Brain Engagement During a Cognitive Flexibility Task Relates to Academic Performance in English Learners

English Learners (ELs), students from non-English-speaking backgrounds, are a fast-growing, understudied, group of students in the U.S. with unique learning challenges. Cognitive flexibility—the ability to switch between task demands with ease—may be an important factor in learning for ELs as they have to manage learning in their non-dominant language and access knowledge in multiple languages. We used functional MRI to measure cognitive flexibility brain activity in a group of Hispanic middle school ELs (N = 63) and related it to their academic skills. We found that brain engagement during the cognitive flexibility task was related to both out-of-scanner reading and math measures. These relationships were observed across the brain, including in cognitive control, attention, and default mode networks. This work suggests the real-world importance of cognitive flexibility for adolescent ELs, where individual differences in brain engagement were associated with educational outcomes.     

Adventure education and resilience: The double-edged sword

Abstract

Adventure education philosophers have argued that controlled exposure to challenge can enhance participants' psychological resilience. This study supports this claim, demonstrating significantly greater gains in psychological resilience for 41 young adults participating in 22-day Outward Bound programs than in a control group. All Outward Bound participants reported positive changes in their resilience and their overall change effect size was large. Perceived levels of social support predicted 24% of the variance in resilience gain scores, with participants' ratings of the least supportive group member being the best predictor. The findings for enhanced resilience and the important role of social support warrant wider investigation. In promoting psychological resilience adventure educators are alerted to the importance of facilitating positive interpersonal relations and minimising the detrimental impact of the diverse needs of group members.     

Motivational mechanisms and schedule-induced behavioral stereotypy

In two experiments, behavioral stereotypies elicited by scheduled presentations of food and water were compared. In Experiment 1, pigeons were exposed to a fixed-time 30-sec (FT 30-sec) schedule of food or water deliveries with a brightening keylight stimulus signaling time to the unconditioned stimulus (UCS) on each trial. Food and water presentations both produced terminal autoshaped keypecking that was similarly distributed in the trial but differed in response topography and persistence. Locomotor interim behavior was different in the two motivational conditions: With food presentations, it consisted of a “retreat” to the rear of the chamber after UCS termination, followed by “pacing” in the midportion of trials. The water schedule produced very little locomotor activity with no regular distribution in the trial. Experiment 2, using a random-time 30-sec (RT 30-sec) schedule, showed that the differences in interim locomotor behavior persisted in the absence of temporal predictability of the UCS and the keypecking terminal response. The results are taken to support Timberlake’s (1983a) behavior-system theory.     

Colleges in the making of manhood and masculinity: gendered perspectives on African American males

Using an interdisciplinary approach, this paper explores the ways in which colleges become sites that socialise African American men as gendered beings. Twenty-four African American men enrolled in 12 colleges and universities across the 19 southern and border states of America participated in this study. The purpose is to illustrate how constructions of manhood and masculinity among this group potentially influence collegiate efforts to serve African American college men academically, socially, and developmentally. The following themes of manhood construction emerged: (1) self-expectations; (2) relationships and responsibilities to family; and (3) worldviews and life philosophies. Respondents reported differences in the ways in which they were treated and engaged in historically black and white institutions, also reinforcing various manhood constructs. The paper is a resource to advance the field’s thinking about this group’s college experiences, retention, and identities.     

Sustainable assessment for lifelong learning

This paper explores the alignment of assessment practices in universities and lifelong learning as a key process and outcome for expansive student development. It outlines Boud’s approach to assessment, operationalises this to analyse practices in two contrasting national contexts: the sociology departments of the Midlands University in the UK and Nam Du University in Vietnam, and reframes this framework as a guide to improving practices and better-supporting lifelong learning. The paper thus contributes to recent debates about sustainable assessment and how to change assessment to better support students for lifelong learning in different countries. The findings suggest that although more elements were found at Midlands University than Nam Du University, assessment in both cases was an imperfect realisation of this framework. Nonetheless, the paper argues that the framework can offer guidance for changes to align assessment practices with lifelong learning, but to do this it should be adapted to the education context and also expanded to include explicit social commitments to others for expansive lifelong learning.     

Curriculum-based measures of written expression for learning-disabled and nondisabled students

This study examined differences in written expression between a sample of learning-disabled and nondisabled middle school students, matched by grade and sex, using eight curriculum-based measures. All of the learning-disabled students had been identified as having written language deficits as part of their handicapping conditions. The nondisabled students showed superior written expression skills, especially on the production-independent measures. Implications of these results are discussed in relation to psycho educational assessment, the use of CBM for ongoing assessment of written expression, and future studies.     

The effects of isolation rearing on exploration in the rat

The hypothesis that isolation rearing enhances exploration was tested in two settings which varied the extent to which exploratory behavior would be affected by competing hyperactivity. Experiment 1 measured exploration as contact of a discrete novel stimulus, in terms of bout frequency and duration. Locomotor activity was measured by photocell beam interruption. Isolation-reared rats were hyperactive, showed an increased incidence of exploratory bouts but no differences in duration of exploratory behavior, compared with group-reared controls. Experiment 2 measured, independently, locomotor activity and the preference for a novel environment over a familiar one. Isolation-reared rats, whether male or female, showed enhanced novelty preference compared with controls. No significant differences were found in locomotor activity. The results are discussed in terms of the hyperactivity of isolates interfering with investigative behavior by response incompatibility.     

Metacognition and Middle Grade Mathematics Teachers: Supporting Productive Struggle

Communicating mathematical ideas through writing, listening, and verbalizing allows students to think about how they “think” about mathematics. By focusing this communication on a reflection of how one thinks about mathematics, metacognitive writing engages students as mathematicians and learners. In this article we describe a professional development that we implemented with middle grade mathematics teachers focused on metacognitive writing as a tool to support productive struggle in the mathematics classroom. Thus, this practitioner article adds to the knowledge base on how to develop middle grade teachers metacognitive writing through engagement in productive struggle. Recommendations for practice are included.