Book Review: Teaching Asian America in Elementary Classrooms

Book Review Rodríguez, N.N., An, S., & Kim, E.J. (2024). Teaching Asian America in Elementary Classrooms. New York: Routledge. 192 pp. Pb. $23.96 ISBN-13: 978-103259715

Lai mi ka si (I am Lai mi): A Poetry Collection

In this poetry collection, I combine oral history with official Burmese history to trace my family’s diasporic journey from the mountains of Myanmar to Kentwood, Michigan in 2008. To do so, I conducted interviews with my mother, father, grandmother, and grandfather over Zoom and accumulated dozens of hours of material. A rumination on refugee grief and displacement, this creative work expresses and investigates the multi-layered ritual of grief refugees conduct internally and externally—an intentional and powerful foray into the “affective.” Finally, this creative work intends to sift through the complications of transnational grief: how, when, and why do we grieve

Digitizing Delphi: Educating Audiences Through Virtual Reconstruction

Implementing a 3D model into a virtual space allows the general public to engage critically with archaeological processes. There are many unseen decisions that go into reconstructing an ancient temple. Analysis of available materials and techniques, predictions of how objects were used, decisions of what sources to reference, puzzle piecing broken remains together, and even educated guesses used to fill gaps in information often go unobserved by the public. This work will educate users about those choices by allowing the side-by-side comparison of conflicting theories on the reconstruction of the Tholos at Delphi, which is an ideal site because of its unique shape, history, and presence of missing information. Data used in the reconstruction includes images taken on site, original archaeological renderings and measurements, and existing theories of the temple’s construction. The final virtual model will allow for side-by-side comparison of these differences. Furthermore, previous 3D representations are generally made for professional audiences and are rarely interactive. This model is also designed to elevate the current archaeological process from static representations into a format as dynamic as the process of reconstruction itself. The next step for this project is to fully integrate and experiment with how users engage with the model in an interactive application. Using modern technology to explore ancient artifacts creates new and exciting processes that show looking back to history can be just as powerful as envisioning the future

Implementing Integrated STEM Forensic and Soil Sciences Lab Activities to Promote Interest in STEM Careers

We implemented forensic and soil science integrated STEM lab activities with 11 middle school youth at a 4-H day camp at Purdue University. STEM perceived knowledge increased overall for participants. However, the pre- and post-assessments did not show a statistically significant difference. More students also indicated STEM career interest after participating. Because this study was exploratory and had a small sample size, more research on these integrated STEM lab activities should be conducted with larger samples

The Future of Future City: A STEM Program

The idea of integrating science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) is still an enigma for many educators (Dare et al, 2021). Recent academic standards favor curricula that interweave the principles of integrated STEM into all content areas. Finding a “one size fits all” curriculum is challenging, perhaps even impossible. Future City is a national program that specializes in hands-on cross-curricular STEM education. Students work collaboratively using an engineering and design process to showcase their solutions to citywide sustainability issues. This research brief examines how educators can utilize the Future City program as the cornerstone of their STEM curriculum

An Exploratory Study of Mindsets, Sense of Belonging, and Help-Seeking in the Writing Center

In this exploratory study, we took as our point of departure Lori Salem’s (2016) call to investigate the factors that affect students’ decisions to visit the writing center. Rather than exploring student decision-making through a sociological lens, as Salem does, we drew on insights from social psychology to understand students’ motivations. We explored two self-theories drawn from social psychology that are associated with students’ academic achievement and with students’ help-seeking: (1) implicit beliefs about intelligence or “mindsets”; and (2) sense of belonging. Using questions from previously validated scales, we measured first-year students’ mindsets and sense of belonging and tested the relationships between these self-theories and students’ visits to the writing center. We found correlations between students’ mindsets and their willingness to seek support, but the relationships differed between minoritized students and comparison students. Although the numbers are modest, we noted a difference in the relationship between sense of belonging and writing center visits for minoritized students. Our study suggests areas for future research, which has the potential to change the way that writing centers conduct outreach to students and has possible implications both for our marketing efforts and tutor training

Back Matter

Back Matter for Writing Center Journal 41.3

Continual Improvement in Laboratory Quality Management System of a Regulatory Laboratory in West Africa

Medicines quality monitoring and quality control are essential components required to deliver health value to the people. These will also improve access to quality assured medical products that are safe for intended use. Quality Control Laboratories play an essential role in strengthening health systems in West Africa. Their role in providing excellent testing services that ensures correctness, trust, and consistency of laboratory test results is key in assuring product quality. Improving the laboratory Quality Management System (QMS) will require concerted and coordinated efforts by all interested parties in establishing relevant, continual improvement plans/strategies that will sustain and improve all components of the laboratory QMS