Culturally Responsive Pedagogy and Online Learning: Implications for the Globalized Community College

Implicit in the open-door mission of the community college is the mandate that every learning experience should offer full equity and inclusion for all learners, including those of diverse cultural backgrounds. This mission is paramount, given the cultural diversity represented among learners served by the globalized community college. This paper presents a cross-section of research, practice, and discourse focused on expanding our knowledge and understanding of the diverse learning needs of community college learners. The relevance of the literature to the planning, design, and implementation of distance-learning is discussed. In the end, the authors offer distance-learning instructional strategies that may accommodate the unique needs of Hispanic/Latino learners. Implications for community college educators are discussed.     

Desiring to Fit: Fostering the Success of Community College Transfer Students in STEM

The United States is experiencing a dire need for individuals who possess training and expertise in areas of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM). With over half of the nation’s students entering university environments via community colleges coupled with a large portion of this population majoring in STEM areas, the successful transition and adjustment of community college transfer students is essential to the STEM workforce. This article uses an ex post facto survey research design to examine the socialization factors that impact the transition and adjustment experiences of community college transfer students in STEM disciplines. Two hierarchical regression models are employed to examine the factors that impact the academic and social adjustment of community college transfer students in STEM majors. This research was situated using an adaptation of Weidman’s (1987) Socialization Theoretical Framework. Implications, and recommendations for policy and practice will be provided based on the overall results of this study.     

Learning Visualization Strategies: A qualitative investigation

The following study investigates the range of strategies individuals develop to infer and interpret cross-sections of three-dimensional objects. We focus on the identification of mental representations and problem-solving processes made by 11 individuals with the goal of building training applications that integrate the strategies developed by the participants in our study. Our results suggest that although spatial transformation and perspective-taking techniques are useful for visualizing cross-section problems, these visual processes are augmented by analytical thinking. Further, our study shows that participants employ general analytic strategies for extended periods which evolve through practice into a set of progressively more expert strategies. Theoretical implications are discussed and five main findings are recommended for integration into the design of education software that facilitates visual learning and comprehension.     

Relationships matter: some benefits,challenges and tensions associated with forming a collaborative educational researcher group

Growing recognition of the complexity of children’s lives has led to strong advocacy in education research literature for greater collaboration between researchers from different paradigms to address the ‘wicked’ problems that face contemporary children and families. There is little literature, however, exploring how collaboration works in practice. This paper, drawing on researcher reflective narrative, and using Cultural Historical Activity Theory as a heuristic framework, describes and critiques the formative stages of an educational research collaborative group of five early and one mid-career early childhood education researchers (the authors), from two universities, and with quite different epistemological and ontological understandings. It outlines, from an insider perspective, some of the outcomes, challenges and tensions associated with participating in the research group, and concludes by providing some implications for policy and considerations for those contemplating forming a collaborative group.     

A Comparison of Teacher Effectiveness Measures Calculated Using Three Multilevel Models for Raters Effects

This study examines the use of cross-classified random effects models (CCrem) and cross-classified multiple membership random effects models (CCMMrem) to model rater bias and estimate teacher effectiveness. Effect estimates are compared using CTT versus item response theory (IRT) scaling methods and three models (i.e., conventional multilevel model, CCrem, CCMMrem). Results indicate that ignoring rater bias can lead to teachers being misclassified within an evaluation system. The best estimates of teacher effectiveness are produced using CCrems regardless of scaling method. Use of CCMMrems to model rater bias cannot be recommended based on the results of this study; combining the use of CCMMrems with an IRT scaling method produced especially unstable results.     

In Physics Education,Perception Matters

Student difficulties in science learning are frequently attributed to misconceptions about scientific concepts. We argue that domain‐general perceptual processes may also influence students' ability to learn and demonstrate mastery of difficult science concepts. Using the concept of center of gravity (CoG), we show how student difficulty in applying CoG to an object such as a baseball bat can be accounted for, at least in part, by general principles of perception (i.e., not exclusively physics‐based) that make perceiving the CoG of some objects more difficult than others. In particular, it is perceptually difficult to locate the CoG of objects with asymmetric‐extended properties. The basic perceptual features of objects must be taken into account when assessing students' classroom performance and developing effective science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) teaching methods.     

Early Relationship Quality From Home to School: A Longitudinal Study

The aim of this investigation was to examine the role of social relationships in the home as predictors of social functioning in the first years of school. Longitudinal data gathered on 156 children from urban, low-income families were used to examine the unique contributions of mother-child attachment classification at ages 1 and 2 years, the child's relationship with another adult caregiver, the child's closeness to a sibling, and the child's status in the family relative to siblings between ages 3 and 4 years, to teacher reports of their own relationship to the child and the child's social skills in the classroom and peer relations. The role of family-based relationships as possible protective factors for children at social or demographic risk for problems in school was also tested. Results indicate that quality of different family relationships provides relatively independent and complementary information about early social functioning in school, with more limited evidence for compensatory or protective processes at work.     

Conditioned inhibition in feature negative discrimination learning with pigeons

Discrimination performance was investigated with pigeons using feature negative (FN) discrimination procedures which differed in the temporal arrangement of the stimuli on S? trials. In both procedures, a single common element was presented on reinforced (S+) trials. In thesimultaneous FN procedure, a distinguishing element was presented simultaneously with the common element of S? trials. In thesequential FN procedure, the distinguishing element preceded onset of the common element on S? trials. In two experiments, the sequential FN procedure yielded better discrimination performance. In Experiment 1, a summation test designed to separate learning and performance variables indicated that sequential FN subjects had learned the negative relationship between the distinguishing element and reinforcement while simultaneous FN subjects had not. In Experiment 2, summation and acquisition tests indicated that the distinguishing element developed inhibitory properties in the sequential FN procedure but not in the simultaneous FN procedure.     

Preschool Quality Effects on Learning Behavior and Later Achievement in Germany: Moderation by Socioeconomic Status

This study investigates whether children’s preschool experiences are associated with later achievement via enhanced learning behaviors using data from a German longitudinal study following children (N = 554) from age 3 in preschool to age 8 in second grade. There were two main findings. First, results suggest that more positive learning behaviors at school entry mediate effects of teacher–child interactions in preschool on second-grade achievement. Second, these effects varied by parental socioeconomic status (SES) indicating that low-SES children benefited the most. The findings highlight the role of preschool classroom environments in shaping the school readiness of children with socioeconomic risk factors.     

Classroom observation systems in context: A case for the validation of observation systems

Educational Assessment, Evaluation and Accountability - Researchers and practitioners sometimes presume that using a previously “validated” instrument will produce “valid”...