Latine family math engagement: a phenomenological study of co-design approaches

Mathematics achievement at school entry is the strongest predictor for eighth-grade performance, regardless of race, gender, or family socioeconomic status. Yet, California Latine children continue to lack in math proficiency, struggling with concepts such as knowledge of numbers, counting, and spatial and pattern skills development. Existing literature has demonstrated that Family Engagement support children’s development. However, Latine parents often feel less comfortable doing math themselves and in participating in their children\u27s math learning. This interpretive phenomenology research study was designed to uncover participants’ cultural repertoires and learning experiences to explore how Latine families perceived and engaged in co-design workshops to develop a mathematics activity for their 3-5 years old children. This study collected data from (a) semi-structured interviews and (b) co-design workshops (including co-design workshop recordings, transcriptions, photos and screenshots). Thematic analysis identified the key findings that emerged from the semi-structured interviews are (a) traditional education virtues, (b) familismo, (c) role of language, (d) ecological environment, (e) views on knowledge, (f) interest-driven learning, (g) identity formation related to (math) learning. Further, building upon existing frameworks, this study’s results and analysis suggest that through co-design approaches, Latina mothers engaged in (h) teamwork and collaboration, (i) sense-making, (j) intrapersonal openness, and (k) conscientiousness in the co-design and co-construction of a mathematics activity for their children. In centering Latina mothers as designers and users of their own mathematics learning experience, it positioned them as experts in their own and their children’s learning and allowed for the co-design and co-creation of a meaningful learning math experience. Co-design approaches may be helpful to engage marginalized groups, such as the Latina mothers in this study, to achieve successful family engagement outcomes. Co-design approaches herald a different way of engaging Latine families as an alternative to standard family engagement interventions

Abstracts 2017: Highlights of Student Research and Creative Endeavors

What follows is a collection of abstracts summarizing the scholarship conducted by undergraduates at Columbus State University during the 2016-2017 academic year. These projects highlight undergraduates research in a variety of disciplines, ranging from literary analysis to laboratory based sciences. The abstracts represent many ongoing projects on our campus and catalog those that have been published or presented. This volume begins with projects that have been selected for presentations at national, regional and statewide disciplinary conferences. Among them are several that have garnered awards for outstanding undergraduate scholarship. Projects that have received competitive research grants, including our campus Student Research and Creative Endeavor (S-RACE) Grants, are also featured. Many undergraduates have presented their work with our local community, either through the dissemination of best practices in nursing to regional hospitals, colloquium presentations of lecture-recitals at the RiverCenter for the Performing Arts, or at Columbus State University\u27s Tower Day held in April 2017. Together these abstracts demonstrate the commitment of our faculty to engage students in their disciplines and represent outstanding mentorship that occurs on and off our campus throughout the year. Our students have amassed an impressive collection of projects that contributes to both academia and our local community, and these abstracts will hopefully inspire others to delve into scientific and creative inquiry.https://csuepress.columbusstate.edu/abstracts/1011/thumbnail.jp

Parent-centred and culturally-competent literacies for health promotion with newly arrived African communities : a literature review

When considering culturally competent health literacy in newly arrived communities the following key concepts are important: Health literacy and literacy - People practice and use literacy in many ways. People use text or the written word, oral literacy (or the spoken word), visual literacy (or images) and technological literacy (through the use of information and communication technologies). They also draw on other people who mediate health-related information. People’s identities and their access to social networks shape their use of literacy practices and their engagement with health promoting activities. Literacy practices are not static. Initiatives to improve health literacy need to be responsive to the social context (e.g. migration experience; life history; gender; ethnicity; religion; life stage; education) and integrate expertise from both the health promotion and the adult literacy fields. Collectivism and authoritarianism - Most western cultures, such as Australia, support an environment that promotes individualism. With parenting, this translates to parenting styles that place high priority on children’s autonomy, individual achievement, self-expression and egalitarianism. However, African (and other) cultures place a high priority on collectivism and authoritarianism as the norm. Authoritarianism is characterized by the imposition of an absolute set of standards, the valuing of obedience and respect for authority. In this sense the collectivist cultures discourage self-assertion and autonomy, and the goal of parenting is the promotion of interdependence, cooperation, compliance without discussion, and inhibition of personal wishes. Acculturation - Acculturation of immigrants and refugees is a complex and dynamic interaction that takes place between groups settling in the host country and the people, culture, environment, politics and systems of the new country. The impact of acculturation on the health and wellbeing of new arrivals is significant and there are several models of acculturation described in the literature. A way to support health appears to be through a combination of maintenance of beneficial traditional elements of life as well as adopting useful host cultural skills. Cultural competence - The literature frames ‘cultural competence’ as the evolution of the terms cultural sensitivity and cultural awareness. The concept is important as it shifts focus from the individual to the organisation and systems. The ethos of cultural competence is a reflective practice and ongoing process of learning, valuing and interacting crossculturally at an individual, organisation and system level

Principal Decision-Making and Perception of Fine Arts Programing in Curricular Design

This qualitative study included an exploration of the concept of perception affecting decision- making in curriculum design and the support of school administrators toward fine art programs in West Texas School Regions 18 and 19. Research shows that the fine arts provide students the social and creative skills to become productive citizens. However, research shows that in the current realm of urban and rural public school curricula, the fine arts exist at either a limited capacity or are nonexistent. This dissertation included an attempt to answer how a school leader\u27s fine arts perception affects a principal\u27s ability to support, build, and sustain fine arts programs through four research questions: (a) What experiences have West Texas public school principals had with the visual and performing arts? (b) How do West Texas public school principals perceive their role in fine arts education? (c) How do West Texas public school principals perceive the meaning of the phrase supporting the fine arts as it applies to their schools? (d) What are the shared values among West Texas public school principals regarding the fine arts? This qualitative multiple case study included the use of semistructured interviews to collect data from principals. These participants were current principals in their schools in West Texas. Each participant received an email inviting them to complete a questionnaire for qualification and an email to schedule their interview; in vivo coding of transcripts made from video recording the interviews allowed for analysis. The results showed that principals\u27 experiences with the fine arts as children subconsciously affected the importance and support of fine arts in their school curricula. The overall purpose of this study was to equip school principals with the knowledge needed to support existing fine art programs and provide implementation methods to higher education institutions regarding the inclusion of the arts in principal training programs

Collaboration, creativity and the co-construction of oral and written texts

In this paper we explore how primary school children ‘learn to collaborate’ and ‘collaborate to learn’ on creative writing projects by using diverse cultural artefacts—including oracy, literacy and ICT. We begin by reviewing some key sociocultural concepts which serve as a theoretical framework for the research reported. Secondly, we describe the context in which the children talked and worked together to create their projects. This context is a ‘learning community’ developed as part of an innovative educational programme with the aim of promoting the social construction of knowledge among all participants. We then present microgenetic analyses of the quality of the interaction and dialogues taking place as peers worked together on their projects, and how these collaborative processes and uses of the mediational artefacts were taken up by the children. In order to exemplify these processes, our analyses centre on a selection of examples of dialogues, texts and multimedia products of stories created by groups of fourth grade (9–10 years old) children. Overall, the work reveals the dynamic functioning in educational settings of some central sociocultural concepts. These include: co-construction; intertextuality and intercontextuality amongst oracy, literacy and uses of ICT; collaborative creativity; development of dialogical and text production strategies and appropriation of diverse cultural artefacts for knowledge construction

The impact of selected environmental factors on the educational level of Black adult family members, 1987

The purpose of this study is to determine how selected environmental factors of the family of origin correlate with the educational levels of adult family members. The sample consisted of 71 Black adult family members who were administered the Moos' Environment Scale and the investigator's interview form for measuring educational level. The four null hypotheses presented were found not to be statistically significant at the .05 level. There were no statistically significant correlations between the family of origin environment levels of cohesion, independence, achievement orientation, and intellectual-cultural orientation. The findings of this study have the potential of sensitizing investigators to the impact of selected environmental factors on the educational level of adult family members. The findings derived from this study seem to warrant that there is no statistically significant relationship between (a) family of origin environment level of cohesion and adult family members' educational level; (b) family of origin environment level of independence and adult family members' educational level; (c) family of origin environment level of achievement orientation and adult family members' educational level; and (d) family of origin environment level of intellectual-cultural orientation and adult family members' educational level

Life Span Development: Childhood, Adolescence, and Adulthood

This chapter examines human development in the context of multiple identities. It begins with an exploration of the complexity of human development through the lens of ecological systems theory (Bronfenbrenner, 1977; Bronfenbrenner & Morris, 2006), as augmented by multicultural and feminist psychology (Gilligan, 1982, 1996; Hurtado, 2010; Neville & Mobley, 2001; Yakushko, Davidson, & Williams, 2009). The roles of resilience and empowerment in development are then presented in the context of social identities. The remainder of the chapter explores important developmental concerns across the life span, including physical, emotional, social, and cognitive and academic/vocational development. Across each of these life domains, the specific contributions of feminist multicultural counseling psychology perspectives are identified, with an emphasis on fostering positive development throughout the life span

Undergraduate Latinas\u27 self-definition of academic success

This master\u27s level thesis\u27s objective was to gain a better understanding of how a sample of 13 undergraduate Latinas who graduated high school and immediately enrolled into college define academic success. Through interviews, these undergraduate Latinas explain where these self-definitions came from, mentors that may have influenced these definitions, and if their ethnicity and gender has played any role in the way they perceive academic success. The study also considers findings from previous research regarding academic resilience factors associated with Latinas, such as: being involved in college ready initiatives, obtaining academic support from significant others, having mentors, receiving various messages about the importance of academic success for future success/careers, and socio-economic stability, as well as consideration of cultural capital, social capital, and additional forms of capital. Wanting participants to define their own experiences a phenomenological approach was used, which allows for deep description and rich data collection

Virtual Heritage: new technologies for edutainment

Cultural heritage represents an enormous amount of information and knowledge. Accessing this treasure chest allows not only to discover the legacy of physical and intangible attributes of the past but also to provide a better understanding of the present. Museums and cultural institutions have to face the problem of providing access to and communicating these cultural contents to a wide and assorted audience, meeting the expectations and interests of the reference end-users and relying on the most appropriate tools available. Given the large amount of existing tangible and intangible heritage, artistic, historical and cultural contents, what can be done to preserve and properly disseminate their heritage significance? How can these items be disseminated in the proper way to the public, taking into account their enormous heterogeneity? Answering this question requires to deal as well with another aspect of the problem: the evolution of culture, literacy and society during the last decades of 20th century. To reflect such transformations, this period witnessed a shift in the museum’s focus from the aesthetic value of museum artifacts to the historical and artistic information they encompass, and a change into the museums’ role from a mere "container" of cultural objects to a "narrative space" able to explain, describe, and revive the historical material in order to attract and entertain visitors. These developments require creating novel exhibits, able to tell stories about the objects and enabling visitors to construct semantic meanings around them. The objective that museums presently pursue is reflected by the concept of Edutainment, Education + Entertainment. Nowadays, visitors are not satisfied with ‘learning something’, but would rather engage in an ‘experience of learning’, or ‘learning for fun’, being active actors and players in their own cultural experience. As a result, institutions are faced with several new problems, like the need to communicate with people from different age groups and different cultural backgrounds, the change in people attitude due to the massive and unexpected diffusion of technology into everyday life, the need to design the visit by a personal point of view, leading to a high level of customization that allows visitors to shape their path according to their characteristics and interests. In order to cope with these issues, I investigated several approaches. In particular, I focused on Virtual Learning Environments (VLE): real-time interactive virtual environments where visitors can experience a journey through time and space, being immersed into the original historical, cultural and artistic context of the work of arts on display. VLE can strongly help archivists and exhibit designers, allowing to create new interesting and captivating ways to present cultural materials. In this dissertation I will tackle many of the different dimensions related to the creation of a cultural virtual experience. During my research project, the entire pipeline involved into the development and deployment of VLE has been investigated. The approach followed was to analyze in details the main sub-problems to face, in order to better focus on specific issues. Therefore, I first analyzed different approaches to an effective recreation of the historical and cultural context of heritage contents, which is ultimately aimed at an effective transfer of knowledge to the end-users. In particular, I identified the enhancement of the users’ sense of presence in VLE as one of the main tools to reach this objective. Presence is generally expressed as the perception of 'being there', i.e. the subjective belief of users that they are in a certain place, even if they know that the experience is mediated by the computer. Presence is related to the number of senses involved by the VLE and to the quality of the sensorial stimuli. But in a cultural scenario, this is not sufficient as the cultural presence plays a relevant role. Cultural presence is not just a feeling of 'being there' but of being - not only physically, but also socially, culturally - 'there and then'. In other words, the VLE must be able to transfer not only the appearance, but also all the significance and characteristics of the context that makes it a place and both the environment and the context become tools capable of transferring the cultural significance of a historic place. The attention that users pay to the mediated environment is another aspect that contributes to presence. Attention is related to users’ focalization and concentration and to their interests. Thus, in order to improve the involvement and capture the attention of users, I investigated in my work the adoption of narratives and storytelling experiences, which can help people making sense of history and culture, and of gamification approaches, which explore the use of game thinking and game mechanics in cultural contexts, thus engaging users while disseminating cultural contents and, why not?, letting them have fun during this process. Another dimension related to the effectiveness of any VLE is also the quality of the user experience (UX). User interaction, with both the virtual environment and its digital contents, is one of the main elements affecting UX. With respect to this I focused on one of the most recent and promising approaches: the natural interaction, which is based on the idea that persons need to interact with technology in the same way they are used to interact with the real world in everyday life. Then, I focused on the problem of presenting, displaying and communicating contents. VLE represent an ideal presentation layer, being multiplatform hypermedia applications where users are free to interact with the virtual reconstructions by choosing their own visiting path. Cultural items, embedded into the environment, can be accessed by users according to their own curiosity and interests, with the support of narrative structures, which can guide them through the exploration of the virtual spaces, and conceptual maps, which help building meaningful connections between cultural items. Thus, VLE environments can even be seen as visual interfaces to DBs of cultural contents. Users can navigate the VE as if they were browsing the DB contents, exploiting both text-based queries and visual-based queries, provided by the re-contextualization of the objects into their original spaces, whose virtual exploration can provide new insights on specific elements and improve the awareness of relationships between objects in the database. Finally, I have explored the mobile dimension, which became absolutely relevant in the last period. Nowadays, off-the-shelf consumer devices as smartphones and tablets guarantees amazing computing capabilities, support for rich multimedia contents, geo-localization and high network bandwidth. Thus, mobile devices can support users in mobility and detect the user context, thus allowing to develop a plethora of location-based services, from way-finding to the contextualized communication of cultural contents, aimed at providing a meaningful exploration of exhibits and cultural or tourist sites according to visitors’ personal interest and curiosity