Gila Monster Facts

Gila Monster Facts Gila monsters are part of class Reptilia and live mainly in the southwestern United States and northern Mexico. Their scientific name, Heloderma suspectum, is derived from the Greek words meaning stud (helo) and skin (derma). This name refers to their studded skin. Fast Facts: Gila Monster Scientific Name: Heloderma suspectumCommon Names: Gila monsterOrder: SquamataBasic Animal Group: ReptileDistinguishing Characteristics: Heavy bodied lizard with a short tail and orange or pink spots on black skin.Size: Up to 22 inchesWeight: 1.5 - 5 poundsLife Span: Up to 20 yearsDiet: Small birds, eggs, frogs, insects, lizardsHabitat: Deserts, Grasslands, ShrublandConservation Status: Near ThreatenedFun Fact: The Gila monster is named for the Gila river in Arizona. Description Gila monsters have venomous glands located in their lower jaw. Their large heads allow them to have strong bites that let their venom in the grooves of their teeth sink into the victim. They walk high on their legs to keep their tails clear of the ground and swing their tail back and forth to maintain balance. These reptiles hunt during the spring and hide in burrows during the cold months, using fat stores in their tail to sustain them until spring time. They live up to 20 years in the wild, can grow up to 22 inches, and weigh between 1.5 and 5 pounds. Habitat and Distribution Gila monsters live in southwestern United States and northern Mexico, in habitats such as deserts, grasslands, and shrubland. They live at ground level and usually make their homes in burrows in rocky areas. Diet and Behavior Gila monster eating a mouse. John Cancalosi/Photolibrary/Getty Images Gila monsters are carnivores, and their diet consists primarily of small birds and eggs. They also eat lizards, frogs, insects, and small mammals. In situations of extreme temperatures during the day, gila monsters may be more active at night. Because they are relatively slow- reaching only about 1.5 miles per hour- they rely on stealth to catch their prey and also search cacti for eggs in bird nests. Additionally, gila monsters can not see well, so they rely on their strong sense of smell and taste to track their prey. They flick their tongues to pick up scents in the air. These creatures can eat up to 1/3 of their body weight and can store fat in their tails. This reduces the amount of time gila monsters have to spend foraging for food. Gila Monster Bite Gila monsters have powerful jaws that allow them to bite and hold on to their victim for up to 10 minutes. They store venom in the grooves of their teeth in their lower jaw. Most of its food can be consumed by swallowing it entirely or with one quick bite. For larger prey, like small mammals, gila monster venom seeps into the body of the bitten animal and attacks its nervous system. A gila monster bite can be very painful to humans but isnt typically fatal. Reproduction and Offspring Gila monster hatching from an egg. Â  C. Allan Morgan/Photolibrary/Getty Images Gila monsters reach the age of maturity between 3-5 years. Breeding season is in early summer, when males compete by participating in wrestling matches. The female digs a hole and lightly covers her 2-12 eggs that weigh 1.4 ounces and span 2.5 by 1.2 inches on average. Roughly 4 months later, the eggs hatch and gila monsters of sizes averaging 6.3 inches emerge. They look like miniature adults with more vibrant colors and are on their own at birth. These young will grow to become diurnal creatures that spend the majority of their lives underground with a burst of activity during the spring, which is spent hunting for food. Three to four large meals will be all the food it needs to survive the winter. They are mostly solitary animals, but gather in small communities during mating season. Conservation Status Gila monsters are designated as Near Threatened by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN). While the total number of gila monsters is unknown, their population has been found to be decreasing in the United States and Mexico at an unknown rate. The biggest threat to gila monsters is humans, as the animals are hunted as prized possessions and killed by household pets. They are also illegally collected as pets. Gila Monsters and Humans Notably, a protein component of gila monsters’ venom called Exendin-4 is used in a drug to manage Type II diabetes. The protein has a homeostatic effect by regulating glucose levels in the body. Researchers have found this drug to help manage Type II diabetes by boosting insulin secretion and restoring insulin response. Researchers are currently looking into whether this protein can be used to treat memory disorders like Alzheimer’s disease. Sources C., Triplitt, and Chiquette E. Exenatide: From The Gila Monster To The Pharmacy.. NCBI, 2006, https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16529340.Foothills Palo Verde Fact Sheet. Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum, 2008, https://www.desertmuseum.org/kids/oz/long-fact-sheets/Gila%20Monster.php. Gila Monster. The IUCN Red List Of Threatened Species, 2007, https://www.iucnredlist.org/species/9865/13022716#population.Gila Monster. Smithsonians National Zoo Conservation Biology Institute, 2019, https://nationalzoo.si.edu/animals/gila-monster.Gila Monster Lizard. Fws.Gov, 2019, https://www.fws.gov/mountain-prairie/es/gilaMonster.php.Gila Monster | San Diego Zoo Animals Plants. San Diego Zoo, 2019, https://animals.sandiegozoo.org/animals/gila-monster. Accessed 1 June 2019.Zug, George R. Gila Monster | Description, Habitat, Facts. Encyclopedia Britannica, 2019, https://www.britannica.com/animal/Gila-monster.

Inspirational Quotes on Getting Better

Inspirational Quotes on Getting Better Somebody once said, The biggest room in the world is the room for improvement. We can always make room in our lives to get better, whether that means improving our health, our finances or our personal relationships. Even if we think things are perfect, theres likely a small area or two where we could put in a little extra work. Thats not to say that self-improvement is always easy: Its not. But sometimes the words of others who have been through similar struggles can give us the inspiration to carry on and change our lives for the better. Here are some famous and inspiring quotes about improving and getting better. Quotes on Self-Improvement from Writers Those with a talent for expressing themselves in words frequently offer insights the rest of us might not think of. But any writer whos ever worked with an editor knows all about the need to constantly improve and strive to be better. Any activity becomes creative when the doer cares about doing it right, or better.- John Updike Do not bother just to be better than your contemporaries or predecessors. Try to be better than yourself.- William Faulkner Dont be afraid to give your best to what seemingly are small jobs. Every time you conquer one it makes you that much stronger. If you do the little jobs well, the big ones will tend to take care of themselves. -   Dale Carnegie Go confidently in the direction of your dreams! Live the life youve imagined.-   Henry David Thoreau There is only one corner of the universe you can be certain of improving, and thats your own self.-   Aldous Huxley More Quotes About Getting Better Of course, sometimes inspiration comes from philosophers, business people, and entertainers. No one really has a lock on the self-improvement gig. But its up to you to decide how to apply these quotes in your life. The will to win, the desire to succeed, the urge to reach your full potential... these are the keys that will unlock the door to personal excellence.- Confucius Become addicted to constant and never-ending self-improvement.- Anthony J. DAngelo Before everything else; getting ready is the secret of success. Dont find fault. Find a remedy.- Henry Ford Dont start living tomorrow, tomorrow never arrives. Start working on your dreams and ambitions today.  -   Unknown Author Every day, in every way, I am getting better and better.- Emile Coue Look up at the stars and not down at your feet. Try to make sense of what you see, and wonder about what makes the universe exist. Be curious.-   Stephen Hawking God has entrusted me with myself.-   Epictetus Good, better, best; never let it rest till your good is better and your better is best.- Unknown Author Believe in yourself. Have faith in your abilities. Without a humble but reasonable confidence in your own powers, you cannot be successful or happy.-   Norman Vincent Peale Do the difficult things while they are easy and do the great things while they are small. A journey of a thousand miles must begin with a single step.- Lao Tzu

Structural Stability Statement Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Structural Stability Statement - Essay Example The weight of the tower is not distributed uniformly along the height of the Tower; there is more material at the base than near the top. The Tower consists of lattice-work columns at each of the four corners, in which diagonals connect four elements, thus making stiff, but lightweight columns. Each primary element is actually composed of many sub elements. The overall structure has a vertical axis between the two columns, but, individually, each column has its own axis that follows the curve of the elements. These axes are idealized as parabolas. Four types of loads act on the Tower: Dead load, Live load, Wind load and Thermal load. Dead load and the Wind load generate more forces as compared to the rest. Owing to its lattice structure, the tower is relatively lightweight and creates a force of only 4.5 kg/cm2 on the foundation. The wind force is one of the chief forces which create horizontal loads over the tower. It can be understood as a type of uniformly distributed load over the entire height of the tower. The overall bending moment from the horizontal wind load will produce tension in one column and compression in the other. Exaggerated action under wind load is shown: The wind pressure on the Tower is stronger near the top than at the bottom, but the wind force is fairly uniform because the Tower is tapered. The wind force will create a higher vertical reaction in the leeward support and a lower vertical reaction in the windward support because the wind alone would create compression in the leeward support and tension in the windward support. In combination with the forces generated by dead load, the forces can be seen as stated in the diagram. Reactions The overall reactions at the base of the Tower are easily found from the wind and gravity loads. Overall vertical and horizontal reactions will develop to balance the respective loads. A moment reaction will also develop to balance the horizontal load applied through its centroid a distance l/2 from the support. The Internal Forces The simplest internal forces are the axial ones, which result from the vertical loads and reactions. They reach a maximum at the base of the Tower. These horizontal forces tend to push the Tower apart but are resisted by the connection all along the Tower and the ground. The columns of the Tower, under the effect of the vertical load, would slide apart if there were no connections between them. These connections, which have been idealized as continuous, experience tension force equal to the horizontal forces they are resisting. The axial force will decrease with height as the vertical load and angle of inclination decrease. The second platform is subjected to the entire load of top and middle part of the tower. The forces at the higher points are lower as compared to the base and hence the higher members have a lesser amount of cross sectional area. The

Marketing Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words - 80

Marketing - Essay Example product helps diabetes patients that require monitoring constantly using devices and may also want privacy and services that are discreet with which to test levels of glucose. The incognito product in this case lines well with the clients to monitor their blood sugar levels discreetly. Currently, the company is designing devices and accessories for monitoring of glucose currently to sell them direct to the patients or the consumers in this case. The products are have great designs, are of great quality, and most significantly they are incognito, giving customers their desired privacy for use at whatever time they are comfortable. The avatar below is a prototype of a probable client by the name Emily Hewings. She is obese as a result of being diabetic and living in a region that has widespread diabetes infection, that is southern America (USA) (DeVol & Bedroussian, para. 13). The population of the people living with diabetes and other costs that are related are expected to double within a 25 year bracket from now. Significant changes in strategy of the private or the public, and growth of cost will add a significant strain to the USA healthcare system that is already

The Laugh Of The Medusa Cultural Studies Essay

The Laugh Of The Medusa Cultural Studies Essay The main reason for choosing the above critics and their respective essays is that within feminist theories, Cixous often comes to be associated with French feminist psychoanalytic theorists like Julia Kristeva and Luce Irigaray. In addition both critical essays are concerned with writing the body. By the early eighties, feminists had advanced to a confrontational attack on male supremacy, advocating a complete overthrow of the biased (male) canon of literature. French feminists, like Helene Cixous and Luce Irigary claimed that women should have a greater consciousness of their bodies when writing, a thing which would create a more honest and appropriate style of openness, fragmentation and non-linearity. Both feminist critics seem to have similar agendas mixing radical analysis with Lacanian and Freudian theory in order to deconstruct patriarchal hegemony in the connected real, symbolic and imaginary orders. Hence their unorthodox prose, a reaction against and within a symbolic order complicit in domination. Cixous first reading of the essay The Laugh of the Medusa reveals like an impassioned call to action and a feminist manifesto in which women are urged à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã… ¾to write themselves out of the world men constructed for women. Using the first person, plural and imperative statements, Cixous urges women to put themselves the unthinkable/unthought into words (Putnam Tong, 1998). She pledges for the invention of a new insurgent writing that will allow women to deconstruct the discourse that regulates the phallocentric system. Therefore the purpose of the essay under analysis is to break up and destroy a type of men writing which has functioned as an instrument of patriarchal expression and which has become a locus where the repression of women has been for too long perpetuated. In the same line of thought, Irigary pledges in her essay This Sex Which Is Not One (1977) for promoting womens language which is viewed as far richer than mens language in that it does not follow only one thread. It is advanced the idea that womens writing is capable of constantly creating the other meaning (Irigary: 204) generating an incomprehensible multiplicity of meanings which are unable to remain immobilized, and therefore impossible to be included into patterns of sexuality and behavior imposed by the dominant patriarchal cultural and social norms. Writing and language become the main concepts of the essays under analysis and the centers around which all the other notions like feminine/masculine sexuality, identity, ideologies and power revolve. The concept of writing, most often hereafter referred to as à ©criture feminine is perceived as one important transformational tool if one is concerned with changing the social, cultural and political masculine economy. It is impardonable, as Cixous puts it that there has not yet been any writing that inscribes feminity (Cixous: 2042). Assuming that language is not a neutral medium it follows that writing is constituted in a discourse of relations social, political, and linguistic, and these relations are characterized in a masculine or feminine à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã… ¾economy. In this model, patterns of linearity and exclusion (patriarchal logic) require a strict hierarchical organization of (sexual) difference in discourse and give a grossly exaggerated view of the sexual opposition actually inherent to language. Sexual opposition has always been inclusive to writing and is thus incriminated, this being one reason for women never having the possibility to speak as writing has always favored men, it worked for mans profit to the point of reducing writing to his laws (Cixous: 2050). Irigarys critical vision is therefore in agreement with Cixous ideas in that both point in negative terms to womens underdeveloped condition which stems from their submission to an oppressive culture. To this oppression, the feminist critics oppose a type of consciousness raising appeal as the main political base which would presumably be able to counteract the so-called amputation of power (Irigary: 205). Also a re-vision of the previous historical and cultural activity is needed backed by the critical force of feminist tradition. Therefore the rupture from the phallocentric tradition is indispensable as a means of escape for women. Like male sexuality, masculine writing, which Cixous usually termed phallogocentric writing, is also ultimately boring and furthermore stamped with the official seal of social approval, masculine writing is too weighted down to move or change. Womens writing expressed a unique female consciousness, which was more discursive and conjunctive than the male one. Such consciousness was completely different, and had been unfavorably treated. Simone de Beauvoir in The Second Sex studied the ways in which legislators, priests, philosophers, writers and scientists have striven to show that the subordinate position of women is willed in heaven and advantageous on earth. Women had been induced the idea of inferiority and, although men theoretically supported equality, they would object its implementation. Cixous essay in an attempt to define à ©criture feminine which favors experience over language and a type of non-linear, cyclical flow, actually lists one condition as the main prerequisite for bringing about some mutations in human relations: to destroy the sexual oppositions, as well as the distinction between feminine/masculine writing (Cixous: 2046). Such thread which aims at destroying the artificial power and cultural constructs is also favored by Irigary who militates against the type of thinking based on sexism and disjunctive political discourses: the power of slaves (Irigary: 205) would eventually collapse the binary thought inherent to Western tradition and would undo the logocentric ideology and proclaim woman as the source of life, power and energy. In doing this, one would necessarily destroy the phallocratic ideology which has been responsible for the symbolic annihilation of women (Tuchman, 1978). This annihilation serves to confirm that the roles of wife, mother and housewife, etc., are the fate of women in a patriarchal society. Women have been socialized into performing these roles by cultural representations that attempt to make them appear to be the natural prerogative of women. Furthermore, within the context of mass media, men and women have been represented in conformity with the cultural stereotypes that serve to reproduce traditional sex roles. Thus men are usually shown as being dominant, active, aggressive and authoritative, performing a variety of important and varied roles that often requires professionalism, efficiency, rationality and strength to be carried out successfully. Women by contrast are usually shown as being subordinate, passive, submissive and marginal, performing a limited number of secondary and uninteresting tasks confined to their sexuality, their emotions and their domesticity. The concern being voiced here is that this symbolic annihilation of women means that women, their lives and their interests are not being accurately reflected. Therefore, to Cixous, the practice of à ©criture fà ©minine is part of an ongoing concern with exclusion, with the transformation of subjectivity, and the struggle for identity. Moreover women in Western thought has represented the Other that can confirm mans identity as Self, as rational thinking being (Beauvoir, 1949). The concept of Self, she writes, can be produced only in opposition to that of not-self, so that the category of the Other is as primordial as consciousness itself. To constitute himself as Subject, man has constructed woman as Other: she is the incidental, the inessential as opposed to him, the Subject. Cixous voice acquires vehement tonalities militating for womens inscribing in language in a new articulation of feminine drives, libido and sex insinuating into texts as a means of liberation from their repressed sexuality and also as a means to changing the meaning of history: à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã… ¾Let the priests tremble, were going to show them our sexts (Cixous: 2048). Écriture fà ©minine could certainly prove itself extremely prodigious in its infinite and mobile complexity as opposed to masculine writing which is perceived as governed by the phallus, a type of super-egoized machinery which is synonymous with the history of reasoning separating body from the text and ultimately rejecting female-sexed texts. As a result of this policy of exclusion, the true potential of many women goes unfulfilled. The reason behind this policy of exclusion is the most blamed à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã… ¡dogma of castration which Cixous finds responsible for the sublation of the phalologocentric, a self-admiring and self-congratulatory tradition which censors the body and implicitly the speech, Freuds concept of castration anxiety. Irigary suggests the same type of Freudian reading through her mentioning of mens foraging for a social status and recognition: head/man/phallus/symbol of power. Freud argued that this castration anxiety stems from a fear of female genitalia, perceived by males at a subconscious level as the result of castration the female body understood subconsciously as lacking a phallus. Freud suggested that the mythical story of Medusa, in which people turn to stone when they look at the snake-covered head of the Gorgon, could be read as addressing this psychoanalytic fear. It follows that Cixous and Irigary argue, following many theorists, that this masculine view of women as lacking has broader social and political implications; our sexuality and the language in which we communicate are inextricably linked. To free one means freedom for the other. To write from ones body is to flee reality, to escape hierarchical bonds and thereby come closer to what Cixous calls joissance, which can be defined as a virtually metaphysical fulfilment of desire that goes far beyond [mere] satisfaction [It is a] fusion of the erotic, the mystical, and the political (Gilbert: xvii). Cixous definition of jouissance is that which operates outside of patriarchy, in the realm of the feminine Imaginary and is a crucial concept since it is the source of womens writing and of breaking the Law of the Father. à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã… ¾The Laugh of the Medusa and This Sex Which Is Not One also draw on the writings of Ferdinand de Saussure and Jacques Lacan displaying an interest in connecting language, psyche and sexuality. Lacans theory develops the notion of the development of the (male) ego from Pre-Oedipal (non-linguistic) Imaginary to Symbolic via the castration complex which is both a sexual and linguistic model. The Imaginary is fashioned as a feminine space (connected to the body, the mother, the breast). The Symbolic is associated with the Law of the Father and is a condition of having acquired language and sexual difference. The current essays seem to reject the feminine Imaginary which is non-signifying or outside of language. In order to express her opposition, Cixous uses Doras case of aphonia which is considered to be the true à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã… ¡mistress of the Signifier, replacing the phallus as the privileged Signifier from Lacans theory. Dora, the misunderstood hysterical woman, like Medusa, could be read as a mythological figure, examples of women who speak their body and threaten patriarchy. They have the capacity to continue to interrogate and ultimately to deconstruct the Law of the Father. Doras words coming to us in twisted form rebel against the master/author of her story giving access to immense resources of the unconscious, de-censoring body and speech. à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã… ¾The Laugh of the Medusa, therefore, revises the Freudian model which defines woman as lack, once again alluding to the Law of the Father which is ruled by the fear of castration, and instead celebrates woman as excess. The fear of decapitation or castration should no longer be perceived as a threat at least for women. They always had the capacity to depropriate themselves. Woman is a whole that is made up of parts that in themselves are whole: She is indefinitely other in herself (Irigary: 204). Woman is also perceived as extremely complex and subtle in the geography of her pleasure which would be able to generate a connection between womens bodies and the making of meaning in a continuous play of signifier which would disrupt the symbolic former order of language. A similar standpoint is made by Cixous who states that this endless body has no end or parts, thus woman libido is cosmic (Cixous: 2051). Woman does not perform the regionalization on herself as masculine sexuality does, her Eros is not organized around any one sun, is not centralized, therefore woman language is not a solid opaque block, but a flow which displays meaning into a multiplicity of signifiers without contours or frontiers; woman is changeable and open, a cosmos tirelessly traversed by Eros (Cixous: 2051) which lacks repressive patterning and rejects logocentrism, or phallogocentrism. Thus it is suggested that the feminine writing is a way of signifying that calls into question or disrupts the Law of the Father because it will give access to women native strength and sexuality and un-coax conventions. Along with this rupture there comes a dislocation of language. In addition, womens writing is also described in terms of childbirth; a metaphor for the vast resources of feminine creativity. By extension, womens writing is described using imagery such as the mothers voice/body/milk: à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã… ¾write in white ink (Cixous: 2045), therefore a desired return to the pre-Oedipal stage where binaries were absent. Drawing on the resources of the Imaginary, mining its depths, women are urged in both above-mentioned essays to invent another history, one which is outside of narratives of power, inequality and oppression, and which figures itself in our language and on our bodies. The upheaval of these transformations is made possible through the process of collapsing the binary oppositions in which à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã… ¡woman has functioned as a negative term, always referring back to its opposite pair which annihilated its energy and causing woman to function within the discourse of man. Therefore a return to Pre-Oedipal stage is suggested, a return to a time before the creation of oppositional binaries prior to the imposition of the categories of male and female. This is the period associated with the mothers body. In this way, Cixous notion of feminine writing can be both feminine and non-essentialist, although this latter assertion is a matter of considerable debate amongst Cixous critics. Therefore the oppositions do not limit themselves to the traditional antagony male/female, but extend beyond it to a à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã… ¡logic of the One and a logic of heterogenity and multiplicity which suggest that it is high time the phallocentric tradition be replaced by an in finite richness of individual subjectivities. The body entering the text disrupts the masculine economy of superimposed linearity: the feminine is the overflow of luminous torrents, a margin of excess eroticism and free-play not directly attributable to the fixed hierarchies of masculinity. Hierarchical structures are shaken and subjective differences are encouraged so that à ©criture fà ©minine could emerge as a way of overcoming the limits of Western logocentrism: à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã… ¡Almost everything is yet to be written by women about feminity, sexuality, infinite and mobile complexity (Cixous: 2049). The new feminine language, which yet needs to be invented, would be able to collapse partitions, classes and code à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã… ¡sweeping away syntax. At the end of the phallic era, women are envisaged as having two possible alternatives: they either give up any aspiration and become annihilated, or raise against their submissive and passive role to reach their full à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã… ¡incandescence. Writing becomes therefore the main imperative for women. They are asked to think differently, to leave behind the psychoanalytic labels and laws of the signifier which would only alter the generative powers of feminine writing: In one another we will never be lacking (Cixous: 2056). Therefore writing is the passageway, entrance, exit, and dwelling of the other. For man this non-exclusion is seen as a threat, as intolerable. Feminine writing keeps alive the other, as love is not perceived in economic terms any longer.

Cause or Effect of Gambling

Cause or Effect of Gambling â€Å"Che-Ching! † â€Å"Yes! Jackpot! † shouted the man as he jumped up and down. However, will his happiness last forever? The nest time the man gambled, the money in his pocket completely turned to dust. From that day onwards, like a broken glass, his life is destroyed and almost impossible to bring back happiness. From this man’s case, clearly there are several negative effects of gambling. First of all, gambling will cause a person to have bankruptcy. Luck is not always by our side.When a person grasps a lot of money, he will have more urge to gamble and eventually lose all of his money in the end. Following up by bankruptcy, gamblers will face many hard times with loan shark. Most of them are unable to pay back as the interest rate gradually increases. Time after time, loan shark will disturb their lives and force them to pay back in any chance. Reports review that loan shark can be so inhumane that they will wreck and destroy th e victim’s house, kidnap and blackmail any family members, or even strangle them to death.Subsequently, gamblers will have a broken relationship with their family. Their action brings disgrace on the whole family due to bankruptcy and being hooked by loan sharks. More trouble will occur and family members have to leave them alone, desolated and unwanted, those gamblers are led to only one road, suicidal. In conclusion, gambling can ruin and even ends a person's life. So before one choose to gamble, one must consider the deadly effects of gambling, before thinking of being filthy rich.

Data Driven Instruction With A Focus On Differentiated...

Data-Driven Instruction with a Focus on Differentiated Instructional Strategies Rationale In order to thoroughly reach students, studies have shown that teachers who utilize given data are better equipped to meet the diverse needs of their students (Fullan Germain, 2006). The foundation of this plan is based on the new teacher accountability program, new standards which will soon be put into place, and a continued adherence to current educational legislation. The most important aspect of this project is to find ways to better educate students no matter what group they fall into. Louisiana is currently moving to a program called the Value-Added Model which calls for teachers to be evaluated based on the performance of individual students. This plan calls for teachers to move students to a given target based on past performance. Teachers who are able to move the majority of their students to the next level or help them maintain current levels will receive a positive score. According to an article released by the Louisiana Department of Education, â€Å"If the students make more progress than would be expected, the teacher would receive a positive numeric result; if it is less than expected, it would be a negative numeric result; and if student results are consistent with their prior performance, the result would be a zero† (State of Louisiana, 2010). The Value-Added model forces teachers to realize the importance and necessity of differentiated instruction. Teachers areShow MoreRelatedHigh Stakes Testing : Is It More Than Just Numbers And Test Scor es? Essay1383 Words   |  6 Pagesputs a great deal of pressure on an educational leader. Therefore, learning about data driven decision-making (3D) added another valuable tool to my leadership repertoire. Because students need to be prepared for working in the 21st century, incorporating technology into the classroom as well as using it for data purposes is a must. 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This research-based paper will introduce many assessment tools that teachers can use to evaluate students’ baseline reading stages in order to appropriately guide interventions and instruction. Individual students’ needs can be evaluated through initial and continuing reading assessments. Teachers can do this by using both formal and informal assessments to collect and record data to monitor student’sRead MoreGrade 12 National Assessment Of Educational Progress6761 Words   |  28 Pagesof the grade 12 National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP, 2014). A combination of factors were considered for academic readiness and preparedness for entry-level college coursework, such as core subject or content knowledge, cog nitive strategies (problem solving, reasoning, planning, etc.), learning, and transitioning skills. The results of a series of studies conducted since 2008 indicate that students scoring at or above 163 on the NAEP mathematics scale, and students scoring at or above