Teaching poetry: a descriptive case study of a poetry unit in a classroom of urban deaf adolescents

A qualitative study was conducted that reflected an analysis of a 6-week poetry unit in a language arts classroom of 6th and 8th graders at a school for the deaf in a large city in the northeastern United States. The school served a large population of children of poverty who were of Latino and African American descent. The study was guided by 4 research questions: (a) Would students benefit from having American Sign Language (ASL) poetry as a part of the unit? (b) Would teachers' signing of poems increase students' understanding of the poems? (c) Could students analyze the meaning of poems independently? (d) Would students view writing poetry as a vehicle for expressing their feelings and ideas through themes that were important to them? The evidence provided support for affirmative answers to questions a, b, and d.     

Jo Handelsman

Note from the Editor

Educator Highlights for CBE-LSE show how professors at different kinds of institutions educate students in life sciences with inspiration and panache. If you have a particularly creative teaching portfolio yourself, or if you wish to nominate an inspiring colleague to be profiled, please e-mail Laura Hoopes at lhoopes@pomona.edu.LH: You are deeply involved with the HHMI Teaching Fellows Program at Wisconsin and the Wisconsin Program for Scientific Teaching (Pfund et al., 2009 ), and you''ve coauthored a book about scientific teaching (Handelsman et al., 2006 ). How do you teach people to teach in your summer institutes?Handelsman: The HHMI Graduate Teaching Fellows Program teaches graduate students and postdoctoral fellows to apply theories of learning to classroom practice. The fellows set learning goals and assess whether they''re achieved. It''s theory, then practice.LH: Can you explain a little more about how it works?Handelsman: The program starts with eight weeks of a course, “Teaching Biology” in which the fellows learn about education principles and then practice on each other applying those principles. Then they go on to design their own materials, and finally, in the second semester, use that material in teaching students. In our qualitative and quantitative analysis of their teaching philosophy, we see little change after the first semester. But there is radical improvement after they put their ideas into practice in the second part. People learn by doing.LH: How about a specific example of how the fellows develop materials.Handelsman: There''s a choice of venues, but let''s say one picks the honors biology course. They identify a technical problem, such as explaining Southern, Northern, and Western blotting. Our fellows then develop active-learning materials to address a challenging concept and test them in the classroom, often in multiple sections of a class. They refine and retest them. Another fellow might choose “Microbes Rule,” a course developed by fellows, which teaches about bacteria, viruses, and fungi. That fellow develops learning goals about antibiotic resistance, flu, or contaminated peanut butter, and designs classroom materials to achieve these goals.Open in a separate windowJo Handelsman, HHMI Professor, Department of Bacteriology, University of Wisconsin–Madison, Madison, WI.LH: Do the teaching fellows find the work difficult?Handelsman: It''s a challenge for them to narrow down to a workable subtopic. We work with them to focus on the learning goals, asking “The students will know and be able to do what at the end of this unit?”LH: Did you learn this method of focusing on goals when you were being trained?Handelsman: No, most of us were never taught to consider goals for learning. So in training our fellows, we direct them to focus on that over and over, and ask how their plans relate to the goals. It''s backward design—think about what you want to achieve, then think about how to get there.LH: Assessment is becoming more important at universities and colleges all over the country. How do you teach the fellows to use it?Handelsman: Students design their own instruments. They develop skills to determine whether their goals are being met. We go over the tools with them repeatedly, identify potential downfalls, let them implement, and then review the results to see if they obtained the information needed to determine whether their teaching worked.LH: What kind of questions do they tend to use for assessment?Handelsman: Exam-type questions are important, whether taken as an examination or in a questionnaire. Videos of student presentations with reviewers who score on effectiveness are also useful. We ask how the fellows know if the students understood the material, and how the evidence relates to each of their learning goals.LH: How do they evaluate and incorporate input from past assessment?Handelsman: Before using an instrument for assessment, the fellows develop a rubric to score the quality of the answers. Often they decide to share this rubric with the students. They want to show the students what goal the assessment is addressing, what is an adequate answer, what is an outstanding answer. Then they discuss with their peers how to use this feedback to improve their teaching.LH: I''ve heard faculty members at other places saying that they do lots of assessment but don''t know what to do with it after they are forced to collect the information.Handelsman: I''d suggest that they do less and use it more! Not using assessment results is like designing a new experiment but ignoring your earlier results. If we have the information to improve our teaching, we should use it.LH: A lot of interviews for faculty positions ask for a teaching philosophy. It sounds like your fellows are well-positioned to answer these questions.Handelsman: Yes, they have to write their teaching philosophy several times, discuss it with the other fellows, and rewrite. The fellows have been very successful in obtaining positions.LH: Have you had undergraduate research students?Handelsman: Yes, it''s one of the most important academic activities in which students take part—anything hands-on is good, but undergraduate research is the best because it incorporates inquiry, discovery, real scientific processes. It plays into curiosity. It''s such a rewarding process to watch a student in the research lab! It''s a powerful thing to see them learn and grow into scientists over the course of a semester or two.LH: What motivated you to take on undergraduate research students at the start?Handelsman: I started undergraduate research myself in my first year of college—I walked into a lab and asked to do experiments. The difference between doing research and reading about it is so dramatic. I''ve always assumed that part of the structure of an academic lab is undergraduate involvement. Interestingly, I sometimes give the undergraduates riskier projects than the graduate students, who have more to lose if their projects fail.LH: Thanks for sharing your insights into teaching with CBE-LSE.     

An Analysis of High School Students' Performance on Five Integrated Science Process Skills

This study determined Jamaican high school students' level of performance on five integrated science process skills and if there were statistically significant differences in their performance linked to their gender, grade level, school location, school type, student type and socio-economic background (SEB). The 305 subjects comprised 133 males, 172 females, 146 ninth graders, 159 10th graders, 150 traditional and 155 comprehensive high school students, 164 students from the Reform of Secondary Education (ROSE) project and 141 non-ROSE students, 166 urban and 139 rural students and 110 students from a high SEB and 195 from a low SEB. Data were collected with the authors' constructed integrated science process skills test the results indicated that the subjects' mean score was low and unsatisfactory; their performance in decreasing order was: interpreting data, recording data, generalising, formulating hypotheses and identifying variables; there were statistically significant differences in their performance based on their grade level, school type, student type, and SEB in favour of the 10th graders, traditional high school students, ROSE students and students from a high SEB. There was a positive, statistically significant and fairly strong relationship between their performance and school type, but weak relationships among their student type, grade level and SEB and performance.     

Exploring students’ conceptions of science learning via drawing: a cross-sectional analysis

ABSTRACT

This cross-sectional study explored students’ conceptions of science learning via drawing analysis. A total of 906 Taiwanese students in 4th, 6th, 8th, 10th, and 12th grade were asked to use drawing to illustrate how they conceptualise science learning. Students’ drawings were analysed using a coding checklist to determine the presence or absence of specified attributes. Data analysis showed that the majority of students pictured science learning as school-based, involving certain types of experiment or teacher lecturing. In addition, notable cross-sectional differences were found in the ‘Activity’ and ‘Emotions and attitudes’ categories in students’ drawings. Three major findings were made: (1) lower grade level students conceptualised science learning with a didactic approach, while higher graders might possess a quantitative view of science learning (i.e. how much is learned, not how well it is learned), (2) students’ positive and negative emotions and attitudes toward science learning reversed around middle school, and (3) female students expressed significantly more positive emotions and attitudes than their male counterparts. In conclusion, higher graders’ unfruitful conceptions of science learning warrant educators’ attention. Moreover, further investigation of girls’ more positive emotions and attitudes found in this study is needed.     

The role of student characteristics in studying micro teaching–learning environments

This study explored the role of student characteristics in studying micro teaching–learning environments. The overarching hypothesis is that teachers teach differently to micro environments in their classrooms. This study is the first of a series exploring the following four questions: (1) What student profiles are identified at the beginning of a school year with respect to cognitive and motivational-affective factors? (2) How do students with different profiles perceive conditions in their learning environment? (3) To what degree do classrooms differ in the composition of student profiles? (4) What are possible consequences for examining micro teaching–learning environments? The study investigated 82 randomly selected high school science classrooms. Student characteristics were assessed at the beginning of the school year. After a video taped teaching unit, students were asked to rate the degree to which they experienced learning conditions as supportive. Latent class analysis (LCA) showed five distinct student profiles that varied along cognitive and motivational-affective dimensions. Multilevel analyses showed effects of student profiles assessed at the beginning of the school year on the students’ perception of learning conditions in a teaching unit 4 months later. To illustrate consequences for examining micro teaching–learning environments, student profiles were linked to video examples. The examples point to the special value of LCA in studying micro teaching–learning environments: they make it possible to focus on the individual student and to investigate the interplay of student characteristics and the learning environment.     

Conceptualizations of nature: An interpretive study of 16 ninth graders' everyday thinking

The research reported in this article sought to provide a broader understanding of high school science students as persons by describing the personal thoughts, or everyday thinking, about a question relevant to science: What is Nature? The purpose was to gain an understanding of students' fundamental beliefs about the world on the basis that developing scientific literacy can be successful only to the extent that science finds a niche in the cognitive and cultural milieu of students. The theoretical background for this research came from cultural anthropology and the methodology was interpretive, involving student interviews. The assertions of the study in summary form were: (a) The ninth‐grade students in the study tended to discuss Nature using several different perspectives (e.g., religious, aesthetic, scientific, conservationist). A rich breadth of perspectives typically characterized any one student's discussion of Nature. (b) After 9 years of schooling, however, the level of science integration within everyday thinking remained low for many of these ninth graders. In their discussions of Nature, most volunteered little school knowledge of science. They were aware of school science topics such as the ozone layer, rain forests, and the Big Bang theory. Such topics were voluntarily mentioned but usually without elaboration even when asked. (c) Science grade success was not correlated with the concepts these ninth graders typically chose to use in a discussion about the natural world. The students with the most grade success in science had not necessarily grasped fundamental concepts about Nature and science. (d) Regardless of school grade success, including school science grade success, most of the ninth graders attached considerable importance to personal experiences with Nature. Their environmental inclinations were strong. The article ends with a discussion of the implications. © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. J Res Sci Teach 36: 541–564, 1999     

Investigating the Effectiveness of Inquiry Instruction on the Motivation of Different Learning Styles Students

The purpose of this study was to investigate 8th graders with different learning styles their motivation outcomes after implementing 10 weeks (40 hours) inquiry-based teaching. Two hundreds and fifty four 8th graders were involved in experimental group, this group of students experienced inquiry instruction. Two hundreds and thirty two 8th graders were involved in control group, they were taught by traditional science teaching. Students' motivation toward science learning questionnaire (SMTSL) (Tuan, Chin & Shieh, 2005) were implemented in both groups in the beginning and at the end of the study. Students in the experimental group filled out learning preference questionnaire (Lumsdaine & Lumsdaine, 1995) in the beginning of the study. Forty students which represent different learning styles were chosen from five experimental classes to conduct post-test interview. Paired t-test, MANOVA, analytic inductive methods were used for analyzing both qualitative and quantitative data. Findings indicated that after inquiry instruction students' motivation increased significantly (p<.001) than students who enrolled in traditional teaching. Four different learning styles of students increased significantly (p<.005) in SMTSL scales: self-efficacy, active learning strategies, science learning value, performance goal and achievement goal. No significant difference was found among four learning styles of students' motivation after inquiry teaching. Interview data supported that most of students with different learning styles were willing to participate in the inquiry learning activities, while they hold different reasons for their engagement. Findings confirm inquiry-based science teaching can motivate students with different learning styles in science learning. An erratum to this article is available at .     

Learning Practices in Vocational Education

The article describes the learning practices created by 12 vocational teachers from five programmes by the tasks they give their students to work with. 'Classroom tasks' were observed and analysed according to their content, their forms, and the tools used. Further, the texts used for/written in connection with the tasks were classified. Three types of tasks were identified: school tasks, simulation tasks and vocational tasks. Many tasks in all three categories required the students to read quite a lot. The texts the students were to read were of two kinds: school texts and vocational texts (manuals, handbooks etc.). Most of the texts were vocational and were part of the tools the students were supposed to use in their daily work. This indicates that vocational education is often assumed to be 'practical'--as opposed to 'theoretical' programmes that prepare for further studies--also increasingly rely on texts. The texts you read and how you read them are, however, specific for each vocational area. The different learning practices, represented by the tasks in this study, can be described as bridging from one social practice, that of the school, to another--that of the vocation.     

The nature of error in adolescent student writing

This study examined the nature and frequency of error in high school native English speaker (L1) and English learner (L2) writing. Four main research questions were addressed: Are there significant differences in students’ error rates in English language arts (ELA) and social studies? Do the most common errors made by students differ in ELA and social studies? Are there significant differences in the error rates between L1 and L2 students in ELA? Do L1 and L2 students differ in how frequently they make the most common errors in ELA? Written work of 10th and 12th grade students in five states was collected. The sample included 178 essays (120 in ELA and 58 in social studies) from 67 students (33 10th graders and 34 12th graders; 49 native English speaking students and 18 English learners). Results indicate that there were significant differences in the frequencies of errors between ELA and social studies, with higher error rates in social studies. In addition, L2 writers had significantly higher error rates than L1 writers in ELA. Aside from a few types of errors (spelling, capitalization, and some punctuation errors), most types of errors appear relatively infrequently in school-sponsored writing. Moreover, the eight most common errors accounted for a little more than half of all errors, and these did not differ significantly between ELA and social studies writing or between L1 and L2 writers.     

What Kind of a Girl Does Science? The Construction of School Science Identities

A view of science as a culturally‐mediated way of thinking and knowing suggests that learning can be defined as engagement with scientific practices. How students engage in school science is influenced by whether and how students view themselves and whether or not they are the kind of person who engages in science. It is therefore crucial to understand students' identities and how they do or do not overlap with school science identities. In this paper, we describe four middle school African American girls' engagement with science. They were selected in the 7th grade because they expressed a fondness for science in school or because they had science‐related hobbies outside of school. The data were collected from the following sources: interviews of students, their parents and their teachers; observations in science classes; journal writing; and focus groups. These girls' stories provide us with a better understanding of the variety of ways girls choose to engage in science and how this engagement is shaped by their views of what kind of girl they are. © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. J Res Sci Teach 37: 441–458, 2000.     

The impact of e-book interactivity design on children's Chinese character acquisition

This study examined the impact of e-book interactivity design on the learning of Chinese characters by fourth graders (10-year-old children). This study was guided by two main questions: (1) Are there any differences in achievements (Chinese character writing, lexical comprehension, and lexical usage) between groups of young learners who read e-books with different interactivity levels? and (2) Are there any differences in motivation (attention, confidence, relevance, and satisfaction) between groups of young learners who read e-books with different interactivity levels? This study was an experimental design where the independent variable was the interactivity design of digital books. A sample of 99 fourth graders participated in the study and participants were randomly assigned into these two groups, with one group reading an e-book with a low level of interactivity (pace-control only) and the other reading an e-book with a high level of interactivity (sequence- and media-control). Participants were asked to complete a pre-test first, and then they read their assigned e-books for 30 minutes. After they finished reading, they were given a post-test. The results showed a reverse interactivity effect, that is, the group reading the e-book with the low level of interactivity (pace-control only) performed significantly better in Chinese character writing, attention, and satisfaction. This might be due to young learners' limited cognitive capacity and processing ability for learning with hypermedia. This study aims to expand on existing theories on interactive learning for young learners and serves as a reference for elementary school teachers and e-book publishers.     

The Importance of Teaching and Learning Nature of Science in the Early Childhood Years

Though research has shown that students do not have adequate understandings of nature of science (NOS) by the time they exit high school, there is also evidence that they have not received NOS instruction that would enable them to develop such understandings. How early is “too early” to teach and learn NOS? Are students, particularly young students, not capable of learning NOS due to developmental unreadiness? Or would young children be capable of learning about NOS through appropriate instruction? Young children (Kindergarten through third grade) were interviewed and taught about NOS in a variety of contexts (informal, suburban, and urban) using similar teaching strategies that have been found effective at teaching about NOS with older students. These teaching strategies included explicit decontextualized and contextualized NOS instruction, through the use of children’s literature, debriefings of science lessons, embedded written NOS assessments, and guided inquiries. In each context the researchers interviewed students prior to and after instruction, videotaped science instruction and maintained researcher logs and field notes, collected lesson plans, and copies of student work. The researchers found that in each setting young children did improve their understandings of NOS. Across contexts there were similar understandings of NOS aspects prior to instruction, as well as after instruction. There were also several differences evident across contexts, and across grade levels. However, it is clear that students as young as kindergarten are developmentally capable of conceptualizing NOS when it is taught to them. The authors make recommendations for teaching NOS to young children, and for future studies that explore learning progressions of NOS aspects as students proceed through school.     

中学生学习倦怠发展特点

通过对中学生学习倦怠的调查,了解中学生学习倦怠的年级和性别特征,探索其发展变化规律.采用《个人基本情况调查表》和《中学生学习倦怠问卷》对353名中学生进行测查,发现中学生学习倦怠处于中等水平,学习低效能感和生理耗竭因子得分偏高;师生疏离因子性别差异显著,男生的师生疏离程度高于女生;初一到高三中学生学习倦怠的水平基本呈直线上升趋势,高二在6个年级中倦怠水平最高;学习倦怠的年级差异显著,初一、初二与高中各年级均存在显著性差异,年级与性别之间的交互作用显著.中学生学习倦怠处于中等水平;学习倦怠水平随年级的增高呈直线上升趋势;学习倦怠的年级差异显著,年级与性别之间的交互作用显著.     

Preschoolers’ and first graders’ reasons for liking or avoiding school

ABSTRACT

This qualitative study examined 287 Turkish children's school experiences and sought to connect such experiences to their overall feelings about school. A semi-structured interview protocol derived from Ladd, Kochenderfer, and Coleman’s [1996. “Friendship Quality as a Predictor of Children’s Early School Adjustment.” Child Development 67 (3): 1103–1118] School Liking and Avoidance Questionnaire was used to collect data from the participants, who comprised 141 preschoolers and 146 first graders. Most members of both groups stated that school was fun, that they were happy when they were there, and that they felt happy about going to school in the morning. Most preschoolers and first graders also said that school did not make them feel like crying, and that they did not wish they could stay home from school or go somewhere else. However, slightly more than half the respondents stated that they felt happier when it was time to go home from school. Preschoolers tended to emphasise positive features of school such as toys, whereas first graders were more likely to talk about learning new things, and their in-school friendships.     

“Oh,I have a story”: narrative as a teacher's classroom model

This paper examines the teaching practices of one American Indian teacher in a high school literature class. It explores the teacher's use of narrative as an instructional strategy designed to convey abstract concepts through concrete experience. The narratives engage students in critical thinking and personal reflection, and provide them with the opportunity to make connections between social and historical contexts. In addition, the teacher uses stories to contrast multiple contexts with personal experiences, which reflects teaching strategies previously identified as those used by effective teachers. There is evidence that sharing ideas and concepts through story is an important way of encouraging social relations and helping students make connections between what they are learning in school and what they know of the world. Based on data analysis, this study presents a model of the teacher's use of narrative as a strategy to pose critical questions, frame a context for discussion, encourage students to reflect on personal perspectives, and introduce ideas and concepts. The model provides a visual representation of the teacher's use of narrative as a way of clarifying course content, contextualizing meaning, and reinforcing understanding.     

Delivering Food Safety Education to Middle School Students Using a Web-Based, Interactive, Multimedia, Computer Program

ABSTRACT:  More than 76 million persons become ill from foodborne pathogens in the United States each year. To reduce these numbers, food safety education efforts need to be targeted at not only adults, but school children as well. The middle school grades are ideal for integrating food safety education into the curriculum while simultaneously contributing to national and state education standards in science, technology, and family and consumer sciences. For this project, a multimedia, self-paced online resource for delivering a food safety curriculum to middle school children was developed. Animated characters were used to deliver the lesson content. The application also included video segments, quiz feedback, and interactive games and activities. The effectiveness of the Web site was evaluated using validated cognitive and attitudinal assessment tools, and by comparing student cognitive gains to individual student learning styles. Participants were recruited from 6 middle schools in 5 states, totaling 217 students (20 sixth graders, 157 seventh graders, and 40 eighth graders). The results show that students had statistically significant modest gains in pretest to posttest knowledge and enjoyed using the Web site. The 6th grade students had significantly lower pretest to posttest improvement compared to 7th and 8th grade students, suggesting that this program may not be appropriate for this grade level. Furthermore, the results indicate that this Web-based computer application meets the needs of varying individual student learning styles.     

Questioning Our Questions: Assessing Question Asking Practices to Evaluate a yPAR Program

The purpose of this research was to examine question asking practices in a youth participatory action research (yPAR) after school program housed at an elementary school. The research question was: In which ways did the adult question asking practices in a yPAR setting challenge and/or reproduce conventional models of power in educational settings? We aligned Fink’s taxonomy (Creating significant learning experiences: an integrated approach to designing college courses. Jossey-Bass, San Francisco, 2003) to Freire’s (The pedagogy of the oppressed. Continuum, New York, 1970/2000) banking concept and problem-posing educational models. All adult questions were categorized from twelve randomly selected yPAR sessions over 2 years. The program served 4th and 5th grade students. Of the 500+ questions adults asked, 17 % were foundational (aligned with Freire’s banking concept). All other questions were aligned with Freire’s problem-posing model. Specifically, 34 % were application, 3 % were integration, 15 % were caring, 11 % were human dimension, and 8 % were learning how to learn questions. By studying question asking patterns and practices, we gained a better understanding of how students and adults navigated this particular after school space, which, at its core, sought to disrupt conventional notions of power and status.     

Sex,grade, and course differences in attitudes that are related to cognitive performance in secondary science

The purpose of this study was to collect and analyze data on sexual differences in secondary school students' attitudes towards science. Attitudinal differences were also analyzed for the independent variables of science programs and grade levels. Data were collected from 988 students using a modified version of the Fennema-Sherman Mathematics Attitude Scales to represent attitudes toward science. Reliabilities of the modified science subscales were all high ( > 0.83). Multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) was used to analyze the data for the main and interaction effects of the independent variables of sex (male, female), grade level (10th, 11th, 12th), and science program (advanced placement, academic, general, terminal). Significant differences (p < 0.05) were indicated for all main effects (sex, grade, science program). Interaction effects were not found. Mean separations for the various levels of sex, grade, and science program were performed for all attitudinal subscales. Females evidenced a significantly more positive attitude (p ? 0.01) than males on three subscales: Attitude Toward Success in Science Scale, Science as a Male Domain Scale, and Teacher Scale. Although not significant, males evidenced more positive attitudes on all the remaining five subscales. Eleventh graders evidenced significantly more positive attitudes than tenth graders on all but the Effectance Motivation Scale. Students in 11th grade had more positive attitudes than 12th-grade students on all scales but Science as a Male Domain Scale; however, these differences were not significant. Tenth graders differed significantly from 12th graders on three subscales; Science Usefulness Scale, Confidence in Learning Science Scale, and Teacher Scale. Positive attitudes decreased from advanced placement to terminal programs. Academic students did not differ significantly from general students except on the Father Scale; however, they were significantly different (more positive) from the terminal students for all subscales. General students were also significantly different from terminal students except on the three subscales of Attitudes Toward Success in Science, Science as a Male Domain, and Effectance Motivation.     

Analysing cognitive or non‐cognitive factors involved in the process of physics problem‐solving in an everyday context

Recently, the importance of an everyday context in physics learning, teaching, and problem‐solving has been emphasized. However, do students or physics educators really want to learn or teach physics problem‐solving in an everyday context? Are there not any obstructive factors to be considered in solving the everyday context physics problems? To obtain the answer to these questions, 93 high school students, 36 physics teachers, and nine university physics educators participated in this study. Using two types of physics problems—everyday contextual problems (E‐problems) and decontextualized problems (D‐problems)—it was found that even though there was no difference in the actual performance between E‐problems and D‐problems, subjects predicted that E‐problems were more difficult to solve. Subjects preferred E‐problems on a school physics test because they thought E‐problems were better problems. Based on the observations of students' problem‐solving processes and interviews with them, six factors were identified that could impede the successful solution of E‐problems. We also found that many physics teachers agreed that students should be able to cope with those factors; however, teachers' perceptions regarding the need for teaching those factors were low. Therefore, we suggested teacher reform through in‐service training courses to enhance skills for teaching problem‐solving in an everyday context.