DECONSTRUCTING MINORITY WOMEN IN TELEVISED POPULAR CULTURE THROUGH THE LENS OF INTERCULTURAL PRAXIS K.S. Cyrus, C.A. Crump, T.D. Lockamy, K.L. Martin, A.R. Patterson-Masuka. Department of Mass Communications; kcyrus110@rams.wssu.edu; pattersona@wssu.edu PURPOSE: This presentation examines the intersection of popular culture and images of minority women in the context of intercultural communication and globalization. The researchers will seek to investigate popular television shows that highlight African American women including “Scandal and Being Mary Jane,” as a potential instrument for encouraging public dialogue on popular culture’s impact on the perception of minority women. Using the conceptual framework of Intercultural Praxis (Sorrells, 2012), the presenters will deconstruct the role of media in terms of intercultural communication, popular culture, globalization, capitalism, and resistance. Furthermore, the audience will be engaged with key questions such as: “What are the larger implications of popular culture and images of minority women?” and “How do these implications impact African American college females?”
DEVELOPMENT OF MOBILE APPLICATION FOR ACTIVE LEARNING IN THE COMPUTER SCIENCE CLASSROOM K. S. Davis, S., Whitaker, M. M. Fuad, D. Deb. Department of Computer Science; kdavis310@rams.wssu.edu, swhitaker111@rams.wssu.edu, fuadmo@wssu.edu, debd@wssu.edu PURPOSE: This project addresses a significant learning barrier experienced at many CS departments, especially at predominantly minority institutions, which is the problem of students’ inability to keep being engaged and interested in classroom. This project investigates the applicability of using mobile devices in the classroom and incorporation of interactive problem solving using those devices to increase class engagement and active learning for students. In this research, we present ongoing work on development of two interactive problem solving application intended for one sophomore and one junior level class in Computer Science. These applications and the associated classroom response system will allow students to actively participate in lecture materials using their mobile devices.
Funding provided by NSF grant # 1332531.
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