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Valerie Smith Coskrey
M.Ed., Cert.
Ed. Spec.
K-12 Science Education Specialist
Freelance Writer, Proofreader, Teacher
Email: valerie@vforteachers.com
Writing Experience
I write abstracts for Shvoong.com and have a poem
published in The Culture Star Reader ezine
in September, 2005. I have presented my academic papers at national and state
conferences.
I write and maintain the websites http://www.vforteachers.com on
which I sell PowerPoint®
templates and presentations that I have designed and written, Access®
databases designed for the needs of teachers, and other classroom items; and http://www.dirtpoorbook.com on which I sell products to
a wider audience.
I designed and used Access® database tables,
forms and records for my lesson plans. I taught my students to do research
presentations on PowerPoint®.
Relevant Skills
I have the skills to research and write technical papers,
proofread a broad range of written works, write copy, and do minor
editing. I can develop curricula,
training manuals, write test and practice exercises, and run training seminars. I can interpret and analyze experimental
design, data and statistics.
Professional Experience
I taught 1 year as an instructor of biology and biology labs
at
I experienced 14 years teaching high school chemistry,
physics, biology and other sciences in
I spent 3 years teaching college classes as a graduate assistant
at
Educational Background
I graduated from Louisiana State University-Shreveport in
1975, received a M.Ed. from there in 1985, entered the doctoral program at
I do have other work experiences.
References are available on request.
Valerie
Smith Coskrey
M.Ed., Cert.
Ed. Spec.
K-12 Science Education Specialist
Freelance Writer, Proofreader, Teacher
Portfolio
Item 1 0f 4
Untitled abstract published on the
web at shvoong.com
In 2004, Dr. Woodill wrote a critique of the e-learning industry that makes the following points. I found it a useful overview of the e-learning enterprise and appreciated his definitions of terms used in the industry.
Most curriculum development of e-learning courses is deficient in educational theories of good curriculum design and learning strategies, psychological theories of learning, sociological understanding of the different generations of learners, and effective uses of computer and gaming technologies. The industry is driven more by the development of software technologies than by good teaching using the new modes of instructional delivery. Additionally, curriculum is being developed mostly as on-screen lectures combined with objective-style testing that do not vary significantly from traditional classroom delivery systems. Furthermore, the new generation of learners, having been reared in a visual media age of television, movies, and gaming software with very little actual experience of reading books, do not learn from traditional classroom delivery systems. Consequently, the majority of the current e-learning courses will not meet the needs of the leaner. Too many aspects of the e-learning environment, the various learners’ motivational requirements, and the learners’ psychological requirements are not well understood by the software and curriculum developers. Too little attention is being paid to matching teaching strategy to curriculum content. Future emphasis in the industry of e-learning curricula should pay more attention to the new findings of cognitive psychology, the content delivery modes of the gaming industry, new computer technologies, and successful educational theories.
Reference
Woodhill, G. (2004). Where is the learning in e-learning: a critical analysis of the e-learning industry. A paper written for the Operitel Corporation and published to the web by E-LearningGuru at www.e-learningguru.com
Item 2 of 4
Excerpt of the booklet to be sold on
my website that includes a set of test questions that I wrote during my
teaching experiences
Booklet Title
Writing
Tests and Worksheets
Using
Microsoft® Word®
© 2005 Valerie Coskrey
Excerpt 1
A Multiple
Choice and Other Type Items
The numbering style developed for matching will work for multiple choice items, too. Just tab to set the choices as Level 2 items. Another way to create the item levels is to use the Increase indent and Decrease indent icons on the Formatting toolbar.
I hope you will excuse me if I seem to be
stating the obvious, but you can use level 1 of this style to provide the
blanks and numbers for a true/false section of the test. Try extending the blanks in a new numbering
style for an answer-sheet style, fill-in-the-blanks section.
A Sample Question Set with Long Blanks
These are sample items from
a test in which the stem was to identify the biome of the organisms
described. This is a form of matching
questions if the biomes are listed and students are to copy the biome names
into the blanks. A numbering style for
this type of question can be easily written using the techniques described
above. The style would work for both the
true/false and the answer-sheet style, fill-in-the-blanks type of
question. Try it!
17._______________Snakes,
lizards, and amphibians hibernate in winter.
18._______________Camouflage
colors are brown and gold, and mammals are fast runners.
19._______________Many animals have curved
claws that cling to a surface and /or tails that wrap around tree limbs.
Figure 4. The number-with-long-blanks numbering style called Answer Sheet A
Excerpt 2
ưA better way to do both letters and numbers
Make the numbering style for “___1.”
·
Select the items to be numbered or place the
cursor at the beginning.
· Go to Outline numbered in the Bullets and Numbering menu at Format.
· Choose 1, 1.1…and choose Customize.
· Slide up to 1 on Number Format Level.
· Type in the form “___ 1.” in the Number Format box; omit the quotes, of course.
· Choose the Style of 1,2,…
· Adjust the placement using the Preview box and looking at the first level: 1.
· Stay in this menu for the next set of instructions.
Item 3 0f 4
Essay published on the web at
shvoong.com
Trees
Growing in the Greenhouse Effect
People
who study the Greenhouse Effect know that there is more at stake than just
global warming. Caused primarily by the
smoke of burning fossil fuels, the Greenhouse Effect is a direct result of
higher levels of carbon dioxide in our atmosphere. Carbon dioxide in the air is used by all land
plants for photosynthesis to make food.
What happens when plants get overfed?
For many a tree, the first response to the increase of carbon dioxide levels in the air is an increase in photosynthesis. More carbon dioxide, CO2, in the air means more sugar can be made by photosynthesis. Making more sugar pushes the tree into a growth spurt. Trunks and branches grow taller, longer, and thicker; new branches and leaves form; and roots send out more long, thin root strands covered with root hairs. One way to refer to such growth is to say that there was “an increase in biomass.” Research shows that when trees are grown in an area of greater than normal amounts of CO2 , the trees show an increase in photosynthesis followed by an increase in biomass (Luo, et al, 2004).
When a tree grows it needs new roots to take up more mineral from the soil. After all, plant growth requires more minerals to make the new cells. But fast-growing trees can use up the important nutrients needed for making the new plant cells of the new plant parts. Will the ecosystem be able to replace these minerals quickly enough to keep up with the growing trees? Will the photosynthesis slow down to keep pace with the mineral supply even if the CO2 level in the air is higher than normal? What if the CO2 levels begin to change from year to year, rising and falling, rising slightly, rising greatly, rising slowly, rising rapidly? Will the ecosystem be able to adjust? Will the trees remain healthy? Will the trees become stressed, spindly, disease-prone? Will ecosystem equilibrium be reestablished, its balance restored? These are questions that concern scientists today (Luo, et al, 2004).
Nitrogen is probably the most important of the minerals that plants take from the soil to live and grow. Will a fast-growing tree use up the soil’s supply of nitrates? Nitrates are the types of chemicals that contain nitrogen in a form that a plant can use. The Nitrogen Cycle shows that nitrogen is constantly being replaced in the soil as nitrates, but can this recycling occur fast enough to keep up with the demands of faster growing trees? (Luo, et al, 2004)
Think about the need for fertilizer in farming, flower gardening, and even in lawn care. Fertilizer is used to replace the nitrogen, phosphorus and other minerals that these quickly growing plants have removed from the soil. The assumption is that gardens, farms and lawns use these minerals more rapidly than natural recycling can replace them in the soil. The natural nitrogen replacement processes just cannot keep up. So we fertilize our gardens and lawns.
Some foresters worry about trees growing too fast. Will a forest be able to recycle its nitrogen and other minerals quickly enough to keep up with the increasing growth rate of trees? After all, how can we fertilize an entire forest? What will the new ecosystem equilibrium be like?
Researchers say that rapid growth of trees in a healthy forest over a decade or so will not damage the ecosystem. Unfortunately, there is not enough information to know what will happen when trees continue to grow faster over many decades of increasing growth rate (Luo, et al, 2004).
Meanwhile, as more fossil fuels are burned than ever before, more CO2 is dumped into the air than ever before. The trees will respond with more photosynthesis and fresh growth more quickly than ever before-- until some kind of balance in the forest is reached. Will the new ecosystem equilibrium be benefit the trees, or harmful? Will man’s economy be affected? Will man’s culture be forced to change somehow? Can man guide the changes in a direction acceptable to the diverse political, social and economic groups of society? If there will be damage, can man stop the damage in time?
People that are concerned about the Greenhouse Effect have more questions than answers. It is just too early to tell what will really happen. The good news is that by taking more carbon dioxide out of the air, rapidly growing trees might slow Global Warming just a bit, for awhile, anyway.
Reference
Luo, Y., et al. 2004. Progressive nitrogen limitation of ecosystem responses to rising atmospheric carbon dioxide. BioScience 54: 731-739.
Item 4 of 4
PowerPoint slides from a presentation
that I designed and wrote about measurement and math for high school
students. The complete presentation will be sold
on my webpage and is copyrighted.
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