Principal Investigator: Alison Bailey, Ph.D.
Despite two decades of largely restrictive state and federal policies toward bilingual education in the United States, such programming has experienced a recent resurgence in the form of dual language immersion (DLI). This demand signals a shift from viewing linguistic and cultural diversity as a challenge to be “overcome” to recognizing multilingualism and multiculturalism as assets to be fostered in young children (Bailey & Osipova, 2016). For dual language learners (DLL students) in English-dominant contexts, DLI programming offers the opportunity to learn language from English proficient peers and forestall the social isolation that they may experience in transitional bilingual education or sheltered English instruction (e.g., Steele et al., in press). For English dominant students, the experience can foster second language enrichment and broader cultural understanding, often signaling commitment to social justice and multiculturalism by their families (Bailey & Osipova, 2016).
New tablet personal computers, like the iPad, are widely available and making their way into schools. One of the next generation capabilities that we expect to become widely available on these machines is Sketch Understanding, a sketching software that can be used to help people create complex drawings. Our goal is to explore the utility of these computers, and the Sketch Understanding software, to help students create technical drawings. Specifically, we will ask 5th and 6th grade students to read a short science text and to use the tablet PC with Sketch Understanding software to draw a figure from that text. Our hope is to learn more about how to make sketch understanding useful software for school-age users. Data collection will involve the audio recording of interviews concerning science knowledge and usage of the Sketch Understanding software. Dr. Louis Gomez, a professor from the UCLA Graduate School of Education and Information Studies and Benny Cooper, a doctoral student at the UCLA GSE&IS, will conduct the research. Any questions about this study should be directed to Benny Cooper, at (310) 206-0199 or bennycooper@ucla.edu.
The goal of this research is to analyze the effectiveness of the MindYou : Mindfulness Program for elementary students. The program consists of two 30-minute mindfulness sessions every week for 8 weeks at a time. Each week in the 8 week program will focus on a separate theme such as “basics of breathing”, “handling difficult emotions,” and “empathizing with others.” Accompanied with these weekly themes will be a “play”book, which allow students to bring home their activities to engage their friends and families. During this program, the teachers will also be learning the basics of mindfulness and how to handle everyday situations with their students using mindfulness techniques and sustaining an empathizing, calm, and focused climate—a mindful climate. Each aspect of the program strives to instill and sustain a mindfulness culture. Before the program begins, after it ends, and 6 weeks after the first 8 weeks students and parents will submit questionnaires that will gauge the student’s focus, peer relationship, anxiety, mindfulness and overall mental health as it was before and after the program.
Parents will have to sign a consent form, in addition to the Lab School blanket consent, to allow their children to participate in the research. If there are any questions regarding this please contact Varun Agarwal at (831) 278-0457 vagarwal15@ucla.edu, or Dr. Robert Bilder at rbilder@mednet.ucla.edu.
This study explores the goals that students have for math class and how these goals are related to the way they engage in problem solving. The study will take place in an intermediate classroom and will focus on students’ self report about goals as well as how these goals are reflected in their problem solving activities. Classroom observations and interviews with the teacher and students will take place over the school year. In addition, students may be videotaped during mathematics class (if parents did not consent to their child being videotaped, then he or she will not be filmed). As parents have already signed the UCLA Lab School blanket consent forms, they are not required to sign additional forms. This study has been developed by Melissa Kumar, a UCLA doctoral student. She will be working with Professor Noel Enyedy, Director of Research at The Lab School as she carries out the project. Any questions about this study should be directed to Melissa Kumar (mjdkumar@ucla.edu or 206-7550767).