Collaborative and Creative Thinking Skill Development Through the Design of Wearable Technologies

Skills inherent in the creative thinking process such as reflecting and collaborating are needed for success in many careers. However, a focus on standardized testing in K-12 schools in the United States has resulted in the restructuring, reduction, and in some cases, elimination of arts in the curriculum to the detriment of students\u27 creative thinking process. The purpose of this study was to discover whether creative thinking and collaborative skills were positive unintended consequences of a curriculum that includes the design of wearable technologies. Jonassen\u27s modeling using Mindtools for conceptual change and Rosen\u27s culture of collaboration provided the conceptual framework. This qualitative case study explored students\u27 and teachers\u27 perceptions of collaborative and creative thinking skill development while designing wearable technologies. The data analysis used interviews with 3 students and 1 teacher and an evaluation of participant wearable technology artifacts. Rich themes and patterns were determined through open coding. The themes identified to explain the perceived development of creative thinking skills were divergent thinking, stimulation of the imagination, generation of new knowledge, and creative climate. The themes identified to explain the perceived development of collaborative skills were diverse membership, culture of collaboration, and community building. The design of wearable technologies as a Mindtool showed promise as a new way to integrate art with science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM). This study may effect positive social change by informing educational policy and influencing school budgetary consideration toward including art as a value-added benefit to STEM curriculum

Investigation of the Dietary Intake and Health Status in East Africa in the 1960s: A Systematic Review of the Historic Oltersdorf Collection

We have recently reported on the myriad health benefits of traditional East African foods and food habits. However, this region continues to experience a nutrition transition whereby traditional, well-tried foods have been systematically replaced with the products of multinational corporations. The health-related impact has been devastating, as evidenced by current non-communicable disease (NCD) trends. The purpose of the present investigation was to review the historic Oltersdorf Collection (data collated by the Max-Planck Nutrition Research Unit, Bumbuli Tanzania from the 1930s to 1960s) to determine if adherence to traditional East African food habits was positively associated with health status indices in populations residing in Tanzania, Kenya and Uganda during this period. The systematic review process resulted in six investigations being identified. Published between 1963 and 1969, these are likely the first investigations to provide original data pertaining to dietary intake/adequacy and health status indices within specific East African cohorts. Overall, the review revealed that many ethnic groups did not exhibit adequate dietary intake and did not consume a diversity of traditional whole foods representative of the wide spectrum of food choices available within the region at this time. NCDs such as obesity, hypertension, and type 2 diabetes were not reported in any investigation. However, there was substantial reporting of malnutrition-related and infectious diseases, particularly among children. The present review supports the contention that the shift from a traditional, diversified diet to a simplified, monotonous diet may have occurred with the onset of cash-crop farming. For resolution of nutrition-related epidemics currently plaguing Africa, including NCDs and malnutrition-related diseases (i.e., the double burden) it is critically important to investigate and disseminate evidence related to the fundamental contributors to the nutrition transition