Seeing a World in a Grain of Sand: Science Teaching in Multicultural Context

This paper briefly describes two unusual curriculum plans: the Imagining Nature Project at Deakin University in Geelong, Victoria, Australia and the Native Eyes Project at the Institute of American Indian Art in Santa Fe, New Mexico Among other things, both projects entail the teaching of science and technology studies to non-science majors of highly diverse cultural origin. Both projects also incorporate innovative strategies designed to make science and technology more credible and relevant to indigenous people.     

The information exchange groups experiment

From 1961 through 1966, the National Institutes of Health operated a facility for the rapid distribution of unevaluated preprints to research workers—an obvious precursor of many of the activities taking place today on the Internet. The experiment began with 32 researchers in a single Information Exchange Group (IEG). It grew to seven IEGs with total membership over 3600. During 1966, more than 1.5 million copies of preprints were produced and distributed. Considerable enthusiasm was generated among researchers who valued the speed of dissemination. Critics charged that the quality of the average preprint deteriorated with increased participation. They also noted that the unplanned burdens on production had often delayed receipt of the preprints until after they had appeared as formally reviewed journal papers. During this period, the Atomic Energy Commission had mounted a similar experimental program of “written informal communications” that was limited to theoretical high energy physics. Note: The NIH experiment ended as described by this summary, which was published inScience (154:843, 18 Nov. 1966). Obviously, no one wished to pay for it any longer. Despite the efforts of librarians at NIH, National Library of Medicine, and National Technical Information Services, we have not been able to locate the promised final report—A.H.     

Between a “ROC” and a School Place: The Role of Racial Opportunity Cost in the Educational Experiences of Academically Successful Students of Color

Despite numerous reform efforts, schools have not achieved equitable academic outcomes for all students. To better identify where schools have failed, research has sought to understand the complex role the school environment plays in mediating academic success, particularly for students of color. In this article, we forward the concept of racial opportunity cost and then use it as a lens to encapsulate the price academically successful students of color pay in their pursuit of school success. Through individual and focus group interviews, 18 African American and Latina/o students revealed nuances of the costs their academic achievement brought in the racialized, White-normed spaces that often permeated their school cultures. The purpose of this article is to provide theoretical support for the racial opportunity cost concept using existing interdisciplinary scholarship and to describe the racial opportunity costs that emerged from our analysis of student interviews.     

Metacognitive scaffolds improve self-judgments of accuracy in a medical intelligent tutoring system

In this study, we examined the effect of two metacognitive scaffolds on the accuracy of confidence judgments made while diagnosing dermatopathology slides in SlideTutor. Thirty-one (N = 31) first- to fourth-year pathology and dermatology residents were randomly assigned to one of the two scaffolding conditions. The cases used in this study were selected from the domain of nodular and diffuse dermatitides. Both groups worked with a version of SlideTutor that provided immediate feedback on their actions for 2 h before proceeding to solve cases in either the Considering Alternatives or Playback condition. No immediate feedback was provided on actions performed by participants in the scaffolding mode. Measurements included learning gains (pre-test and post-test), as well as metacognitive performance, including Goodman–Kruskal Gamma correlation, bias, and discrimination. Results showed that participants in both conditions improved significantly in terms of their diagnostic scores from pre-test to post-test. More importantly, participants in the Considering Alternatives condition outperformed those in the Playback condition in the accuracy of their confidence judgments and the discrimination of the correctness of their assertions while solving cases. The results suggested that presenting participants with their diagnostic decision paths and highlighting correct and incorrect paths helps them to become more metacognitively accurate in their confidence judgments.     

General Communication

Eugene Garfield, Essays of an Information Scientist, Volume 3, 1977-78 (Philadelphia: ISI Press, 1980—$15.00)

The Information Society: An International Journal (Crane, Russak, 3 East 44th St., New York, N.Y. 10017– $48.00/quarterly)

M. Thomas Inge, ed. Handbook of American Popular Culture, Volume 2 (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood, 1980 —$29.95)

Information Resources: Knowledge and Power in the 21st Century by Anthony G. Oettinger (Incidental Paper 1-80-4, 10 pp. —$15.00)

Changes in the Information Industries– Their Strategic Implications for Newspapers by John C.Gates (Incidental Paper 1-80-5, 20 pp.—$15.00)

Economics and Postal Pricing Policy by Bruce Owen and Robert Willig (Publication P-81-2, 36 pp.—$30.00)

Factors Influencing Media Consumption: A Survey of the Literature by Christine Urban (Research Draft not yet for sale, March 1981, 107 pp.)

The Continuing Revolution in Communications Technology: Implications for the Broadcasting Business by Richard Rosenbloom (Incidental Paper 1-81-4, June 1981, 30 pp.—$15.00)

Information Resources Policy Viewed by an OutskIrten by Per Ongstad (Incidental Paper 1-81-5, July 1981, 53 pp.—$15.00)

Philip Hills, ed. The Future of the Printed Word: The Impact and Implications of the New Communications Technology (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1981—$25.00)

Ronald J. Matlon, comp. Index to Journals in Communication Studies Through 1979 (Speech Communication Association, 5105 Backlick Rd., Annandale, Va. 22003—price not given, paper)     

Telecommunications Technology

COMMUNICATION TECHNOLOGY: THE NEW MEDIA IN SOCIETY by Everett M. Rogers (New York: Free Press, 1986—price not given, cloth and paper)

BEYOND THE GUTENBERG GALAXY: MICROCOMPUTERS AND THE EMERGENCE OF POST-TYPOGRAPHIC CULTURE by Eugene F. Provenzo, Jr. (New York: Columbia University/Teachers College Press, 1986—$8.95, paper)

UNDERSTANDING THE NEW TECHNOLOGIES OF THE MASS MEDIA by George E. Whitehouse (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1986—$14.95, paper)

TELECOMMUNICATIONS IN THE INFORMATION AGE by Loy A. Singleton (Cambridge, MA: Ballinger, 1986—$19.95)

TELECOMMUTING: THE FUTURE TECHNOLOGY OF WORK by Thomas B. Cross and Marjorie Raizman (Homewood, IL: Dow Jones-Irwin, 1986—$25.00)

TELECOMMUNICATIONS TECHNOLOGY by R.L. Brewster (Chichester: Ellis Horwood Ltd./New York: John Wiley, 1986—price not given)

SATELLITE COMMUNICATIONS by Timothy Pratt and Charles W. Bostian (New York: John Wiley, 1986—$42.95)

UNDERSTANDING SATELLITE TELEVISION RECEPTION by S.E. Sutphin (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1986—price not given

1986 INTERNATIONAL SATELLITE DIRECTORY (Design Publishers, 369 Redwood Ave., Corte Madera, CA 94925—price not given, paper)

COMPUTERS AND COMMUNICATIONS: A VISION OF C&C by Koji Kobayashi (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1986—$16.95)

DICTIONARY OF DATA COMMUNICATIONS edited by Charles J. Sippl (New York: Halstead Press/John Wiley, 1985—price not given, paper)