Cultivating a Justice Orientation Toward Citizenship in Preservice Elementary Teachers

Teacher educators have an obligation to prepare preservice teachers with the skills and dispositions necessary to promote a socially just world. Yet the results of this study uncovered that the majority of elementary preservice teachers in a national sample (N = 846) have a simplistic perception of good citizenship consistent with what Westheimer and Kahne called a “personally responsible” model of citizenship. Follow-up interviews with 21 participants revealed a problematic trend among 14 participants: inadequate content knowledge and minimal support or even resistance to socially just action. As this trend is antithetical to a democratic government and the very nature of social studies, we recommend teacher educators attempt to move preservice candidates in the direction of adopting Westheimer and Kahne’s justice orientation toward citizenship when teaching elementary students in their future classrooms

Social Justice Through Citizenship Education: A Collective Responsibility

Existing research suggests that preservice elementary teachers tend to believe “good” citizens are people who follow laws and help others rather than people who embrace a more active model of citizenship that includes working to improve society. The authors propose that this trend results from a self-perpetuating cycle of passive citizenship that develops in part due to state curriculum standards and school experiences which focus on transmitting knowledge rather than preparing students to be active agents of change. The article presents the results of action research conducted in a teacher preparation course; the research was designed to investigate the impact of a systematic effort to see if preservice teachers’ perspectives could be broadened to include a social justice perspective. As a result of the findings, the authors argue that to counteract the cycle of passive citizenship, education to create a more socially just world must be a collective responsibility shared by teachers at all levels, K-16

A Comparison of the Effects on Throwing Velocity of Straight Plane versus Diagonal Plane Shoulder Exercises on 18-30 Year Old Non-Athletes

The purpose of this study was to examine changes in throwing velocity exhibited by subjects placed in a straight-line resistance-training group, a proprioceptive neuromuscular facilitation (PNF) resistance-training group, and a control group in order to compare benefits between training programs. Subjects were comprised of 42 college students between the ages of 18 and 30. The subjects were placed in one of the three experimental groups (straight-line resistance-training, PNF resistance training, and control) using Theraband™ elastic tubing. Each subject\u27s overhand throwing velocity was measured on two separate occasions separated by 8-weeks of training. Rate of perceived exertion (RPE) was used to assess subject intensity during training. Overhand throwing velocity in both the straight-line and the PNF resistance training groups showed a significant increase in throwing velocity when compared to the control group. There was no significant difference in throwing velocity exhibited between the straight-line and the PNF resistance-training groups. The results indicate that strength training can increase maximal throwing velocity in an 8 week period of time. Although the difference in velocity gains between the straight-line and the PNF resistance training groups were not statistically significant, the PNF program, due to the shorter time it takes to administer, may be of more benefit to the user than the straight-line resistance training program

Adolescents Prefer More Immediate Rewards When in the Presence of their Peers

Adolescents take more risks in the presence of their peers, but the mechanism through which peer presence affects risky decision-making is unknown. We propose that the presence of peers increases the salience of the immediate rewards of a risky choice. The current study examined the effect of peer presence on reward sensitivity in a sample of 100 late adolescents ages 18 through 20 (M=18.5) using a delay discounting task, which assesses an individual\u27s preference for immediate versus delayed rewards. Participants were randomly assigned to complete the task alone or with 2 same-age, same-sex peers observing. Consistent with our prediction, adolescents demonstrated a greater preference for immediate rewards when with their peers than when alone. Heightened risk taking by adolescents in the company of their friends may be due in part to the effect that being with one\u27s peers has on reward sensitivity

Adolescents Prefer More Immediate Rewards When in the Presence of their Peers

Adolescents take more risks in the presence of their peers, but the mechanism through which peer presence affects risky decision-making is unknown. We propose that the presence of peers increases the salience of the immediate rewards of a risky choice. The current study examined the effect of peer presence on reward sensitivity in a sample of 100 late adolescents ages 18 through 20 (M=18.5) using a delay discounting task, which assesses an individual\u27s preference for immediate versus delayed rewards. Participants were randomly assigned to complete the task alone or with 2 same-age, same-sex peers observing. Consistent with our prediction, adolescents demonstrated a greater preference for immediate rewards when with their peers than when alone. Heightened risk taking by adolescents in the company of their friends may be due in part to the effect that being with one\u27s peers has on reward sensitivity

Human Behavior Models for Agents in Simulators and Games: Part I: Enabling Science with PMFserv

This article focuses on challenges to improving the realism of socially intelligent agents and attempts to reflect the state of the art in human behavior modeling with particular attention to the impact of personality/cultural values and affect as well as biology/stress upon individual coping and group decision-making. The first section offers an assessment of the state of the practice and of the need to integrate valid human performance moderator functions (PMFs) from traditionally separated sub-fields of the behavioral literature. The second section pursues this goal by postulating a unifying architecture and principles for integrating existing PMF theories and models. It also illustrates a PMF testbed called PMFserv created for implementating and studying how PMFs may contribute to such an architecture. To date it interconnects versions of PMFs on physiology and stress (Janis-Mann, Gillis-Hursh, others); personality, cultural and emotive processes (Damasio, Cognitive Appraisal-OCC, value systems); perception (Gibsonian affordance); social processes (relations, identity, trust, nested intentionality); and cognition (affect- and stress-augmented decision theory, bounded rationality). The third section summarizes several usage case studies (asymmetric warfare, civil unrest, and political leaders) and concludes with lessons learned. Implementing and inter-operating this broad collection of PMFs helps to open the agenda for research on syntheses that can help the field reach a greater level of maturity. Part II presents a case study in using PMFserv for rapid scenario composability and realistic agent behavior

Human Behavior Models for Agents in Simulators and Games: Part II Gamebot Engineering with PMFserv

Many producers and consumers of legacy training simulator and game environments are beginning to envision a new era where psycho-socio-physiologic models could be interoperated to enhance their environments\u27 simulation of human agents. This paper explores whether we could embed our behavior modeling framework (described in the companion paper, Part 1) behind a legacy first person shooter 3D game environment to recreate portions of the Black Hawk Down scenario. Section 1 amplifies the interoperability needs and challenges confronting the field, presents the questions that are examined, and describes the test scenario. Sections 2 and 3 review the software and knowledge engineering methodology, respectively, needed to create the system and populate it with bots. Results (Section 4) and discussion (Section 5) reveal that we were able to generate plausible and adaptive recreations of Somalian crowds, militia, women acting as shields, suicide bombers, and more. Also, there are specific lessons learned about ways to advance the field so that such interoperabilities will become more affordable and widespread

A Demonstration of the PMF-Extraction Approach: Modeling The Effects of Sound on Crowd Behavior

The vast majority of psychology, sociology, and other social-science literature describing human behavior and performance does not reach the eyes of those of us working in the modeling and simulation community. Our recent work has been concerned with the extraction and implementation of Human Behavior Models (HBMs)/Performance Moderator Functions (PMFs) from this literature. This paper demonstrates how our methodology was applied to extract models of the effects of music and sound on both individuals and groups and to implement them in a simulated environment. PMFs describing how several classes of sound affect decision-making and performance were constructed based on well-established psychological models. These PMFs were implemented in a simulation of protesters and security guards outside a prison that demonstrates how the presence of chanting and music changes the response of protesters to police aggression. The extraction of PMFs from the literature, the synthesis of a coherent, cohesive model, and the implementation and results of the simulation are discussed

Affordance Theory for Improving the Rapid Generation, Composability, and Reusability of Synthetic Agents and Objects

This paper describes an effort to revise the PMFserv agent architecture in order to implement J.J. Gibson\u27s Affordance Theory. The theoretical justification for this revision is outlined along with the engineering constraints that inspired it. We describe the resulting architectural changes and the impact of those changes on the flexibility, ease of rapid scenario creation, and ability to reuse previous investments in knowledge engineering offered by our architecture. The level of effort required to build a new scenario within PMFserv both with and without the revisions suggested by Affordance Theory is compared. We conclude that Affordance Theory is an elegant solution to the problem of providing both rapid scenario development and the simulation of individual differences in perception, culture, and emotionality within the same agent architecture