Self-segregation, sense of belonging, and social support: An inquiry into the practices and perceptions of Chinese graduate students at an American Mid-Atlantic University

Chinese students studying in the United States face great challenges when adapting to cultural, linguistic, and pedagogical differences. Although discouraged in the literature, self-segregation is a practice common among some international students and is especially prevalent in the Chinese community. This qualitative study explored the motivation and frequency of this practice vis-à-vis social support, and its effect on the participants’ sense of belonging. Insider status was employed to conduct focus groups of mainland Chinese students currently enrolled in graduate programs at a Mid-Atlantic University in the United States. Findings from the study explore how administrators, educators, and the students themselves view the practice of self-segregation and its consequences.

The Mordell Conjecture

The Mordell conjecture (Faltings's theorem) is one of the most important achievements in Diophantine geometry, stating that an algebraic curve of genus at least two has only finitely many rational points. This book provides a self-contained and detailed proof of the Mordell conjecture following the papers of Bombieri and Vojta. Also acting as a concise introduction to Diophantine geometry, the text starts from basics of algebraic number theory, touches on several important theorems and techniques (including the theory of heights, the Mordell–Weil theorem, Siegel's lemma and Roth's lemma) from Diophantine geometry, and culminates in the proof of the Mordell conjecture. Based on the authors' own teaching experience, it will be of great value to advanced undergraduate and graduate students in algebraic geometry and number theory, as well as researchers interested in Diophantine geometry as a whole.

Frameworks, Tensegrities, and Symmetry

This introduction to the theory of rigid structures explains how to analyze the performance of built and natural structures under loads, paying special attention to the role of geometry. The book unifies the engineering and mathematical literatures by exploring different notions of rigidity - local, global, and universal - and how they are interrelated. Important results are stated formally, but also clarified with a wide range of revealing examples. An important generalization is to tensegrities, where fixed distances are replaced with 'cables' not allowed to increase in length and 'struts' not allowed to decrease in length. A special feature is the analysis of symmetric tensegrities, where the symmetry of the structure is used to simplify matters and allows the theory of group representations to be applied. Written for researchers and graduate students in structural engineering and mathematics, this work is also of interest to computer scientists and physicists.

Creating an environment that encourages both extensive and intense threaded dialogue The growth of discussion threads and the size of the class

The purpose of this research is to investigate the beginning and development of asynchronous discussion threads in various class sizes over the course of 25 graduate-level courses and 22 interviews. The paper also aims to create some recommendations for promoting threaded discourse during the initiation, advancement, summary, and evaluation phases of a discussion thread from pedagogical, technological, and theoretical viewpoints. The statistical analysis revealed that class size did influence the number of threads and the length of threads created by students and instructors, which showed the importance of certain themes in the conversation. The majority of participants said that it was difficult to follow threaded conversations in order to establish meaningful cooperation in huge classrooms. Instructors and graduate students each expressed a preference as to whether they should begin or follow a conversation. Some pedagogical tactics were used by the instructors to facilitate the commencement and growth of discussion threads. This research may have consequences for both practitioners and academics in terms of developing new software features and designing efficient educational tactics in order to produce more successful comprehensive and intense knowledge-building discourse in the classroom.

Understanding Graduate Student Parents: Influence of Parental Status, Gender, and Major on Graduate Students’ Motivation, Stress, and Satisfaction

Graduate student parents are a unique subpopulation in higher education that accounts for a large proportion of graduate students. While student parents struggle to balance multiple roles, female students in STEM fields may face more significant barriers in balancing family and academic responsibilities compared to male graduate student parents or female students in non-STEM fields. Despite the urgent need to support this special population, little attention has been paid to how parental status, major, and gender affect graduate students. In this quantitative study of 545 graduate students, we examined the influence of parental status, major, and gender on motivation, stress, and satisfaction. A series of factorial ANOVAs found significant differences in motivation and mental health between graduate student parents and non-parents. Our findings highlight the importance of providing adequate resources to graduate students according to their status.

Scaffolding Understanding of Scholarly Educational Research Through Teacher/Student Conferencing and Differentiated Instruction

This article reports the results of a qualitative study of the effectiveness of a critical reading instructional intervention based on differentiated instruction (DI) and teacher/student conferencing (TSC) in improving the participants’ understanding and evaluation of published educational research. A cohort of eleven (n = 11) novice graduate students took part in a 15-week course during which they critiqued several self-selected journal articles and reflected on their experience. Results of the thematic analysis of the participants’ reflection logs revealed that their’ initial feelings of apprehension and anxiety transformed into growth in their self-efficacy as consumers and designers of educational research. Likewise, the participants benefitted from scaffolding their challenges and the provision of feedback in becoming more proficient readers and in developing supportive relationships. The study implications, limitations, and suggestions for further research are discussed.

Integration of Big Data with International Graduate Ideological and Political Education

Nowadays, colleges and universities have a large amount of information about political thought and education in addition to complex student data. Like big data, it has the characteristics of large capacity, high speed, and diversity. The ideological and political education in colleges and universities urgently needs scientific decision-making and the ability to predict possible problems ahead of time. It also perfectly matches the technical advantages of big data technology that can efficiently process data, analyze and extract information, as well as propose solutions. The traditional higher education model can no longer meet the needs of current international higher education. Under the new background, universities must explore a new model of postgraduate international education, which is practical, multi-channel, and comprehensive, on a deeper level. According to data on graduate students’ interest, psychology, and behavior, higher education teachers can purposefully innovate the methods and approaches to higher education. The integration of international graduate education with big data has been examined in this research, and a series of cultural exchanges has been carried out for foreign students at Central South University. This kind of introduction seems to have effectively boosted the attractiveness of ideological and political education, improved the research level of international graduate students, and deepened the role of campus cultural activities in educating people on a deeper level.

Comparative Evaluation of the Condition of Academic Graduate School (Middle 2000s – Late 2010s)

The main task of the article was to identify the dynamics of changing social characteristics of graduate students from research institutes of Novosibirsk Academgorodok. For the comparative analysis we used the data of polls conducted in 2005 and 2018. We compared such variables as the reasons for admission to graduate school, assessments of the current state of the main elements of scientific activity, the expectations of graduate students about their future profession, primarily a scientific career, criteria and factors of its success. Based on these results we planned to identify the main trends inherent in graduate studies as the main method of training personnel for Russian science. It is concluded that at present the system of training highly qualified scientific personnel in the country is in an unstable state. As a result, there is an active discussion in the professional community about ways of further reforming graduate school.

Using the Design Thinking Process to Co-create a New, Interdisciplinary Design Thinking Course to Train 21st Century Graduate Students

Background: Our instructional team at the The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill led an innovative project that used IDEO.org's design thinking process to create a brand-new interdisciplinary graduate course, housed in the school of public health, titled Design Thinking for the Public Good. We offer our course design process as a case study of the use of design thinking for course design.Methods: We collected data and generated insights through a variety of inspiration, ideation, and implementation design thinking methods alongside members of our three stakeholder groups: (2) faculty who teach or have taught courses related to design thinking at our higher education institution; (2) design thinking experts at ours and other institutions and outside of higher education; and (3) graduate students at our institution.Results: We learned that interdisciplinary design thinking courses should include growth-oriented reflection, explicit group work skills, and content with a real-world application.Conclusions: Our course design process and findings can be replicated to design courses regardless of area of study, level, or format.