Team processes, team conflict, team outcomes, and gender: An examination of U.S. and Mexican learning teams

Team learning is growing rapidly in popularity in United States (U.S.) and Mexican universities. This instructional approach consists of using learning teams in which participants are required to work together regularly for a semester period of time and produce evaluated team outcomes. These team outcomes, along with their individual performance, have a significant impact on each individual's final assessment. We compare team processes, team conflict, team outcomes, and gender interaction in Mexican and U.S. student teams. U.S. teams report more team-oriented behavior and more cohesiveness, and Mexican teams report more self-oriented behavior and more conflict. Nationality (United States or Mexico) has a moderating effect on the relationship between gender heterogeneity and cohesiveness and conflict. Suggestions are given for applications and future research.     

Native American health: traditional healing and culturally competent health care internet resources

Health disparities between Native Americans and the general population of the United States are a major health concern. Traditional healing and culturally competent health care offer much promise in raising the health status of Native Americans. Traditional healing, although uniquely practiced by each indigenous culture, is generally a system of medicine based on the inseparability of mind, body, and spirit. Culturally competent health care, care that is congruent with the culture and language of the patient, is a growing initiative in western medicine. This article outlines Internet sites and online resources relevant to the study and practice of traditional healing and culturally competent health care.     

The Excitement and Wonder of Teaching Science: What Pre-service Teachers Learn from Facilitating Family Science Night Centers

In this study, pre-service teachers facilitated stations at a family science night as a context to learn to identify, assess, and use children’s science ideas. Assessment is already difficult in K-12 classrooms. Assessing learning in informal learning environments adds the complication that participation is largely voluntary. As such, controlling the learners’ participation to systematically assess learning is counter to the intents of informal environments. The pre-service teachers in this study experienced success at teaching science and developed understandings about children’s science ideas. Data included reflective postings, class discussions, observations, artifacts, and photographs. The findings contribute to understanding the value of multiple learning contexts in teacher preparation and lead to implications about leveraging informal science contexts for educating teachers.     

Supplementing Accelerated Reading with classwide interdependent group‐oriented contingencies

An across‐groups (classrooms), multiple‐baseline design was used to investigate the effects of an interdependent group‐oriented contingency on the Accelerated Reader (AR) performance of fourth‐grade students. A total of 32 students in three classes participated. Before the study began, an independent group‐oriented reward program was being applied (i.e., a student received access to a tangible reward after passing each AR comprehension test). This program was supplemented with an interdependent group‐oriented contingency, and results showed that the number of quizzes passed per week increased immediately after the intervention was applied; however, this increase was not maintained. When students were divided into ability groups based on their average baseline performance, the lowest performing students exhibited a statistically significant increase in quiz performance (i.e., quizzes taken, quizzes passed, and book level), but no significant changes were found in the average and high performing groups. © 2010 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Multimedia learning and individual differences: Mediating the effects of working memory capacity with segmentation

Research in multimedia learning lacks an emphasis on individual difference variables, such as working memory capacity (WMC). The effects of WMC and the segmentation of multimedia instruction were examined by assessing the recall and application of low (n=66) and high (n=67) working memory capacity students randomly assigned to either a segmented instruction (SI) or non-segmented instruction (NSI) version of a multimedia tutorial on historical inquiry. WMC was found to have a significant, positive effect on participants' recall and application scores; however, the use of segmentation mediated the effects of WMC to allow learners with lower WMC to recall and apply equal to those with higher WMC.     

Emergency Preparedness in the Legal Librarian Community in the United States: Current Culture and the Need to Expand Collaboration

The frequency of natural disasters hitting populated areas is increasing, and due to society’s increased dependency on modern infrastructure, the impacts of disasters have also escalated. I interviewed librarians and law librarians who work or have worked in libraries that were impacted by natural disasters as well as experts in the disaster management field. From their comments and insights, shared in this article, it is clear that there are lessons that can be learned from the larger community in the area of disaster management in law libraries. The law librarian community needs to expand the scope of the national discussion to include disaster management. The key lessons obtained in these national forums, like those shared by the subject matter experts I interviewed, will enable law libraries to become a more resilient and an even more valuable asset to the communities we serve when a natural disaster strikes.     

A place to learn: cultivating engaging learning environments for young rural Aboriginal Australians

Rural Aboriginal Australians experience disadvantage across a number of significant social and economic outcomes, including educational engagement and achievement. Current debate postulates that educational environments and systems perpetuate this disadvantage. This qualitative study aimed to contribute to the debate by taking a broader ecological view to consider the aspects of the learning environment that may promote engagement with learning. This paper reports on research conducted in a community-based programme designed to support the engagement of young rural Aboriginal students. A total of 32 participants (including children, parents/carers, tutors, managers, and local teachers) were interviewed to explicate their perspectives on the key aspects of the learning environment that fostered student engagement. An analysis of the interview data identified core characteristics that could be employed to foster engagement and thus contribute to developing equity and self-determination for young rural Aboriginal Australians. Core characteristics that were valued included: a focus on learning and individualised pace; a flexible and relaxed atmosphere; individualised assistance; having an adult who showed interest in the child and their learning; providing a culturally secure learning environment; provision of food; supplying transportation; and staff being part of the same community. This paper contends that these characteristics are valued by the community and thus should inform the practices within the community-based programme as well as mainstream education to facilitate future engagement in learning.     

Participation in Online Problem‐based Learning: Insights from postgraduate teachers studying through open and distance education

This article reports on work undertaken within Phase 2 of a pilot study concerned with the design, development, and evaluation of online resources. Drawing on recent developments in the application of technology within open and distance education, these resources were structured around the principles of problem‐based learning (PBL) for use with postgraduate teachers. The article explores the responses of one cohort of students studying on a programme for teachers of children with visual impairment, to learning through the use of these resources. In line with recent literature in this area, the findings demonstrate that with the appropriate design and use of technology, PBL, traditionally viewed as a campus‐based approach, can be adapted for use with students in higher education studying through open and distance education. The findings highlight a number of potential barriers to learning and participation that can serve to reduce effective participation in the online PBL activities. Future planned research by the authors will explore the extent to which each of these barriers can be reduced through appropriate planning and design, and provisional recommendations are included to assist in this process.     

The effectiveness of a high-intensity games intervention on improving indices of health in young children

This study assessed the effectiveness of a 6-week, high-intensity, games-based intervention on physiological and anthropometric indices of health, in normal weight (n = 26; 32.5 ± 8.9 kg) and obese (n = 29; 49.3 ± 8.9 kg) children (n = 32 boys, 23 girls), aged 8–10 years. Children were randomised into an exercise or control group. The exercise group participated in a twice-weekly, 40 min active games intervention, alongside their usual school physical education classes. The control group did not take part in the intervention. Before and after the intervention, participants completed both a maximal and submaximal graded exercise test. The submaximal exercise test comprised of a 6 min, moderate- and 6 min heavy-intensity bout, interspersed with a 5 min recovery. The exercise group demonstrated improvements in maximal oxygen uptake (51.4 ± 8.5 vs 54.3 ± 9.6 ml · kg^?1 · min^?1) and peak running speed (11.3 ± 1.6 vs 11.9 ± 1.6 km · h^?1), and a reduction in the oxygen cost of submaximal exercise between assessments (P < .05). A decrease in waist circumference and increase in muscle mass were observed between assessments for the obese participants randomised to the intervention (both P < .05). This study demonstrates that a short-term, high-intensity games intervention may elicit positive changes in physiological and anthropometric indices of health in normal weight and obese children.