CEHS Well Represented at TEDxUSU

Utah State University offered up a variety of experts on a wide range of topics during its TEDxUSU event last week.

And if you’re wondering how to finish the day with a little spare energy, or extract your foot from your mouth after a social blunder or help your kids stand up for social justice, the Emma Eccles Jones College of Education and Human Services had just the TEDx talk for you.

Their advice will be available later this month, on video and in their own words. In the meantime, here's a quick walk through the CEHS presentations.

Tween Activism in a Virtual World

Adults are a little leery of kids spending time online. What about cyber bullying? Predators? Too much screen time?

But Deborah Fields, an assistant professor in Instructional Technology and Learning Sciences, observed something encouraging when she studied tween interactions in the Whyville virtual world: concern for social justice.

Kids called for action when they noticed their friends were having trouble creating an avatar with skin that was anything but peachy-white. They took it on themselves to design some alternatives.

And when server trouble reduced them all to a basic “potato head” (or the smiley face they all started with, before they created an avatar), some of them turned it into a celebration of a day when no differences were visible. They wished each other a happy Potato Day.

“Where else do kids have this kind of governance?” Fields asked.

And in the real world, do we allow our children to correct injustice, or do we just give them some early practice on how to sit on the sidelines?

Do You Live an Energy Efficient Life?

Jenna Glover admits her life was draining — not necessarily because of the day’s events but because of a number of small decisions that began with the debate about whether to get out of bed on time.

Those decisions — like whether to skip breakfast or pack a lunch — really did have an impact on her own personal energy level. And when that level is low, she said, people tend to make decisions based on short-term goals.

Then they turn around and kick themselves for their “low willpower.”

“My job was to help people change,” she said. (She was formerly an assistant professor in psychology at USU and is currently a therapist at Avalon Hills in Paradise, Utah.)

So Glover decided to use her expertise on herself. She began developing good habits — like eating a nutritious breakfast and lunch every day — and let go of some bad practices that were holding her back.

Look at the things you’re holding onto, she urged her listeners.

“If it’s holding you back, I encourage you to let it go.”

Taking Chances to Reach Students

Nicole Martineau, a biology education major and theater arts minor, is passionate about the story of Rosalind Franklin. The English chemist and X-ray crystallographer contributed to the understanding of DNA structure. Four years after her death, researchers Francis Crick and James Watson received the Nobel Prize for their model of DNA. Though her research led to their double helix model, she was given little credit for her work.

Martineau did a dramatic presentation of Franklin as part of a pilot study that mixed biology and theater.

“When I asked high school students to help me change history, they bought it,” she said.

Franklin’s story brought up ethical issues (her X ray photos of DNA were shown to Crick and Watson without her knowledge) as well as biological and chemical ones.

Teachers, like Franklin, are unsung heroes with a difficult job to do: like holding the attention of two dozen bored seventh graders. Martineau said her study looked at the effects of injecting the arts into science, technology, engineering and math.

The results of this undergraduate research were not what she expected. And, like many researchers before her, Martineau is reexamining her methods, re-evaluating her work and finding scientific literature that convinces her that arts and sciences can strengthen each other.

Because where would science be without creativity?

No Way but Through

If Melanie Domenech Rodriguez can say something culturally insensitive, then nobody is immune. The professor in the Psychology Department specializes in diversity issues. And yet, in a conversation she slipped and used a term that offended her friend — and experienced the sinking feeling that comes with the words, “Did you hear what you just said?”

So what do you do when something you say leaves you feeling like you just stepped in dog poo?

“When we hurt somebody, we need to put the focus on them,” she said.

This means acknowledging and apologizing for the mistake, rather than insisting that you didn’t mean to give offense. It means thanking the person for pointing out the problem. And it means resisting the urge to ask what you can do to make it better, because that just shifts the focus away from the offender.

Instead, if it’s possible, say what you will do to make amends — even if it’s just embarking on some self-education.

“All of us have blind spots,” Rodrigues said. “Make different and better mistakes every time.”

Editor’s note: These are just a few of the highlights from the recent TEDxUSU event. See what else the students and faculty from the Emma Eccles Jones College of Education and Human Services have to offer during CEHS week. The college includes the departments of Communicative Disorders and Deaf Education; Family, Consumer and Human Development; Health, Physical Education and Recreation; Instructional Technology and Learning Sciences; Psychology; Special Education and Rehabilitation; and the School of Teacher Education and Leadership.