Incremental Beliefs,STEM Efficacy and STEM Interest Among First-Year Undergraduate Students

Journal of Science Education and Technology - Low retention rates of undergraduate students in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM) fields are a persistent problem in the USA....     

Strangers in the School: Facilitators and Barriers Regarding Refugee Parental Involvement

Parental involvement has been deemed one of today’s most important topics in educational spheres. Refugee parents face many challenges upon resettling in the US, impacting their engagement in the US educational system. This study explores Muslim refugee parents’ experiences with schools and the facilitators and barriers for their engagement. Semi-structured, in-depth interviews were conducted with 19 Muslim refugee parents from Syria and Iraq who resettled to the US. Facilitators of parental involvement included a welcoming and inclusive environment cultivated by educators who shared racial and ethnic similarities to refugee families. Barriers to their involvement included a lack of English language proficiency and discrimination and xenophobia instigated against their children, which caused parents to develop a level of distrust in the school staff. A major resource for educators, mental health specialists, and other stakeholders, this research augments understanding of the experiences of Muslim refugee parents and sheds light on the challenges, needs, and vulnerabilities of this understudied population.

     

Preparing GTAs for Active Learning in the General Chemistry Lab: Development of an Evidence-Based Rehearsal Module for a Mixed-Reality Teaching Simulator

Journal of Science Education and Technology - There is an assumption that graduate teaching assistants (GTAs) have mastery of the chemistry content they are teaching and preparation to instruct...     

Career readiness: An analysis of text complexity for occupational reading materials

The Common Core State Standards (CCSS) and the broader college and career readiness agenda encourage educators, researchers, and other stakeholders to focus on preparing students for life after high school. A key emphasis is literacy, as the ability to read and comprehend written language is critical to success in college and careers. Understanding the level of reading comprehension needed for college and careers has important instructional implications. This study examined text complexity levels of various career texts using the Reading Maturity Metric and compared them to expectations in the CCSS. Text samples were selected for jobs from the five job zones in the Occupational Information Network database. Text complexity demands for all careers were generally in the CCSS range of college and career readiness and increased as job zone and required preparation increased. Results could provide specific career-related targets to make the CCSS reading requirements more relevant for students.     

聚合物人造肌肉

一类新颖的致动设备(例如致动器、发动机、发电机等)正在步入商业化.它们基于在受到电刺激时会改变形状的聚合物.     

Adding an extra dimension to what students see through the light microscope: a lab exercise demonstrating critical analysis for microscopy students

This article describes an undergraduate lab exercise that demonstrates the importance of students thinking critically about what they see through a microscope. The students are given growth data from tip-growing organisms that suggest the cells grow in a pulsatile manner. The students then critique this data in several exercises that incorporate aspects of a problem-based learning approach, envisaging growth not just in two dimensions, but in three dimensions. For some cells, what appears to be pulsatile growth could also be explained by growth at a constant rate up and down in the z-axis. Depending on the diffraction pattern generated by the tip of the cell, this movement in the z-axis could go undetected. This raises the possibility that pulsatile growth seen in some species may be an artifact generated by the limitations of the light microscope. Students were subsequently asked to rate their awareness of the need to think critically about what they see through a microscope, using a scale of 1 (unaware) to 5 (very much aware). Prior to doing the lab exercise, the mean rating was 2.7; this increased to 4.4 after the lab. The students also indicated a likelihood of being more critical in their thinking in other aspects of their biology curriculum.     

ETHICAL CONSIDERATIONS IN A THREE‐TIERED APPROACH TO SCHOOL DISCIPLINE POLICY AND PRACTICE

Research indicates that school discipline policies and practices have a significant influence on both student and school functioning. The purpose of this article is to uncover how the ethical standards guiding the field of school psychology inform school decisions about discipline in a three‐tiered approach. Various discipline approaches, empirical research evaluating the effectiveness of these approaches, and the role of school psychologists in school discipline decision making are reviewed. Ultimately, this integration of theory, empirical research, and ethical standards points to the importance of creating comprehensive and individualized school discipline policies that apply ethically sound practices at all three tiers of intervention. Implications for practicing school psychologists are discussed.     

Cultural Misperceptions and Goals for Samoan Children’s Education in Hawai’i: Voices from School, Home, and Community

Research lauds the benefits of parent involvement in the schools, yet many schools and communities have not achieved desired levels of involvement. Underlying expectations and methods soliciting parent involvement may be rooted in cultural misperceptions. This study, based on Epstein’s (1987) Overlapping Spheres of Influence model, explored the ways and extent that community members, school staff, and Samoan families interact regarding a public middle school. Qualitative research methods (interviews and observations) involved parents, teachers, administrators, and community agency members and officials in participatory action research. Findings displayed a base of cultural differences regarding parent involvement: Samoan parents were expected to participate in school events and assist children with homework, yet Samoan culture has historically divided the parents’ responsibilities from the teachers’ responsibilities. Parents identified their responsibilities for children’s spirituality and discipline and viewed academic matters as solely the responsibility of teachers. The school’s new activities, parents’ shifting focus, and community members’ diverse actions are demonstrating a start of change. This research supports the need for school personnel to understand the cultural roots of minority families’ parent involvement practices. Marianna F. Valdez is a Ph.D. Candidate in Community and Cultural Psychology. She completed her M.A. degree at the University of Hawaii and B.A. degree at Tulane University. Her research interests involve the development, implementation, and evaluation of culturally appropriate community programs, especially related to the public school setting. She is most interested in understanding and representing emic perspectives to drive action research, informed by culturalist approaches and mixed methods. Peter W. Dowrick is Professor of Disability Studies and affiliate graduate faculty in Psychology at the University of Hawaii. He completed his Ph.D. at the University of Auckland, ATCL at Trinity College London, M.Sc. at the University of Auckland, and B.Sc. at the Victoria University of Wellington. He has wide experience working with people marginalized by culture, disability, mental health, and other considerations. His consultation on prevention and intervention extends to 31 states and 21 countries. His overarching contribution has been in the concepts of feedforward and creating futures, applied in situations of personal safety, serious mental illness, social behavior, sports and recreation, daily living, literacy, academic skills, health, housing, management, and jobs, among others. Ashley E. Maynard is Associate Professor in the Department of Psychology at the University of Hawaii. She completed her Ph.D. at the University of California, Los Angeles, M.A. at the University of California, Los Angeles, and B.A. at the University of Virginia. She studies the interrelationships of culture, contexts of child development, and healthy cognitive and social development of children. Based on a socio-cultural paradigm, the theoretical question that lies at the heart of her research program is the ways in which a variety of culturally based activity settings influence adaptive pathways of development for children and families. She teaches courses in Developmental Psychology and Culture and Human Development.