STEM Pathways for Black and Latinx Middle and High School Students

The Urban Review - Considering the growth and promising outlook of STEM occupations and the significant need to diversify STEM, the present study explored Black and Latinx youths’ situated...     

Incorporating a new bioinformatics component into genetics at a historically black college: outcomes and lessons

Many students at minority-serving institutions are underexposed to Internet resources such as the human genome project, PubMed, NCBI databases, and other Web-based technologies because of a lack of financial resources. To change this, we designed and implemented a new bioinformatics component to supplement the undergraduate Genetics course at Clark Atlanta University. The outcomes of the Bioinformatics course were assessed. During the first week of the semester, students were assigned the Felder-Soloman's Index of Learning Styles Inventory. The overwhelming majority of students were visual (82.1%) and sequential (75.0%) learners. Furthermore, pre- and postcourse surveys were administered during the first and the last week of the course to assess learning, confidence level, and mental activity. These indicated students increased the number of hours spent using computers and doing homework. Students reported confidence in using computers to study genetics increased, enabling them to better visualize and understand genetics. Furthermore, students were more mentally engaged in a more social learning environment. Although the students appreciated the value of the bioinformatics component, they reported the additional work load was substantial enough to receive additional course credit.     

DEVELOPING STUDENT FIELD EXPERIENCES THROUGH UNIVERSITY‐COMMUNITY COLLABORATIONS

The political, economic, social, equity, and historical influences on the status of kindergarten education and early childhood teacher education in the United States are discussed. There are many sources of data that create a picture of the diverse programs, resources, and opportunities that kindergarten children experience, including the preparation of kindergarten teachers. This article addresses the questions: What does kindergarten curriculum look like today compared with other times? What is the status of full-day kindergarten? What are the influences of the high-stakes testing movement, school budgets, and economic status across communities? How has early childhood state teacher certification changed during the past two decades? What is worthwhile learning? This article takes an editorial position that supports an intellectually significant curriculum in which specially prepared early childhood teachers match teaching with the ways in which kindergarten children learn, and might want to learn more.     

Parental Cultural Socialization and Adolescent Private Regard: Exploring Mediating Pathways Through Daily Experiences

Using longitudinal experience sampling data from 214 ethnic/racial minority adolescents (Wave 1 M_age = 15.24), the present study investigated how the longitudinal effect of parental cultural socialization on adolescent private regard was mediated through various daily pathways and novel constructs. Both the mean levels and variability of adolescents' ethnic feelings (i.e., private regard) and social interactions (i.e., intragroup contact) in daily situations, as well as the situational association between intragroup contact and private regard, emerged as mediators. Greater cultural socialization promoted greater and more stable ethnic feelings and interactions, as well as their situational association, all of which promoted private regard over time. This study provides a framework to explore how development occurs in daily lives.