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Studies have demonstrated students' resistance to active learning, despite evidence illustrating that their learning is improved relative to students in lectures. Specifically, while active learning and group work are effective at engaging students in their learning process, studies report that students' perceptions of active learning approaches are not always positive. What remains underexplored is whether students' perceptions of active learning improve with effective instructor facilitation and whether there exists differential perceptions between racially minoritized students and represented students. Here, we estimate students' perceptions of effective instructor facilitation as the mediator in the relationship between active learning and perceptions of learning and perceived utility for class activities (task value). Then, we examine differences by racial identification. We collected classroom observation data to empirically categorize courses as active learning or lecture-based and surveyed 4,257 college students across 25 STEM classrooms at a research-intensive university. We first examined the relationship between active learning on student perceptions and found a negative relationship between active learning and perceptions of learning and task value for both racially minoritized students and represented students. Next, we assessed whether students' perceptions of instructor effectiveness in facilitating group activities mediate these negative relationships. We found that, on average, students of all races were more likely to positively perceive instructor facilitation in active learning classes relative to lectures. In turn, the positive perceptions of instructor facilitation partially suppressed the negative relationship between active learning and perceptions of learning and task value. These results demonstrate that effective instructor facilitation can influence both students' self-assessment of learning and perceived utility of the learning activities, and underscores the importance of developing pedagogical competence among college instructors.

Youth-staff relationships and program activities are important elements in designing high-quality afterschool activities that promote a broad range of outcomes. Using a qualitative approach, Latinx adolescents were interviewed (n = 28, 50% girls) about their experiences in a university-based afterschool math enrichment activity. Findings under the first goal of the study suggest that Latinx adolescents perceived changes in their math-specific outcomes (e.g., problem-solving skills), future science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) pathways (e.g., envisioning a future career), and social-emotional skills (e.g., relationship skills) as a result of participating in the activity. Under the second goal of the study, findings identified the specific practices that adolescents thought promoted those outcomes, including incorporating advanced math concepts and engaging in collaborative learning, engaging in campus tours and informal conversations, and using culturally responsive practices. The findings from this study can be leveraged by scholars and educators to design, further strengthen, and evaluate high-quality afterschool activities.

Opportunities for collaborative learning reflect positive peer processes that have strong implications for adolescents' developmental experiences in afterschool programs (ASPs). However, collaborative learning, which involves considering multiple viewpoints and coordinating actions with peers to accomplish a shared goal, is often difficult for adolescents to navigate. Utilizing qualitative methods, the purpose of this study was to identify ASP mentoring strategies that promote collaborative learning among adolescent participants. Based on the experiences and perspectives of college student mentors who serve as frontline staff of a math enrichment ASP for Latino/a middle school students, we identified four mentoring strategies that promote collaborative learning: (1) nurturing personal connections with and among youth, (2) establishing positive group norms, (3) strategically splitting groups and work, and (4) modeling collaborative behaviors. These strategies reflect best practices that frontline staff can utilize to promote adolescents' collaborative learning, skill development, and engagement in ASPs. Practical implications and directions for future research are discussed.

We discuss two proof evaluation activities meant to promote the acquisition of learning behaviors of professional mathematics within an introductory undergraduate proof-writing course. These learning behaviors include the ability to read and discuss mathematics critically, reach a consensus on correctness and clarity as a group, and verbalize what qualities "good" proofs possess. The first of these two activities involves peer review and the second focuses on evaluating the quality of internet resources. All of the activities involve groupwork and reflective discussion questions to develop students' experience with these practices of professional mathematics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Latine parents from lower socioeconomic backgrounds in the United States (US) often face challenges when supporting their adolescents’ education in subjects like math. Guided by strengths-based, culturally grounded frameworks, this study explored the challenges Latine parents faced when supporting adolescents’ math learning and how they leveraged their community cultural wealth via specific strategies to address challenges. We conducted semi-structured qualitative interviews with 20 Latine-descent parents (19 mothers, one father; 12 with less than a high school education, five with a high school education, three with some college education) of adolescents (eight girls, 12 boys; eight 6th graders, seven 7th graders, and five 8th graders) attending four middle schools in southern California. Systematic coding and theming of the interview data were used to help identify challenges parents experienced at the individual level (e.g., gaps in content/curriculum knowledge, problems with technology, linguistic differences) and at the contextual level (e.g., conflicting obligations, nonideal circumstances). Parents used their community cultural wealth by employing five strategies: (a) working closely with adolescents, (b) seeking help from their social networks, (c) providing learning spaces and organized activities to help, (d) using digital tools, and (e) hoping to build their knowledge and skills in the future. Finally, analyses revealed emergent linkages between specific math support challenges and adaptive strategies. The findings underscore the utility of leveraging parents’ cultural funds of knowledge and community cultural wealth to understand not just the math-specific needs of Latine families but also how families already actively address challenges to math support. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The main theme of this article is the phenomenality. Jan Patočka's asubjective phenomenology distinguishes itself by the description of the plan of phenomenality, where beings can appear and that is independent from everything which appears in it. Only by an universalization of the phenomenological epoché, it is possible to turn our eyes towards the phenomenality itself and to understand its independence. To put the theme of the world and the consciousness between brackets means to discover the structure of the phenomenality, which is constituted by what appears, to which something appears and the way of appearance. The world is the transcendental field of appearance. Everything appears in the world. It is the whole, always given and opened to the human being. The subjectivity is a moment of phenomenality that presupposes the relation with the world. It has a role that makes it an "existence". It is that to which something appears. Finally the way of appearance: the characters of the phenomenality are "objective mediators". Mediators because they show the strings that build up the field of appearance, objective because wordly. What they show, even if in the darkness of the absence, is the relation with the world. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]