Effective practices for creating transformative informal science education programs grounded in Native ways of knowing

There are a growing number of informal science education (ISE) programs in Native communities that engage youth in science education and that are grounded in Native ways of knowing. There is also a growing body of research focusing on the relationship between culture, traditional knowledge, and science education. However, there is little research documenting how these programs are being developed and the ways in which culture and Western science are incorporated into the activities. This study outlines effective practices for using Native ways of knowing to strengthen ISE programs. These effective practices may also be used to promote change in formal education. The authors combine an overview of current research in informal science education with personal interviews with educators engaged in ISE programs offered to youth both on and off tribal reservations as well as experts in Indigenous education. Participating individuals and programs included Native communities across the United States, including Alaska and Hawai??i. Keeping in mind that each community is unique, ISE programs that are grounded in Native ways of knowing will benefit by utilizing the effective practices outlined here as a guide for starting or strengthening existing ISE programs relevant to the needs of their communities.     

"I was born full deaf." Written language outcomes after 1 year of strategic and interactive writing instruction

Nonstandard grammatical forms are often present in the writing of deaf students that are rarely, if ever, seen in the writing of hearing students. With the implementation of Strategic and Interactive Writing Instruction (SIWI) in previous studies, students have demonstrated significant gains in high-level writing skills (e.g., text structure) but have also made gains with English grammar skills. This 1-year study expands on prior research by longitudinally examining the written language growth (i.e., writing length, sentence complexity, sentence awareness, and function words) of 29 deaf middle-school students. A repeated-measures analysis of variance with a between-subjects variable for literacy achievement level was used to examine gains over time and the intervention's efficacy when used with students of various literacy levels. Students, whether high or low achieving, demonstrated statistically significant gains with writing length, sentence complexity, and sentence awareness. Subordinate clauses were found to be an area of difficulty, and follow up strategies are suggested. An analysis of function word data, specifically prepositions and articles, revealed different patterns of written language growth by language group (e.g., American Sign Language users, oral students, users of English-based sign).     

Positive Effects of Converting a Food and Bioprocessing Analysis Course to an Inquiry‐Guided Approach

Abstract: Food science laboratory courses are traditionally taught as a series of preplanned laboratories with known endpoints. In contrast, inquiry‐guided (IG) laboratories allow students to ask questions, think through problems, design experiments, then adapt and learn in response to unexpected results. This study examined the effects of converting the course, “Analytical Techniques in Food and Bioprocessing Sciences” from a traditional approach (2008 to 2010 data) to an IG approach (2011 data) by assigning teams of 2–3 students a food and a set of 5 analyses to conduct over the course of the semester. Students were required to choose and justify the use of specific methods for each analysis, as well as to develop a supply list and a budget for the semester‐long project. During the semester, students were required to post and discuss their weekly progress with the instructor, teaching assistants, and the rest of the class using an online discussion forum. At the end of the semester, students were required to present the results of their analysis in both oral and written formats. Overall course grades were significantly higher (P≤ 0.05) using IG in 2011 compared to 2010 and 2009, but not to 2008 grades. Numerical course evaluations for the instructor, overall course, and lab, as well as written course evaluations all significantly (P≤ 0.05) improved. This suggests that an IG approach may measurably improve student performance in terms of course grades and the ability to complete semester long projects. It may also increase student satisfaction with the course, as measured by numerical and written end of semester surveys.     

Shiny Happy People Holding Guns: 21st-Century Images of War

When U.S. troops in Iraq and Afghanistan filter their war experiences through visual aesthetics characteristic of contemporary mobile messaging culture, they produce a new visual discourse for war in the Internet age. A critical reading of 250 Facebook photos reveals an emphasis on colloquial representations of young adult life: hanging out, goofing off, playing games, and wearing costumes. For example, one image depicts two Marines in full desert camouflage posing for a picture while wearing skeleton masks. The Marine on the left looks down at his digital camera, either reviewing a photo or getting ready to hand it off to the “shooter.” The gear in the photo (masks aside) suggests that they are prepared for a combat scenario. Mortars and rockets could hit their base at any moment. The silliness and nonchalance captured in the photo seems antithetical to their physical locale, especially a condition of imminent danger. Most audiences would not recognize this as a combat scenario. Photos like this reflect the ways in which our shifting visual repertoire—with emphases on friendship, domesticity, and spontaneity—modifies visual discourses for contemporary war.     

Suburban American Punks and the Musical Rhetoric of Green Day's “Jesus of Suburbia”

This essay examines Green Day's “Jesus of Suburbia” as an artifact and reflection of suburban American punk culture. It looks at how music, lyrics, and the ethos of the performer interact to create a message that fostered identification between speaker and audience by using Sellnow and Sellnow's Langer-based illusion of life perspective. In this case it was found that music can be seen as an effective tool for expressing the suburban punk experience due to its ability to convey both linguistic and emotional content.     

Towards an insistent and transformative racial rhetorical criticism

ABSTRACT

Racial rhetorical criticism is a scholarly project that maps the rhetoricity of race and whiteness. Emerging in and through the intellectual labor of rhetorical scholars invested in critical explorations of race, racial rhetorical criticism is necessarily nimble, attentive to the ever-shifting yet always fixed parameters of race and whiteness. In this reflection, I advance two commitments of racial rhetorical criticism that emerge across the forum: critical vulnerability and obstinate intersectionality. Together, these two intellectual practices interrupt the static force of the canon as they produce transformative inclusion.     

Dynamic Rhetorics of Race: California's Racial Privacy Initiative and the Shifting Grounds of Racial Politics

In October 2003, Californians voted in the high-profile gubernatorial recall election and on what is referred to as the “Racial Privacy Initiative.” The Initiative sought to prohibit the gathering of racial data in education and state employment. Unlike recent such initiatives addressing California's racial laws, this one was unsuccessful: 62 percent of voters said no. This essay examines the discourse surrounding the initiative over its three-year history and traces the rhetorical dynamics that led to its defeat. The analysis details the implications of this moment for hegemonic processes in general and as they relate to the specifics of race.     

Constructing Rhetorical Borders: Peons,Illegal Aliens,and Competing Narratives of Immigration

Recent work in immigration suggests interconnections among race, nation, and immigration. This essay examines these relations, noting the rhetorical dynamics through which symbolic borders emerge and shift, in part through national debates over immigrants. Turning critical attention to mediated representations of Mexican immigrants in the 1920s and 1930s, I argue that Mexican immigrant bodies provided rhetorical space for a national discussion of race and nation. I highlight, in particular, a deportation drive and repatriation campaign that resulted in the mass exodus of hundreds of thousands of Mexicans and Mexican Americans.     

The relative impact of violation type and lie severity on judgments of message deceitfulness

This paper is part of a larger program of research assessing variables that underlie quantitative deceptiveness ratings. Several recent theoretical approaches, including Information Manipulation Theory (IMT), propose that deceptive messages are best understood as varying along two or more dimensions. At the same time, researchers have increasingly moved from dichotomous deception judgments to continuous deception ratings. This paper questions the validity of scaling degrees of deceptiveness along a single dimension, and argues that gradations in perceived deceptiveness reflect both the type of information manipulated and the severity of the consequences of the deception. This reasoning was tested with alxl experiment (N = 236) in which both the type of information manipulated and the severity of the consequences were systematically varied. As predicted, the results suggest that false messages (i.e., quality violations) are rated as more deceptive than lies of omission (i.e., quantity violations) when lie severity is low, but this difference diminishes as lie severity increases. In other words, false messages were rated as deceptive regardless of severity, but messages omitting information were rated as deceptive as false messages only when the consequences were serious. The implications for measuring deception are discussed.     

A Patient-centered Approach to Breaking Bad News: Communication Guidelines for Health Care Providers

This investigation takes a patient-centered approach to examining strategies physicians use to deliver bad news to patients. Qualitative data were obtained from 68 patients who had received a message they perceived as negative information from a health care provider. Through grounded theory methodology, patient accounts were examined to reveal four provider strategies for breaking bad news. This investigation underscores the importance of using effective communication strategies to achieve patient satisfaction and compliance.