Essay about Task 2

Essay about Task 2 Essay about Task 2 TaLonne Gungle LWT1 Task 2 The secondary school in which I will be using for my program is a rural school in central West Virginia. The school district includes the entire county. The percentage of Caucasians is 98.4% with all other races at 0.2% or lower, respectively (U.S. Census Bureau, 2014). The residents have a low socioeconomic status. According to the West Virginia Department of Education (2014), 58.43% of students are considered economically disadvantaged. The median household income is $29,282 with 22.4% living at or below the poverty level (U.S. Census Bureau, 2014). The most recent unemployment data shows that this county has an unemployment rate of 11.5% (West Virginia Research, Information and Analysis Division, 2014). According to the West Virginia Higher Education Policy Commission (Reed, 2014), this county has the lowest percentage of high school seniors attending an institution of higher learning at 36.5%. Procedures to Assess Workforce Engagement The administration of this educational institution evaluates workforce engagement by conducting an annual review of all teachers using the state adopted educator evaluation system. Teachers are divided into different progressions based on their years of experience. Advanced progression teachers have taught for six or more years, intermediate progression teachers have taught for four-five years, and initial progression teachers have taught three years or less. The evaluation system includes a self-reflection, observations, student learning goals, and school-wide growth in reading and mathematics. The self-reflection and final annual review are the same rubric. The teacher places themselves in whichever category they feel they belong based on the rubric. The administration conducts observations throughout the year in order to compile data to complete the annual review rubric. The teacher is also required to create two student learning goals, collect data, and evaluate the performance. The school-wide growth in reading and mathematics is based on student test scores on the state standardized test, and the growth is measured by the state department of education. Results Promote High Performance Based on their performance, teachers earn a performance level of distinguished, accomplished, emerging, or unsatisfactory. Teachers who earn an unsatisfactory rating are required to complete a corrective action plan that addresses their deficits. The educator evaluator system is successful in that teachers know what performance level they have earned, and can make corrections to be better teachers. This system also requires teachers that score unsatisfactory to focus on their deficits and correct them. If these deficits are not corrected, the teacher is terminated. This requires all teachers be successful and continuously meet the requirements set forth by state code. Process Improvement The administration meets with each teacher after their observation has been complete. The administration tells the teacher which performance level they have been assigned, but do not explain why. This part of the educator evaluation system could be improved by the administration completing the required rubrics and then explaining why the teacher has been assigned that performance level. Without an explanation and more substantial conversation about the observation, the teacher is unable to make corrections or improve parts of their instruction. If the teacher were provided with this information, the teacher could make the necessary improvements to be a better teacher. Labor Association Collaboration The school organization’s leadership team does not effectively collaborate with the labor association representatives. The leadership team does not meet with the labor association representative unless a major issue that affects most staff arises; small issues are not addressed through the labor representative. Several teachers were asked to use their planning periods to cover

Lystrosaurus Facts and Figures

Lystrosaurus Facts and Figures Name: Lystrosaurus (Greek for shovel lizard); pronounced LISS-tro-SORE-us Habitat: Plains (or swamps) of Antarctica, South Africa, and Asia Historical Period: Late Permian-Early Triassic (260-240 million years ago) Size and Weight: About three feet long and 100-200 pounds Diet: Plants Distinguishing Characteristics: Short legs; barrel-shaped body; relatively large lungs; narrow nostrils About Lystrosaurus About the size and weight of a smallish pig, Lystrosaurus was a classic example of a dicynodont (two dog toothed) therapsid- that is, one of the mammal-like reptiles of the late Permian and early Triassic periods that preceded the dinosaurs, lived alongside the archosaurs (the dinosaurs true ancestors), and eventually evolved into the earliest mammals of the Mesozoic Era. As therapsids go, though, Lystrosaurus was on the much less mammal-like end of the scale: its unlikely that this reptile possessed either fur or a warm-blooded metabolism, putting it in stark contrast to near contemporaries like Cynognathus and Thrinaxodon. The most impressive thing about Lystrosaurus is how widespread it was. The remains of this Triassic reptile have been unearthed in India, South Africa and even Antarctica (these three continents were once merged together into the giant continent of Pangea), and its fossils are so numerous that they account for a whopping 95 percent of the bones recovered at some fossil beds. No less an authority than the famous evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins has called Lystrosaurus the Noah of the Permian/Triassic boundary, being one of the few creatures to survive this little-known global extinction event 250 million years ago that killed 95 percent of marine animals and 70 percent of terrestrial ones. Why was Lystrosaurus so successful when so many other genera went extinct? No one knows for sure, but there are a few theories. Perhaps the unusually large lungs of Lystrosaurus allowed it to cope with plunging oxygen levels at the Permian-Triassic boundary; perhaps Lystrosaurus was somehow spared thanks to its presumed semi-aquatic lifestyle (the same way crocodiles managed to survive the K/T Extinction tens of millions of years later); or perhaps Lystrosaurus was so plain vanilla and unspecialized compared to other therapsids (not to mention so petitely built) that it managed to endure environmental stresses that rendered its fellow reptiles kaput. (Refusing to subscribe to the second theory, some paleontologists believe that Lystrosaurus actually thrived in the hot, arid, oxygen-starved environments that prevailed during the first few million years of the Triassic period.) There are over 20 identified species of Lystrosaurus, four of them from the Karoo Basin in South Africa, the most productive source of Lystrosaurus fossils in the entire world. By the way, this unprepossessing reptile made a cameo appearance in the late 19th century Bone Wars: an amateur fossil-hunter described a skull to the American paleontologist Othniel C. Marsh, but when Marsh didnt express any interest, the skull was forwarded instead to his arch-rival Edward Drinker Cope, who coined the name Lystrosaurus. Oddly, a short time later, Marsh purchased the skull for his own collection, perhaps wishing to examine it more closely for any mistakes Cope may have made!

Lystrosaurus Facts and Figures

Lystrosaurus Facts and Figures Name: Lystrosaurus (Greek for shovel lizard); pronounced LISS-tro-SORE-us Habitat: Plains (or swamps) of Antarctica, South Africa, and Asia Historical Period: Late Permian-Early Triassic (260-240 million years ago) Size and Weight: About three feet long and 100-200 pounds Diet: Plants Distinguishing Characteristics: Short legs; barrel-shaped body; relatively large lungs; narrow nostrils About Lystrosaurus About the size and weight of a smallish pig, Lystrosaurus was a classic example of a dicynodont (two dog toothed) therapsid- that is, one of the mammal-like reptiles of the late Permian and early Triassic periods that preceded the dinosaurs, lived alongside the archosaurs (the dinosaurs true ancestors), and eventually evolved into the earliest mammals of the Mesozoic Era. As therapsids go, though, Lystrosaurus was on the much less mammal-like end of the scale: its unlikely that this reptile possessed either fur or a warm-blooded metabolism, putting it in stark contrast to near contemporaries like Cynognathus and Thrinaxodon. The most impressive thing about Lystrosaurus is how widespread it was. The remains of this Triassic reptile have been unearthed in India, South Africa and even Antarctica (these three continents were once merged together into the giant continent of Pangea), and its fossils are so numerous that they account for a whopping 95 percent of the bones recovered at some fossil beds. No less an authority than the famous evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins has called Lystrosaurus the Noah of the Permian/Triassic boundary, being one of the few creatures to survive this little-known global extinction event 250 million years ago that killed 95 percent of marine animals and 70 percent of terrestrial ones. Why was Lystrosaurus so successful when so many other genera went extinct? No one knows for sure, but there are a few theories. Perhaps the unusually large lungs of Lystrosaurus allowed it to cope with plunging oxygen levels at the Permian-Triassic boundary; perhaps Lystrosaurus was somehow spared thanks to its presumed semi-aquatic lifestyle (the same way crocodiles managed to survive the K/T Extinction tens of millions of years later); or perhaps Lystrosaurus was so plain vanilla and unspecialized compared to other therapsids (not to mention so petitely built) that it managed to endure environmental stresses that rendered its fellow reptiles kaput. (Refusing to subscribe to the second theory, some paleontologists believe that Lystrosaurus actually thrived in the hot, arid, oxygen-starved environments that prevailed during the first few million years of the Triassic period.) There are over 20 identified species of Lystrosaurus, four of them from the Karoo Basin in South Africa, the most productive source of Lystrosaurus fossils in the entire world. By the way, this unprepossessing reptile made a cameo appearance in the late 19th century Bone Wars: an amateur fossil-hunter described a skull to the American paleontologist Othniel C. Marsh, but when Marsh didnt express any interest, the skull was forwarded instead to his arch-rival Edward Drinker Cope, who coined the name Lystrosaurus. Oddly, a short time later, Marsh purchased the skull for his own collection, perhaps wishing to examine it more closely for any mistakes Cope may have made!