Children who live in under-resourced communities and attend under-resourced schools deserve access to high-quality teachers and educational opportunities to support their success and well-being. This study emerged from a professional development (PD) for urban teachers working in such schools, to expand educational opportunities for elementary students through outdoor science teaching. Engaging frameworks of communities of practice (CoP) and critical pedagogy of place (CPP), this critical ethnographic study investigates how urban elementary teachers engage in discourse about critical issues of place. Additionally, the investigation seeks to understand how a CoP supports such discourse. The primary data for this study were multiple sets of researcher field notes collected from participant teachers during virtual spring and in-person summer PD. Over the course of the PD, participants shifted from viewing their outdoor teaching spaces with a deficit perspective to an asset-focused one. As they visited one another’s teaching sites, the CoP the teachers were a part of created opportunity for discourse about social justice linked to issues of place within their particular school neighborhoods. The ability of urban elementary teachers to connect social justice to issues of place and to the teaching of science has implications for countering the injustice that characterizes many urban communities in the USA and elsewhere.

There is a decline in recent years in the number of students studying chemistry in higher education. Many studies have been conducted on elementary and high school students' choice with fewer focusing on the factors that influence undergraduate students to choose to major in chemistry. Research also indicates that belonging to a minority group influences the choice of pursuing science. Despite a higher percentage of Israeli Arab students studying chemistry in high school compared to Israeli Jewish students, the percentage of those who continue to study chemistry in higher education is small. They also lack sufficient representation in academia and industry. Analyzing the similarities and differences in the perceptions of Israeli Jewish and Arab students may shed light on the societal aspect and its role in shaping chemistry participation. This led us to ask the following questions concerning undergraduate chemistry students: (1) What are the factors that influence undergraduate chemistry students to choose a chemistry career? (2) What are the differences between Jewish and Arab undergraduate chemistry students in choosing chemistry career, if any? (3) How do the factors that influence chemistry career choice correlate, if at all? Guided by the social cognitive career theory (SCCT), we used quantitative and qualitative methods to identify and analyze factors and categories. These factors and categories were related to personal and environmental themes and influenced third-year chemistry undergraduate students to choose a chemistry career. 117 third-year undergraduate chemistry students took part in this research. The findings indicate that there are six major factors in choosing a career in chemistry by undergraduate students, which are divided into two themes, a personal theme, and an environmental theme. Our study shows that ‘self-efficacy – scientific/chemistry learning’ is secondary to students’ desire to complete an academic degree. The influence of their friends and family and extrinsic motivation related to rewards/status/prestige are more influential as well. When exploring differences between Israeli Jewish and Israeli Arab societies, our findings revealed variations in the factors influencing career choices. Our findings have practical implications for educational institutions aiming to foster a diverse and inclusive learning environment in chemistry education.

This is one of two contributions written to commemorate Professor Uri Leron, who became Associate Editor of what was then the International Journal for Computers and Mathematical Learning, a journal founded by Seymour Papert, and upon which Digital Experiences in Mathematics Education builds. One contribution includes memories from several current and former Editorial Board members. In this contribution, five former supervisees of Uri Leron share their stories.

In addition to the personal and professional development of the storytellers, the stories reflect upon the distinguished career of Prof. Leron—a mathematician, an educator, a mentor and a colleague. These stories reflect a scholarly exchange devoted to the debate upon the nature of mathematical and computer science thinking and teaching. These topics are addressed from a variety of perspectives—cognitive, social and psychological—to highlight Uri’s interest in computing as a way to express and explore mathematical and logical ideas.

Numerous studies have explored internal factors such as cultural values and acquired knowledge accounting for how people engage with science. However, it remains unclear how external factors embedded in science texts relate to audience engagement. A content analysis of 298 text-based popular science news articles and their following 5852 reader comments was conducted in two Israeli audiences, science-minded and general readers, to explore how the accessibility strategies embedded in these articles relate to cognitive, affective, and behavioral engagement. Findings indicated similar patterns of relationship between accessibility strategies and engagement expressions for both audiences; however, the relationships were more pronounced for general readers compared to science-minded readers. Using jargon and a narrative writing style increased the odds of positive emotions in reader comments, whereas addressing socio-scientific issues increased the odds of cognitive expressions. These results may contribute to a fuller understanding of ways to drive meaningful public engagement.

In this chapter, Wylie et al. demonstrate the effectiveness of using a well-known, preexisting text as a foundation for an accessible, audience-driven learning experience. The authors describe their findings in creating an informal science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) learning project based on Frankenstein--both the original 1818 novel by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley and the story's legacy of adaptation, translation, and remixing across decades.

Narrative comprehension relies on basic sensory processing abilities, such as visual and auditory processing, with recent evidence for utilizing executive functions (EF), which are also engaged during reading. EF was previously related to the “supporter” of engaging the auditory and visual modalities in different cognitive tasks, with evidence of lower efficiency in this process among those with reading difficulties in the absence of a visual stimulus (i.e. while listening to stories). The current study aims to fill out the gap related to the level of reliance on these neural circuits while visual aids (pictures) are involved during story listening in relation to reading skills. Functional MRI data were collected from 44 Hebrew-speaking children aged 8–12 years while listening to stories with vs without visual stimuli (i.e., pictures). Functional connectivity of networks supporting reading was defined in each condition and compared between the conditions against behavioral reading measures. Lower reading skills were related to greater functional connectivity values between EF networks (default mode and memory networks), and between the auditory and memory networks for the stories with vs without the visual stimulation. A greater difference in functional connectivity between the conditions was related to lower reading scores. We conclude that lower reading skills in children may be related to a need for greater scaffolding, i.e., visual stimulation such as pictures describing the narratives when listening to stories, which may guide future intervention approaches.

Preservice mathematics teachers are sometimes trained in programs so that they have both their own courses and joint courses with mathematics majors from the beginning of their studies. While this is thought to provide them with both deep mathematical knowledge and teaching-specific content right from the start, many of them report disaffection with and disengagement from mathematics during their very first semester. Current approaches often frame this from an individual’s perspective, investigating cognitive and affective individual differences among students. In contrast, we aim to understand this issue from a sociocultural perspective, examining underlying social processes. In this study, we thus explored preservice teachers’ experiences of the mathematics component of their training, using Holland and colleagues’ theory of figured worlds as a theoretical lens. Three group interviews with 14 preservice higher secondary teachers in a common mixed setting in Germany (one course specific to preservice teachers, one general mathematics course together with major students) were analyzed. Our findings displayed that the preservice teachers experienced two dichotomous figured worlds of mathematics and mathematics teaching. Our further analysis of their positioning between these worlds provided new insights to explain their disaffection, disengagement, and consequent learning behavior. We discuss practical implications, focusing on different teaching systems and interventions in teacher education.

Higher education institutions are trying to optimise course designs. During COVID-19, distance education became the primary teaching format worldwide, and current studies suggest that the online experience may have changed students’ learning format preferences, which prior to the pandemic leaned toward face-to-face (F2F) learning. This study aimed to (1) examine students’ stated and revealed (i.e. actual attendance) learning format preferences when provided F2F, synchronous online, and asynchronous online attendance options and (2) examine students’ perceived benefits and pitfalls of the three learning formats before and after their learning experience. Overall, 158 undergraduate students attended hybrid physics courses, allowing them to attend F2F, synchronously online via Zoom, or asynchronously online via lesson recordings. After the first lesson, students answered closed and open-ended questions about their stated learning format preferences. At the end of the course, students filled in their revealed learning format and answered open-ended questions regarding their motives. In addition, semi-structured interviews were conducted. Most students initially preferred to learn F2F, but many shifted to a hybrid format, combining F2F and online learning. Thematic analysis revealed themes concerning the benefits and pitfalls of each learning format, and interviews uncovered students’ behaviour.

Background

Smart devices have become an integral part of our lives. However, research has highlighted the potential implications of smartphone presence on task performance, particularly in young children. This study aimed to determine the effect of a smartphone presence on brainwaves associated with cognitive interruption in children.

Methods

EEG data were collected from 5.3 to 8.5-year-old children performing a simple reaction time task with and without the presence of a smartphone. Theta and alpha bands were calculated, and repeated measure analysis of variance was performed to assess the impact of two conditions on alpha and theta bands: 1) with the presence and; 2) without the presence of a smartphone. EEG waveforms were also correlated with standardized cognitive measures evaluating attention abilities using Pearson correlation.

Results

Theta and alpha activity values were higher in the absence vs the presence of a smartphone, with a significant difference between theta bands for the two study conditions. Moreover, the difference between theta bands in the two conditions was significantly correlated with lower scores on an auditory attention test.

Conclusions

The existence of an interactive electronic device during cognitive tasks is associated with alterations in brain activity related to cognitive control.

Impact

The presence of a smartphone during a simple reaction time task in young children was associated with a significant decrease in frontal theta frequency.

A trend of a decreased alpha band in the presence of a smartphone.

The differences in theta and alpha frequencies between conditions were significantly correlated with lower scores in auditory and visual attention and inhibition tests.

Aim Media use in children has exploded in the past several decades, most recently fuelled by portable electronic devices. This study aims to explore differences in functional brain connectivity in children during a story-listening functional MRI (fMRI) task using data collected before (1998) and after (2013) the widespread adoption of media. Methods Cross-sectional data were collected from English-speaking 5- to 7-year-old children at Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center, USA, of a functional MRI narrative comprehension task completed in 1998 (n = 22) or 2013 (n = 25). Imaging data were processed using a graph theory approach, focusing on executive functions, language and visual processing networks supporting reading. Results Group differences suggest more efficient processing in the fronto-parietal network in the pre-media group while listening to stories. A modulation of the visual and fronto-parietal networks for the post-media exposure group was found. Conclusion Further studies are needed to assess effects over time in the more exposed group to discern a causal effect of portable devices on cognitive networks.