The role of academic mentors for Latino/a adolescents exposed to community violence

AimsWe examined the protective role of academic mentors for Latino/a youth exposed to community violence. We tested whether the mentor facilitation of positive growth and mentor school involvement moderated the relations between exposure to violence and Latino/a youth’s educational values, school effort, and academic efficacy.MethodsWe used hierarchical linear regressions to examine these relations among 210 Latino/a high school students.ResultsWitnessing violence and personal victimization was negatively related to all three educational outcomes. Mentor school involvement was positively related to all three educational outcomes, whereas mentor facilitation of growth was positively related to educational values only. A significant interaction between witnessing violence and mentor school involvement indicated that the negative relation between witnessing violence and educational values weakened at high levels of mentor school involvement.ConclusionWe discuss the benefits of academic mentoring and exploring effective mentoring characteristics with Latino/a youth exposed to violence.Peer Reviewedhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/150558/1/jcop22189_am.pdfhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/150558/2/jcop22189.pd

Methodological Considerations in the Analysis of Classroom Interaction in Community College Trigonometry

We report analyses of classroom interaction in trigonometry classes taught at an American community college focusing on two dimensions: the mathematical novelty of questions that instructors and students ask and the interactional moves that the instructors use to encourage student involvement in the lesson. The analyzed lessons were particularly challenging because existing frameworks that analyze classrooms did not account for the cases in which the delivery mode was lecture. We discuss the analytical strategies we used and show data to illustrate how they help us in capturing the complexity of classroom interaction and differences between instructors when lecture is the primary mode of instructional delivery. We conclude with suggestions for further work.National Science Foundation CAREER award DRL-0745474 to the first authorPeer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/96961/1/Mesa_Lande_MetConsClassInt_DEEPBLUE.pd

Transforming Teaching in Math and Science: How Schools and Districts Can Support Change. Sociology of Education Series

Teachers often want new ideas and approaches to improve their teaching but their efforts are often blocked by structural constraints in their districts and schools. This book answers the question of how schools can overcome these barriers to provide more supportive environments for change through the study of six cases of schools and districts in which teachers and researchers collaborated to develop teaching for understanding in math and science. This book provides: (1) a conceptual model of how school resources relate to teaching and learning focusing not only on material resources such as time and money, but also on human and social resources; (2) methods that administrators can use to support teachers who want to improve their teaching of math and science; (3) elements that professional developers should look for in a school environment when they are considering working with staff on teaching improvement; and (4) answers to important questions including how schools operate as organizations, how they control work, how they respond to changes in their environment, and how they improve classroom teaching and learning. (KHR