Does the Visual Appeal of Instructional Media Affect Learners’ Motivation Toward Learning?

While authors like Mayer (2009) suggest that designers should avoid using visuals for the purpose of attracting learners’ interests, some scholars suggest that visuals could influence learners’ emotions. In this study the author investigated whether the perception of the visual appeal of instructional handouts affects learners’ self-reported motivation to learn from the handouts. Two handouts were prepared for this study: a minimalist handout following Mayer’s (2009) Coherence Principle and an appealing handout complying with everyday visual trends. Participants were instructed to look at the handouts in different orders according to groups and were asked about their impressions of the handouts. The appealing handout was perceived as motivating when it was seen after the minimalist handout. However, the group that saw the minimalist handout first did not perceive the appealing handout as motivating. The result implies that not only the design but also the learning context influences learners’ self-reported motivation to engage with the handout.     

Responsiveness-To-Intervention: A “Systems” Approach to Instructional Adaptation

Classroom research on adaptive teaching indicates few teachers modify instruction for at-risk students in a manner that benefits them. Responsiveness-To-Intervention, with its tiers of increasingly intensive instruction, represents an alternative approach to adaptive instruction that may prove more workable in today's schools.     

Toward the Experimental Analysis of “Continuing Motivation”

Abstract

Investigation was made of differences in "continuing motivation" between preschool and third grade children. A paradigm for the study of continuing motivation is described and an attempt made at explicating some possible antecedents of this construct. In particular" the effects of various types of reward received for performance were considered. Results suggest that the addition of extrinsic reward to an intrinsically interesting task reduces one's motivation to perform the task. Further" some possible developmental aspects of continuing motivation were suggested. The importance of considering continuing motivation as a critical educational outcome was discussed.     

Measuring Bullying with the “Life in School” Checklist

James Park, the director of Antidote, criticizes those who believe that the most important task of education is to develop cognitive abilities, without any particular regard for emotional development. He argues that such an approach leaves individuals ill equipped to engage with the challenges that life throws in their path. He feels that, in spite of the recognition in the new National Curriculum Guidance of the significance of emotional processes on learning, government policy as a whole does not always appear to acknowledge this. In his view, ‘feeling and thinking, are engaged in a continuous dance. Individuals who can gracefully glide between the two modes bring energy to the task of learning and thinking’. He goes on to outline the key competencies that individuals require to achieve this, and suggests that these are most effectively achieved through dialogue ‘talking together in ways that allow individuals to understand the thoughts, feelings and values of each other’. The paper concludes with an explanation of the work and aims of Antidote.     

Shaping Students’ Attitudes Toward Diversity: Do Faculty Practices and Interactions With Students Matter?

Research in Higher Education - Scholars have advocated for further investigation of the campus climate for diversity and students’ attitudes and behaviors surrounding diversity, and there...     

“Is This What You’re Talking About?”: Identity Negotiation in International Teaching Assistants’ Instructional Interactions with U.S. College Students

The instructional performance of international teaching assistants (ITA) in U.S. universities is generally considered as problematic due to linguistic and cultural differences in existing studies. Drawing on interactional sociolinguistics, conversation analysis, and positioning theory, this study aims to find out how ITAs are juxtaposed between content expert and language novice in the actual instructional interactions with U.S. college students. The data under study consist of a number of dyadic office hour interactions. The matter of analytic interest is the type of sentence completion that U.S. college students use to assist or improve on ITAs’ instructional discourse. While interactionally accommodating, sentence completion may position the ITA instructors as language novices, and furthermore cast doubt on their situated identity as instructors. The findings here may shed some light on our understanding of how ITAs are negatively perceived and even stereotyped in their instructional discourse.     

A Study of Cross-Cultural Interactions in“The Tempest”

Cross-cultural analysis is becoming an important way to realize the different cultures. This article is mainly focusing on the colonialism in The Tempest. Colonialism is one main aspect of cross-cultural interaction. The Tempest is the last play written by William Shakespeare. In his play, he mentioned several characters and some special relationships between them. These can be regarded as the reflection of colonialism which is the most important theme in this play. As we all know, some colonialism can make good influence while some only produce bad influence. In this article, it introduces the negative cross-cultural interaction from several aspects. As a result, we could understand the process of formation of colonialism from these debates.     

“Instructional disobedience”: a largely neglected phenomenon deserving more systematic research attention

Education is characterized by at least the following features: (a) it offers learning environments that help students to achieve preset goals, (b) it induces learners to engage in relevant learning tasks, and (c) it offers support while learners execute learning tasks. Offering learning environments builds on the assumption that learners will actually engage in the learning tasks and use the support provided. There is, however, growing evidence, that in a lot of cases students do not comply with that assumption. By not engaging as expected in the learning tasks and/or by not (adequately) using the support, learners reveal the phenomenon of what could be called—at least from the perspective of the (designer of the) learning environment—‘instructional disobedience’. ‘Instructional disobedience’ occurs when learners do not act as expected from them in a learning environment. While the literature has already referred to faulty assumptions and specified conditions for the effectiveness of instructional interventions, it seems the phenomenon of instructional disobedience has not yet attracted systematic research attention. In this contribution, we want therefore further unravel the nature and relevance of the phenomenon. This is done by analyzing the occurrence of instructional disobedience, possible explanations and ways to deal with it. As a start we illustrate the phenomenon by providing some examples.

     

Analysis Toward Charles Dickens “Hope and Despair” in “Trilogy of Orphans”

In the middle of the 19th century, with a series of excellent novels the great British critical realist writers Charles Dickens created us a vivid world ofhope and despair. Of all his voluminous works, the famoustrilogy of orphansis all representatives ofhope and de spair. which not only greatly influenced many contemporary writers, but also used for reference by the budding young writers.     

Changes in Teachers’ Attitudes Toward Instructional Technology Attributed to Completing the ISTE NETS*T Certificate of Proficiency Capstone Program

An evaluation was conducted of teachers’ attitudinal perceptions of their confidence for implementation, stages of innovation adoption, and satisfaction, as a result of participating in the International Society for Technology in Education's National Educational Technology Standards-Teachers (ISTE NETS*T) Certificate of Proficiency Capstone Program. The Self-Efficacy and Stages of Concern instruments provide insight into the attitudinal progression of program participants. Data were collected at pre, mid, post, and follow-up points. Results showed that the capstone program is effective; participants were clearly more confident that they could implement the technology-based/enhanced teaching/learning strategies in their schools; had far fewer concerns about their level of preparedness; were anxious to work with others in their schools; and believed their school/classroom climate was conducive to and supportive of technology integration. Additionally, participants’ principals and/or supervisors were asked to provide data on their perception of the influence the capstone courses had on their teachers.     

Toward a “thoughtful lightness”: Education in viral times

PROSPECTS - The Covid-19 pandemic has changed our way of life temporarily and perhaps forever. As such, how educators respond to the contemporary situation is not without consequence. Inspired by...     

Measuring teacher perceptions of the “how” and “why” of student motivation

In the field of educational psychology, there is diverse and active research in motivation for learning and achievement. Many instruments exist for assessing students' motivation, primarily as self-report. Fewer instruments are available for assessing teachers' perceptions of their students' motivation, and fewer still for assessing teachers' perceptions of reasons for students' lack of motivation. Teachers' intervention strategies for motivation are linked to their causal perceptions. Therefore, it is important to assess those causal perceptions. In this paper, we offer evidence for the Perceptions of Student Motivation questionnaire, a new measure that offers evidence of validity and reliability for this purpose among high school teachers. It offers potential to increase efficiency and clarity of findings regarding teachers' perceptions of students' motivation.     

Measuring Quality of Classroom Interactions in Italian Primary School: Structural Validity of the CLASS K–3

Abstract

Through two studies, this work examined the applicability, interpretability, and construct validity of the Classroom Assessment Scoring System K-3 (CLASS) to measure quality of classroom interactions. In the first study, the CLASS was used in 332 classrooms to test three alternative models (in time order, the one-, three-factor, and two-factor models) to examine its factorial structure. The one-factor model showed worse fit than the other two models. The latent factors of the three-factor model were highly correlated. The bifactor model showed adequate fit. The aim of the second study was to investigate the construct validity of the CLASS. We used data collected from 31 classrooms to examine associations between factors extracted from the bifactor model with outcome variables in the domains of the student-teacher relationship, behavioral problems, and academic achievement. General- and domain-specific factors revealed different patterns of associations with child outcomes. The results are discussed relative to the Italian context.     

“Areas of Instruction”—A Tool for Assessing the Quality of Instructional Situations

A model for analysing the nature of the dyadic teacher–student interplay in instructional situations including one teacher and one student is described. The “teacher” may be a regular teacher, a parent, or any other person who is in the position of teacher. The “student” may be a student of any age. The model may discern (a) if the teacher merely asks for information preknown to the teacher and the teacher evaluates the student's answer according to the teacher's preknowledge, (b) if the teacher asks for information preknown to the teacher, the teacher then scaffolds the student's learning by giving clues to the correct answer and then evaluates the answer according to the teacher's preknowledge, or (c) the teacher asks for information not preknown to her/him and the teacher is genuinely interested in the student's answer. This last scenario (c) is thought to give optimal conditions for cognitive development for the student.     

Race,Reason and Reasonableness: Toward an “Unreasonable” Pedagogy

Starting from the contemporary critical-theoretical notion of an objective violence that organizes social reality in capitalism, including processes of systemic racism, as well as from phenomenological inquiries into processes of race and identity, this article explores the relationship between racism and reasonableness in education and society. The category of the reasonable connects the content of particular propositions with the inner truth of the form of thought. At the same time, the reasonable refers to what can be legitimated not only intellectually but practically and morally. I describe how the force of this category, working through neoliberal modalities of appropriation and penality, is an anchor for persistent processes of racial oppression in educational policy and curriculum. Furthermore, if the reasonable is a central figure for ideology, then a kind of thinking that would break with it will show up in the first instance as unreasonable. Thus, I argue that critical pedagogy in the present needs to start from a different and “unreasonable” reason. In addition, taking its cue from interventions by radical educators and students, critical teaching needs to challenge the dominative decorum that forces dialogue on race and racism into the narrow spaces—both material and discursive—of the given.     

How Should Instructional Designers Be Educated?

Simon suggested that design, defined broadly, is concerned with any kind of deliberate problem solving, whether it be in fields traditionally associated with design, like architecture and engineering, or fields involving the design of instruction. Since instructional design is a kind ol'skillcd professional behavior, the education of other skilled professionals is examined and suggestions are made for analogous instructional techniques in any field. The question of how instructional designers should be educated is related to the larger question of how to teach people to design in general.     

How is “Knowledge” Constructed During Science Activities? Detaching Instructional Effects of “Playing” and “Telling” to Optimize Integration of Scientific Investigations

Research in Science Education - Despite recommendations from science educational standards which claim that science teaching should engage students in scientific investigations the same way...