Teaching multiplication facts to students with learning problems

The present study investigated the effectiveness of a constant time delay procedure in teaching multiplication facts to fifth- and sixth-grade students identified as learning disabled, behavior disordered, or educable mentally handicapped. Four students were taught oral responses to 30 multiplication facts using a constant 5-second (s) delay procedure. Data on the number of minutes of direct instruction time, as well as the number and percent of errors, trials, and sessions to criterion, were collected. Results indicated that the near-errorless learning procedure was effective in teaching multiplication facts to students placed in special education.     

Effects of Simultaneous Prompting and Instructive Feedback

This study evaluated the use of simultaneous prompting with instructive feedback. Children were taught to receptively identify rebus symbols. Information regarding the classification of the symbols was provided as instructive feedback during praise statements. Five 3-year-old children with disabilities participated, and a multiple probe design across sets of behaviors was used to evaluate the simultaneous prompting strategy and instructive feedback. The results indicate that (a) the simultaneous prompting strategy was used reliably, (b) all children learned to identify all symbols that were taught, (c) children acquired second and third sets of stimuli more rapidly than they did the first set, (d) some of the children acquired the classification information presented through instructive feedback, and (e) generalization across stimulus size occurred for all the children (three) for whom it was assessed. Issues for further research with simultaneous prompting and instructive feedback are presented.     

Attention toward contexts modulates context-specificity of behavior in human predictive learning: Evidence from the <Emphasis Type="Italic">n</Emphasis>-back task

According to the attentional theory of context processing (ATCP), learning becomes context specific when acquired under conditions that promote attention toward contextual stimuli regardless of whether attention deployment is guided by learning experience or by other factors unrelated to learning. In one experiment with humans, we investigated whether performance in a predictive learning task can be brought under contextual control by means of a secondary task that was unrelated to predictive learning, but supposed to modulate participants’ attention toward contexts. Initially, participants acquired cue-outcome relationships presented in contexts that were each composed of two elements from two dimensions. Acquisition training in the predictive learning task was combined with a one-back task that required participants to match across consecutive trials context elements belonging to one of the two dimensions. During a subsequent test, we observed that acquisition behavior in the predictive learning task was disrupted by changing the acquisition context along the dimension that was relevant for the one-back task, while there was no evidence for context specificity of predictive learning when the acquisition context was changed along the dimension that was irrelevant for the one-back task. Our results support the generality of the principles advocated by ATCP.     

Teaching Middle School Students with Learning Disabilities to Recruit Peer Assistance During Cooperative Learning Group Activities

Four 8th graders with learning disabilities were taught to recruit assistance from peers during cooperative learning activities in two general education classrooms. The students were taught to show their work to a peer and make statements such as:“Can you help me?” or “How am I doing so far?” Training was conducted in the special education classroom and consisted of modeling, role playing, corrective feedback, and praise. A multiple baseline across students design showed that recruitment training increased (1) the rate of recruiting responses by the students, (2) the rate at which the students received instructional feedback and praise from peers, and (3) the productivity and accuracy with which the students completed their language arts assignments.     

Preventing Problem Behaviors in Children with Disabilities

Abstract

In this article, we describe an investigation in which a teacher taught four students with moderate mental retardation to read sight words using a progressive time‐delay procedure. Definitions of the target words were presented incidentally in the consequent statement. Through the small‐group arrangement, students had the opportunity to learn through observation the other students' target words and incidental information. All students acquired their target words and at least 50% of the incidental and observational words and definitions to which they were exposed. We interpret these data as suggesting that teachers should systematically include related nontargeted information in their instruction and provide opportunities for observational learning to occur.     

The correction of errors committed with high confidence

Most theories predict that when people indicate that they are highly confident they are producing their strongest responses. Hence, if such a high confidence response is in error it should be overwritten only with great difficulty. In contrast to this prediction, we have found that people easily correct erroneous responses to general information questions endorsed as correct with high-confidence, so long as the correct answer is given as feedback. Three potential explanations for this unexpected hypercorrection effect are summarized. The explanation that is tested here, in two experiments, is that after a person commits a high-confidence error the correct answer feedback, being surprising or unexpected, is given more attention than is accorded to the feedback to low-confidence errors. This enhanced attentional capture leads to better memory. In both experiments, a tone detection task was presented concurrently with the corrective feedback to assess the attentional capture of feedback stimuli. In both, tone detection was selectively impaired during the feedback to high confidence errors. It was also negatively related to final performance, indicating that the attention not devoted to the tone detection was effectively engaged by the corrective feedback. These data support the attentional explanation of the high-confidence hypercorrection effect.     

Breaking the language barrier: an emergentist coalition model for the origins of word learning

How do children learn their first words? The field of language development has been polarized by responses to this question. Explanations range from constraints/principles accounts that emphasize the importance of cognitive heuristics in language acquisition, to social-pragmatic accounts that highlight the role of parent-child interaction, to associationistic accounts that highlight the role of "dumb attentional mechanisms" in word learning. In this Monograph, an alternative to these accounts is presented: the emergentist coalition theory. A hybrid view of word learning, this theory characterizes lexical acquisition as the emergent product of multiple factors, including cognitive constraints, social-pragmatic factors, and global attentional mechanisms. The model makes three assumptions: (a) that children cull from multiple inputs available for word learning at any given time, (b) that these inputs are differentially weighted over development, and (c) that children develop emergent principles of word learning, which guide subsequent word acquisition. With few exceptions, competing accounts of the word learning process have examined children who are already veteran word learners. By focusing on the very beginnings of word learning at around 12 months of age, however, it is possible to see how social and cognitive factors are coordinated in the process of vocabulary development. After presenting a new method for investigating word learning, the development of reference is used as a test case of the theory. In 12 experiments, with children ranging in age from 12 to 25 months of age, data are described that support the emergentist coalition model. This fundamentally developmental theory posits that children construct principles of word learning. As children's word learning principles emerge and develop, the character of word learning changes over the course of the 2nd year of life.     

数学教学论的活动教学模式探析

活动教学倡导学生参与教学活动，主动建构教学知识，是数学教学论的一种新型教学模式，它包括课堂教学、目标见习、集体试讲、微格教学、教学实习、教学研究等基本环节，并以教师教学知识的建构理论、教学技能形成的心理规律、系统信息反馈的科学原理作为其理论依据。     

大学生学习策略使用与成效的调查研究

外语学习策略的使用是影响外语学习成败的一个关键因素。本调查从学习策略、管理方法、环境因素和学习者的后天因素四个方面着手,全方位了解学生的学习背景和语言习得过程。调查结果表明外语学习成效与有效使用学习策略有显著相关性。使用不同的学习策略会产生不同的学习效果。科学正确的学习观念和策略会促进学生进行成功的语言学习。提高大学生英语学习效率应从改革教学模式、开展自主学习策略培训和整合教学资源等方面着手。     

Effects of feedback timing and motivational content on teachers' delivery of contingent social praise

This study examined the relative effects of feedback timing (delayed or immediate) and motivational content (goal-setting) on teachers' delivery of contingent social praise for on-task behavior. Two teachers of behaviorally disordered children and two youngsters from each class served as subjects. The study employed an adaptation of a single subject replication design. Teachers were exposed to four experimental conditions: baseline (no feedback), immediate feedback, delayed feedback, and delayed feedback plus goal-setting. These conditions were replicated either within or across teacher subjects. The results showed that all feedback tactics produced an increase in contingent social praise and student on-task behavior over baseline levels. However, the only statistically significant increases occurred when teachers were exposed to the delayed feedback plus goal-setting procedure.     

The Image of the Instructor as it is Related to Class Size

Sixty-seven fifth graders studied a text followed by an immediate test (T1) consisting of inference, factual retention, and guess questions, and either received feedback after thirty minutes, after a day, or no feedback. Retesting of half the T1 items was done after a day, the other half after a week. On retesting, subjects were asked to identify their T1 responses. The three types of T1 questions were similarly affected by feedback, while on the postfeedback tests the one-day delay of feedback gave somewhat better results than the thirty minutes of delay. Identification of T1 responses was generally high and was not found to interfere with learning from feedback. In discussing the results, the adequacy of the interference-perseveration hypothesis was questioned.     

The study of teachers' written feedback to students' writing: changes in theoretical considerations and the expansion of research contexts

This paper identifies four successive phases in the study of written feedback to students' compositions. The studies included in these phases are distinguished by views of writing instruction reflected in their theoretical frameworks: the view of writing instruction as a series of teacher provided stimuli and students' responses to these stimuli; the view that the writing class is a rhetorical community, where teacher and students interact as readers and writers over texts; the view of learning to write as a phenomenon both natural and problematic, where school may interfere with students' natural development; the view that learning to write, like all other learning, depends on successful student-teacher interactions within student's zone of proximal development. While reviewing recent studies of written feedback, the paper shows how these changing views of writing instruction are accompanied by changing theoretical perspectives for the study of the provision and processing of written feedback as well as by a gradual expansion of research contexts for looking at this problem. Finally, in view of such a line of development, it suggests an agenda for future research.     

Activity Analysis and Curriculum Construction

ABSTRACT

The authors explored whether a testing effect occurs not only for retention of facts but also for application of principles and procedures. For that purpose, 38 high school students either repeatedly studied a text on probability calculations or studied the text, took a test on the content, restudied the text, and finally took the test a second time. Results show that testing not only leads to better retention of facts than restudying, but also to better application of acquired knowledge (i.e., principles and procedures) in high school statistics. In other words, testing seems not only to benefit fact retention, but also positively affects deeper learning.     

Modification of attending behavior in hyperactive children

This study investigated the efficacy of using a behavioral feedback procedure as a means of reducing the nonattending behavior in children with attentional deficits and/or motoric restlessness. It was hypothesized that children with an attentional deficit would be able to learn to attend to classroom work when provided information about their behavior. Subjects consisted of 4 children with attentional deficits and motoric restlessness, 4 with motoric restlessness alone, and 8 without attentional deficits or motoric restlessness. A modified operant design was used to demonstrate the effectiveness of the feedback procedure. Significant changes were evidenced by all groups of subjects. Initial results and follow-up observations indicated that the attending behavior of the experimental subjects increased, and was manitained, without the use of tangible reinforcers.     

The effect of peer feedback for blogging on college students' reflective learning processes

Reflection is an important prerequisite to making meaning of new information, and to advance from surface to deep learning. Strategies such as journal writing and peer feedback have been found to promote reflection as well as deep thinking and learning. This study used an empirical design to investigate the interaction effects of peer feedback and blogging on college students' reflective thinking skills and their learning approaches. Forty-four first- and second-year undergraduate students participated in the study. Students kept blogs each week throughout a whole semester. Two journals were sampled at the beginning and end of the semester for each student. A repeated measure one-way ANOVA suggested that students' reflective thinking level increased significantly over time; however, peer feedback was found to negatively affect students' reflective thinking skills. The result of the study suggests more carefully designed uses in the future.     

Concept mapping in research on mathematical knowledge development: Background,methods, findings and conclusions

The theoretical background and different methods ofconcept mapping for use in teaching and in research on learning processes are discussed. Two mathematical projects, one on fractions and one on geometry, are presented in more detail. In the first one special characteristics of concept maps were elaborated. In the second one concept mapping allowed students' individual understanding to be monitored over time and provided information about students' conceptual understanding that would not have been obtained using other methods. Regarding the students' individual concept maps in more detail there were some additional findings: (i) The characteristics of the maps change remarkably from fourth grade to sixth grade; (ii) There is some evidence that prior knowledge related to some mathematical topics plays a very important role in students' learning behaviour and in their achievement; (iii) Concept maps provide information about how individual students relate concepts to form organised conceptual frameworks; (iv) Long-term difficulties with specific concepts are able to be traced. These findings are discussed with regard to results of other studies as well as to their implications for the teaching of mathematics in the classroom.     

Effects of self-questioning training on college students' comprehension of lectures

Previous research has shown that self-questioning is an effective strategy for improving reading comprehension. The present study extended this line of research by investigating the use of self-questioning strategies with orally presented material. The study examined the relative effectiveness of four learning strategies on college students' comprehension of lectures and on their feelings of control over their success in learning. The four strategy conditions were self-and peer-questioning in small cooperative groups, independent self-questioning, review in small cooperative groups, and independent review. Students in the self-questioning conditions were trained to use a self-questioning procedure to process information presented in lecture. Results indicated that both of the self-questioning strategies significantly improved lecture comprehension over time. Significant differences were also found among the strategies with the self/peer questioners as well as the self-questioners showing post-treatment comprehension superior to that of participants using either of the review strategies. No significant change was found for students' feelings of control. These results suggest that practice in this self-questioning information-processing procedure can effectively improve college students' comprehension of lectures.     

非英语专业大学生的词汇学习与语言教学

在大学英语教学中,教师要提高词汇教学首先要从研究学生如何学习词汇入手,而学生要学好词汇需从其词汇知识和词汇习得入手。习得词汇知识不只是熟悉词形,还包括熟悉各种意义、概念和已知词的意义关系。此外,教师还应了解学生词汇习得的个体差异以及学生在学习过程中出现的造词现象等。把词汇教学的侧重点放在学生的学方面,研究学生学习词汇的规律和个体差异,以学促教,反之用教进一步引导学,使词汇的教和学相辅相成,互相促进。