Building an Undergraduate STEM Team Using Team-Based Learning Leading to the Production of a Storyboard Appropriate for Elementary Students

A unique undergraduate team that spans five different engineering disciplines, chemistry, biology, and mathematics was formed. The team was formed to promote cross-disciplinary learning, to improve retention, and to prepare the students for the kind of problems they will face in their careers. This paper describes the variety of activities used over 2 years to tie the team together, as well as afford opportunities to develop team-building skills. The activities described highlight the critical elements of a faculty leader whose own work is interdisciplinary, correct balance of disciplines in the team, and sufficient time for team development. The use of external feedback was essential for all activities. Clearly defined goals and hard deadlines were critical for the completion of individual activities, as well as developing a healthy team environment. Although the student cohort has learned from the activities, more time is needed to assess whether the students have become a fully efficient team. Furthermore, an additional cohort would be needed to assess whether the approach was able to assist with student’s interest in STEM and their desire to help other people.     

Intertextuality and sense production in the learning of algebraic methods

In studies carried out in the 1980s the algebraic symbols and expressions are revealed through prealgebraic readers as non-independent texts, as texts that relate to other texts that in some cases belong to the reader’s native language or to the arithmetic sign system. Such outcomes suggest that the act of reading algebraic texts submerges the reader into a network of intertextual relations derived from that reader’s prior mathematics and linguistic experiences. In this article we propose an analytical perspective of algebraic activity that is based on intertextuality and that makes it possible to advance our knowledge concerning the production of sense in said activity. In particular, we resort to the notion of intertextuality as a means of theoretically describing and explaining sense production processes in the learning of two algebraic methods: the Cartesian Method (for the algebraic solution of word problems) and the Substitution Method (for the solution of systems of two linear equations with two unknowns). We support our arguments via a series of episodes of empirical study interviews with secondary school students, in order to demonstrate the pertinence and relevance of carrying out their analysis from the perspective proposed.     

Post-traumatic stress problems among poly-victimized Spanish youth: Time effect of past vs. recent interpersonal victimizations

The cumulative effect of lifetime interpersonal victimization experiences (e.g., child maltreatment, sexual victimizations, conventional crime, witnessing indirect victimization, peer and sibling victimizations) on posttraumatic stress (PTS) symptoms is an important topic in the scientific literature. The objectives of the present study were: (a) to analyze the relationship between lifetime interpersonal victimizations and PTS symptoms, (b) to determine the most prevalent specific PTS symptoms among poly-victimized adolescents, and (c) to establish the time-based effect of interpersonal victimization experiences that occurred in the last year versus those that occurred years before on current level of PTS symptoms. Gender differences were taken into account for each of these objectives. Participants were 823 Spanish adolescents (63% girls and 37% boys) between 14 and 18 years of age recruited from May 2010 to November 2011 from schools in Barcelona, Spain. The majority (87.6%) was of Spanish nationality. The results highlighted the cumulative effect of interpersonal victimizations on PTS symptoms. Among poly-victims adolescents, the most prevalent PTS symptom was intrusive thoughts, but some differences were observed according to gender. The time-based effect of interpersonal victimizations showed a different pattern for girls and boys. For girls, the victimizing events occurring in past years had more explanatory power of the current PTS symptoms than those that occurred more recently. In boys, the interpersonal victimizing events occurring in the last year had the greater explanatory power. These results may have clinical and therapeutic value.     

Consulting with groups of teachers. Evaluation of a pilot project in Ireland

This article reports on a two year project in which educational psychologists offered consultation to groups of teachers, to help them find solutions to school-based problems. Teachers were drawn from within individual schools and from across a number of schools. Typically, teachers were trained by educational psychologists in group consultation processes. Group consultation sessions were usually offered on a termly basis (three times per year). The group consultation sessions were facilitated by two psychologists. A formal process was followed, using a problem-solving structure. A pilot project ran for two years and was evaluated using quantitative and qualitative methods. Data were collected from teachers, school principals and psychologists. Findings indicate that group consultation is an effective method of service delivery, particularly for clusters of small, rural schools. The evaluation considers aspects of group consultation that could be further developed and new directions for this model of working.     

Diagnosis of pathologies in ancient (seventeenth-eighteenth centuries) decorative blue-and-white ceramic tiles: Green stains in the glazes of a panel depicting Lisbon prior to the 1755 earthquake

Decorative panels of ceramic glazed tiles comprise a valuable cultural heritage in Mediterranean countries. Their preservation requires the development of a systematic scientific approach. Exposure to an open-air environment allows for a large span of deterioration effects. Successfully overcoming these effects demands a careful identification of involved degradation processes. Among these, the development of micro-organisms and concomitant glaze surface staining is a very common effect observed in panels manufactured centuries ago. This paper describes a study on the nature of green stains appearing at the surface of blue-and-white tile glazes from a large decorative panel with more than one thousand tiles, called Vista de Lisboa that depicts the city before the destruction caused by the 1755 earthquake. The characterization of green-stained blue-and-white tile glazes was performed using non-destructive X-ray techniques (diffraction and fluorescence spectrometry) by directly irradiating the surface of small tile fragments, complemented by a destructive scanning electron microscopy (SEM) observation of one fragment. Despite the green staining, analytical X-ray data showed that no deterioration had occurred irrespective of the blue or white color, while complementary SEM-EDX data provided chemical evidence of microorganism colonization at the stained glaze surface.     

The Genetic Drift Inventory: A Tool for Measuring What Advanced Undergraduates Have Mastered about Genetic Drift

Understanding genetic drift is crucial for a comprehensive understanding of biology, yet it is difficult to learn because it combines the conceptual challenges of both evolution and randomness. To help assess strategies for teaching genetic drift, we have developed and evaluated the Genetic Drift Inventory (GeDI), a concept inventory that measures upper-division students’ understanding of this concept. We used an iterative approach that included extensive interviews and field tests involving 1723 students across five different undergraduate campuses. The GeDI consists of 22 agree–disagree statements that assess four key concepts and six misconceptions. Student scores ranged from 4/22 to 22/22. Statements ranged in mean difficulty from 0.29 to 0.80 and in discrimination from 0.09 to 0.46. The internal consistency, as measured with Cronbach''s alpha, ranged from 0.58 to 0.88 across five iterations. Test–retest analysis resulted in a coefficient of stability of 0.82. The true–false format means that the GeDI can test how well students grasp key concepts central to understanding genetic drift, while simultaneously testing for the presence of misconceptions that indicate an incomplete understanding of genetic drift. The insights gained from this testing will, over time, allow us to improve instruction about this key component of evolution.     

The transformation of doctoral education: a systematic literature review

Higher Education - Framed by a wide range of factors, doctoral education has undergone a deep transformation, especially in the last two decades. The aim of this systematic literature review was to...     

Approaches and strategies for understanding the career development needs of migrants and refugees: the potential of a systems-based narrative approach

International Journal for Educational and Vocational Guidance - Addressing immigrants’ social and work inclusion is a priority at a time of increasing migration to Italy and Europe. Career...     

Diversifying assessment through multimedia creation in a non‐technical module: reflections on the MAIK project

Creation of multimedia (MM) could be a valuable diversification of assessment methods within non‐technical modules. The apparent popularity of sites based on user‐generated video content such as YouTube and also of podcasting suggests that relevant skills and interest are becoming more mainstream. Translating book learned knowledge into visual forms involves a specific type of intellectual challenge. It seems possible that generating short MM presentations will increasingly come to be part of organisational communication, making it an increasingly authentic form of assessment. It could simply be a fun and creative variant of the group presentation. However, there is an entrenched cultural suspicion of the visual as superficial. The ‘technical skills’ involved may give unfair advantage to some students. Any change process is likely to meet resistance and raise novel and unexpected obstacles to its perception as a fair form of assessment. The paper explores these issues and outlines the investigation of them in the MAIK (Multimedia Assessment In Knowledge) action research project. It discusses in detail justifications for the design of the assessment task in this context, evaluates the success of this structure and reflects on what was learned from the project about the issues.