Maximizing Learning From Engaging Across Difference: The Role of Anxiety and Meaning Making

This study explores college students’ reactions to engaging in experiences with diverse others that students found uncomfortable, interactions that disrupted students’ current beliefs or values. Our examination of these experiences was grounded in theory and research on intergroup contact and anxiety and developmental models of self-authorship leading to intercultural maturity. We found three types of reactions to these experiences: Some students were “stuck,” unsure of how to respond; some were prone to continue exploring; and some reframed their perspectives to reflect capacities associated with advanced intercultural maturity. We offer recommendations for managing intergroup anxiety and scaffolding learning to support reframing one's perspectives to maximize learning from engaging in difference.     

A Comparison of Dome and Computer Planetaria in the Teaching of Astronomy

The learning of pupils from Years 5 and 6 (9-and 10-year-olds) when taught with the aid of dome and computer planetaria was investigated. The two kinds of planetarium were found to be equally effective, although the learning was confined to female pupils. It is suggested that the use of planetaria might enable females to catch up with males in areas of astronomy which make heavy demands on spatial ability. Substantial learning also took place in the pre-service education students who led the planetaria sessions.     

Industrial relations techniques

A study (involving 466 high school and college students) comparing women's and men's ratings of their own and ideal speech showed that a greater number of speech characteristics of males differed from the speech characteristics of the ideal speaker. The results of the study combined with material from the writings of women who have made a conscious effort to change their language indicate that before women continue to try to alter their speech by such means as assertiveness training they should consider the desirable characteristics associated with female speech.     

Contradictions of interaction for wives of elderly husbands with adult dementia

The researchers used a dialectical framework to examine interviews with wives whose elderly husbands experienced adult dementia from Alzheimer's disease and related disorders (ADRD), centering on how wives coped communicatively with their husbands' illness. These "married widows" experienced a primary contradiction between their husbands' physical presence and cognitive/emotional absence. Interwoven with the presence-absence contradiction were three additional contradictions: certainty-uncertainty, openness-closedness, and past-present. Results describe the ways these wives communicatively negotiated the web of contradictions as they interacted in the present with husbands they once knew. Applications for practitioners and caregivers working with ADRD patients and their wives, including formal and informal support, understanding, and managing contradictions, and ways to more effectively interpret ADRD patients' communication, are discussed.     

We Talk About It,But Do They Get It?

This article reports on the last of a series of iterative research studies involving students with learning disabilities in reform mathematics classrooms at the intermediate grade levels. This study reports the findings from a larger, year‐long case study that focused on ways to include students with learning disabilities and other students who are at risk for special education services in classwide discussions of problem solving. The data reported in this article detail the changes in teacher and student discourse over a nine‐week period in one classroom. Sources of data for this study included videotapes, audiotapes, and informal interviews with the teacher, a paraprofessional, and students. A quantitative analysis of the results indicates clear patterns of change in teacher and student discourse. Nonetheless, intentional efforts to include target students in the whole‐class discussions yielded instructional dilemmas that are underdescribed in the mathematics reform literature. Findings from this study have implications for special educators interested in mathematical problem solving, as well as math reformers who value the role of classroom discourse in daily instruction.     

Reinforcer and response specificity in appetitive transfer of control

Three experiments examine transfer from appetitive Pavlovian conditioning to appetitive instrumental responding by varying the similarity between conditions of Pavlovian reinforcement and instrumental reward. After conditioning with rats confined in a restraining device, a CS for electrical stimulation of the brain (ESB) produced substantial facilitation of operant responding for ESB, while a CS for food facilitated operant responding for food. However, no effects on rate of responding for food were seen during a CS for ESB. In a fourth experiment, four groups of rats were trained to barpress for rewarding electrical stimulation of the brain (ESB) and then given discriminative Pavlovian conditioning with ESB. The groups differed in the degree of similarity between the stimulus-response sequences present during Pavlovian conditioning and those occurring in instrumental responding. As similarity increased, so did the degree of conditioned facilitation in subsequent transfer tests. These results indicate that conditioned incentive responses or reinforcer-derived expectancies are specific to the conditions under which they develop, rather than generalized emotional or motivational responses.     

Using computer simulations to assesss hands-on science learning

Two methods of assessing student learning of a hands-on instructional unit are compared. One method involves manipulation of concrete materials, and the other method involves manipulation of icons on a computer to solve an electric circuits problem. Sixth-grade students in an inquiry-based science program completed both assessments separated by three weeks. Results indicated that although mean performance was the same for each method, individual student performance varied considerably. Implications for use of computer simulations as an alternative to hands-on assessment are discussed.This research was supported by grants from the National Science Foundation and the Office of the Vice President, University of Michigan. Opinions expressed are those of the author and not necessarily the supporting agencies.