Understanding the Power of Words in Multicultural Education

Historically, words are powerful! In many cases, they are used appropriately when we value people and used inappropriately when we hate them. As a result, they have become powerful tools in multicultural education and interactions. In today's changing world with demographic shifts in power and paradigm, the society is bombarded with words that hate and words that love. As it appears, words are used to satisfy jaundiced and myopic views, and they are constructs that frequently lead to labels, stereotypes, and illusory generalizations. While we do not advocate policing or legislating words, we advocate words that can help individuals to maximize their fullest potential in our multicultural society. In this article, we advance this premise and suggest ways to increase multicultural education in schools and communities.     

Teachers’ skill ratings of children with learning disabilities: A comparison of the United States and Japan

This study compared U.S. and Japanese grade school teachers’ perceptions of the strengths and weaknesses of children in their classrooms identified as fitting commonly used criteria for a learning disability. U.S. teachers identified 4.0 percent of their children as meeting the criteria and Japanese teachers identified 1.5 percent. The teachers then rated these children’s abilities in the areas of listening, speaking, reading/writing, reasoning, mathematics, social, and study skills. Overall, U.S. and Japanese teachers’ rating patterns were similar on 70 percent of the skills. In most areas where significant differences were found—listening, speaking, reading/writing and study skills—U.S. teachers rated higher percentages of their children as “weaker” than Japanese teachers. A noteworthy exception was the area of social skills where Japanese children received higher percentages of “weak” ratings. U.S. and Japanese teachers also differed in their perceptions of causative factors leading to their children’s learning difficulties. We discuss the findings in terms of U.S.-Japanese differences in writing systems and cultural expectations.     

Development of an Augmented Reality Game to Teach Abstract Concepts in Food Chemistry

One of the most pressing issues for many land grant institutions is the ever increasing cost to build and operate wet chemistry laboratories. A partial solution is to develop computer‐based teaching modules that take advantage of animation, web‐based or off‐campus learning experiences directed at engaging students’ creative experiences. We used the learning objectives of one of the most difficult topics in food chemistry, enzyme kinetics, to test this concept. Students are apprehensive of this subject and often criticize the staid instructional methods typically used in teaching this material. As a result, students do not acquire a useful background in this important subject. To rectify these issues, we developed an interactive augmented reality application to teach the basic concepts of enzyme kinetics in the context of an interactive search that took students to several locations on campus where they were able to gather raw materials and view videos that taught the basics of enzyme kinetics as applied to the production of high fructose corn syrup (HFCS). The students needed this background to prepare for a mock interview with an HFCS manufacturer. Students and instructors alike found the game to be preferable to sitting in a classroom listening to, or giving, a PowerPoint presentation. We feel that this use of gaming technology to teach difficult, abstract concepts may be a breakthrough in food science education and help alleviate the drain on administrative budgets from multiple wet labs.     

第13届国际ISSI大会论文投稿、评审及录用分析

 第13届国际科学计量学与信息计量学大会（ISSI 大会）于2011年7月4日-7日在南非德班召开。作为大会议程主席和理论专题主席,本文作者介绍了大会论文征文和投稿的内容及形式,展示了论文评审机制与评价指标,并对提交论文、录用论文及评审专家的国别分布做了分析。中国是提交全文和研究进展论文最多的国家,作者总频次居各国之首,但论文录用率较低。中国也是提交墙展论文最多的国家,显示了中国学者参加国际ISSI大会的热情。由来自25个国家95名成员组成的大会科学委员会中只有一名中国委员,这提示我们中国学者应该更积极地参与国际会议的学术和组织工作。论文最后讨论了中国学者投稿国际ISSI大会,走上国际论坛的几个问题。