Fostering conceptual change and critical reasoning about HIV and AIDS

One of the challenges of science education is for students to develop scientific knowledge that is personally meaningful and applicable to real‐life issues. This article describes a middle‐school science intervention fostering adolescents' critical reasoning in the context of HIV by strengthening their conceptual understanding of HIV biology. The intervention included two components: critical reasoning activities that fostered knowledge integration and application to real‐world problem solving, and science writing activities that promoted argument building. Two seventh‐grade classes participated in the study. One class participated in the critical reasoning and writing activities (CR&W); the other class participated in critical reasoning activities only (CR group). Results demonstrate significant pre‐ and posttest improvements on measures of students' HIV knowledge, HIV understanding, and critical reasoning about realistic scenarios in the context of HIV, with the improvements being greater in the CR&W group. The discussion focuses on the role of conceptual knowledge in health reasoning, the role of science writing in fostering knowledge integration, and the benefits of a “thinking curriculum” approach to integrated health and science education. © 2007 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Res Sci Teach 44: 844–863, 2007     

Forming Identities in College: A Sociological Approach

Using data from 82 in-depth interviews with a randomly selected sample of college students, we explore how these students are forming felt identities in the following domains: intelligence and knowledgeability, occupation, and cosmopolitanism. We study the formation of students' identities by considering college an arena of social interaction in which the individual comes in contact with a multitude of actors in various settings, emphasizing that through these social interactions the identities of individuals are, in part, constituted. In using a symbolic interactionist approach in our research in conjunction with consideration of the social structural location of colleges in the wider society, we demonstrate the sorts of information and insights that can be gained from a nondevelopmental approach to the study of college student change.     

Attitudes,Emotions, and the Use of Emoji in Social Networking Apps by Children,Adolescents, and Young Adults

Interchange - In this mixed-method study, we sought to examine attitudes, expression of emotions, and the use of emoji in social networking by children, adolescents, and young adults. A total of...     

What ISPI and performance improvement mean to me

This year, the International Society for Performance Improvement celebrates its 50th anniversary. Over the past half‐century, our field has moved from programmed learning to programmed instruction to performance improvement. This new column reflects on 50 years of member, industry, and Society memories and what it has meant to each of this column's contributors. If you would like to add to the discussion, please contact the PI journal editor: joandessinger@ispi.org.     

Use of big-screen films in multiple childbirth education classroom settings

Although two recent films, Orgasmic Birth and Pregnant in America, were intended for the big screen, they can also serve as valuable teaching resources in multiple childbirth education settings. Each film conveys powerful messages about birth and today's birthing culture. Depending on a childbirth educator's classroom setting (hospital, birthing center, or home birth environment), particular portions in each film, along with extra clips featured on the films' DVDs, can enhance an educator's curriculum and spark compelling discussions with class participants.     

Classroom contexts for creativity

Various factors influence the development of creative potential, including everything from individual differences to the kinds of experiences and opportunities that creators experience throughout the lifespan. When it comes to nurturing creativity in the classroom, the learning environment is one of the most important factors – determining, in large part, whether creative potential will be supported (or suppressed). In short, classroom context matters. It is one thing to recognize that the classroom environment impacts the development of creative potential, it is quite another to understand just what it takes to develop an optimally supportive creative learning environment. This is because many of the features of optimal learning environments are quite subtle and even counterintuitive. In this paper, we discuss insights from the research on how teachers might establish a creativity-supportive learning environment in their classroom.     

In Praise of Clark Kent: Creative Metacognition and the Importance of Teaching Kids When (Not) to Be Creative

Despite creativity's many benefits and positive outcomes, there are still both explicit and implicit teacher biases against creative students. We argue that teachers do not dislike creativity but rather dislike inappropriate creativity that can come from students at poorly chosen times. After reviewing the literature on metacognition and creativity, we propose the adapted construct of creative metacognition (CMC), a combination of self-knowledge (knowing one's own creative strengths and limitations) and contextual knowledge (knowing when, where, how, and why to be creative). We end with ways that teachers can raise students’ CMC.