PubMed Instruction for Medical Students: Searching for a Better Way

In 2007, Duke University Medical Center Library instituted an interactive, online PubMed tutorial and quiz for medical students to replace an in-person lecture. This article describes the events leading to this educational paradigm shift and how the tutorial was implemented. Important concerns in the switch to an online approach to PubMed training were student satisfaction and the extent to which searching skills would improve. To determine the effectiveness of the online model, two years of student quizzes and evaluations were examined. Results indicate that students benefit from and appreciate the interactive tutorial.     

Winfield High’s Homeroom Project in International Understanding

Advanced Placement (AP) Chemistry and the National AP Chemistry Examination are both critical to secondary level institutions nationwide. The use of a national embossing stamp to attest to successful completion of an AP Chemistry course and exam to ensure college credit is a novel idea worth consideration. Moreover, the concept could be expanded to all AP science disciplines conducting laboratory exercises.     

Requiring Participation: An Instructor Strategy to Influence Student Interest and Learning

Instructors are faced with the challenge of engaging students in the learning process. This study examined the effects of participation requirements on students' (N = 258) affective learning, interest, and cognitive learning using the Affective Learning Model and the Instructional Beliefs Model. Affective learning mediated the relationship between student participation requirements and cognitive learning, and student interest mediated the relationships between participation requirements and cognitive learning, supporting the IBM. The results provide insight into course-specific structural tactics that instructors can employ to enhance the educational experience for college students.     

Dimensions of Instructor Disclosure: Implications for Rhetorical and Relational Goals of Instruction

There are an array of reasons why instructors view personal disclosures as beneficial for the classroom, including to demonstrate caring and to make content relevant. Using the rhetorical and relational goals of instruction theory as the theoretical model, this study tested the potential for the three dimensions of disclosure (i.e., amount, negativity, relevance) to account for variance in instructor rhetorical goals (i.e., relevance) and relational goals (i.e., caring). The results highlight the importance of relevant instructor disclosures to perceiving an instructor as achieving rhetorical and relational goals within the classroom.     

Ally,friend, or mentor? Creating and maintaining effective cross-class alliances

This essay (re)examines the notion of intercultural alliances in one U.S. nonprofit organization trying to end poverty. The nonprofit, referred to as Transforming Poverty Partnerships, has built their program around building relationships between people in poverty and middle-class “Allies.” This analysis reveals a number of problematic themes that emerge from previous conceptions of cross-class alliances and implications for improving such alliances within various contexts.     

Where can your passport take you? Teaching citizenship,mobility, and identity

Courses: Intercultural Communication, Culture and Conflict, International Conflict and Alliance Building

Objectives: After completing this single-class activity, students should be able to (1) describe the concepts of identity, citizenship, and mobility; (2) empathize with the everyday struggles of students who hold citizenship outside of their “homeland”; and (3) explain how intersectionality influences an individual’s ability to traverse national borders.     

School Leadership Team Competence for Implementing Equity Systems Change: An Exploratory Study

The Urban Review - Operationalizing practices for equity has eluded the educational community for some time. This exploratory, mixed methods study examined the practices, operationalized by 29...     

Understanding the Role of Instructor Rapport in the College Classroom

ABSTRACT

This study examined the discriminant validity between rapport and immediacy and tested a model using instructor rapport as the mediator between immediacy and learning. Participants (N = 146) completed measures of nonverbal immediacy, instructor rapport, perceived cognitive learning, and anticipated final course grade. Results revealed that immediacy and rapport were two distinct constructs. In testing the model, the enjoyable interaction dimension of instructor rapport mediated the relationship between immediacy and perceived learning but not anticipated final grades. The personal connection dimension of rapport mediated the relationship between immediacy and both perceived learning and anticipated final grade. These results explore the mechanism through which immediacy may lead to cognitive learning.     

Attachment Security Priming Decreases Children's Physiological Response to Threat

Ninety 6- and 7-year-olds (49.3% White, mostly middle class) from greater Washington, DC were randomly assigned to a subliminal priming condition (secure, happy, or neutral) to determine if attachment security priming decreases physiological, expressive, and self-reported fear reactions to threatening stimuli. Dispositional attachment security was also assessed. Secure priming and attachment security each decreased electrodermal reactivity, increased vagal augmentation, and decreased fearful facial expressions compared to control conditions. Examination of a statistical interaction between security priming and child attachment indicated that, although secure children had increased vagal augmentation and fewer fearful expressions than insecure children, the effects of priming were constant across secure and insecure children. There were no priming or attachment effects associated with children's self-reported fear.