Implications of Shifting Technology in Education

This article examines the implications of shifting technology trends by looking at what we’ve lost or are losing, where we are, and where we need to go for making the needed transitions in knowledge and skills. Areas of growth within new media and the tech industry are good indicators of our growing interests in mobility, improved quality, and personalization, all happening within our increasingly global community. With the tremendous technological shifts, we need to consider the potential gaps or missing bits of knowledge slipping through the cracks. Then, determine where we need to go while forging ahead to provide the meaningful integration of new technologies through the selection of quality tools aligning to current best research based instructional practices to foster powerful, meaningful, engaged learning opportunities.     

Writing Experiences of Community College Students with Self-Reported Writing Anxieties and Linguistic Insecurity: A Perspective for College Counselors

This explanatory case study researched the writing experiences of 11 community college students who differed subculturally and who were all part of the African diasporic community. The theoretical perspectives used for this study were Arthur Chickering's (1969 Chickering , A. ( 1969 ). Education and identity , (2nd ed.) . San Francisco , CA : John Wiley & Sons . [Google Scholar]) classical concept of academic competence and community dialect theory (Baxter & Holland, 2007 Baxter , M. , & Holland , R. (2007). Addressing the needs of students who use a nonstandard dialect. Adult Basic Education and Literacy Journal , 1(3), 145–153. [Google Scholar]). Academic competence is a stage in college that explores how students learn acquired skills for educational attainment. Community dialect theory argues that African American dialect writers have a low-to-some awareness of how their dialect differs from standard English in the area of subject-verb agreement. Two research questions guided this inquiry: (a) How does Black English influence writing anxiety in academic settings? (b) Why should college counselors have a strategy to assist students who express fears of enrolling in remedial English? A mixed method strategy was used to gather the data. This strategy consisted of a qualitative interview, and two educational tests. The study found that most of the students had a low awareness of how their dialect differed from standard English. Furthermore, Black English directly induced writing anxiety in academic settings for this group of community college students. Their writing anxieties and insecurities were detected by the words and situational experiences these students related during the interviews. In addition, college counselors should have an intervention strategy in place for this population of students to reduce the gap between academic competence and students of African descent who are dialect writers with writing anxieties and linguistic insecurities in academic settings.     

Goal orientation towards teaching (GOTT) scale

Goal orientation theory has been widely investigated and found to affect many motivation and behavior variables in relation to student learning and work performance. However, unlike the motivational construct of self-efficacy, researchers have yet to investigate whether this theory can be applied to the field of teaching and contribute to the explanation for trends in instructional behavior and motives. The purpose of the present study was to develop an instrument to begin the exploration of teachers’ goal orientation towards teaching. From a three-phase research design consisting of scale development, score validation, and convergent/discriminant validation, results provided support for the development of, and validity of scores on, a Goal Orientation towards Teaching (GOTT) Scale. Although further validation is needed, future researchers and practitioners can use the GOTT scale to investigate how teachers’ goal orientation towards teaching can impact student learning, teaching effectiveness, pedagogical learning, and even professional morale.     

A qualitative investigation of design knowledge reuse in project-based mechanical design courses

ABSTRACT

The interpretation and reuse of previous design solutions, or precedents, is central to design. This paper describes qualitative research conducted over three years at two institutions, aimed at investigating the role of design knowledge re-use in project-based mechanical design courses. Research data were collected through participant observation, student interviews, anonymous questionnaires, and website analytics. The paper identifies challenges that must be addressed in order to support novice engineers in rehearsing the types of knowledge required to successfully reason about and engage with design precedents. Two categories of design precedents are identified: concept precedents and detail precedents. Providing students with access to the latter is identified as a particular challenge, as is providing students with access to engineering communities of practice. Approaches to addressing these challenges are discussed.     

Brain mechanisms for changes in processing of conditioned stimuli in Pavlovian conditioning: Implications for behavior theory

This article is a review of the results of a series of experiments designed to identify brain systems involved in appetitive conditioning of rats. It discusses some of their implications for behavioral theories of learning, especially those that concern changes in processing of conditioned stimuli (CSs). Evidence is presented which suggests that separable brain circuits are involved in (1) the production of CS-dependent conditioned orienting responses, (2) the enhancement of CS associability produced when expectancies about upcoming events are violated, (3) the reduction of CS associability produced when stimuli are consistent predictors of other events or are presented without consequence, and (4) the abilities of CSs to serve as reinforcers for second-order conditioning and to be sensitive to postconditioning changes in the value of the unconditioned stimulus (US). Finally, none of these circuits seems critical for normal acquisition of the most common indicator of Pavlovian conditioning, US-dependent conditioned responses (CRs). Although the independence of brain pathways does not demand independence of behavioral function, clustering of behavioral phenomena on anatomical grounds may provide useful guides for constructing behavior theories.     

Savings test for associations between neutral stimuli

Three experiments showed a savings procedure to be an effective and sensitive alternative to sensory preconditioning procedures as a measure of associations among neutral stimuli. Experiment 1 showed that within-compound associations developed more rapidly in reinforced appetitive serial compound conditioning when nonreinforced preexposure to the serial compound was given than when separate element or no preexposure was given. Experiment 2 showed the savings effect to be highly stimulus specific. Experiment 3 examined the facilitation of serial compound conditioning after either simultaneous or serial nonreinforced preexposure to the elements of the compound. The results of that experiment were consistent with those of analogous sensory preconditioning experiments. When preexposure involved only the two elements of the subsequently reinforced compound, serial preexposure produced more savings than simultaneous preexposure. But when preexposure involved a three-stimulus procedure like that used by Rescorla (1980b), simultaneous preexposure resulted in more savings. Advantages of the savings procedure over sensory preconditioning as a measure of association among neutral stimuli are discussed.