2016 Novel Research ProjectsGame Based Learning in Primary STEM Instruction in Trinidad & Tobago”
This is a novel research project, which is a UWI School of Education STEM Lecturers/Researchers’ Team Project. It involves three components: (i) a teacher training component for primary school teachers in Trindad and Tobago, (ii) an implementation phase, which involves intertwining science and math games into traditional teaching units/curriculum units, and (iii) a research component, which assesses/examines the benefits or effects to students’ achievement and teachers’ teaching strategy of using science and math games with traditional teaching. The current project is a grant funded one year project. The research component of the project is mixed-methods and utilizes Infants 2, and Standards 3 and 5 students and teachers. Overall, researchers on this project are accumulating data to present adequate data findings, which will address the serious gap in the international research literature with respect to using and examining the effects of game based learning in primary schools in the Caribbean, specifically Trinidad and Tobago. “Caribbean and African Students’ Performance in STEM in the Diaspora--Canada,
USA, and the UK: A Test of John Ogbu’s Theoretical Model” A novel research project, which is an individual project of Dr. Patrice Pinder. Some of the initial data findings from this project was presented at the 2nd Untested Ideas Research Center’s Conference held in Rhodes, Greece. The study is: (i) looking at Afro-Caribbean and African immigrant students’ STEM performance in the diaspora--Canada, USA, and the UK, (ii) comparing Caribbean and African students’ STEM performance in Canada, USA, and the UK, and (iii) looking at the two immigrant students groups’ performance in light of John Ogbu’s Cultural-Ecological Theory, which postulates that the arrival status (voluntary arrival of immigrants to a new land of opportunity, e.g. Africans and Caribbean Islanders vs. involuntary arrival of immigrants to a new land, e.g. African Americans through the force of slavery) of immigrants to a “new” land of opportunity can affect their value systems and their “negative” or “positive” views/opinions of the Eurocentric educational system of their “new” country, which can result in either their “rejection” or “acceptance” of their new educational system. Moreover, this research study is critiquing and posing critical questions to john Ogbu’s 20 year old cultural-ecological theory and is calling for the revisiting of the theory in light of new data findings with Caribbean students in the UK. Please Note: John Ogbu was an outstanding cultural anthropological researcher out of the University of Calfornia at Berkeley. He was an immigrant to the USA from Nigeria and he died in 2003.
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