Building Math Esteem in Fifth Grade Students

In this action research study of my classroom of 5th grade mathematics, I investigate the levels of math esteem in each student and as a classroom. The definition of esteem on which I am basing my research is the judgment or estimation of the self-assurance of a student in math. I discovered that several of the students entered my classroom with a middle to low level of esteem in math, and about a third of the class already exhibited a positive, high esteem in math. After implementation of the research, and interpreting the data, I believe almost all the students achieved higher math esteem by the end of the school year. The surveys and interviews I performed with the parents and students lead me to believe the four components of my research had an affect on this outcome. As a result of this research, I plan to continue to facilitate a high level of math esteem in each one of my students.

Excitation and damping of a self-modulated laser wakefield

Spatially, temporally, and angularly resolved collinear collective Thomson scattering was used to diagnose the excitation and damping of a relativistic-phase-velocity self-modulated laser wakefield. The excitation of the electron plasma wave was observed to be driven by Raman-type instabilities. The damping is believed to originate from both electron beam loading and modulational instability. The collective Thomson scattering of a probe pulse from the ion acoustic waves, resulting from modulational instability, allows us to measure the temporal evolution of the plasma temperature. The latter was found to be consistent with the damping of the electron plasma wave.