Socially Optimized Learning in a Virtual Environment: Reducing Risky Sexual Behavior Among Men Who Have Sex With Men

A socially optimized learning approach, which integrates diverse theoretical perspectives, places men who have sex with men (MSM) in an interactive virtual environment designed to simulate the emotional, interpersonal, and contextual narrative of an actual sexual encounter while challenging and changing MSM's more automatic patterns of risky responses. MSM assume a character's identity and are scaffolded in their decision‐making and relearning process by supportive, and often humorous, peer coaches who encourage situated learning of self‐regulatory and behavioral skills, and tailor and frame their responses to be responsive to the men's behavioral choices. In a longitudinal design, participants were randomly assigned to receive either an interactive video (IAV) intervention with peer counseling or to a peer‐counseling‐alone control. Compared to the counseling alone, men who also received the IAV reduced risky anal sex behaviors and increased protected anal sex behaviors.     

Learning in Community for STEM Undergraduates: Connecting a Learning Sciences and a Learning Humanities Approach in Higher Education

Abstract

Previous research demonstrates that social and interpersonal factors, more than academic preparation, affect decisions by under-represented students to stay in or to leave STEM fields. Yet, much of the theorizing about STEM learning in higher education begins with conceptual and epistemological dimensions. We make the case for a new theoretical framework, a learning humanities, that begins with relationships. From this relational starting point, we locate STEM knowers as actors in relationships who become answerable for their STEM knowledge and take wise actions from this place. We then use this framework to analyze learning for STEM undergraduates involved in the STUDIO: Build Our World program, an afterschool mentoring program for low-income, immigrant, and refugee youth of color. Drawing on narrative and ethnographic analyses of data from 12 focal mentors, we found that mentors developed 3 focal practices identified by Edwards, relational expertise, common knowledge, and relational agency through their efforts to create the best possible program for youth. This built mentors’ sense of answerability and a capacity for wise action within and outside of STUDIO. We argue that this theoretical stance provides new ways to conceptualize the nature, purpose, and outcomes of STEM learning for historically non-dominant STEM undergraduates’ learning.