Learning environment profiles of Turkish secondary biology classrooms

The purposes of this study were to examine how Turkish students perceived their biology classroom environment, how their perceptions compared to those of students in other countries, and what classroom learning environment profiles could be discerned in Turkish high school biology classrooms. Data were gathered from 1,474 high school students in four inner city schools, in Bursa, Turkey. A total of 11 biology teachers participated in the study with 52 of their classes. Data on students’ perceptions of their learning environment were collected with the What Is Happening In this Class? (WIHIC) questionnaire. Results indicated that Turkish classrooms were perceived as being low in terms of Teacher Support and high in terms of Task Orientation. Six distinct classroom learning environment profiles were found: the ‘self-directed learning classroom’, ‘task-oriented cooperative learning classroom’, ‘mainstream classroom’, ‘task-oriented individualised classroom’, ‘low-effective learning classroom’ and ‘high-effective learning classroom’. The most common profile was the ‘mainstream classroom’ for which all WIHIC scales had medium–high scores.     

Students’ Reasoning about the Future of Disturbed or Protected Ecosystems & the Idea of the ‘Balance of Nature’

This paper is part of a larger study that aims at highlighting students’ interpretations of the idea of the ‘Balance of Nature’, as well as its use in their reasoning about the future of an ecosystem, in order to subsequently develop a learning environment that might promote a reconsideration of its validity and usefulness. Our focus here is particularly set on whether and how non biology-major students use this idea when making predictions about (a) the future of an ecosystem that is supposed to have suffered a human-driven disturbance, and (b) the future of an ecosystem that is supposed to be protected against such disturbances. Administering a questionnaire of 12 items - 4 of which concern us here - to 61 1st-year educational sciences students at the University of Patras, we traced - among others - their reasoning about (a) the future of three ecosystems (forest, sea, lake), supposed to have suffered different human-driven disturbances (fire, oil spill, new population introduction), and (b) the future of a protected forest ecosystem of a national park. According to our findings, most of the students found it very likely for a disturbed ecosystem to fully recover its initial state - mainly due to a ‘recovery process’ or inherent ‘recovery mechanisms’ - showing a strong belief in an extremely resilient ‘Balance of Nature’. Moreover, most of them appeared to believe that if human-protected, an ecosystem will be in a continuous ‘balance’, while very few were skeptical enough to claim a non-predictable future for it.     

New Learning Environments and Constructivism: The Students’ Perspective

Research into students’ perceptions of their learning environments reveals the impact of these perceptions on the way students cope with these learning environments. Consequently, students’ perceptions affect the results of their learning. This study aims to investigate whether students in a new learning environment (NLE) perceive it to be more constructivist when compared with the perceptions students have of a conventional lecture-based environment. Using a questionnaire consisting of seven key factors of constructivist learning environments, the results show that students in the NLE perceive it to be more constructivist when compared to the perceptions of students in a conventional lecture-based environment. The difference was statistically significant for four of the seven factors. According to the effect size, as measured by the d-index, the difference in perception between the two groups was greatest for the factor ‘conceptual conflicts and dilemmas’. in final form: 31 May 2005     

Theory and Practice in Mathematics Teaching Development: Critical Inquiry as a Mode of Learning in Teaching

In this paper I address the challenge of developing theory in relation to the practices of mathematics teaching and its development. I do this by exploring a notion of ‘teaching as learning in practice’ through overt use of ‘inquiry’ in mathematics learning, mathematics teaching and the development of practices of teaching in communities involving teachers and educators. The roles and goals of mathematics teachers and educators in such communities are both distinct and deeply intertwined. I see an aim of inquiry in teaching to be the ‘critical alignment’ (Wenger, 1998) of teaching within the communities in which teaching takes place. Inquiry ‘as a tool’ and inquiry ‘as a way of being’ are important concepts in reflexive developmental processes in which inquiry practice leads to better understandings and development of theory.     

Concept Mapping and Peirce's Semiotic Paradigm Meet in the Classroom Environment

This article grapples with the problem of how to track a student's real progress in learning, which cannot be absolutely quantified at any given point as a result of a particular intervention. Results are presented for a long-term qualitative and quantitative classroom study, during which the method of concept mapping was applied and interpreted in light of the semiotic paradigm developed by Charles Sanders Peirce (1931–1958). Peirce's semiotic paradigm was thought to have sufficient intellectual rigour and flexibility to give new access to the multiplicity of processes at work in the learning environment. A natural learning environment was built over a four-year period in a Finnish primary school. The students, ranging in age from 9–12 years, were encouraged to use qualitative judgement (intuition, tacit knowledge) to give them greater intellectual access to the meanings of the concepts taught. The goal was to bring them to Vygotsky's stage of ‘conceptual learning’, and to evaluate the effectiveness of concept mapping as an ‘advance organiser’ used in conjunction with Peirce's semiotic paradigm. This article evaluates the success of concept mapping in constructing a conceptually-meaningful learning environment. The qualitative results - and certain quantitative evidence - show that concept mapping provided a means for students to discover tentative meanings for the concepts taught. In parallel, Peirce's semiotic paradigm provided a pragmatic framework for tracking the process of ‘updating meanings’ which is intrinsic to learning. This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Developing a Primary Science Methods Classroom

The purpose of this paper is to describe how and why a primary science methods classroom was conceived, designed, and developed for preservice and inservice teachers. Just as science educators believe that students learn best by constructing their knowledge of the natural world with the aid of a teacher and colleagues, science educators also believe that preservice and inservice teachers should learn in a collaborative and constructivist environment. Multiple dimensions relating to the dynamic processes of learning to teach, a ‘technical factor’ related to the physical and resource constraints that exist within a school, and sociocultural theory were used for the theoretical framework. A survey was given to 97 students who took a course in the classroom, six instructors were given a questionnaire, and three of these instructors were interviewed. These data sources sought to determine the effect of design features on student learning and instructor teaching. The results of the evaluation suggest students who used the classroom found their learning positively affected by the room design and instructors who taught in the classroom benefited by being able to teach in an inquiry and constructivist manner.     

Measuring perceived social presence in distributed learning groups

Social presence—the degree to which ‘the other’ in a communication appears to be a ‘real’ person—has captured the attention of those dealing with learning in groups through computer-supported collaborative learning environments. The concept is important because it affects participation and social interaction, both necessary for effective collaboration and knowledge construction. This article reports on the construction and validation of a self-reporting (Dutch-language) Social Presence Scale to determine perceived social presence in distributed learning groups using computer-supported collaborative learning environments. The result is a one-dimensional scale consisting of five items with an internal consistency of .81. We used a nomological network of similar constructs for further validation. The findings suggest that the Social Presence Scale has potential to be useful as a measure for social presence.     

Environmental education in a ‘green classroom’

The ‘Green Classroom’ in the Botanical Garden of Ulm is an experiential learning forum outside school. Its educational concept is based on experimental learning and is geared towards expanding biological knowledge and developing positive attitudes towards small animals such as invertebrates and insects. The attitudes of 68 school students towards small animals, before and after they visited the ‘Green Classroom’, were assessed and the answers they gave in their questionnaires were compared with those of 60 students froma control group that was not yet exposed to this learning environment. Although the students spent only one morning in the ‘Green Classroom’, some of their attitudes towards small animals improved after their visit. These studies underscore the necessity for direct observation and familiarization of the environment including small animals such as invertebrates and insects for appreciating issues related to biodiversity and conservation.     

Inter-relations of tutor’s and peers’ scaffolding and decision-making discourse acts

This study investigates the mechanisms of scaffolding in a synchronous network-based environment – the ‘collaborative virtual workplace’. A theoretical ‘multi-actor’ scaffolding model was formulated. The study itself focused on the role and inter-relations of verbal scaffolding by tutor and peers during a collaborative process of making decisions about environmental issues. The analysis drew on data from the decision-making discussions of 31 groups – material that was saved automatically by the learning environment software. The age of the 62 students ranged from 14 to 17. Discourse act categories were devised to describe the tutor’s and the students’ task-related, supportive and social communicative acts. The scaffolding situation was characterized through a causal discourse act interaction approach. Tutor and students appeared to be elaborating and replacing each other’s process scaffolding acts in the collaborative decision-making situation. The influence of certain tutor’s and students’ inter-related scaffolding patterns on students’ decision-making provided empirical support for the ‘multi-actor’ scaffolding model. in final form: 12 May 2005     

Teaching for transfer of core/key skills in higher education: Cognitive skills

This article is a result of a completed survey of the mainly cognitive science literature on the transferability of those skills which have been described variously as ‘core’, ‘key’, and ‘generic’. The literature reveals that those predominantly cognitive skills which have been studied thoroughly (mainly problem solving) are transferable under certain conditions. These conditions relate particularly to the methods and environment of the learning of these skills. Therefore, there are many implications for the teaching of key skills in higher education, which the article draws out, following a summary of the main findings of the research literature. Learning of principles and concepts facilitates transfer to dissimilar problems, as it creates more flexible mental representations, whereas rote learning of facts discourages transfer. Transfer is fostered when general principles of reasoning are taught together with self-monitoring practices and potential applications in varied contexts. Training in reasoning and critical thinking is only effective for transfer, when abstract principles and rules are coupled with examples. Transfer is promoted when learning takes place in a social context, which fosters generation of principles and explanations. Transfer improves when learning is through co-operative methods, and where there is feedback on performance with training examples. The specificity of the context in which principles are learned reduces their transfer. Transfer is promoted if learners are shown how problems resemble each other, if they are expected to learn to do this themselves, if they are aware of how to apply skills in different contexts, if attention is directed to the underlying goal structure of comparable problems, if examples are varied and are accompanied by rules or principles (especially if discovered by the learners), and if learners’ self-explanations are stimulated. Learning to use meta-cognitive strategies is especially important for transfer.     

From Young Children’s Ideas about Germs to Ideas Shaping a Learning Environment

This paper is concerned with highlighting young children’s ideas about the nature, location and appearance of germs, as well as their reasoning strands about germs’ ontological category and biological functions. Moreover, it is concerned with exploring how all these could be taken into account for shaping a potentially fruitful learning environment. Conducting individual, semi-structured interviews with 35 preschoolers (age 4.5–5.5) of public kindergartens in the broader area of Patras, we attempted to trace their ideas about what germs are, where they may be found, whether they are good or bad and living or non-living and how they might look like in a drawing. Moreover, children were required to attribute a series of biological functions to dogs, chairs and germs, and finally to create a story with germs holding a key-role. The analysis of our qualitative data within the “NVivo” software showed that the informants make a strong association of germs with health and hygiene issues, locate germs mostly in our body and the external environment, are not familiar with the ‘good germs’-idea, and draw germs as ‘human-like’, ‘animal-like’ or ‘abstract’ entities. Moreover, they have significant difficulties not only in employing biological functions as criteria for classifying germs in the category of ‘living’, but also in just attributing such functions to germs using a warrant. Finally, the shift from our findings to a 3-part learning environment aiming at supporting preschoolers in refining their initial conceptualization of germs is thoroughly discussed in the paper.     

Competence: commodification of human ability

The purpose of this article is to analyze the meaning and presumptions of competence in the concrete context of knowledge capitalism. First, the nature of competence as a ‘commodification of human ability’ that obtains a standardized monetary value to sell in the labor market, is elucidated by applying Karl Marx’s critical theory. Second, it is further investigated that, in the new context of the global learning economy, the production of the competence as a commodity itself becomes a key industry, representing itself a crucialsub- system of knowledge capitalism. Third, this paper explains how competence discourse has a great deal to do with the current drastic changes in the educational paradigm from ‘nation-state education’ to ‘global learning economy’. These changes are illustrated by how traditional school subject-based curricula are replaced by competency-based curricula, academic qualifications integrated into a unified form of qualification framework, and school achievement is evaluated according to the ‘demanded workplace competence’. It is also argued that human competencies by nature have ‘double-bind’ characteristics: while it is pushed to meet the demands as knowledge commodities, human beings themselves are beyond any notion of tradability, and the new capitalism based on human commodities, if any, should reveal new rules to play the game.     

Changing Spatial and Synchronous Structures in the History and Culture of Learning

This paper argues that the conceptions of ‘space’ (and increasingly ‘time’) in the discussion of ‘the university’ (in its most transcendent sense) have gone through four distinct phases in the UK. Using a Heideggerian conception of ‘space’ where usefulness is more important than proximity, the ‘ancient’ universities were ‘useful’ to the gentry and thus were ‘closer’ to them than to the excluded ‘local’ poor in the institutions’ vicinities. The ‘civic’ universities on the other hand stressed ‘localism’ as part of their mandate – to educate the people of their locality (but only those of the new industrial middle class). The ‘Robbins’ universities were a partial return to the ‘ancient’ notion of learning as a ‘lived’ activity, providing scenic landscapes on green-belt campuses where students could ‘retreat’ from the ‘real world’ for the duration of their studies. The ‘spatial’ quality of these places was thus part of a conception of higher education as ‘lifestyle choice’ where young people moved away from their locality to study. As such ‘proximity’ was an issue only insofar as the greater the distance from one’s point of origin the better for successful immersion in the growing student ‘culture’. The ‘new/post-1992’ universities partially retained their polytechnic mandate to educate local people, but embraced a colonialist impulse regarding local space usage. ‘ ‘The discussion can be further refined to argue that these four stages are merely two phases which have repeated themselves: from ancient ‘exclusivity’ to civic ‘localism’ and back to Robbins era ‘exclusivity’ and thence to post-1992 ‘localism’ once more’. The opening up of higher education via the Internet in the late 20th and early 21st centuries provides for the possibility of the growth of entirely non-spatial and asynchronous learning experiences, and as such we may well be on the verge of the fifth stage of university development.     

Monet, Malaguzzi, and the Constructive Conversations of Preschoolers in a Reggio-Inspired Classroom

This study was conducted in a Reggio inspired child care classroom of 4-year olds where the fundamental principles of Reggio Emilia preschools are interpreted for a Canadian context. Qualitative case study methodology was employed to investigate how social interaction plays a role in young children’s learning processes. Drawing on social constructivist views of children’s learning and socialization, children’s discussions and interactions within a preschool learning group were examined. Examination of children’s discourse is valuable not only for understanding individual and group learning experiences but also for illuminating children’s agency and their active roles in their own learning. The study focused on the in-depth study of six children’s activities during a ‘Shades of Pink’ project. As the project, ‘Shades of Pink’ unfolded, the children faced cognitive conflict while they were talking about the details of Monet’s painting, but worked toward building common understandings. In this study, children are considered to be meaning makers and active participants in their own learning processes. In addition, the relationships between children became a context in which the co-construction of theories, interpretations and various understandings of reality took place. Small group work became a basis for creating unity, a space in which thoughts took shape as well as a way to compare interpretations; with the result that new thoughts and meanings were produced.     

Parent and student perceptions of classroom learning environment and its association with student outcomes

This research is distinctive in that parents’ perceptions were utilised in conjunction with students’ perceptions in investigating science classroom learning environments among Grade 4 and 5 students in South Florida. The What Is Happening In this Class? (WIHIC) questionnaire was modified for young students and their parents and administered to 520 students and 120 parents. Data analyses supported the WIHIC’s factorial validity, internal consistency reliability and ability to differentiate between the perceptions of students in different classrooms. Both students and parents preferred a more positive classroom environment than the one perceived to be actually present, but effect sizes for actual-preferred differences were larger for parents than for students. Associations were found between some learning environment dimensions (especially task orientation) and student outcomes (especially attitudes). Qualitative methods suggested that students and parents were generally satisfied with the classroom environment, but that students would prefer more investigation while parents would prefer more teacher support. The study provides a pioneering look at how parents and students perceive the science learning environment and opens the way for further learning environment studies involving both parents and students.     

Validity in Assessing Self-Regulated Learning: A Comment on Perry & Winne

Perry and Winne (2006) describe their computer program, ‘gStudy’, and argue that it facilitates valid measurement of self-regulated learning (SRL) over time. This commentary addresses the assumptions underlying this argument and raises additional validity questions regarding the use of this tool. These include issues related to the development of SRL in young children, the difficulty in embedding assessments in a learning tool, and the extent to which the log analyzer can separate SRL sequences from other behavior. Finally, the extent to which behavior ‘inside’ gStudy reflects SRL in other contexts is discussed.     

Understanding learning at the classroom level

Conclusions Our aim in taking the Year 7 class was to increase our understanding of the learning process. In simple terms we were trying to apply our ideas and White's analysis of the term ‘understanding’ further clarified our purpose. Each target of our understanding has been affected by our experience. Two examples can be used to show how this occurred. Our understanding of the learning approach has been modified by our understanding of students at this level. The effects of peer group interactions have been underestimated as a factor in the learning environment. As a further example we can see that some ways in which schools are organized are not conducive to the implementation of the learning approaches being presented. Schools are organized so that groups of age cohorts can function effectively. The result is that school classrooms are a compromise where competing functions of schooling and the constraints that are operating are ‘balanced’. The ideal conditions for our approach to learning could not be present and two visitors from the ‘ivory tower’ were grateful for the opportunity to better understand a secondary school and a group of its students.     

Scaffolding practices that enhance mathematics learning

It is over 25 years since Wood, Bruner and Ross (1976, Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 17, 89–100) introduced the idea of ‘scaffolding’ to represent the way children’s learning can be supported. Despite problems, this metaphor has enduring attraction in the way it emphasises the intent to support a sound foundation with increasing independence for the learner as understanding becomes more secure. It has resonance with the widely accepted notion in teaching of construction and the constructivist paradigm for learning. The discussion that follows will characterise some teaching approaches that can be identified as scaffolding, revisiting some of the original classifications, and identifying further scaffolding strategies with particular reference to mathematics learning. Examples will be given from studies relating to geometry learning with four to 6 year olds and to arithmetic learning with older pupils.     

New Avenues for History in Mathematics Education: Mathematical Competencies and Anchoring

The paper addresses the apparent lack of impact of ‘history in mathematics education’ in mathematics education research in general, and proposes new avenues for research. We identify two general scenarios of integrating history in mathematics education that each gives rise to different problems. The first scenario occurs when history is used as a ‘tool’ for the learning and teaching of mathematics, the second when history of mathematics as a ‘goal’ is pursued as an integral part of mathematics education. We introduce a multiple-perspective approach to history, and suggest that research on history in mathematics education follows one of two different avenues in dealing with these scenarios. The first is to focus on students’ development of mathematical competencies when history is used a tool for the learning of curriculum-dictated mathematical in-issues. A framework for this is described. Secondly, when using history as a goal it is argued that an anchoring of the meta-issues in the related in-issues is essential, and a framework for this is given. Both frameworks are illustrated through empirical examples.