Indigenous cultural contexts for STEM experiences: snow snakes’ impact on students and the community

Opportunities for American Indian youth to meaningfully engage in school-based science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) experiences have historically been inadequate. As a consequence, American Indian students perform lower on standardized assessments of science education than their peers. In this article we describe the emergence of meaning for students—as well as their community—resulting from Indigenous culturally-based STEM curriculum that used an American Indian tradition as a focal context. Specifically, the game of snow snakes (Gooneginebig in Ojibwe) afforded an opportunity for STEM and culturally-based resources to work in unison. A case study research design was used with the bounded case represented by the community associated with the snow snake project. The research question guiding this study was: What forms of culturally relevant meaning do students and the community form as a result of the snow snake game? Results indicate evidence of increased student and community engagement through culturally-based STEM experiences in the form of active participation and the rejuvenation of a traditional game. Implications are discussed for using culturally-based contexts for STEM learning.     

CRISPR/Cas: a Nobel Prize award-winning precise genome editing technology for gene therapy and crop improvement

Since it was first recognized in bacteria and archaea as a mechanism for innate viral immunity in the early 2010 s,clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats(CRISPR)/CRISPR-associated protein(Cas) has rapidly been developed into a robust, multifunctional genome editing tool with many uses. Following the discovery of the initial CRISPR/Cas-based system, the technology has been advanced to facilitate a multitude of different functions. These include development as a base editor, prime editor, epigenetic editor, and CRISPR interference(CRISPRi) and CRISPR activator(CRISPRa) gene regulators. It can also be used for chromatin and RNA targeting and imaging. Its applications have proved revolutionary across numerous biological fields, especially in biomedical and agricultural improvement. As a diagnostic tool, CRISPR has been developed to aid the detection and screening of both human and plant diseases, and has even been applied during the current coronavirus disease 2019(COVID-19) pandemic. CRISPR/Cas is also being trialed as a new form of gene therapy for treating various human diseases, including cancers, and has aided drug development. In terms of agricultural breeding, precise targeting of biological pathways via CRISPR/Cas has been key to regulating molecular biosynthesis and allowing modification of proteins, starch, oil, and other functional components for crop improvement. Adding to this, CRISPR/Cas has been shown capable of significantly enhancing both plant tolerance to environmental stresses and overall crop yield via the targeting of various agronomically important gene regulators. Looking to the future, increasing the efficiency and precision of CRISPR/Cas delivery systems and limiting off-target activity are two major challenges for wider application of the technology. This review provides an in-depth overview of current CRISPR development, including the advantages and disadvantages of the technology,recent applications, and future considerations.     

Cultivating Hope Through Learning for the Common Good

This article examines how an orientation toward hope can guide institutions of higher education in achieving their ultimate purpose of providing education for the common good of society. In today's cultural context, colleges and universities must navigate a multitude of challenges and competing philosophies, many of which question the validity of their inherent value and purpose. As society continues to press questions of market relevance, sustainability, accessibility, quality, and the value of higher education, a basic question remains: How, amid all of these challenges, can today's postsecondary institutions contribute to the cultivation of a better society? In this regard, faith-based colleges and universities can offer guidance. By carrying out their distinctive mandate of infusing their educational mission with the holistic character formation of students, these institutions can promote the common good by coupling the Gospel message of personal hope in Jesus Christ with the call to cultural influence and transformation. To demonstrate this concept, a framework is offered that describes both a starting point—a biblical foundation for understanding humanity and hope—and a pathway through learning. The application of this framework—uncommon learning for the common good—invites implications for curricular design, the facilitation of learning, and institutional leadership that faculty and administrators from across the spectrum of higher education may find timely and relevant to their own learning contexts.     

How Do I Understand the Term Queer? Preservice Teachers,LGBTQ Knowledge,and LGBTQ Self-Efficacy

This article describes a study that investigated preservice teachers' understandings and self-efficacy related to lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, or queer (LGBTQ) students and families. The preservice teachers indicated a broad range of understandings in relation to LGBTQ terms. They reported a relatively high sense of self-efficacy in working with LGBTQ students, with slightly lower self–efficacy in identifying biases in curricular materials and school contexts and in teaching LGBTQ content in their classrooms.     

Explaining Gender Differences in the Perception of Support Availability: The Mediating Effects of Construct Availability and Accessibility

Perceived support availability (PSA), a general belief about the likelihood that social support will be available when needed, is associated with numerous processes and outcomes of supportive communication. Currently, however, there is little understanding of the factors that contribute to this belief. Numerous studies have reported gender differences in PSA, with women generally indicating that they see support as more available than do men; in turn, gender differences in PSA have been cited to explain gender differences in the production and interpretation of supportive messages. In an effort to explain gender differences in PSA and, more broadly, understand the social-cognitive factors that contribute to individual differences in PSA, this article proposes and reports a test of a theoretical model that treats PSA as the outcome of the availability and accessibility of cognitive schemata for construing social situations. Participants (150 men and 271 women) completed instruments providing assessments of PSA, construct availability (cognitive complexity), and construct accessibility (expressive and instrumental orientations). Bootstrap procedures for the simultaneous assessment of multiple mediators found that construct accessibility generally was a stronger mediator of gender differences in PSA than construct availability. However, a cooperative suppression effect was found for 1 index of construct accessibility, complicating the interpretation of mediation effects.     

More evidence that cognitive complexity is not loquacity: A reply to Beatty and Payne

Beatty and Payne (1984) recently presented data allegedly demonstrating that assessments of cognitive complexity based on Crockett's popular Role Category Questionnaire (RCQ) are severly confounded by “loquacity,” the simple amount of verbal response to stimuli. The present paper responds critically to the claims of Beatty and Payne, arguing that these researchers employed a flawed measure of loquacity and inappropriate data analytic procedures. In order to better clarify the influence of loquacity on sophisticated social‐cognitive and communicative functioning, two empirical studies are reported in which alternative measures of loquacity were employed. In neither of these studies was loquacity found significantly associated with social‐cognitive or communicative abilities.     

Toward the development of a service provider sociality scale and its relationship to customer satisfaction and loyalty

This study assessed the dimensional structure of the Service Provider Sociality Scale, then determined whether service providers' use of different sociality dimensions predicts customer satisfaction and, in turn, whether customer satisfaction predicts loyalty. A survey of 256 undergraduate student “customers” revealed two significant dimensions of sociality: Personal Connection and Courteous Expressions. These dimensions explained 74% of the variance in customer satisfaction, but only Courteous Expressions accounted for significant unique variance in satisfaction. Satisfaction, in turn, strongly predicted loyalty.     

Multum in parvo: Paperbacks in speech

Women process information about support situations and messages more extensively than men, but little is known about whether these gender differences reflect underlying differences in processing ability, motivation, or both. Two studies examined information processing by men and women in both relatively less serious and more serious situations. Participants in Study 1 responded to more and less serious experimental scenarios, whereas participants in Study 2 reported on a recent bereavement situation. In both studies, the pattern of observed gender differences was most consistent with women possessing both greater ability and greater motivation to process information about support situations and messages.