Indigenous cultural contexts for STEM experiences: snow snakes’ impact on students and the community

Opportunities for American Indian youth to meaningfully engage in school-based science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) experiences have historically been inadequate. As a consequence, American Indian students perform lower on standardized assessments of science education than their peers. In this article we describe the emergence of meaning for students—as well as their community—resulting from Indigenous culturally-based STEM curriculum that used an American Indian tradition as a focal context. Specifically, the game of snow snakes (Gooneginebig in Ojibwe) afforded an opportunity for STEM and culturally-based resources to work in unison. A case study research design was used with the bounded case represented by the community associated with the snow snake project. The research question guiding this study was: What forms of culturally relevant meaning do students and the community form as a result of the snow snake game? Results indicate evidence of increased student and community engagement through culturally-based STEM experiences in the form of active participation and the rejuvenation of a traditional game. Implications are discussed for using culturally-based contexts for STEM learning.     

Impact of degree program satisfaction on the persistence of college students

Many theories on college retention recognize the significance of student satisfaction as a positive factor in students’ persistence. Yet, there are few theories that address the relationship of degree program satisfaction to study behaviour and dropout. This paper explores the impact of degree program satisfaction on academic accomplishment and dropout. The impact of degree program satisfaction was studied within a multitheoretical framework. The results of the study show that student accomplishment not only depends on differences in academic ability but also on degree program satisfaction. Decreased degree program satisfaction appears to diminish both study motivation and study behaviour. The authors discuss some implications for current educational practice.     

The developmental relation between cognitive stage and the comprehension of speaker uncertainty.

3 hypotheses were tested concerning the developmental relation between children's concepts of physical uncertainty and their comprehension of a speaker's uncertainty. 2 cognitive tasks of physical uncertainty were used to assign 56 subjects (aged 5-4 to 17-11) to 1 of 3 cognitive stages. 2 tests for comprehension of speaker uncertainty were administered to all participants. The results indicated that cognitive stage was related to (a) comprehension that a speaker could be uncertain, (b) comprehension that uncertainty could be expressed in different degrees or magnitudes, and (c) the internal consistency of judgments made about the relative degree of uncertainty conveyed by an utterance. These findings are interpreted as evidence for the position that development of cognitive stages is structurally related to comprehension of speech act uncertainty.     

Comparison of retention and extinction of a visual discrimination as an index of forgetting in mice

The retention and extinction of a visual discrimination was examined in BALB/c mice. The mice were trained to perform a go/no-go discrimination task in parallel runways. Initial training resulted in an intermediate level of performance. Testing consisted of an additional session using either retention (Experiment 1) or extinction (Experiment 2) at one of five time intervals between 1 and 30 days. It was found in Experiment 1 that forgetting progressively increased over intervals of between 14 and 30 days. In Experiment 2, extinction testing induced more impairment of performance, so that forgetting occurred earlier relative to retention testing in Experiment 1. However, in both experiments, the measure of performance by a discrimination ratio revealed the same amount of forgetting when the training-test interval was 30 days. These results define the forgetting curve for such a discrimination by mice. They are discussed in terms of possible factors involved in forgetting.     

Approaches to Study of Distance Education Students

The'Approaches to Studying'inventory of Ramsden and Entwistle (1981) was administered to groups of external and internal students at Capricornia Institute and the Tasmanian College of Advanced Education. Factor analysis revealed a similar factor structure for external students to that of the total sample. This finding, together with analysis of variance data, is taken as evidence that it is valid to use the inventory and the associated theories on learning styles with distance education students. Analysis of variance data showed differences in learning styles for older students. The implications of this finding for the design of distance education courses are discussed.     

Developing self-awareness using mindfulness meditation with preservice teachers: reflections on practice

ABSTRACT

Mindfulness offers a pathway for preservice teachers to develop self-awareness, which is an essential part of personal and professional growth. However, supporting teacher self-awareness is rarely given much attention in teacher education programs. The authors studied the use of mindfulness meditation in an early childhood college course with early childhood preservice teachers. This article reports the main findings that emerged from the students’ journals regarding the mindfulness meditation. Reflecting on the findings, this article suggests that educators need to provide meaningful learning experiences and activities, which could help their students develop the personal qualities necessary to teach with high self-confidence.