What’s your goal? The importance of shaping the goals of engineering tasks to focus learners on the underlying science

Instructional Science - Engaging in engineering tasks can help students learn science concepts. However, many engineering tasks lead students to focus more on the success of their construction than...     

Placing wireless tablets in clinical settings for patient education

Objective

The authors explored the feasibility and possible benefit of tablet-based educational materials for patients in clinic waiting areas.

Methods

We distributed eight tablets preloaded with diagnosis-relevant information in two clinic waiting areas. Patients were surveyed about satisfaction, usability, and effects on learning. Technical issues were resolved.

Results

Thirty-seven of forty patients completed the survey. On average, the patients were satisfied in all categories.

Conclusions

Placing tablet-based educational materials in clinic waiting areas is relatively easy to implement. Patients using tablets reported satisfaction across three domains: usability, education, and satisfaction.     

Reassessing the People's Choice: Revisiting a Classic and Excavating Lessons for Research About Media and Voting

This article reassesses The People's Choice by Paul Lazarsfeld, Bernard Berelson, and Hazel Gaudet, one of the foundations of communication and voting behavior research. As with most classics, which are often cited but seldom read, we believe this book has much to teach contemporary social scientists. We return to the original context of the research and use voting data from the period with three broad goals: (a) to find ideas and lessons from this work that generally have been overlooked, (b) to suggest new ways of applying these ideas, and (c) to encourage scholars to engage more with this seminal work to understand ideas that are often overlooked when a complex piece of research is reduced to a brief discussion or passing citation.     

“I Belong Here.”: Culturally Sustaining Pedagogical Praxes from an Alternative High School in Brooklyn

Despite persistent class and race inequalities in educational attainment and achievement in the U.S., hegemonic cultural ideologies and urban education politics and policies continue to proceed from an insistence that education is the great equalizer. These ideologies do not take into account the ways that normative school culture and pedagogical praxes take for granted middle-class, white-supremacist cultural assumptions that privilege student populations whose social locations already probabilize high rates of achievement and attainment. Vast research published in The Urban Review and elsewhere has demonstrated the importance and efficacy of culturally sustaining pedagogy for improving outcomes for economically marginalized students of color (Allen in Urban Rev 47(1):209–231, 2015; Delpit in Harv Educ Rev 56(4):379–386, 1995; Farinde-Wu et al. in Urban Rev 49(2):279–299, 2017; Gay in culturally responsive teaching: theory, research, and practice, Teachers College Press, New York, 2010; Graves in Berkeley Rev Educ 5(1):5–32, 2014; Jemal in Urban Rev 49(4):602–626, 2017; Ladson-Billings in Crossing over to Canaan: the journey of new teachers in classrooms, Jossey-Bass, San Francisco, 2001, The dreamkeepers: successful teachers of African American children, Jossey-Bass Publishers, San Francisco, 2009; Lee in Culture, literacy and learning: taking bloom in the midst of the whirlwind, Teachers College Press, New York, 2006; Marciano in Urban Rev 49(1):169–187, 2016; Nieto in Language, culture, and teaching: critical perspectives, Routledge, New York, 2010; Paris in Educ Res 41(3):93–97, 2012; Paris and Alim in Culturally sustaining pedagogies: teaching and learning for justice in a changing world, Teachers College Press, New York, 2017; Wiggan and Watson in Urban Rev 48(5):766–798, 2016; Yosso in Race Ethn Edu, 8(1):69–91, 2005). This article uses rich ethnographic data from a transfer school in Brooklyn, New York that serves financially insecure youth of color who are “over-age and under-credited.” These data and my analysis showcase the expertise and indigenous knowledges of teachers who practice cultural relevance and critical racial awareness in order to engage, retain, graduate and prepare students who are historically and presently marked for failure by an education system that has always been more adept at reproducing social inequality than disrupting it (Borck in Qual Inq 20(10):1–8, 2016).

     

Results of an assessment to identify potential barriers to sustainable agriculture on American Indian reservations in the Western United States

Purpose: This paper reports the results of survey research conducted with tribal producers between 2011 and 2012 on 19 of the largest American Indian reservations in Idaho, Nevada, North Dakota, Oregon, South Dakota, and Washington. The purpose of the research was to identify potential barriers to sustainable agriculture on reservation lands. This article reports the results of this research in an effort to promote Extension professionals' understanding of these barriers, which may help to improve outreach programs on American Indian reservations. Understanding the obstacles to sustaining agriculture that American Indian tribes face may inform international agricultural outreach efforts to increase food security targeting indigenous and tribal peoples worldwide.

Design/Methodology/Approach: American Indian agricultural producers comprised the study group. Study objectives included: (1) identify agricultural and natural resource issues of greatest concern to a self-selected sample of tribal agricultural producers on reservation lands; (2) evaluate access to Extension and other US Department of Agriculture outreach and assistance programs; and (3) evaluate the quality of these programs in terms of their relativity to tribal needs.

Findings: Study results indicate that tribal agricultural producers surveyed ranked 29 of 39 agricultural and natural resource issues as a concern. Similarly, they rated access to and quality of outreach programs as fair. Further, tribal producers operating on reservation trust land rated issues more severely than did tribal producers operating on fee simple lands.

Practical Implications: Results of this research will help Extension and other outreach professionals to understand the barriers indigenous and tribal peoples face in sustaining agricultural operations, particularly tribal groups living on federally reserved trust lands, such as American Indians. An increased understanding can inform agricultural policy-makers and outreach professionals in improving programs designed to increase agricultural sustainability, improve food security, enhance economic well-being and improve quality of life of indigenous and tribal peoples worldwide.

Originality/Value: This research provides important information to agricultural policy-makers and Extension professionals striving to sustain agricultural productivity and enhance food security with indigenous and tribal peoples.     

The role of acculturation in explaining ethnic differences in the prenatal health-risk behaviors, mental health, and parenting beliefs of Mexican American and European American at-risk women

OBJECTIVE: To assess: (1) ethnic differences in the health-risk behaviors, mental health problems, and adverse parenting beliefs during pregnancy of low-income Mexican American and European American women; and, (2) the extent to which these risks varied with levels of acculturation among low-income Mexican American women. METHOD: Participants were 594 primiparous, low-income, urban women. A cross-sectional design was used to compare the 331 Mexican American women to the 263 European American. Language was used to assess the level of acculturation of the Mexican American women. Interviews were used to evaluate health-risk behaviors, mental health problems, and adverse parenting beliefs. RESULTS: In comparison to European American women, Mexican American women were at lower risk for cigarette smoking during pregnancy and higher risk for adverse parenting beliefs. Among Mexican American women, Spanish speakers were at lower risk for cigarette smoking and mental health problems during pregnancy, and higher risk for adverse parenting beliefs than bilingual and English speakers. CONCLUSIONS: The findings indicate that ethnic differences in cigarette smoking and parenting beliefs during pregnancy were concentrated on the less acculturated, low-income, and primarily unmarried Spanish speaking Mexican American women. Moreover, acculturation is differentially related to cigarette smoking and parenting beliefs. Therefore, acculturation needs to be considered in the development of preventive interventions in order to appropriately target the specific needs of different sub-populations of Mexican Americans.     

Can research on science learning and instruction inform standards for science education?

We contrast the current science education reform effort with the reforms of the 1960s and suggest how the current effort could be enhanced. We identify insights from recent research that we believe can inform the reform process, in particular, to reach all science students and also impart a cohesive view of science. We propose an alternative models view of scientific explanation and show how this view would contribute to reforms of (1) course goals, (2) social aspects of science learning, (3) instructional practices, and (4) roles for technology.This paper summarizes discussions and debates that the authors have had over the last few years. The dialogue stems, in part, from our joint participation in the American Educational Research Association Special Interest Group on Education in Science and Technology (AERA SIG:EST) leadership. This paper communicates the spirit of our thinking and does not necessarily reflect the view of SIG:EST, or any other organization.We gratefully acknowledge the support of National Science Foundation Grant MDR-9253462 in work related to this paper. We appreciate helpful comments from Eileen Lewis and the Computer as Learning Partner group.This material is based upon research supported by the National Science Foundation under grant RED-9155744. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this publication are those of the authors and not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.     

Grasping in the pigeon (Columba livid): Stimulus control during conditioned and consummatory responses

Control of beak opening (gape) and peck location was examined in pigeons. Feeding pecks showed accurate guidance that positioned the seed between the beaks. At the moment of contact with the seed, gape was proportional to seed diameter, although pecks with gape less than seed diameter were more frequent following an increase in seed size during a meal. There were no substantial differences between pigeons trained to keypeck with autoshaping and those trained with operant conditioning procedures. With either procedure, water reinforcement produced keypecks with the beak closed; seed reinforcers of different sizes produced means for gape proportional to the seed diameters. Black or white circular stimuli of different sizes projected as conditioning signals had little influence upon gape, but a greater percentage of responses was directed to white stimuli. These results indicate that visual stimuli elicit and orient the peck, whereas the adjustment of gape also involves the somatosensory stimuli provided during previous experience with a particular reinforcer or food type.     

Using Film to Increase Counselor Empathic Experiences

The early stages of empathy in counseling—emotional reaction, role-taking, and cognitive suspension—have all been largely ignored in the counselor education/psychological literature. This article describes these stages from the perspective of the aesthetic/film literatures. Emotional reaction is an internal, unobservable state of being. Role-taking involves cognitive understanding and entering the perceptual world of another. Cognitive suspension means letting go of personal beliefs and values. The film literature describes how audience emotional states are created by directors, writers, actors, and editors. This article explains how counselor educators and supervisors can use this information to help counselors increase their empathic experiences.