(EDITOR’S NOTE: This article was submitted for publication in BAHAMAS CHRONICLE by Dr. Patrice Juliet Pinder, who has a Doctoral Degree in Science Education and a post-doctoral Fellowships & Training in STEM Education.)
NASSAU, Bahamas, August 15, 2020 – Dr, Patrice Juliet Pinder, a Bahamian-born Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM) Educator and a globally recognized Research Expert, recently developed a “new learning model” or “educational model,” which accounts for or explains why some migrant and immigrant students often outperform native students.
The new learning model is a comprehensive, interdisciplinary model that combines biological, social-cultural (socio-cultural), and psychological-cultural (psycho-cultural) factors to best explain achievement success patterns of some migrant and immigrant student groups living in the wealthier continental regions of the world — North America, Europe, and Australia (i.e. continents with the highest reported GDP per capita for 2016 & 2019).
Overall, Dr. Pinder’s greater (theoretical) research examined and compared the academic performances of K–12 and college level migrant, immigrant, and native students in various academic subject areas: STEM disciplines, Reading, Language Arts, and Literacy. Although the tenets of Dr. Pinder’s current learning model and research speak to migrant groups’ dynamics within some of the wealthier regions of the world, Pinder believes that some aspects of her educational model and work might also apply to migrant groups within The Bahamas and the greater Caribbean region.
Development of this new educational learning model has been described as “a big, big deal in the international education, research and academic (collegiate) arenas.” Dr. Pinder’s new model and accompanying theoretical research, all recently published and released, present some contrast to and in some ways identify deficiencies inherent within a previous older theoretical learning model of Dr. John Ogbu—a renowned former Distinguished Professor and Research Scientist from the prestigious University of California at Berkeley.
Dr. Pinder’s new work “exploring an interdisciplinary theoretical model of migrant schooling to effectively account for achievement differences between migrant and native students” is published in the International Journal of TESOL and Learning and is available at the U.S. Department of Education’s ERIC online site.
Besides the aforementioned accomplishment, Dr. Pinder is making other significant and valuable local, regional, and global contributions within the areas of general education and STEM education. Locally, in February of 2018, Dr. Pinder partnered with the Lyford Cay International School to host The Bahamas’ first National Teacher-Training STEAM Game-Based Learning (GBL) Conference. In July of 2018, she collaborated with The Bahamas’ Ministry of Education Professional Development Division to conduct a National Teacher-Training Science and Math Game-Based Learning Workshop for Public School Primary Teachers.
Regionally, in 2016 she conducted teacher-training workshops in the area of play-based learning (GBL) in partnerships with Trinidad and Tobago’s Ministry of Education’s Research Development Division, The University of the West Indies, University Primary School, and El Dorado West Secondary Schools. She also conducted a grant-writing workshop for lecturers at the University of the West Indies’ School of Education in Trinidad.
At the global level, from 2014–2017, Dr. Pinder served as an “external reviewer” of STEMM dissertations for PhD Candidates at Niagara University, Niagara Falls, New York. Some of the students for whom Dr. Pinder served as an external reviewer were: Dr. Kien Trinh, MD, PhD, now Professor and Program Chair at the Michael G. DeGroote School of Medicine, McMaster University Faculty, Hamilton, Ontario, Canada; Dr. Julia T. Latorre, PhD, now Professor of Engineering and Engineering Education, School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, State University of New York (SUNY) at Buffalo, New York; and Dr. Kurt J. Minervino, PhD, now Professor of Education, Buffalo State College, and Earth Science Instructor, New York State Master Teacher Program.
Additionally, in August, 2017, Dr. Pinder partnered with Dr. Jinyan Huang, PhD (currently, Distinguished Professor & Director of the Research, Educational Assessment and Evaluation Institute, Jiangsu University, China) to co-facilitate a mixed-methods educational research mini-conference for PhD Candidates in China. Additionally, Dr. Pinder has published a STEM Education book entitled “Issues and Innovations in STEM Education Research: Theoretical and Empirical Studies by Early Career Researchers (she won a “Best Editor” award for this work).” She has also published numerous peer-reviewed journal articles, has presented at international conferences in the USA, Europe, and Asia. Recently, in late 2019, she was selected as one of several top researchers and presented her research work in Zhenjiang, Asia, along with other education experts from Hong Kong and the United States.
Dr. Pinder’s research works have been cited or quoted by more than 375 professors and researchers worldwide (see Dr. Patrice J. Pinder’s google scholar page), and prestigious universities have used her scholarly products, such as: Boston University (USA) in the graduate course “SED AP 551–Issues in Higher Education Administration (Spring, 2016),” Boise State University (USA) in the graduate course “ED TECH 541–Integrating Technology into the Classroom Curriculum (Spring, 2009),” University of the West Indies (2016–currently; www.untestedideas.net/scholars/pinder.html), and Universiti Teknologi Malaysia (Graduate Course in Research Methods, Qualitative Studies, 2015/2016). Additionally, Dr. Pinder serves the international educational profession in the following capacities:
- Editor-In-Chief, International Journal of Education & Culture (IJEC), USA
- Associate Editor, China US Education Journal (CUED), USA
- Invited Guest Peer-Reviewer, Top Tier Q1 Wiley Journal, Science Education, USA
- Invited Guest Peer-Reviewer, Top Tier Q1 Elsevier Journal, Social Science Research Journal (Quantitative Peer Review Journal), USA
- Invited Guest Peer-Reviewer, University of Toronto’s School of Education Journal, Canadian Journal of Science, Mathematics, & Technology Education, Canada
- Invited Guest Peer-Reviewer, Howard University’s School of Education Journal, The Journal of Negro Education, A Top Tier Q1 Journal, USA
- Invited Guest Article Editor & Article Peer-Reviewer, SAGE Journal ONLINE, STEM Education Division, USA
- And, Reviewer of international conference research papers for the prestigious: National Association for Research in Science Teaching (NARST, USA), and Association for Science Teacher Education (ASTE, USA).
Dr. Pinder is without a doubt a Bahamian woman achieving a lot on the international stage in a predominantly White Male Field of STEM. Sought after by institutions abroad, Dr. Pinder returned back home to The Bahamas permanently in 2017 after completing all of her education and training overseas. As a young patriotic Bahamian woman, Dr. Pinder returned back home to help our educational sectors to move forward in the areas of general education and STEM education.
Currently, that we are aware of, she is one of about five people residing in The Bahamas with an earned Doctoral Degree in Science Education and possibly one out of a very few persons in the country who did postdoctoral and extensive training in STEM Education. Dr. Pinder credits her continued successes in life to her strong faith in GOD, which keeps her humbled and blessed, an extended family of “excellence,” and to her international exposure and training within the United States. If you desire to speak with Dr. Pinder further, you may feel free to contact her at: dr.patricepinder@gmail.com.
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