scholarly journals “That Makes Sense Now!": Bicultural Middle School Students’ Learning in a Culturally Relevant Science Classroom

2021 ◽  
Vol 23 (2) ◽  
pp. 145-172
Author(s):  
Deoksoon Kim ◽  
So Lim Kim ◽  
Mike Barnett
Keyword(s):  
Middle School ◽  
Culturally Relevant Pedagogy ◽  
Culturally Relevant ◽  
Science Classroom ◽  
School Students ◽  
Cultural Objects ◽  
Case Study Design ◽  
Multiple Case ◽  
Relevant Pedagogy

This study describes how culturally relevant pedagogy in a project-based science class improved student engagement and comprehension. We focus on bicultural students exploring cultural objects and household inventions with family members, connecting scientific concepts to their families’ funds of knowledge. We use a multiple-case study design to explore six middle school bicultural students’ experiences with culturally relevant activities. Findings describe bidirectional knowledge transfer between the home and the classroom in a way that engaged students, affirmed their home cultures, and facilitated subject matter learning. 

scholarly journals Impact of an Informal Science Program: Middle School Gifted Science Students

2014 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 641-650
Author(s):  
Dr. Abha Singh
Keyword(s):  
Middle School ◽  
Middle School Students ◽  
Accelerated Learning ◽  
Informal Science ◽  
Science Program ◽  
School Students ◽  
Challenges And Opportunities ◽  
Multiple Case ◽  
Gifted Middle School Students

This research explores an informal science program (ISP) in fulfilling the needs of talented and gifted middle school students. Specifically, it discusses the need of teachers’ continued professional development and the unique challenges and opportunities inherent in instructing gifted middle school students. It further focuses on characteristics of successful teaching strategies and methods for identifying and training teachers. The study uses a constructivist framework to examine teaching methods and suggests that constructivism is an appropriate method for instructing gifted middle school students.The research reflects the results of an embedded descriptive multiple case study of six teachers in the informal science program, an initiative to provide middle school students in rural midwestern states with opportunities for accelerated learning in science.

scholarly journals Digital storytelling as a tool for reflection in virtual reality projects

2021 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 101-121
Author(s):  
Deoksoon Kim ◽  
Merijke Coenraad ◽  
Ho Ryong Park
Keyword(s):  
Middle School ◽  
Virtual Reality ◽  
Middle School Students ◽  
Digital Storytelling ◽  
Project Based Learning ◽  
Learning And Development ◽  
School Students ◽  
Digital Stories ◽  
Multiple Case

Reflection is essential for learning and development, especially among middle school students. In this paper, we describe how middle school students can engage in reflective learning by composing digital stories in a project-based learning environment employing virtual reality. Adopting multiple case study methods, we examined the digital stories of five students, together with classroom observations and interviews about their experiences, in order to explore how digital storytelling can allowed students to reflect upon their experiences in a year-end capstone program. Creating digital stories allowed students to 1) reflect on their learning experiences teaching younger students with virtual reality, 2) present their reflections in multiple modalities, and 3) make connections between their present experiences and the past and future. This study demonstrates how digital storytelling can enable multimodal reflection for middle school students, particularly within technology-focused project-based learning environments. Keywords: digital storytelling; project-based learning; reflection; middle school learners

Middle School Teachers and Undergraduate Mentors Collaborating for Culturally Relevant STEM Education

2021 ◽  
pp. 004208592110584
Author(s):  
Meredith W. Kier ◽  
Lindy L. Johnson
Keyword(s):  
Middle School ◽  
Middle School Teachers ◽  
Culturally Relevant ◽  
Urban School District ◽  
School Teachers ◽  
Culturally Relevant Education ◽  
Curriculum And Pedagogy ◽  
Multiple Case ◽  
Relevant Education

This qualitative multiple case study explores the collaborations between three STEM middle school teachers and three STEM undergraduate mentors of color in an urban school district. Drawing on sociocultural theories and literature on culturally relevant education, we used a comparative thematic approach to explore how mentors contributed to culturally relevant opportunities in STEM curriculum and pedagogy. We found that the partners’ STEM identities, how the teacher positioned the mentor in the learners’ experience, and the teachers’ philosophy of the purpose of engineering influenced the contribution undergraduate mentors could make to rigorous and equitable engineering instruction.

Teaching Race in U.S. History: Examining Culturally Relevant Pedagogy in a Multicultural Urban High School

2018 ◽  
Vol 198 (1) ◽  
pp. 63-77 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christopher C. Martell
Keyword(s):  
High School ◽  
Culturally Relevant Pedagogy ◽  
Culturally Relevant ◽  
Positive Response ◽  
Ethnically Diverse ◽  
Urban High School ◽  
Race And Racism ◽  
Beliefs And Practices ◽  
Relevant Pedagogy

In this interpretative case study, the researcher examined the beliefs and practices of three self-identifying culturally relevant social studies teachers related to their teaching of U.S. history at a racially and ethnically diverse urban high school. The teachers displayed beliefs and practices that were aligned with the core criteria of culturally relevant pedagogy (CRP), while also centering their U.S. history classrooms on race and racism. However, the teachers described and exhibited CRP through three different models: exchanging, discovering, and challenging. Despite these differences, the students reported a positive response to their teacher’s use of CRP.

scholarly journals Drawing-to-Learn: Active and Culturally Relevant Pedagogy for Biology

2021 ◽  
Vol 6 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anna F. Edlund ◽  
Meena M. Balgopal
Keyword(s):  
Active Learning ◽  
Mental Models ◽  
Culturally Relevant Pedagogy ◽  
Culturally Relevant ◽  
Natural World ◽  
Tibetan Buddhist ◽  
New Knowledge ◽  
Concrete Representations ◽  
Relevant Pedagogy

Students enter biology classrooms with ideas about the natural world already formed. Teachers can help students construct new knowledge by using active, culturally relevant pedagogy and by making space in their lesson for students to reveal, challenge, and/or reconcile their preconceptions with new knowledge. Drawing meets all of these needs. Drawing-to-learn (DTL) allows students to be metacognitive and creative as they generate concrete representations of their abstract conceptions. In this case study of biology classes for Tibetan Buddhist monastic students through the Emory-Tibet Science Initiative, we find that DTL engages students in active learning, allows multi-modal visualization and discourse about mental models, and beyond this, solicits cultural references from both students and teachers.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document