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Students benefit when faculty develop their teaching practice. This study aimed to identify why faculty seek professional development (PD), barriers to addressing classroom needs, and the benefit of PD in developing an understanding of classroom diversity at an HSI. Data from over 400 participants indicate a desire for classroom and online engagement activities. Faculty also described PD as facilitating the building of a community of peers engaged in student success while better understanding shifting demographics.

We report on a qualitative research study that identifies both challenges and successes resulting from the implementation of a Peer Education program at an urban, Hispanic-serving, Tier 1 Research University. By drawing on the experiences of 29 peer educators, we demonstrate the ways that combining peer mentoring and tutoring provided benefits for those who were not only served but those who served them. Lessons learned are shared.

This article details the joint collaboration of a large-scale program that brings multiple middle schools and the local high school together for a mini-comic book convention. Collaboration with other librarians, administrators, and community members are highlighted.

Here we share results from a larger study of professional development (PD) provided to faculty at Research I Urban University (RIUU), where STEM faculty modeled active learning strategies and provided ready-to-use STEM materials to teaching staff. Data from 94 STEM faculty, who comprised 27% of the total participants (N = 340), demonstrated a knowledge benefit and a desire for additional student demographic information to help faculty further understand students' needs, particularly those from underserved communities. We conclude with recommendations to university stakeholders seeking to engage teaching staff in active learning strategies which support student engagement and learning.

The geometry formed by the walls of a room is known to be a potent cue in reorientation, yet little is known about the use of geometric information gleaned from other contexts. We used functional magnetic resonance imaging to examine neural activity in adults while reorienting in 3 different environments: the typical rectangular walled room, a rectangular configuration of pillars in an open field, and a rectangular floor in an open field. Behavioral response patterns for the 3 environments were similar, but pairwise contrasts of brain activation revealed differences at the neural level. We observed greater medial temporal lobe (MTL) involvement when reorienting with the pillars versus the walls and floor. In addition, the walled room selectively engaged areas of posterior parahippocampal cortex corresponding to the parahippocampal place area, when compared with the floor. Finally, a conjunction analysis of the 3 geometry conditions, compared with a control task, revealed activation in the primary auditory cortex that was common to all geometry conditions. These findings add to growing evidence that adults use verbal processes to encode environment geometry and that the reorientation tasks that young children find difficult are particularly hippocampus-dependent. (Contains 3 tables and 5 figures.)

Recent studies have used spatial reorientation task paradigms to identify underlying cognitive mechanisms of navigation in children, adults, and a range of animal species. Despite broad interest in this task across disciplines, little is known about the brain bases of reorientation. We used functional magnetic resonance imaging to examine neural activity in adults during a virtual reality version of the reorientation task. Three environments that varied in the cues provided were studied: a rectangular room with 4 identical gray walls (Geometry), a square room with 3 gray walls and 1 red wall (Feature), and a rectangular room with 3 gray walls and 1 red wall (Feature + Geometry). Multiple areas within the medial temporal lobe (MTL) showed increased activation when a feature was present compared with when reorientation was based only on geometric cues. In contrast, reliance on geometric cues significantly activated a number of non-MTL structures, including the prefrontal cortex and inferior temporal gyrus. These results provide neural evidence for processing differences between the 2 types of cue as well as insight into developmental and comparative aspects of reorientation. (Contains 2 tables and 4 figures.)

Children ages 2, 3 and 4 years participated in a novel hide-and-seek search task presented on a touchscreen monitor. On beacon trials, the target hiding place could be located using a beacon cue, but on landmark trials, searching required the use of a nearby landmark cue. In Experiment 1, 2-year-olds performed less accurately than older children on landmark trials but performed equivalently on beacon trials. In Experiment 2, the number of items on the screen was reduced and 2-year-olds' performance improved. Use of the landmark transformation technique in Experiment 3 revealed that older children formed a more precise landmark-target spatial relationship than 2-year-olds. Experiment 4 showed that the transformation itself was not responsible for the youngest participants' decreased accuracy in Experiment 3. Overall, beacons were utilized effectively by all participants, but the use of landmark cues is refined between the ages of 2 and 4.

Metamemory, the ability to report on memory strength, is clearly established in rhesus macaques (Macca mulatta) by converging evidence from several paradigms. In contrast, A. Inman and S. J. Shettleworth (1999) found no conclusive evidence of metamemory in pigeons. The authors studied pigeons further in 3 paradigms, with multiple tests of metamemory in each. Pigeons encountered a safe alternative to a matching-to-sample test either before (Experiment 2) or concurrently with (Experiment 3) the matching lest. Choices of the safe option did not vary consistently with matching accuracy or change in trials with omitted samples in the way predicted for an animal with metamemory. In Experiment 4, confidence ratings following completion of the matching test also did not vary consistently as predicted by metamemory. Keywords: metacognition, pigeons, memory, awareness

The relative importance of an internal sense of direction based on inertial cues and landmark piloting for small-scale navigation by White King pigeons (Columba livia) was investigated in an arena search task. Two groups of pigeons differed in whether they had access to visual cues outside the arena. In Experiment 1, pigeons were given experience with 2 different entrances and all pigeons transferred accurate searching to novel entrances. Explicit disorientation before entering did not affect accuracy. In Experiments 2-4, landmarks and inertial cues were put in conflict or tested 1 at a time. Pigeons tended to follow the landmarks in a conflict situation but could use an internal sense of direction to search when landmarks were unavailable.

Rats homed with food in a large lighted arena. Without visual cues, they used dead reckoning. When a beacon indicated the home, rats could also use the beacon. Homing did not differ in 2 groups of rats, I provided with the beacon and 1 without it; tests without the beacon gave no evidence that beacon learning overshadowed dead reckoning (Experiment 1). When the beacon was at the home for 1 group and in random locations for another, there was again no evidence of cue competition (Experiment 2). Dead reckoning experience did not block acquisition of beacon homing (Experiment 3). Beacon learning and dead reckoning do not compete for predictive value but acquire information in parallel and are used hierarchically.

Using the landmark-transformation technique, researchers have shown that pigeons (Columba livia) tend to encode a goal location relative to 1 landmark, even when multiple landmarks are in the vicinity of the goal. The current experiments examined pigeons' ability to use configural information from a set of landmarks by making the arrangement of 4 landmarks a discriminative cue to the location of buried seeds. Results showed that pigeons used information from the 3 consistently placed landmarks to search accurately when 1 landmark was displaced. Findings indicate that pigeons are able to search for a goal using information from multiple landmarks instead of just 1 and that landmark use by these birds may be more flexible than previously theorized.

Objectives: Substantial construct overlap exists between indicators of frailty and symptoms of some psychiatric disorders. This study aimed to gain consensus of expert academic opinion on the potential impact of psychiatric illness on frailty assessment and how best to conceptualise and measure frailty indicators in the context of psychiatric symptoms. Design: A classic Delphi approach was employed across two studies to achieve consensus: The first‐round questionnaire consisted of open‐ended questions, analysed through content analysis. The results informed the development of statements for participants to rate their agreement with in subsequent Delphi rounds. Statements with ≥66% agreement were accepted. Delphi Study 1 recruited experts in frailty assessment (n = 13) and Delphi Study 2 recruited experts in frailty and psychiatric disorder (n = 8). Experts were recruited globally. Results: Overall, 40% of Delphi Study 1 statements and 43% of Delphi Study 2 statements were accepted. Primarily, consensus was reached for statements concerning the influence of depression/anxiety on frailty assessment and potential methods of conceptualising and measuring frailty indicators in the context of psychiatric symptoms. Little consensus was reached concerning the ease and importance of differentiating between frailty indicators and psychiatric assessment criteria with substantial overlap. Conclusions: The Delphi studies provide a novel exploration and consensus of expert academic opinions concerning the assessment of frailty indicators in the context of psychiatric symptoms. The results will inform future research into the adaptation or development of a frailty assessment tool specifically for use in older adult psychiatric populations. Key points: Through two expert Delphi studies, the impact of psychiatric symptoms on the assessment of frailty in older adults was explored, as was how best to measure frailty indicators in the context of psychiatric symptoms.Consensus was reached for statements concerning the influence of depression/anxiety on frailty assessment and potential methods of measuring frailty indicators in the context of psychiatric symptoms.Identifying co‐morbid frailty in older adult psychiatric populations is vital for effective treatment planning and provision. The Delphi results will inform future developments in assessing frailty in such populations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]