asked questions (FAQ) tool, the ability to request a hint during submissions and the option to provide a hint to other users, to encourage active learning, were all options presented to participants during these focus groups. The information gathered though these group discussions formed the basis of our conclusion and implications. The overall feedback on all three tools was both positive and constructive. The idea of having a less traditional FAQ tool, complete anonymity in responses, as well as the ability to vote on hints provided were strong emergent themes through the study. The majority of Participants felt that they would utilize all these tools in some fashion, were they provided, and would find them helpful in completing a coding exercise if they were stuck. Lastly, we conclude with suggestions for potential design and feature options for the system. / Master of Science

This study reports middle school astronomy classes that implemented photographs and classroom response systems (CRSs) in a discussion-oriented pedagogy with a curriculum unit for the topics of day-night and cause of seasons. In the new pedagogy, a teacher presented conceptual questions with photographs, her 6th grade students responded using the CRSs, and the teacher facilitated classroom discussion based on the student responses. I collected various data: classroom observation with field-note taking and videotaping, student pre- and post-conception tests, student attitude survey and classroom short surveys, and teacher interviews. Classroom video recordings and teacher interviews were transcribed verbatim and analyzed with the grounded theory approach. This approach was used to analyze the open responses of the student attitude survey as well. Pre- and post- conception tests consisted of open-ended questions and they were scored based upon rubrics. Numerical data were analyzed with descriptive statistics and simple t-tests. In this study, I answered three research questions: 1) student-teacher discourses and interaction patterns while learning and teaching with the photographs and CRSs in the new pedagogy; 2) 6th grade students’ misconceptions about the concepts of day-night and cause of seasons, and their knowledge gains after they had the intervention; and 3) the students’ and the teacher’s attitude toward the new curriculum and the new pedagogy. Finally, I discuss the student-teacher interaction model and three important teacher-questionings in this pedagogy; levels of misconceptions; and the pedagogical roles of the photographs and CRSs.

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