Development of a Mindful-Eating Intervention Program among Third Through Fifth Grade Elementary School Children and Their Parents

The prevalence of obesity among children in the United States is a major health concern and is associated with increased health risks. The goal of this intervention was to develop and pilot test strategies based on mindful eating practices that foster healthy eating behaviors among elementary school children and their families. Mindful eating practice engages all of ones senses and has been shown to decrease impulsive food decisions and increase awareness of hunger and fullness cues. Using Experiential Learning Theory (ELT), class interventions and take-home activities were developed to teach mindful eating strategies to Hispanic and non-Hispanic 3rd through 5th grade elementary school children and their parents. The results of this research will: 1) contribute to the scientific literature regarding the impact of mindful eating practice on children’s eating behavior, 2) provide an alternate strategy for weight loss and management among children, and 3) provide parents and teachers with the knowledge and skills necessary to promote mindful eating among children and families

The Significance of Positive Verification in Unit Test Assessment

This study investigates whether computer science students' unit tests can positively verify acceptable implementations. The first phase uses between-subject comparisons to reveal students' tendencies to write tests that yield inaccurate outcomes by either failing acceptable solutions or by passing implementations containing bugs. The second phase uses a novel all-function-pairs technique to compare a student's test performance, independently across multiple functions. The study reveals that students struggle with positive verification and doing so is associated with producing implementations with more bugs. Additionally, students with poor positive verification produce similar number of bugs as those with poor bug identification

Evidence for Teaching Practices that Broaden Participation for Women in Computing

Computing has, for many years, been one of the least demographically diverse STEM fields, particularly in terms of women's participation [12, 36]. The last decade has seen a proliferation of research exploring new teaching techniques and their effect on the retention of students who have historically been excluded from computing. This research suggests interventions and practices that can affect the inclusiveness of the computer science classroom and potentially improve learning outcomes for all students. But research needs to be translated into practice, and practices need to be taken up in real classrooms. The current paper reports on the results of a focused systematic "state-of-the-art" review of recent empirical studies of teaching practices that have some explicit test of the impact on women in computing. Using the NCWIT Engagement Practices Framework as a means of organization, we summarize this research, outline the practices that have the most empirical support, and suggest where additional research is needed